Chapter 56
I’ve had a financial ping from Heenali’s ex. He’s crossed over from Ireland to France. She can’t be far behind.
—Message from Lily to Cassius
BO KNEW THERE was something seriously wrong with Kaia, wrong enough that he had to find a way to break through her reticence. He couldn’t let her keep on suffering this torment in silence.
But no matter his need to go after her, hold her, he didn’t move. Kaia wouldn’t thank him for confronting her now. This was a private thing. Gut tight, he pasted a casual expression on his face as he glanced at Mercy. “Buy you a coffee?”
The DarkRiver sentinel’s responding look—all golden leopard eyes—made it clear he remained on probation. “No, but I’ll take a lime milkshake.”
Bo followed her inside the café without making any attempt to defend himself. Two and a half years ago, he’d made a decision driven by desperation—his motives had been pure, his intent never to harm, but that didn’t change that he had done harm. He’d traumatized an innocent little girl and he’d never forgive himself for it; he didn’t expect Mercy or the rest of her pack to forgive him, either.
It was enough that DarkRiver didn’t blame the entire Alliance for his mistake.
Bo kept an eye out for Kaia as he and Mercy walked up to the counter. The young teen who came over to take their order had a nametag that identified him as Charlie; he smiled at Mercy with unexpected sweetness—until you caught the nefarious glint in eyes the color of sea glass. “Hi, Merce. Can I come play with the pupcubs tonight?”
“Talk to Riley. He’s on triplet duty today.” Mercy reached over to ruffle the boy’s dark curls. “You were over only the other day. My packmates will get jealous if wolves get more turns than leopards.”
“I’ll just sneak up later,” the boy said, totally unrepentant. “After the cats have slinked away.”
Bo placed the order for Mercy’s milkshake to the accompaniment of her laughter. He also ordered a latte with two caramel shots for Kaia, and a lemonade for himself. His head had begun to ache a little, but he was trying not to think about what that might mean. “Your pupcubs are popular,” he said to Mercy after Charlie moved away to make their drinks.
“Are you kidding me? We’ve got two packs’ worth of nosy parkers swinging by every five seconds—it’ll be even worse with today being Saturday.” She shook her head. “The wolves are categorically worse than cats. Yesterday, six of them sat on our lawn in wolf form and howled out a lullaby.” Her lips twitched. “The babies loved it.”
Bo couldn’t see any sign of Kaia; his skin stretched taut over his body as his muscles bunched. “Talking of DarkRiver young,” he said with a conscious effort at keeping things on a normal footing. “Do you have an auburn-haired male off roaming the world?” It was something the cats did in their youth. “Maybe twenty, twenty-one? Gives off an oddly dangerous vibe?” The boy was a power, but one who hadn’t quite matured.
“You’ve seen Kit?” Mercy’s face lit up. “Where?”
Tense with worry inside, Bo nonetheless managed to spin a tale about the tiny island airport and the mechanic’s apprentice and the driver who drove like a maniac.
Kaia appeared at last, her hair—which she wore in a single braid down her back—wet around the edges of her face, and her smile so ferociously bright that it hurt. “Sorry I took so long,” she said. “Decided to freshen up.”
Charlie returned with their drinks before Bo could reply. Picking up Kaia’s, he handed it over. “Latte, two shots of caramel.”
Wide eyes. “How did you know?”
“Security chief.”
It twisted him up deep inside to see her determined smile soften into reality, the mask slipping to reveal the lines at the corners of her eyes, the lack of color in her skin. An unnamed intruder was stealing the life out of his Kaia.
MERCY hopped out of the car soon after they began to hit patches of snow. “Keep heading up,” she said, pointing along the road lined with fir trees on either side. “You’re still in DarkRiver territory and our sentries will make sure you turn where you’re meant to turn. If your boy keeps going, however, he’s going to end up in wolf lands.”
Normally, that would’ve meant a quick and bloody end for George—the SnowDancer wolves were not renowned for their hospitality toward strangers who breached their boundaries. Shoot first and ask questions of the corpses was their motto.
“The wolves know?” Bo asked.
“Yep. But they’ll take him down if he makes any attempt to go places he shouldn’t.” Mercy pushed back from the door. “Good luck.”
Kaia arched her neck to watch as Mercy disappeared into the snow-dusted woods. “Where’s she going? I don’t see any houses.”
“I’m guessing she’s planning to shift.” Bowen began to drive.
“I wish I could see her. I’ve never seen a changeling leopard before.”
But Bo had other things on his mind. “Kaia, what’s wrong?” It came out more than a little rough. “Whatever it is, it’s hurting you.”
“I’ll tell you.” A husky but firm promise. “But we have to find George first.”
“Kaia.” Stopping the vehicle on the otherwise deserted road, he turned to face her.
Huge eyes, the irises pure black with the slightest reflective glow against the falling night. “Let me finish this, then I’ll tell you. I have to do this. I have to go all the way.”
The pain in her, it fucking broke his heart. “Then we finish it.” If that was the only way to ease her suffering, he’d hunt George to the ends of the Earth.
He would not fucking die while Kaia was in pain.
Driving faster than he should, he nonetheless spotted the leopard waiting on the side of the road fifteen minutes later. Bo slowed . . . and the leopard crossed the road to stand by a left turn. Getting the hint, he turned and carried on into the increasingly snow-draped landscape, the ground a gentle but constant slope. “We must be at the foothills of the Sierras.”
“George will be scared here.” Kaia took in the white and green landscape around them, majestic and alien and not of her home. “He’s free in the ocean, but he knows the ocean. He’s not built to deal with this much change.”
And even though George might have stolen his chance at life, Bowen felt for the other man; he couldn’t forget George’s dejection when he’d realized Seraphina was seeing another man. Whatever else drove Dr. Kahananui’s assistant, part of it was a broken heart. “We’ll find him,” he said to Kaia. “Mercy would’ve contacted us if he was in trouble.”
Nodding, Kaia shifted in her seat to angle her body toward him. “Your head’s hurting, isn’t it?”
“Slight headache,” he admitted. “But that could just be the interrupted sleep I had on the flight.” He’d been too amped up to really rest.
“Only Atalina knows how to do the operation.”
Bo tugged gently on the end of her braid. “One step at a time.” He couldn’t be a hostage to the loudly ticking clock; he had to go forward, had to fight for his future. “It’s possible George may hunker down to rest.” The man had been on the move since he left Ryūjin, had to be exhausted. “That should give us enough time to catch up to him.”
“I don’t want to lose him.” Kaia tucked escaped strands of hair behind her ears, her attention on Bo rather than the now pitch-black road lit only with the headlights of their vehicle. “He’s burned his bridges with BlackSea, exposed himself. That means he’s probably of no use to these Consortium people—if they even played a part in any of this in the first place.”
“What will happen to him if we manage to bring him back alive?”
“He is ohana,” Kaia murmured. “We have punishments, yes, but we don’t shun or execute clan unless there’s no other choice. If all he’s done is stolen things, he’ll be expected to pay for his actions, but he’ll still be ohana, still be ours.” Her voice trembled. “No one should be left all alone in the ocean.”
Bowen hadn’t thought of it in those terms, but she was right; such cruel aloneness killed or twisted or poisoned. “I’ll do everything I can to make sure we don’t lose him in the capture.” Physically and tactically, he was far more skilled than George, but the stakes could change in a heartbeat if the other man shifted. “Help me make sure he doesn’t shift.” Thanks to Kaia, Bo knew what he was facing—George would be a formidable opponent in his nonhuman form.
“Try not to frighten him,” Kaia said, thinking back to that time when she’d so badly startled George. “He reacts like a child might—morphing into the form in which he feels most powerful.” It made her wonder what scars he bore, what had frozen him in childhood as far as his control was concerned.
“Even though he’s on land, not in water?”
Kaia’s eye caught on the pulsing vein in Bowen’s temple, and her lungs emptied of air. It was beginning, the ultimate countdown. If they didn’t get him the third injection in less than sixteen and a half hours, his chance at a full lifetime could end in this snowy forested landscape so very far from the canals of Venice and the place he called home.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Kaia took a hard mental step back to the now. Not the future that hadn’t happened and wouldn’t happen. If Bowen was to leave her, it would be to the surface and to decades of life. That was the only future she’d accept.
“Kaia?”
She flicked open her eyes, thought back to the question he’d asked. “I don’t think it’s a conscious choice with George. He shifts in reaction, like a hermit crab retreats into its shell.” For George, his other self was the shell, the safe place.
“Got it.” Bowen turned the wheel to follow the curve of the road. “For your people to be hunted, especially the ones who swim in remote parts of the world, someone had to have given the hunters their coordinates.”
The thought was a crushing weight on her lungs, as heavy now as the first time she’d realized the inescapable truth. “George wouldn’t do that.” Kaia folded her arms. “Yes, he’s stolen things, but to set up our people for murder? That would be an act of evil.” Of a person devoid of conscience and empathy. “He doesn’t like mice, but the one time Hex ended up in his quarters, he carried him back to me cupped gently in one hand.”
“People aren’t always simple, Kaia.” Bowen’s voice was quiet. “A man who hesitates to harm animals could well believe they are innocents but sentient creatures aren’t.” He blew out a breath. “George knew I’d die in a matter of weeks without the third injection.”
It was true. The injection couldn’t be given later. It had to be given by the quickly looming deadline. And God, she couldn’t think about that.
“Whatever happens, I’ll make sure George has a chance to explain why he did what he did.” Taking her hand, Bowen pressed a soft, tender kiss to her palm before placing her hand on his thigh.
And they drove on through the snow-blanketed night.
Kaia began to feel her heartbeat quicken in an erratic pattern soon afterward, her gut churn. Taking an injector from the small bag at her feet, she injected herself in front of Bo. “After,” she reminded him when his jaw set in a brutally hard line.
“After.” A promise—and a demand.