by Nalini Singh
It was as if Bowen had a key to her psyche he could use at will.
He had the key to her body, too. It had gone tight and hot the instant she walked into the room, and then she'd touched him, indulged herself in the living steel of him. Her breasts ached, threatening to overflow the confines of her peach lace bra, hunger a dark, glowing heat in the pit of her stomach.
Still furious with him, she bit down hard on his lower lip. He hissed out a breath but didn't pull away, giving her the pound of flesh she damn well deserved. Kaia dug her nails into his chest even as she laved her tongue over the hurt she'd caused.
With him, she had no reason, no logic, no walls.
When he grabbed the plas jar she held between them and threw it on the bed, she didn't resist. She swiveled with him when he backed her into the wall and sank his body against her own. Moving her hands up his chest, she luxuriated in his lean strength, her heart thumping in time with his.
Except . . . his heart wasn't like her own. It was mechanical. And it was inside him because he'd been shot. But that didn't matter, wasn't important. His heart would outlast hers. His brain, however, hung on a knife edge.
The being inside her cried in remembered sorrow.
Ripping away her lips, she deliberately didn't look at Bowen. He saw too deep, caught too much of her with those penetrating eyes. "Off." She pushed hard at his chest. "I don't have time to play tongue hockey with you."
"How about no tongue and all naked?" Bowen's voice was rough, his body a wall of luscious heat.
Kaia's toes curled. The other part of her, sad but as compelled by him as the human side of her, nudged at the inside of her skin, wanting to swim with this strong, intriguing man in deep water. It liked him. But it was hurt, too, so when Kaia pushed again then slid away from Bowen, she didn't have to fight it for control.
"Kaia."
She paused at the door, glanced back. A red flush kissed his cheekbones, his eyes glittering. "I'm supposed to put the gel on again tonight," he said with a slow smile that hit her right in the crazy "bad boy" gene.
The other side of her being laughed, delighted with him.
"The shower brush should be in the bathroom," she said, the fight for control very much real now. "Or you can use the toilet brush."
Deep and warm, his laughter followed her out the door.
Kaia braced herself with one hand against the corridor wall a second after the door closed; she hadn't been prepared for Atalina to step out of her lab and catch her. Nudging her head, the white-streaked black of her hair gleaming in the simulated sunlight, Attie stepped back inside the lab.
Kaia followed, shutting the door behind herself. "Don't ask."
Of course, the cousin who was a big sister to her didn't bother to listen. "You appear thoroughly kissed." A pointed look. "In fact, I've never seen you so mussed."
Kaia had never felt so mussed. Or so deeply scared. "Why do you look happy about that?" she asked, her heart yet racing and her palms damp.
"Because, Cookie"--Atalina cupped her face with warm and slender hands--"I see that he reaches you where no one else can."
Kaia's throat was dry; she couldn't breathe. "He'll leave me." It came out a broken keen.
Immediately cradling her close, Attie rocked her. "I know you're afraid. But I'm happy you've tasted this depth of joy." A kiss on her temple. "Whatever happens, you know now what awaits on the other side."
Attie didn't understand.
She thought this was a passionate love affair, the loss of which would hurt but not permanently damage. But Kaia was feeling things that reached through her human skin to her wild heart. This wasn't as simple as passion or attraction or even love. It held the whisper of a visceral bond that only came along once in a changeling lifetime.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Kaia locked herself in Attie's embrace and tried to drown out her own mind, her own heart.
Chapter 35
You are my hunter, Mal. Hunt down the truth. Find out if the humans have been playing us for fools.
--Miane Leveque to Malachai Rhys
BO HAD TO take ten minutes to come down from the high of Kaia's kiss before he could pull on his shirt and call Lily and Cassius.
What they had to tell him erased any hint of a smile from his face.
"There are irregularities in the Fleet data." Lily tucked a wing of hair behind her ear, her eyes still smudged with purple bruises. "A few of our ships have strayed into BlackSea territory."
"One or two and I'd blame it on bad driving"--Cassius, his arms folded across his chest, his biceps bulging--"but it's more than that and Lily says the data was buried."
"Someone attempted to overwrite the reports sent in by the ships," Lily confirmed. "I was able to find the 'ghost' images of the originals."
Bo swore low and hard. "If the captains sent in undoctored reports, they didn't think they were doing anything wrong."
"Means they had orders," Cassius agreed. "This is coming from the top."
"Heenali?" Bo forced himself to ask.
"We can't pinpoint anyone yet." Lily glanced at Cassius, the two having been in the same office when Bowen called. "Cassius is handling the offline investigation."
"All I have so far is that Heenali and that guy she was dating broke up and she's in a shitty mood." His expression was flat, unreadable--the vagaries of the human heart had no claim on Cassius and he didn't understand how others were so broken by it.
Bowen knew the other man took lovers but his relationships were purely physical. He'd never had a girlfriend, never bonded with any woman past the shallow link forged by physical attraction devoid of liking or intellectual fascination or even just plain old interest.
"Heenali's not spending money beyond what she can afford," Cassius continued, "and she's not disappearing without warning. No mysterious meetings or shady contacts. Far as I can figure, she's just doing a little extra drinking."
"Post-breakup drinking." Lily made a sympathetic face. "I've been there."
"What about you?" Cassius asked. "Heard back from Malachai Rhys?"
"No." Bo had given Malachai extra time to get back to him because Mal wasn't the kind of man to play games; if he hadn't been in touch, it was because he had a damn good reason.
But Bo planned to follow up after this call regardless--he had to make sure BlackSea knew the Alliance wasn't ignoring the problem. The last thing humanity needed was for the water changelings to turn against them. "I'll deal with that side of things," he said when Cassius's jaw grew hard.
"Bo." Lily put down her organizer. "How are you?" A smile that was more in her eyes than on her lips. "You look good and you haven't got those silver things all over you."
"Head feels fine. No headaches, no diminished vision. I told Dr. Kahananui I feel better than I did before I went into the water." Which meant the slow breakdown of the chip had already begun to affect him on some level. "The only problem is that even if the compound works, it might neutralize the chip."
Cassius hissed out a breath. "Fuck."
"Yeah." Bo had to live with the outcome, whatever it might be; no use railing against it even if the lack of a functioning chip would be a death sentence of another kind. "I'll update you when I know more."
Lily suddenly leaned closer to the screen. "Bo? Is that a mouse peeking out from your pocket with his tiny paws on the edge?"
"Name's Hex." The mouse had hung out with him most of the day, had been dozing on his pillow while Bowen kissed a woman he wished he'd met a lifetime ago. "He's Kaia's."
The angular lines of Cassius's face cracked into a huge and rare grin. "Aren't you freaked out by mice? What did you say that time about their 'tiny beady eyes and long slithering tails'?"
Glaring at his best friend, Bo said, "You were supposed to be drunk that night." For some reason he'd never been able to figure out, mice had always made goose bumps break out over Bo's skin. He didn't "eep" and run when he saw one. Neither, however, did he usually walk around with one in his pocket.
"Who the hell are you?" Cassius was full-out laughing now. "You have a fucking pocket mouse."
"You're an asshole," Bo said easily before hanging up, then moving to the data panel to make the call to Malachai. This time, he got an automated recording asking him to leave a message. He did, but forty minutes later there was still no response.
Bo considered going directly to Miane, but this was a conversation he needed to have with Malachai. The Alliance and BlackSea's entire relationship was through their respective security chiefs.
Interestingly, Miane Leveque had been in touch with the official head of the Alliance. Bo liked the alpha of BlackSea better for that--the leader of the water changelings was smart enough to know that Bo ran the Alliance, but she'd treated Giovanni Somme with the same respect that Bo always did. In taking the figurehead position as the Alliance's chairman, Giovanni left Bo free to work without having to deal with time-wasting politics.
Giovanni had been incredibly proud to be treated as a fellow alpha by Miane Leveque. "She's a dangerous one," he'd said afterward. "Beautiful but deadly as a stiletto across the throat. Good thing she's friendly or we'd be in trouble."
Bowen hoped Miane would still be friendly after this was all over.
He spent the next two hours on his personal project and was on his way to grab a mug of coffee from the kitchen when his eye caught on the silver shine in the water outside the atrium's seaward wall.
A massive school of fish darted in the habitat lights, their small bodies swirling and dancing in a froth of activity. "Is it me," he murmured to Dex, who'd come to stand next to him, "or does the wildlife look unusually agitated?"
"They always get that way when Mal visits." The broad-shouldered male offered Bowen the last peanut in his small bowl. "He's a big fucker."
No wonder Malachai hadn't responded to his call--he'd probably already been in the ocean. "When did he arrive?"
"He's not out of the wet yet."
Bowen gave the station commander an assessing glance. "I don't suppose you'd tell me where Mal will surface inside the habitat?" There had to be an airlock system to ensure the sea wouldn't shove into the habitats, causing catastrophic destruction.
Dex grinned, his blue eyes mixed with enough green that the shade was as changeable as the sea. "Anyone who doesn't know Mal is always trying to catch him midshift."
"His own fault." Bowen's instincts pricked, warning of an approaching predator--what he didn't yet know was whether there'd be blood spilled. "He's an expert at the inscrutable smirk."
"I don't think anyone's ever described me as smirky before," came a familiar voice from Bo's right.
He shifted to face the security chief of BlackSea--whose expression told him nothing about the current state of the Alliance-BlackSea relationship. "They probably usually do it behind your back." Malachai Rhys was a big man who moved with deadly grace, not someone most people would want to antagonize.
A gleam in eyes Bo had first seen as brown, then as a pale gold so unusual they were eerie. Today, they held an in-between state, as if the creature inside Malachai's human skin were swimming at the top of his consciousness.
"Atalina hasn't popped yet?" Malachai asked his cousin-by-mating.
"I dare you to ask her exactly that to her face." Dex leaned against the seaward wall, his tone bone dry. "And where in the hell do you get those suits? You're the only man I know who comes out of the black dressed in a sharp suit--and I know we don't stock your size on Ryujin."
It was true. Though Malachai's dark hair was damp, he wore a black suit with a crisp white shirt underneath. No tie, the shirt open at the collar, the jacket unbuttoned.
"If I told you, I'd have to bury you in the deep," Malachai responded without a hitch.
Something beeped right then and Dex checked a small computronic device wrapped around his wrist. "Duty calls." He glanced at Mal. "You staying tonight? Dinner?"
"No, this is a flying visit. But I'll come down again before Atalina's due date so we can have one last party before you two turn into haggard, sleep-deprived zombies."
Walking backward, Dex grinned. "Yeah, and who do you think is going to be babysitting for date night, Uncle Mal?"
Bo waited until the station commander had left before looking at Malachai. "You're here to talk to me."
Malachai's expression changed, a cool-eyed predator replacing the warm affection of a man of family. "I--"
"Malachai!"
Turning, the other man caught the small teenage girl against his body. "Miss me, did you, Pania?"
The petite girl, one of the swimmers who'd cannonballed into the pool the other day, lifted up a face that shone with love. "You haven't visited for ages."
"Otherwise known as three weeks." Tugging on one of her curls before he released her, Malachai kept his hand on her shoulder. "Shouldn't you be in school?"
"School's out. I'm going to science club."
"Then you'd better get moving. You know how strict Mrs. Dempsey can be--she threatened me with a lichen beard last time I was late."
Pania giggled before racing off.
"Come on," Malachai said afterward. "We need to get out of here if we're going to talk. Where's your room?"
The other man didn't say anything else until they were behind the closed door of Bo's room. Bo had opened the window before he left, and they both walked naturally toward the view.
The water was a tangle of silver.
"Jesus, do you emit sea pheromones or something?" There were so many fish out there that it glittered.
"That's not for me." Malachai's lips curved slightly. "One of the schools must've come down. They always get the best reaction from the natural schools."
A sudden tightness in Bowen's gut. "Kaia told me humans ate sea changelings before." The idea of it made his gorge rise.
"In the dark past," Malachai confirmed, his eyes on the water. "We're no longer such easy prey--but we roam far and wide. I can't lay a security perimeter around the entire globe."
Bo blew out a breath. "I've always seen changelings as powerful in your packs and clans." Tight-knit units who hunkered down and fought together against any threat. "Before Ryujin"--before the harsh truths laid bare by Kaia--"I never truly understood the risks faced by your people."
"And we didn't understand the battle humans fight each and every day to walk out into a world where Psy can penetrate your minds at will." Malachai's voice was deep, contemplative. "That takes as much courage as swimming alone in an endless ocean, perhaps more."
"I haven't betrayed you, Mal," Bo said bluntly after turning to face Malachai.
The other man echoed his position. And his response, when it came, was from the lethal predator that lived under his skin--because Malachai Rhys was nothing harmless, of that Bo was dead certain. "We've confirmed Alliance ships have helped steal our people."
Chapter 36
The only way to make our confidential data absolutely secure is to ring-fence it. No network connections of any kind. It will, however, make it impossible to work in the cloud or remotely.
--Excerpted from brief by Lily Knight to Human Alliance security
"I HAVE NO information on your vanished," Bo said, holding the other man's impenetrable gaze, "but I've had it verified that Alliance Fleet ships have gone where they shouldn't have gone."
Malachai raised an eyebrow. "It began before your coma, just took Hugo's detective work to put together all the scattered pieces of data."
"I'm not going to try to avoid the responsibility--it's mine." Bowen had accepted that duty when he took the reins of the Alliance. "I'm working on getting to the root of why the ships were in your waters. I won't condemn any of my people without irrefutable proof."
Malachai said nothing for long seconds, the two of them locked
in a silent battle--not for supremacy, but for something deeper. "What do you know about Hugo's dossier?" Mal asked at last.
"He took aim at what he called our 'paramilitary arm.'" Kaia didn't speak like that, so it had been obvious to Bo that she was echoing Hugo's term. "You have to know that's bullshit."
"Rest of it isn't so easy to disregard."
"No, the Fleet movements happened. I can't tell you why yet, but I will."
"Kaia didn't tell you anything else? I've had reports you two have become close."
Stabbed by the cold blade of unexpected betrayal, Bo nonetheless kept his expression neutral. "No, that's all I have."
A slight shake of Malachai's head. "If you get angry at a woman who knows how to keep a promise, you're not worth her." Removing a small organizer from his pocket, he said, "I asked Kaia to keep quiet about this while I had our techs check its authenticity."
Bo shoved his hands through his hair. "You're right." That vivid punch of betrayal had been a knee-jerk reaction. It was the envy that ran deep. Malachai had Kaia's loyalty; Bo wanted the same . . . but loyalty took time to grow.
He could give her his devotion, but he couldn't demand her own.
"Show me."
Malachai turned the screen in his direction.
Horror curdled his stomach. "Confirmed as authentic?"
"Beyond any doubt. Two of our vanished."
Malachai didn't have to point out that the two badly beaten and bloody--likely dead--changelings were on the deck of an Alliance Fleet ship. The name was only partially obscured and the Alliance brand obvious. "This is the Quiet Wind." The smallest ship in the fleet, but one that could move like quicksilver. "Needs minimal crew and is normally used to transport delicate goods that require personal care."
"Minimal crew means fewer people who can talk."
Bo nodded before raising his eyes to Malachai's. "I need you to let me run this."
"My people are dying."
"Neither humanity nor BlackSea can afford to be in a war. We're stronger together, but apart and enemies, we'll devastate both our peoples."
Malachai slipped his organizer back into a pocket. "Agreed," he said, then gave a slight smile. "You have such passion in you, Bo. I truly hope I don't have to hurt you."