Chapter 26

Thanks for sticking up for me. I always know you’ll be there, that you won’t let me fall.

—Hugo Sorensen (18) to Kaia Luna (18)

KAIA ARRIVED AT the small Japanese garden in habitat two shaken and with the lingering imprint of Bowen’s hands on her body, his roughly masculine scent in her nostrils. She couldn’t understand how he’d gotten under her skin so quickly, until she couldn’t not think about him.

“Kaia!” Tansy waved from the table she and Seraphina had snagged next to a miniature Japanese maple with leaves of gold and orange.

Like all the green spaces in the station, these delicately pruned plants provided not only a way to cleanse the air, but also food for their souls. Because to be a water changeling was to have two sides to your nature. One part lived for the ocean, the other craved green and earth.

Kaia had no desire to go upside and walk on land, but—aside from her kitchen—the green areas in the habitats were her favorite spaces. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, taking a seat, Tansy to her left and Sera to her right. A large thermal carrier sat in the center of the table—food one of the teens would’ve run over from the main kitchen. Sera had probably bribed said teen with a favor only the assistant station commander could grant. “Alden wanted to go for Bowen Knight’s throat.”

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 the 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.