Erupting to the golden warmth of "daylight," he gulped in a breath and waited for Kaia to join him. When she did, he saw that the slits had disappeared as if they'd never existed. "You had gills." Wonder had him reaching his fingers to the smooth line of her neck.
Kaia allowed the touch but gave him a watchful look. "I've been told humans find that disturbing."
"If I could have gills, I would." He'd be able to swim with her in the deep, would be able to glimpse more of its mysteries. "How do you do it?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. A lot of us in BlackSea just can."
"Is it what the wolves and cats call a semi-shift?" Bowen had witnessed the predatory changelings release their claws, their eyes going inhuman while the rest of them stayed unchanged.
But Kaia shook her head. "No. Carlotta can do it even though she's an air breather. Maybe Atalina should study that next." Dancing eyes. "Gills on aqua-mammals: a treatise."
She splashed water at him without warning.
Any defenses he might've had in ruins, he splashed back.
They were having the water fight to end all water fights when the doors to the pool opened.
"Kaia's here!" cried more than one voice before at least five teenagers cannonballed into the water, causing the pool to erupt into smashing waves. What happened next was so extraordinary that Bo hauled himself to the side so he could just watch.
Chapter 28
I miss them and it hurts my heart.
--Kaia to Bebe (2068)
IT SEEMED TO be a game, with Kaia playing the prey and the teens attempting to catch her. Except that she was so fast and so clever that they stood no chance. Even when they got smart and attempted to surround her by working as a group, she was gone moments before they arrived.
Shouts bounced off the walls, followed by groans and laughter.
There was no such cheerful noise at Alliance HQ. None of his knights had kids--but he decided at that instant that when they did, those children would have a place at the HQ. He'd build a nursery inside the HQ, make it a place of family. They'd be a clan, a pack.
When Kaia came up next to him at last, telling the children to chase each other instead, her chest was heaving--hell, her breasts were gorgeous--and her cheeks flushed with color. "They never catch me." Pure adorable smugness.
Bo knew then and there that he was talking to both sides of her nature, talking to her. No shields. No walls. "You are the most complex, beautiful, extraordinary woman I have ever met."
* * *
*
A BEAM of simulated sunlight kissed the side of Bowen's face as he spoke, highlighting a small blue stain on his temple . . . and a cold blade of fear thrust itself through Kaia's heart. "Attie's been running tests." She knew the exact device that left that mark--the mark itself was nothing, just a dot of ink to help position the device, but it told a story.
Bowen's smile faded. "Second injection's tomorrow."
Sucking in a breath, Kaia tightened her abdomen. "You're about to get your head cut open and you just got out of a coma." It took vicious self-control to keep her tone dry. "You'll excuse me if I don't take your declarations about my beauteous presence seriously."
He locked his hand around her wrist. "You know this isn't anything ordinary." There it was, the dominance that hummed under his skin. "You know."
Slipping out of his grasp when a ball splashed in between them, distracting him for a split second, Kaia made for the side and got out of the pool. Once in the shower in the changing area, she pressed her palms to the tiled wall and tried to breathe, tried not to think of hospital rooms and bodies wrapped in biodegradable shrouds being sent into the black from whence they'd come.
"Stop, stop, stop." She squeezed her eyes shut against the cascade of memory and pretended the hot water that trickled down her cheeks all came from the showerhead. Even when it tasted of salt and a child's anguish.
She spent too long under the water.
Afterward, she rubbed herself dry using one of the towels provided, then pulled on her cover-up over bare skin. She'd brought underwear in her tote, but her other self was very much at the surface of her mind and it didn't agree with the concept of clothes. The cover-up was about as far as it was willing to go.
Black and shapeless and reaching to just below midthigh, the cover-up wouldn't scandalize even Bebe. For a turtle rumored to have thrown primal orgies in her youth, Bebe could be a definite prude. But Kaia loved her with all her heart. Bebe's wrinkled arms had cuddled a heartbroken Kaia so many times after the deaths of her mama and papa.
Kaia had been able to grieve on Bebe's little island when she couldn't anywhere else. She'd often fallen asleep curled against Bebe's shell, the sun beating down on them and the sand gritty under her naked body.
Since she'd forgotten to put a comb in her tote, she twisted her hair into a rough bun. Then she rinsed out her swimsuit and hung it to dry on one of the lines provided for that. She'd pick it up tomorrow or a clanmate would grab it for her while retrieving their own gear.
The towel went in the large basket nearby; it was another station team's job to handle laundry, as Kaia and her team took care of Ryujin's food needs.
A well-run station needed everyone to do their part.
Unable to delay any longer, she stepped out, her heart searching for the man who was going to ruin her. He sat on a poolside bench created of stone, watching the teenagers in the water. She could tell he hadn't showered, just pulled on his shirt over damp board shorts that exposed thighs in far too good a shape for a man who'd been in a coma.
Kaia, whispered the alone, sad, lost part of her soul, he's about to have a second dose of a test compound injected into his brain. The clock is ticking faster and faster.
Despite the desperate warning, Kaia's fingers itched to weave through his heavily damp hair as she came to stand beside him. The other part of her nature wasn't always in agreement with the human side of her--and it loved playing with Bowen--but it didn't fight her this time when she curled her fingers into a white-knuckled fist.
It, too, bore scars of grief that would never fade.
It, too, watched for Hugo to swim back into the habitat.
It, too, swam silently through waters she'd first explored with her parents, their bigger bodies keeping her safe.
And it, too, knew that falling for Bowen Knight was a terrible, terrible mistake.
"They're fast, except for Scott," Bowen said, his tone thoughtful. "But even with the gammy leg, he has more endurance."
Even though she really needed to get to the kitchen, Kaia stayed and watched the children. "Scott's also the most patient of the lot." He was the one she trusted to watch dishes that needed a careful eye. "He never rushes."
Bowen nodded and pulled on his trainers. "The others zig and zag and dive and jump, but he thinks about every move. He's the one who'll catch you one day."
"No, he doesn't have the speed." And Kaia was nearly as fast as Edison. "But, if the others listen to him, he could use them to catch me."
"You're right. The kid will make an excellent security chief one day." His gaze, when it turned to her, was primal in its intensity. "I'm not about to give up, Kaia."
The soft promise raised every tiny hair on her body.
"You can't control the universe," she said, her eyes on the tendrils drying against his forehead, one kissing the dot of blue.
"I won't know until I try." He rose to his feet on that uncompromising statement.
Throat dry, Kaia led him out of the pool area. It was as they were crossing the final connecting bridge that the heavy mass of her hair unraveled from her bun to slam onto her back. "Damn it. I'll have to spend ten minutes brushing and drying this before I can head into the kitchen." It wouldn't totally dry that quickly even under her high-strength dryer, but she could manage enough that she could scrape it back and out of her way.
It would be more practical if she just cut it, but Kaia had her vanities.
And her father had loved he
r hair. The same hair as her mother.
When they'd lived on the island, she'd used to sneak out of bed at night sometimes and peek out onto the sea-facing porch to see her parents sitting there, laughing and talking. Often, her father would have a brush and he'd be running it through her mother's long hair, detangling and smoothing and loving.
"I could brush it for you," Bowen offered.
Kaia's heart skidded, today and yesterday colliding, a crash that was an earthquake.
Chapter 29
Love can alter the fabric of the universe, my heart.
--Iosef Luna to his only daughter, Kaia (4)
KAIA KNEW EXACTLY what she should do: walk away right this moment. Bowen Knight might be a man of honor according to every instinct she possessed, but he was still going to wound her unbearably.
Be safe, Kaia, whispered the scared child inside her. Push him away.
But the thing was, whether she did or not, Bowen's path was set. The compound would be injected into his brain twice more and the dice would be rolled. The five percent chance wouldn't alter whether or not she surrendered to the craving low in her body, the ache deep in her heart.
All that would change was her level of pain.
She slipped her hand into his and closed her fingers around his palm.
His own fingers wrapping warm and strong over hers, he walked with her in silence. She saw more than one pair of eyes widen at the sight of their linked hands, several mouths purse tight, but no one called out and none of those Hugo had trusted with his thoughts attempted to get in her way.
She opaqued the window into the black the instant they were in the privacy of her room, then went and sat down in the chair in front of the white writing desk with curved legs that also functioned as her vanity. Pulling open one small desk drawer, she got out a brush and a jar of leave-in deep conditioning treatment.
The mirror she'd mounted on the opposite wall, its silvery surface surrounded by white curlicues, reflected back her stark eyes. But behind her, Bowen's face as he lifted up her hair to run it through his fingers, it held devotion.
Her hands fisted on her thighs.
She wanted to disbelieve what she saw, wanted to tell herself it was all happening too fast to be real. Hugo would be horrified; he'd probably say Bowen had created an illusion and Kaia had fallen for it. But Kaia knew. The creature inside her skin knew. Bowen Knight was no black villain and this was a beautiful and terrifying and once-in-a-lifetime thing.
Not a thing you chose. A thing that chose you.
Unable to look that truth too deeply in the eye, she opened the jar. "Work this through my hair," she said in a husky voice. "It'll make it easier to smooth out the tangles."
Bowen began the task, his every action intent. It made her want to smile. She had the foolish thought that he'd probably build a crib or plan a family outing with that same military attention to detail.
She let the thought pass before it could lodge in her throat and, picking up the phone she'd left on one side of the writing desk, sent a message through to her scheduled kitchen team. "Tacos for dinner," she told Bo afterward, her eyes meeting his in the mirror. "My crew can handle that on their own." Kaia always taught each team one dish they could create from scratch and without her oversight.
Bo's hand paused in the act of working in the conditioner. "We have time, then."
Such an paradoxical statement. "Yes," she said. "Today, we have time."
The familiar scent of coconut oil fused with tiare flowers rose into the air as Bowen continued to work the conditioner into her hair, and in her mind ran the ghost of a sand-covered little girl kissed by tropical sunlight. She watched him in the mirror, watched the fierce concentration with which he did the task and thought she could become very used to being the nucleus of Bowen Knight's attention.
The security chief of the Human Alliance would have endless calls on his time, of that she had no doubt. But Kaia also knew that were she his, she'd have direct access to him anytime she wished. Bowen Knight wasn't the kind of man to push aside his promises or discount the bonds he'd forged: he would love with the same intense concentration he did everything else.
"Is that enough?"
Kaia nodded and closed the lid on the jar before she gave him the brush. His fingers grazed her own as he took it and her stomach clenched, a tight curl of sensation.
Holding her gaze in the mirror, he bent down to press a kiss to the curve of her neck. She shivered, raised her hand to run her fingertips over his cheek and jaw. "Your lip."
"Magic ointment. Can barely feel it." His breath whispered over her skin like a warm wind shaped for her alone.
She could see his lips in the mirror and the swelling was gone, the cut barely visible. "All right," she said with a smile that came from the wild heart of her. "In that case, you're permitted to use your mouth."
His smile was so bright and so young that she knew without asking that this was a smile only she would ever see. It was too innocent for the security chief or the older brother or the trusted son. Too vulnerable for the world.
As if his shell had cracked, allowing her a glimpse of the naked core of this man.
"Tell me if I tug too hard," he said before beginning to run the brush through her hair.
He almost immediately hit a snag. Stopping at once, he began to work to loosen it up with far more patience than Kaia; where she would have hit at the knot impatiently, he unraveled it with a care that caused no tension on her scalp.
"I used to braid Lily's hair when she was small," he said unexpectedly.
"My cousin Edison did it for me." Kaia smiled. "Your sister's hair was probably less trouble than mine." She loved her hair, but a tiny part of her could still be jealous of the heavy silk of Lily's, so slick that it would fall smoothly back in place no matter how turbulent the wind.
"To brush, sure," Bowen confirmed. "But man, it was like the strands were coated in silicone--or possessed little devil minds of their own. Every time I tried to fix a braid, it'd fall apart." He shook his head. "The only good thing was that it'd make her laugh when I tried not to swear."
Kaia's thoughts rolled back in time. "Before I came to live with my aunt and uncle, my mama helped me wash and oil my hair, and my papa used to do my braids." Maybe if she'd grown into a teenager with her parents, she'd have started calling them Mom and Dad, but she'd lost them as a young girl and they were frozen in time as Mama and Papa.
Two brilliant young people whose lights had burned incandescent in their souls. They'd wanted to change the world, share that light, and they'd brought up their daughter to believe in hope, in passion, in the power of love to alter a universe.
But then the very world they'd loved had snuffed out their lights and Kaia had lost her way in fear. Shame might've twisted her up at the choices she'd made except that her parents had left her with a gift neither time nor death could erase, a promise that "We will love you, no matter what. Always, Kaia. Always."
"My father was a lyricist by training and inclination, but he also loved to create other forms of art," she told Bowen as echoes of her father's voice filled her head. "It was never enough for him to do a simple braid. He'd do hundreds of fine braids, or a big braid across my head like an ancient queen, or a bun with a braid around it."
"I'm starting to feel braid envy." Light words, but his eyes were gentle in the mirror. "He's gone?"
"They're both gone." It was so hard to say that even now, admit it. "I wouldn't let my aunt or anyone else touch my hair for months after I lost my parents. I washed it and brushed it as well as I could, but I still looked half-feral."
Bowen bent to press a kiss to her temple. "A little warrior princess."
The bloom of warmth inside her was nothing erotic and devastatingly intimate. "I finally went up to Edison one day, brush in hand." She laughed softly at the memory of the look on his face. "He was fifteen and had Atalina for a sister--she's had a no-fuss bob since the day she got a voice and could make her wishes known. He ha
d no idea what to do."
"But he did it."
"Yes." Because that was what brothers did and Edison was her brother, no matter their official relationship. "He slowly got better at it and these days he tells me it helped with his hand-eye coordination."
Bowen hit another snag, worked at it. "This beautiful hair, I dream about it."
The deep rumble of his voice shivered through her, her breasts swelling under the airy fabric of the cover-up. But she didn't rush him, the pleasure she received from watching him behind her, his chiseled face set in focused lines, a deeply visceral thing.
And though she had childhood memories of her father brushing her hair, that sepia-toned memory faded under the reality of today.
That had been a childhood sweetness.
This was a very adult moment, honey richness in her blood. "Bowen?"
"Hmm."
"Give me your arm."
Halting his smooth strokes, he stretched forward his left arm. When she put her fingers on his skin and pressed down on the muscle trainers, he gave her a curious half smile. "Testing my muscles? Trust me, I have enough to brush your hair."
"Does it hurt if I apply pressure?"
"The bugs?" He withdrew his arm and continued with her hair. "I barely remember they're there. Things are fucking incredible."
His brush stopped partway. His eyes blazed at her in the mirror. "You thinking about putting pressure on my skin?"
Her own eyes dark pools of fire, Kaia said, "I think the knots are out."
"But if I don't dry it, it'll get messed up when I do this." Fisting one hand in her hair, he leaned down to kiss her neck again. It was hot and wet, the slight pull on her scalp an exquisite spice to the mix of sensation.
She twisted around and wove her own fingers into his hair, her mouth meeting his in a kiss that devoured. Kaia didn't know who was the hunter and who the prey; the reins passed from one to the other breath by breath. Bowen slid his free hand to her throat as she bit down softly, so softly on his lower lip, a caress of teeth that came from her other side.