Tansy and Seraphina groaned in concert.
"Here." Tansy opened up a sleek black thermos and poured a frothy coffee into the third mug on the table, the gray-blue wool of her top a perfect contrast to the cool white of her skin. "I made it in my new machine." She sank her teeth into her lower lip, her sharply pointed face anxious.
And though Kaia's heart still trembled from the encounter with Bo, she cupped her hands around the mug and lifted it to take a deep breath. Coffee, chocolate, cinnamon, the decadent scents swirled around her, but did nothing to erase the taste of Bowen from her lips.
Hesitant to take that step, she nonetheless made herself sip the coffee. And shuddered inside when Bowen's scent continued to cling to her, as if he'd sunk into the cells of her body itself. "It's perfect, Tansy." Creamy and rich and hot.
Tansy's face lit up. "Sera liked it, too."
Seraphina, generously curved and as generous of heart, tapped the side of her mug with one boldly red nail. "I could do with a refill." Her deep brown skin glowed with health, her springy curls so glossy and shiny that Kaia guessed she'd had the morning off--it took serious time and patience and a lot of conditioner to separate out each curl so beautifully.
"So," Seraphina said, "the human." She pursed her lips together, the color on them a perfect match to her nails. "Is he what Hugo said he was?" As Dex's second-in-command, she'd been fully briefed on Hugo's dossier, while Hugo had told Tansy himself.
Kaia put her mug down on the table with care, but kept her hands wrapped around it. "I kissed him." The words simply fell out, too huge to keep inside.
Tansy's hand flew to her mouth, while Seraphina released a quiet whistle.
Squeezing the mug, Kaia shook her head. "I know Hugo would never lie to me," she said, "but he got certain things wrong." She told her friends about Bowen's justification for the Alliance's military might. "I called Armand and asked about our own military numbers and capability." Her cousin had been amused by her sudden interest but happy to answer her question. "It's easily twenty times that of the Alliance."
"Dex and I did wonder about that part of it, figured Hugo just didn't have the military knowledge to properly judge things," Seraphina murmured. "Mal hasn't said anything else?"
"No, not yet." Kaia blew on the heated surface of her coffee. "I have that crazy gene in my blood." Bowen had been vehement in his denials of having taken or hurt BlackSea's people, passionately angry at being accused of such horror, but how could Kaia trust her reading of him?
Tansy's small hand on Kaia's forearm. "You say that, Kaia, but you always see through the men who try to spin you a tale." She bit down on her lower lip again, the action a nervous habit she'd never been able to break, and then Tansy said, "You love Hugo but you saw it even with him."
Kaia's eyes burned at the thought of her feckless but loyal friend. She'd never been in denial of Hugo's faults--he gambled too much, broke promises as easily as he made them, borrowed money he never returned, and juggled multiple women at the same time--but he also made her laugh and was there when she really needed him. "I feel like I'm betraying Hugo with Bowen."
"No." Seraphina's voice was firm. "Tansy's right--you have laser-sharp instincts. And if they're telling you Bowen Knight is a man you can trust, you have to go with that--you can't start second-guessing yourself. Could be he has someone in his organization who's betraying the ideals of the group."
"Like with us." Tansy's big blue eyes welled up with tears. "One of us is betraying our clanmates. Otherwise the hunters would never find them."
Silence fell, broken only by the sounds of the small birds that lived in this green space. BlackSea brought in only tiny birds for whom the area provided was a massive territory akin to a forest. They trapped no eagles, no birds who flew on long migratory routes. The birds in the habitats were homebodies who enjoyed a small forest to roam in, complete with insects and worms for them to find and eat.
"I have to make a choice," Kaia said quietly. "I can't stay stuck in the middle."
Both her friends nodded. But it was Seraphina who spoke. "Kaia, hon, you're not a woman who lets just any man kiss her. I think you've made your choice."
Seraphina was right; Kaia had made her choice the first time she played with Bowen Knight. "He drives me insane," she muttered. "I baked him a pie." It came out a growl.
Tansy giggled. "In that case, why are we even discussing this? You haven't even baked me a pie." Her giggle was silly and high-pitched and as infectious as when they'd been teenagers.
Kaia crumbled first, followed by Seraphina. Their laughter attracted a phalanx of curious birds, their tiny heads jerking from one of them to the next, which only made them laugh harder.
"I have to say," Seraphina said afterward, her voice a touch breathless, "you do have good taste. I saw the man yesterday when you left the kitchen with Attie and he's bitable. A little skinny from being sick but he's got that sexy dominant thing going on." She shivered.
Tansy, meanwhile, made a face. "I don't know why you like dominants. They're always so pushy and aggressive. Give me a gentle submissive any day."
"Water changelings don't have dominants and submissives," Kaia pointed out.
"Tell that to Miane," was Seraphina's riposte. "We might not be blatant about it like the wolves, but we have a hierarchy of power. You know I want to bite Edison, too."
"Stop that right now." Kaia pointed a finger at her unrepentant friend. "Changing the subject," she said with a glare at both grinning women, "have you seen Hex? He ran off while I was dressing."
"I hope for your sake that he's not in George's quarters." Seraphina's curls bounced as she shook her head, her lips pursed together. "You know he still hasn't forgiven you for the last time that mouse of yours jumped down on his head."
"He wouldn't mind if you jumped on him, though, Sera," Tansy said in her sweet, shy voice that hid the heart of a vixen. "Naked."
"Have you been smoking the herbs you grow?" Seraphina snorted. "George is adorable in that awkward, gangly way but I'd eat him alive. Not only that, but I don't think I've ever known him to date anyone."
Tansy scrunched up her nose. "Believe me or not, he has a crush on you. I've seen him making big heart eyes at you."
"More like you were making big heart eyes at Armand." Seraphina waggled her eyebrows. "I thought you didn't like dominants and their pushy, aggressive, grrrrrrowly ways."
Blushing red-hot, Tansy ducked her head. "He's different."
"I can't believe you are both talking about my cousins," Kaia moaned. "I cannot have sex discussions with you if it involves Edison and Armand."
"Who said anything about Edison and Armand?" Seraphina made a puzzled face. "We're talking about Bedison and Laymond."
Laughter erupted around the table again, and at that instant, Kaia didn't feel the aloneness deep inside her heart that nothing had ever been able to budge. Not since she was seven years old and watching her parents' chests rise and fall in breaths pumped by machines. The healers hadn't had to tell her that her beloved mama and playful papa were gone. She'd felt it. Felt the bond that had tied the three of them together break days earlier--but she hadn't said anything. Hadn't been ready.
Late at night, her only companion the dark, she often wondered if she'd die with that seed of aloneness inside her, that hole that had never closed. People had tried. Her aunts and uncles and grandparents, Bebe, Edison and Attie and Mal and the others, they'd wrapped her in protective affection. But Kaia had lost the two people who knew her inside out, who not only understood her quirks but didn't think them quirks at all. She'd lost the only two people who shared memories carried by no one else. And she couldn't forget.
"Come on, let's eat." Tansy's sweet voice broke into her thoughts, followed by the spicy scent of today's lunch.
Forcing herself to step out of the past, Kaia ate, drank, laughed with her friends . . . and hoped Hugo would forgive her the choice she'd made.
Her wrist unit buzzed some time later. Checking th
e message flowing across the tiny screen, she found it was from Atalina: Are you free to oversee Bowen for an hour or two after your lunch? He wants to exercise and I think he should. But I don't want him alone--and I've got George double-checking my analyses.
Kaia thought again of the ugly beep of hospital machines, the mechanical rise and fall of chests . . . and of a man who had a life expectancy so short it was measured in days. And then she thought of the warmth of his hand against her cheek, the violently alive sense of him, and the raw depth of their unexpected connection.
Not just lust.
Not just passion.
More.
Dangerously more.
And she said, Yes. Ask him if he knows how to swim.
Chapter 27
You'll be awake for the procedure. I'll remove a small piece of your skull, inject the compound directly into the same part of your brain that holds the implanted chip, then seal your skull back up. You'll have a slight tenderness at the site but should suffer no other ill effects.
--Dr. Atalina Kahananui to Bowen Knight
WHEN KAIA, DRESSED in a floaty black cover-up, her hair unbound over her back and her feet bare, poked her head into the lab, Bo had to fight not to tumble her into his lap and just hold her. It would be like trying to cage the ocean.
"You're ready?" she asked, taking in his casual white shirt with short sleeves, and blue board shorts--both items he'd been issued out of the station's stockpile of new clothes. That stockpile wasn't huge, but it was enough to add a few more choices to his wardrobe, including the trainers currently on his feet. As a bonus, he'd gotten to spend a little time with Dex, who'd come over to personally show him to the storeroom.
"Thanks for going along with the story about the lip," the station commander had said quietly when they were alone. "I used to be this wild daredevil--no fear, no regrets. Then I fell in love and fuck, fear's hell."
Bo hadn't needed the other man to say anything further. He'd never forget the instant he'd seen the red dot centered on Lily's forehead. That gut-wrenching panic, that rage to protect.
Now, he rose and said, "Yes," to another woman who was becoming intimately entwined with his heart. He knew it was selfish to keep on moving forward with Kaia when his life hung so precariously in the balance, but he--a man renowned for his control--had none where she was concerned.
"Here, take this." Dr. Kahananui passed Kaia a scanner that she dropped into the tote she carried over one shoulder.
It was after they were in the corridor that Bo said, "Is the pool in another habitat?" He hadn't actually made it out of this habitat yet. First, he'd had to give blood, then cooperate with Dr. Kahananui while she ran multiple tests, and then it turned out the storeroom was in this same habitat.
Kaia nodded. "Habitat four." The shine of her hair caught his eye, had his hand rising to run down it before his conscious mind could overrule his need.
Kaia stilled for a moment but didn't reprimand him for the contact. The silken feel of her hair lingered on his fingertips as the scent of her infused his every breath.
She took him toward the left exit out of this habitat and onto a wide connecting bridge that was transparent on all sides and surrounded by water. He couldn't help craning his head, trying to see everything at once.
Sleek and fast and mysterious creatures unlike any he'd ever before seen swam beyond, some only suggestions of a shape in the black, others huge behemoths who sailed above the bridge like majestic ocean liners. Below his feet, streamers of tiny bioluminescent fish passed in a silver river.
"What's that?" He was pointing to a creature on the seabed that glowed a haunting blue when he caught a sense of movement out of the corner of his eye and--
"Damn it, Oleanna!" A large octopus had whooshed over at manic speed to slam onto the glass, causing him to fucking jump.
Kaia's startled laugh was a caress. "How did you know it's her?"
"She's the only woman who's ever propositioned me by whispering I have tentacles across the room." Scowling at the octopus when she peeled away her suckers to slide into the water, he continued on with Kaia.
"As an octopus, she actually has arms, not tentacles," Kaia told him.
"Yeah, somehow I can't see Oleanna giving up tentacles for something as prosaic as arms," Bowen muttered.
Laughing, Kaia said, "No, definitely not."
They had to cross another habitat to get to habitat four, and from what he saw, it had the quiet feel of mostly living quarters. Going over the second bridge was no less fascinating than the first--even if a certain octopus did insist on swimming alongside them, delicately waving a tentacle just as they were about to head out of view.
Bo had been expecting a lap pool for those sea changelings who wanted to get exercise but didn't want to go out into the ocean. What he got was a massive pool on an unexpected lower level of this habitat. Roughly circular--though the edges were uneven--it hugged the seaward wall. Not only that, it wasn't the blue of an ordinary pool. No, this water was the greenish-blue hue of the ocean under sunlight, complete with seaweeds waving gently below, tiny fish darting through the clarity in silvery flashes, and what might've been coral in the far corner.
"Don't damage the coral." Kaia's soft voice sang with an open love for the water. "We mostly don't go in that corner so it can grow without being hurt."
Amazed by the beauty of this piece of ocean inside the habitat walls, Bo crouched down to dip his fingers in the cool but not icy liquid. "Why do you have this when you can swim outside?"
"Not everyone has long periods to head off into the black. This pool allows for short dips when clanmates have a half hour in the day." She raised her cover-up off over her head in such a quick movement that Bo sucked in a breath, half expecting smooth, naked flesh underneath. But she was wearing a simple autumn-brown swimsuit that hugged her body with a lover's possessiveness.
Throwing the cover-up on a nearby recliner, she dived into the water, a wild and enigmatic creature whose long hair danced in the air for a fraction of time before she disappeared under the rippling surface and came back up to sleek the water over her head. "Don't waste time." An imperious order. "I have to get back to supervise the dinner prep."
That got Bo moving. He didn't want to waste a single moment he had with this complicated, intriguing, astonishing woman. It took him only seconds to toe off his trainers and pull off his shirt.
Dex had insisted on issuing him a pair of goggles.
Not wanting to miss out on what might lie beneath the surface of the pool, Bowen took a minute to open the small case he'd slipped into his pocket and--using the mirror on the back of the lid--slipped the protective lenses over his eyes. Larger than ordinary contacts and reusable, they'd give him clear vision even in salt water.
Setting aside the case, he walked to the edge of the pool and dived in.
The water was an exhilarating shock to his system. It told him he was alive, that his heart was beating, his lungs pumping. Breaking the surface after his dive, he saw Kaia waiting for him, brown eyes unreadable and droplets running down her neck and into the soft valley between her breasts.
He wanted to touch her, wanted to taste her. When she came toward him, his heart turned to thunder. He was just beginning to reach for her when she jumped up without warning and pushed him under the water.
As he came up spluttering, the first thing he heard was the sound of her laughter. She sounded as young as he suddenly felt. He grinned and took off after her. She swam like a fish, which was unsurprising. What was surprising was her incredible playfulness, as if the touch of salt water had awakened a hidden part of her nature.
She'd disappear beneath the water and then he'd feel a grip on his ankle taking him down or she'd taunt him by staying mere inches out of reach, pure delight in her expression. He let her tug him under, just so he could hear her laugh when they both came up for air.
And though he was far slower than her in the water, he'd been born with an acute understanding of strat
egy. He managed to trap her against a corner at one point, but instead of pushing her under, he stole a kiss that made her gasp. Not giving her time to think about it and maybe talk herself out of her instinctive response, he lifted her up--thank God for the metal bugs--and threw her toward another part of the pool. She gave a little scream as she went under, was grinning when she came back up.
Swimming over, she said, "Do that again."
So he did and she arced through the air in a twisting dive that should've been impossible. This time when she came up, she said, "You're fun to play with." Unhidden joy, no edginess, no distance.
"Your eyes," he whispered, realizing her irises weren't brown any longer but a vivid black that was nothing human.
Tiny droplets of water hung off her eyelashes. "Do you see me?"
"Yes," he said, feeling sucker-punched by the gift she'd given him. "I see all of you." The wild and the woman, the creature of the deep and the cook who fashioned magic with her hands.
"Here, take my hand." A smile that held so much joy. "I'll show you the bottom. If you start to lose your breath, just let go and swim back up."
At that instant, Bowen would've followed her anywhere.
Closing his hand around her own, he took a deep breath and they dived under the water. Tiny colorful fish swam past their bodies, seaweed fronds waved, the world cocooned in a living silence.
He wondered if this was what it was like for Kaia and her people when they went into the ocean. She tugged him. Kicking his feet, he went. The bottom of the pool--of the habitat itself--was glass, or whatever engineered material it was that they'd used to build. Thanks to the lights that speared softly downward from the edges of the pool, he could see straight through to the sand of the seabed, while in front of him, the lights of the habitat lit up the ocean.
Schools of fish swam by on the other side, their slight bioluminescence when they danced out of the light telling him they were creatures of the black. Something else went by and it crackled as if it burned with electricity. The mysteries here would never fully be known, he thought. Because, as Kaia had said, the deep was never static.
He could've stayed below for hours, but his lungs protested and so, reluctantly releasing Kaia's hand, he swam his way back up to the air he needed for life. But even as he left, he kept his eyes open; he saw her watching the fish on the other side while her hair floated behind her, and he saw the slits open in her neck.