Bo put his hand on Heenali's wrist, gently pushed down the weapon. "He needs to do this," he told his knight. "He needs to go out knowing he put things right."
A tear rolled out from Hugo's left eye. "Love you, Heena."
"Love you more, Hugo." Dropping the weapon, she crawled to lie in the curve of his arm, her own arm over his waist.
Somehow managing to wrap both arms around her, Hugo said, "KJ," on a rattling exhale that could have only one end. "Found KJ."
Chapter 66
Heena, my love, my sweet, deadly rose. (Too goofy? I can't help myself around you. I open my mouth and goofy comes out.)
--Note attached to roses sent by Trey Gunther to Heenali Roy
"GO," HEENALI SAID as Hugo's dying words echoed in the room. "Please go."
In front of Bo, a trembling Kaia pressed a kiss to Hugo's cheek, her friend's eyes already closed, then let Bo lead her out of the room.
He was conscious of Mal staying long enough to say, "You did good, Hugo. You fixed it."
Kaia didn't cry, just stood frozen in Bowen's embrace in the corridor outside. When Malachai came out, his face was so grim it appeared chipped out of stone. As Bo watched, hearing nothing but silence from inside the room, the other man made a call. "Find KJ," he told someone. "Hold him."
As shell-shocked as Kaia, Bo rocked her in his arms. "How could it be him?" His brain had defaulted to cool logic and strategy in the face of the agony swamping him--Kaia's agony, Kaia's terrible sorrow.
Bo embraced it, embraced her.
"This traitor was pinpointing people in distant regions, and KJ is based on Ryujin."
"There's a medical database," Malachai said tonelessly. "Our people are encouraged to check in at least once a year so we know who hasn't seen a healer for far too long, and arrangements can be made to get someone to their geographic location." His body was rigid, his eyes flat. "But we won't know for certain until I've run a full investigation."
As Bo had done with Heenali. Except--"Hugo spent his last breaths sharing that name." Kaia's best friend must've been brutally certain.
Kaia, still mute, stared at the paramedics who ran up the steps. Bo indicated the open door and they entered . . . only to return mere seconds later, their faces telling the story long before one of them said, "He's gone."
Stiff as a rock, Kaia closed her eyes and he could almost hear her silent scream. Bowen squeezed her tight, but felt her begin to slip away from him regardless. When she shuddered, he scooped her up in his arms and made his way down the stairs as fast as possible. This old building had no elevator and the journey took far too long.
The cold, fresh air had Kaia gulping desperate breaths when he set her down on her feet, but her respiration was far too shallow, her eyes dilated. "Focus on me, Siren. Lean on the bond." Cupping her face, he held her gaze with his; everything else could wait. Only Kaia mattered.
"Bo." A wheezed-out whisper of sound. "Can't breathe."
"Where's your medication?"
She began to reach into her pocket, but he was already there. Grabbing the preloaded injector, he said, "Can you take more? Is it safe?"
A jagged nod, Kaia extending her arm.
Shoving up her sleeve, he jolted her system with the medication. She sucked in more air, and deep inside him, he felt her presence become closer, impossibly more intense. Leaning on him. It took ten long minutes for her to stop trembling and for her dilated pupils to shrink back to normal size.
Cassius had called in an Alliance squad by then, his job to secure the scene while Malachai organized a BlackSea retrieval team. Enforcement might have something to say on that point, but they could argue with BlackSea about jurisdiction--and Bo knew exactly who'd win. But Kaia, she still hadn't cried.
Walking her away from the scene, he took her into the dark shadows between two buildings and enclosed her once more in his arms. "Cry, baby," he begged. "Don't hold it inside like you did as a child. Please." Whatever progress she'd made in conquering her fear of land, it had splintered into razor-sharp slivers in that room filled with a dying man's last words, but Bowen couldn't bear to let her return to the black while she was in such horrific pain.
Who would hold his Kaia in the deep? Who would rock her as she cried for the loss of one of her closest friends? It didn't matter what Hugo had done or the crimes he'd committed. Not now. Not to Kaia's heart.
"I can't." The words were distant . . . and he realized she was under the full impact of the anti-anxiety medication. "I don't feel anything."
Malachai appeared on the edge of the shadows. "The retrieval team will be here in an hour. I'll be leaving then." His gaze went to Kaia, the question unasked.
"We'll be coming with you." Bowen had given his adult life to the Alliance, but today, he was being asked to choose between his mate and the Alliance and it wasn't a choice at all.
"No." Kaia pushed away from him. "Heenali, she needs you. She needs her alpha."
"Cassius and Lily are with her." He'd seen his sister run into the hotel not long after he and Kaia exited. "I'm coming with you."
Kaia stared at him, the flatness of her expression belied by her next words. "I'm sorry," she whispered, emotion creeping in on the edges of the medicated calm. "I see land when I look at you. I see death and pain and loss."
Bowen staggered inside at the blow, at the chilling realization that he was the embodiment of her greatest fear. "Kaia."
Shaking her head, she kept her distance. "There's so much panic inside me, Bo. The medication's the only thing keeping it back. I'm scared I'm going to start screaming if I don't dive far, far into the black."
Far from him, from her mate who was so totally a creature of land that he'd forever remind her of it. Every breath felt like a knife blade. Shifting his gaze to Malachai's pale gold eyes, he said, "Take care of her. Don't leave her alone."
The other man gave a hard nod, his expression holding an unexpected sympathy.
* * *
*
AN hour later, Bo watched the jet-chopper lift off. Kaia pressed her hand against the window, looking at him until she was too far up and he could no longer see her. Still he watched, until the jet-chopper disappeared from sight far on the horizon.
And though his heart felt broken into a million tiny pieces, he clung to the feeling of her inside him. She was traumatized, in shock, heavily medicated. He'd wait, give her a few days, then go to her. As long as he could feel her in his heart, it would be all right. She was his mate, and mates were forever.
His siren had told him so herself.
He just had to be patient--even if it felt like he was bleeding inside with every second that passed.
Forcing his mind to go quiet, his control ruthless because that was the only way he could deal with this, he went to Heenali. She'd refused to leave Hugo's body, and it was Bo who'd had to wrench her away--he'd left her in Cassius and Lily's care while he said good-bye to his heart.
She came at him like a Fury when he walked into the bedroom in a nearby apartment building owned by the Alliance. "I hate you!"
Catching her in his arms and very aware of her deadly skills, Bowen used his own to immobilize her against the wall without causing harm. "I know," he said. "But he had to go home, to the blue."
She twisted in his hold until she had no breath left in her. "I won't get to say good-bye." So much pain. So much anger.
"I asked for you. They'll tell us the funeral date--as the woman he loved, you're welcome to join all rites and to sit with him the night before."
Stark brown eyes looking into his. A second later, his tough knight crumpled into his arms. He held her as she cried out her heartbreaking loss and he thought of a woman who hadn't cried at all.
His own heart hurt so badly that he didn't think it was mechanical any longer.
"I thought he was making a little money on the side smuggling things into BlackSea territory that he was able to offload from the ships by using his other form."
"You knew he was a changeling?" That exp
lained so much of her fascination with the water changelings.
"Trey . . . Hugo told me. He didn't always lie." She lay against him, her cheek on his chest. "I'd already figured it out by then--it's hard not to when you're so close to someone."
Bo thought of how Kaia moved, how her eyes changed color from human to her other self, how there was an intrinsic, beautiful wildness to her. The only reason he'd picked up none of that in the man he'd known as Trey was that he'd spent very little time with him. "Why did he let us think he was human?"
"He told me he was in trouble with the clan and he'd rather just play human until he'd sorted it out, especially since we were building a relationship with them. He didn't want his track record to interfere." Grief thickened her voice; underlying it was love, raw and lost. "I didn't think it'd do any harm to indulge him with the ship movements, with what I believed was penny-ante smuggling. We've all crossed a few lines--it made him more real that he was just as imperfect as me."
How could Bo chastise her when he'd been willing to leave the entire Alliance to flounder so long as Kaia needed him? He couldn't. "There was a photo of two badly beaten changelings on one of our ships," he said, because they both fell back on work when things hurt.
"Which ship?"
"The Quiet Wind."
"Small crew--ten people, five on, five off. Easy enough to put to sleep if you know exactly where they'll be." She released a trembling breath. "I let him see the security charts, Bo. He was so interested in my work and . . . I loved him. I was foolish and gullible and I loved him and I still do."
"I'm glad you loved him." Bo knew the wounds on Heenali's soul; that she'd been able to love at all, it was a gift. What the damage would be after this, he couldn't predict. "Incapacitate the crew on duty without them being aware of it," he murmured. "Stage the photo, leave." If the intruders were silent enough, the sleeping half of the crew would never wake.
"No one would speak up," Heenali added. "Each would think they'd fallen asleep at their post. Classic case of covering their asses." She sounded like the old Heenali, crisp and no-nonsense . . . and she was nothing like the old Heenali. "Who was she? Did he love her?"
He heard her pain, did what he could to assuage it. "She's my mate. They were childhood friends who grew into adult friends, but they were never lovers and didn't want to be."
Bowen thought of how the dying man had looked at both Kaia and Heenali and knew that some part of Hugo had wanted more from Kaia--but life hadn't worked out that way, and in the end, he'd made his choice. "You were the one he loved as a man loves a woman."
"He conned me."
"Yes. But when it counted, he came back." Bo considered what he knew about Hugo. "He was a comms expert--and smart enough to hack into systems no one else could, but he let Lily see him, track him. He was running and trying to find information to fix his mistake, but he wasn't hiding from you. He just moved too fast for you to catch up."
"Do you really believe that?" Such haunting hope in her words.
"You can read Lily's reports yourself." Bo stared at the wall over the top of Heenali's head. "He was imperfect and flawed and he made the wrong choices, but he loved you."
In his arms, his tough, hard knight began to cry again.
Bowen just held her; they'd talk about trust and where to go from here later. Right now, Heenali needed a friend more than she needed the security chief of the Alliance. He gave her everything he could, and when he was finally alone, he messaged Malachai, aware the other man and Kaia would still be in the air: Has she cried?
No. She's barely spoken.
Bowen set his jaw; if she wouldn't allow him to hold her, he'd care for her another way. But before he could say anything, Malachai sent another message: She doesn't know what she's saying right now, Bo. This is how she was after her parents died. She shut down. She wouldn't talk to anyone for weeks.
Staring out at the night that cloaked Venice, Bo thought of that angry little girl and he thought of all the things Kaia had told him the nights they'd spent together on Ryujin. All the stories she'd shared about that heartbroken girl's journey back to the world.
And his tactically minded brain saw a way to reach his mate through her grief.
Chapter 67
Chess is a game of patience and strategy.
--Jerard Knight to Bowen Knight (8)
KAIA STEPPED ONTO the deck of Lantia with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. It was the worst anxiety she'd ever felt, a nauseating, twisting sensation that she'd made the most horrific mistake of her life. But the realization hit up hard against a wall of cold that separated her from the world. She saw it, knew it existed, but nothing could reach her.
"Bebe?" she said, spotting her beloved many-times-great-grandmother not far from where Malachai had docked the boat they'd taken from the island. "What are you doing here?" Bebe rarely visited the city, preferring to spend time on Ryujin, or on her island.
"I've come to take you to my island," Bebe said, as if that was perfectly self-explanatory.
And it was.
Not waiting, Kaia stripped off her clothes right there on the deck and dived in, shifting form as she hit the water. It took Bebe longer, but Kaia swam near Lantia until Bebe slipped in quietly beside her. Her island wasn't so far--close enough for even an elderly changeling to make it without undue stress.
Once they reached it, Kaia shifted, found the blanket she'd stashed under some rocks, wrapped it around herself, and tucked her body against Bebe's shell. She didn't know how long she slept, but she had terrible shivers at some point as the medication wore off. Still, they passed, and when she next opened her eyes, the sun was rising on the ocean.
They went swimming again and her other self fed because Bebe made it clear she was to feed. It didn't taste like anything. Back on the island in their human forms, the sun's rays warm on their skin, Kaia clasped her arms around her knees and thought she should cry, but the tears wouldn't come, her eyes as gritty as the sand on which she sat.
She clung to the bond inside her, afraid she'd float away without it. "Why did I leave him?" It seemed a madness now, when she needed him so desperately.
"Because you carry your fear like a third soul." Bebe's tone wasn't harsh, just pragmatic. "Now it's stolen your mate from you."
Kaia snapped her head toward her grandmother who was so old she was an ancestor. "He's still here." She slapped her palm over her heart. "He's still mine."
Shrugging, Bebe said, "Who's holding him while he hurts? Not you."
Kaia thought of how strong Bowen was, how much weight he carried on his shoulders--and how she'd silently vowed to show him joy, to be the person with whom he could be young and carefree and playful. "I told him I saw land in him." Horrified, she dug her fingers into the sand. "I didn't mean that! It wasn't me saying that!"
"No." Bebe bit into a hard fruit that grew on a tree on her island.
"Hugo died, Bebe." She couldn't deal with the rest of it, could only handle one pain at a time. "Hugo died."
"I know, child." A wrinkled arm around her shoulders. "And you'd already been so brave while your mate underwent Atalina's experiment. You walked with him even knowing he might not make it through, only to be reminded that he could die at any instant. Just like Hugo."
Agitation inside her skin, fear stealing her breath. "It took all my courage to be with Bowen while he was undergoing the experiment. I haven't got anything left."
"Will you give him up, then? Repudiate your mate?"
Jerking away to end up on her knees, Kaia stared at her grandmother. "He's mine." It came out furious, cracks shattering the cold that isolated her from the world. "He's mine!"
Bebe bit into the fruit again, as if she hadn't brought up a subject anathema to Kaia. Chewing with relish, she swallowed before saying, "Why isn't he here with you, then? A true mate would be here with you."
"I told him not to come!" Kaia was outraged Bebe would blame Bowen for this. "It was my choice."
"What kind of m
an accepts that?" Another bite. "Probably because he's human. Repudiate him," she said, like that was a thing that happened every day instead of being so rare it was more fable than reality. "Find a new mate."
"NO!" Kaia had never yelled at her grandmother in that tone of voice. "I will not!" Deep inside her, the mating bond warped, then settled again. What was that? Was it Bowen's pain? Was her mate hurting because she'd abandoned him? "Don't you dare blame him for my choices!"
"I'll do what I please." Bebe finished off the fruit and threw the core into the small bushes on the shoreline. "Anyway, the security chief of the humans isn't a good match for you. All these people out to kill him."
Kaia's breaths hurt, her abdomen rigid. "He's strong and he's smart. He's not easy prey."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure! He survived a gunshot that destroyed his heart, came back from the dead, and had three injections in his brain using an experimental compound! Bowen is tough." And as she spoke the words, the scared child inside her realized their truth.
Bowen wasn't Hugo, a gambler and a charmer who'd fallen prey to professional predators.
Bowen wasn't her mother, a physician who never had a care for herself.
Bowen wasn't her father, an artist who saw beauty in the world but ignored the darkness.
Bowen saw the dark, Bowen saw the evil, and Bowen was a predator, too. One who chose to walk on the side of good, but who'd strike out against the dark if threatened. Bowen would fight like a berserker to his dying breath.
"I still think you should repudiate him." Bebe's expression was intransigent. "Let him find a nice biddable human woman. Then you can stay in the blue and he can stay on land."
So enraged she could barely think, Kaia splashed past the foam-white breakers hitting the sand. "No, no, no! He's mine!" And she was going to make sure he knew it.
She dived into the water.
* * *
*
SIGHING, Bebe creaked up to her feet. Maybe she should let the healer do the knee surgery he kept going on about. Impudent young man that he was, he'd told her he'd have her dancing in no time.
"Hmph." Finding the rock she wanted, she sat down on the sand again and pushed at the rock until she revealed the thick metal container hidden beneath.