Chapter 71

Miane Levèque is beautiful the same way a shark is beautiful. Sharp, clean lines and lethal strength—but with a vicious bite. Do not underestimate her.

—Consortium briefing on the major changeling alphas

“I JUST GOT paid!” It was the crewman with the smashed face, his words thick but understandable. “Easy money, he said!” Indicating the captain. “Just had to help him snatch a dolphin for a black market collector. I didn’t know she was a person until she shifted in the net!”

“Then why did you have a knife to cut her face?” Bowen’s finger began to press down on the trigger.

“Bo.” Miane’s voice, a soft reminder of what was at stake, not an order.

Alpha to alpha.

Grinding his teeth, he nodded to tell her he was back in control.

Miane said, “Throw him in the blue.”

Screaming, the male tried to fight but it was no use. Malachai and Bo threw the fucker overboard and Bo kept him in the icy water at the point of his gun.

“And you?” Miane gave the other crewman the full impact of eyes gone eerily other. “Would you like to lie to me, too?”

A sudden wetness in his pants, the acrid scent of ammonia rising into the air.

“Seawater,” Malachai said shortly and was soon passed a dripping metal bucket.

The BlackSea security chief doused the crewman.

Whimpering, the crewman hugged his arms around himself. “He’s my uncle.” A glance at the captain. “Said he had a big contract, needed crew.”

“You knew you were taking a changeling.”

The captain’s nephew threw up at Miane’s quiet words. Malachai washed that off, too, but it was obvious the spineless male who’d been willing to stand by while another man brutalized an unarmed woman was too fucking terrified to speak now that he was faced by predators with far sharper teeth. Miane turned her attention back to the captain with the bloody cut lip and missing tooth. She smiled at him and it was a smile that was of the black, of sinuous, cold-blooded things.

“Fuck it,” the captain said, a tremor in his voice. “I wasn’t paid enough for this.” He began to tell them everything he knew, while the crewman in the water started to turn blue.

In short, the captain admitted he was known for being open to gray-market or black-market jobs. He’d carried illegal drugs, smuggled exotic animals, indulged in other criminal behavior. When he was suddenly offered a significant five-figure sum for work that didn’t even take him out of his preset path to another job, he’d jumped at the chance.

“I was already in the area—I got sent a general location and told specifics about exactly which dolphin I needed to snatch,” he continued. “Larger than an ordinary wild dolphin, tiny notch in the top part of her fin, swimming without a pod in a specific direction. Man I spoke to said they’d spotted her heading my way.”

The captain used the back of his arm to wipe the sea spray off his face, smearing blood from his lip across his cheek. “If we got her, we got the whole payment. If we didn’t, we still got ten grand. Not a bad deal.”

“Did they tell you to cut her face?”

Blood draining to leave his skin the color of old parchment, the captain nodded. “I decided it was fucked up enough with the bruise and the marks from the net.” His eyes jittered to the man in the water. “I use him as crew but he’s a twisted fuck. Volunteered to cut when I hesitated over that part of the deal.”

So much for honor between thieves.

Smile cold, Bowen shot into the water, causing the “twisted” fucker to scramble back, farther into the unforgiving blue.

“Who was your contact?” Miane asked the cringing captain.

“His name’s Gianco. Guy’s the go-between for a ton of stuff at the docks.” He was happy to provide them with Gianco’s contact details, as well as more information on how to track the man down. “He’s gotten me good lines on work before so I knew the deal was legit.”

Bo shifted to press his gun to the back of the captain’s head, while Malachai kept an eye on the crewman in the saltwater that had to be hell on his bashed-in face. “You’ve done this before,” Bo said. “You’ve taken others.”

The man froze.

Miane smiled. “He’s not going to blow out your brains,” she said gently. “You took his mate. He wants to torture you by flaying off your skin inch by square inch until you beg for death. Make it easier on yourself and tell us everything.”

“Just one other time.” The captain swallowed convulsively. “Gianco supplied the crew that time and those guys were vicious—they cut up the changeling’s face with razors like they were carving meat.” Sweat broke out along his forehead. “I dropped them off with Gianco and I don’t know what happened after that.”

“What did the changeling look like straight out of the water?”

When the captain described the male, every member of BlackSea on deck went motionless. They’d recognized a clanmate—and each and every one wanted to do the same kind of violence as Bowen.

Miane’s face was expressionless when she said, “Describe the crew Gianco provided.”

Giving her a sickly smile, the man said, “I always get a photograph using my hidden camera. Just in case anyone tries to stiff me.” He reached very slowly into his pocket to draw out a small phone. “It’s on here.”

“This bastard’s gonna drown,” Malachai drawled. “Bo?”

Turning to see the crewman in the water struggling to keep his head afloat, Bo took his time making the call. “Bring him in. I’m not done with him.”

Mal nodded at one of his people to throw out a net. They used it to haul the blue-lipped and nearly unconscious male to the deck, where he was left inside the net to shudder in front of his fellow assholes.

“Was that previous crew human, too?”

The captain jerked his gaze from the crewman back to Miane. “No, Psy.”

“And Gianco?”

“Changeling. A fish, like you all.”

Miane examined the captain’s sweating face. “How do you know?”

“I followed him once, the first time he came to me with a job. Smuggling that time. Saw him dive into the ocean, then saw a big-ass fish swim out. Never saw Gianco come back up.” He swallowed again. “And his eyes . . . they did that black thing a couple of times when he was pissed.”

Miane’s obsidian eyes stayed unblinking on the captain’s face. “Do you have a photo of Gianco on this phone?”

“No, he never got on my boat. Couldn’t use my secret camera—but I can describe him.”

A painful wave of shock and betrayal rippled through the deck when that description matched KJ to a fine point. Right down to his gritty voice and habit of chewing peppermint gum. “At what time did Gianco contact you for this job?”

“Only about two hours before we took her onboard. Like I said, we just lucked out by being nearby. Our other job was legit so I filed a route with the authorities and all.”

That answered the question of whether KJ had survived his dive into the ocean.

“What else do you know?” Miane asked with no indication of the rage that had to be coursing through her blood.

It turned out to not be much, though the captain did tell them the specific “docks” at which he usually dealt with Gianco—a predictably slippery character who went missing for long periods of time. No doubt it’d line up with KJ’s work schedule.

“Lock all three up,” Miane said flatly.

Only after Kaia’s captors had been dragged away with zero care for their injuries did Bo speak again. “KJ.”

“He’s mine.” Miane’s voice was like stone. “No one else is to approach.”

As Heenali was Bo’s to handle. “If you want me to blast his face across the human network, say the word.”

Miane didn’t answer with either a yes or a no and he didn’t assume that was an answer in itself. It paid to assume nothing with the First of BlackSea.

Malachai’s eyes went to the boat bobbing beside the city. “I’ll go through the vessel, see if we can find anything useful.”

Logic wove a cold line through Bowen’s fury. “You should unhook it from the city.”

When both Miane and Malachai looked at him, he said, “This deal might’ve been made while the vessel was already at sea, but the captain worked previously for KJ. If I were KJ, I’d have put a tracker on it somewhere, along with an explosive that could be detonated remotely. As soon as KJ checks the tracker, he’ll realize the boat is nowhere near its intended location.”

“Fuck, he’s right.” Malachai was already running to undo the rope.

He and a number of other BlackSea changelings jumped into the water and literally pushed the boat out to a safe distance before anchoring it again. Waiting only until he could see that the city was no longer in danger, Bo gave in to the driving need inside him. “Is Kaia still in the infirmary?”

Miane didn’t immediately give him an answer. “How did you get Krychek’s cooperation?”

“That’s between me and him.” He held her gaze, alpha to alpha. “All you need to know is that BlackSea owes him nothing.”

Miane inclined her head a fraction. “Kaia is with the healers—and irately demanding to come to you.”

A massive boom split the horizon, the sky colored yellow and orange and red and the sea reflecting the same. Flaming debris rained down from above, but all the changelings in the water had dived at the instant of the explosion, and reappeared well beyond the danger. The boat was gone, with it any physical evidence.

“We have a starting place to track KJ,” Miane murmured. “We also have the photos on the captain’s phone. It is enough to begin a hunt.”

That hunt would end in blood.

Good.