Walking out into the atrium with his food and a mug of coffee, he nearly ran into a short and lithely muscular man with reddish blond hair. He’d been on edge ever since he left his room, expecting another reaction like that from the mustachioed man yesterday. But Hugo had apparently not shared his theories with all his clanmates because this one grinned at him.

“Good to see you up, dude.” It was the heavily gritty voice that told him the other male’s identity.

Bowen grinned back. “KJ. Thanks for not barging in while I was in the shower.”

“No tentacles, only two arms, not even worth it to look.” Laughter danced in his eyes. “Catch you later—I’m just grabbing my caffeine fix before I head over for my shift at the infirmary.”

“Wait.” Bowen angled his head as KJ went past. “The station has an infirmary?”

“Six hundred folks and guests—and a whole bunch of them full-time blackers who think racing sharks and diving with orca is a funtime activity.” KJ threw up his hands as he walked backward toward the coffee station. “Infirmary’s never empty is all I’m saying. I got job security for life.”

The words caused a pang of homesickness deep within Bowen. The Alliance’s head medic often muttered about his job security while patching up yet another injured soldier.

And it struck Bo out of nowhere that he might never see home again. That he’d go into oblivion without ever experiencing the glory of another Venetian sunset, or the quiet sound of water lapping at the building where he had an apartment. No more mornings listening to a busker outside his favorite bakery. No more runs through Venice’s narrow cobbled streets dodging wide-eyed tourists clustered about with their cameras.

Bowen Knight might end forever in the black that was full of wonder and beauty and danger . . . but that wasn’t his home.

The knot in his throat thick, he nonetheless forced himself to continue moving forward. He could not freeze. To do that would be to give up.

Scott’s grandmother was already seated at a small table beside the seaward wall and beckoned him with an imperious wave of her hand. Bowen’s heart hurt too fucking badly to want to make conversation, but the ruthlessly pragmatic part of his nature saw in the older woman a possible source of information on Kaia. “Name’s Bowen,” he said after putting his plate and mug on the table.

“Carlotta,” she replied as he took the chair across from her. “Scott’s grandmother and best friend to Kaia’s grandmother on her father’s side.” She forked up a bite of quiche before continuing. “So, you’re the experimental subject Atalina’s brought down from the surface.”

“That’s me.” Bowen ate a bite of peanut butter toast, his mind filling once more with images of Kaia provoking him, then giving him cookies. It eased the knot, softened the piercing sense of loss that speared through him. If this was to be the last place he saw before he ended, at least it had her in it.

“You should be proud,” Carlotta said. “Atalina wouldn’t accept just any subject.”

The skin on the back of his neck prickled, the tiny hairs there rising. Even as he turned, he knew what he’d see: Kaia walking toward them.

His mechanical heart kicked. Hard.

She wore a sleeveless dress that flirted around her ankles and hugged her curves each time the fabric settled against her before moving again. The color was stoplight red and the top part a halter cinched below her breasts by a wide band of fabric and tied at the back of her neck.

Her hair, she’d brushed into a sheet of gleaming dark filled with myriad shades from black to brown to strands of copper. It went all the way to the flaring curve of her rear.

A wolf whistle pierced the air.

Bo didn’t realize he was the one who’d done it until Kaia gave him a narrow-eyed look that could strip paint off a wall. Around him, a number of others whooped and clapped. Carlotta, however, was staring at him with a distinctly assessing expression on her face. “She’s the best cook across five oceans.” It was a mild rebuke. “I hope you enjoy gruel.”

Sauntering over, Kaia leaned down to kiss the older woman on the cheek. “Good morning, Carlotta.” The bloom tucked over her right ear was a creamy white and wafted an intoxicating wave of scent. “Would you like a piece of blackberry pie? I made it this morning.”

“Blackberry pie?” Homesickness crashed over him again in a breaking wave. “My mom makes blackberry pie every summer.” He tried to get back to his parents’ farm at least once each summer, often ended up with scratched arms and juice-stained lips from his hunt for the lush, juicy berries that grew wild around their home.

* * *

• • •

KAIA was caught by the haunting poignancy of Bowen’s voice, the sense of loss in the air so heavy that it made her want to rub the heel of her palm over her heart. “Don’t expect to get a piece,” she said, but it came out husky.

His lips curved at the edges, the hard-eyed security chief returning with a vengeance. “What if I say ‘please’?”

Snorting, she fought the violent urge to go to him, touch him, give him the comfort of clan.

He’s not clan, he’s the enemy, cried the echo of Hugo’s voice.

“You know I’d never turn down a piece of your pie.” Carlotta’s voice entered the moment without breaking it, as if Kaia and Bowen existed out of time.

Turning on her heel before she could surrender to the urge to touch him, Kaia sauntered into the kitchen as if she had not a care in the world. As if she hadn’t spent the night tossing and turning, tormented alternately by dreams of tender caresses and kisses full of primal need, and the chilling screams of their vanished.

She still didn’t have an answer to the question of whether Bowen Knight was the enemy, but what she did know was that there was more to him than the ruthless leader of the Alliance. “Thank you for holding the fort,” she said to Naz, who often took a shift so she could have time off.

Today, her clanmate—an experienced cook who now made his living as a mystery novelist but who continued to love food and the kitchen—had taken the midmorning-to-midafternoon shift.

“Any problems?”

“Aside from Scott’s bottomless pit of a stomach? No, we’re humming. Shoo, enjoy your break.”

“I’m just grabbing some pie.” She sliced out Carlotta’s piece. After placing it on the plate, she picked up a bottle of raspberry syrup and did a bit of decoration on a second plate before heading back out.

“Here you go.” She put a huge slice in front of Carlotta, then put Bowen’s empty plate in front of him.

He took one look at the message she’d written on the plate and threw back his head, laughing so hard that several clanmates rushed over to see what was happening. They snickered at reading: Wolf whistle the cook = no pie for you.

And somehow in the melee, Kaia ended up beside him with her hand on the back of his chair. Her fingers brushed through the silken thickness of his hair to touch his skin. He went motionless . . . then leaned deeper into the contact.

Chapter 23

We cannot forget joy. No matter how deep our rage and pain.

—Miane Levèque to BlackSea

“WHAT IF I beg?” Bowen looked up at her, the piercing sadness she’d felt erased by a youthful playfulness that spoke to the heart of her nature.

His whistle had done the same—wolf-whistling might not be the acceptable thing in human culture, but Kaia didn’t only have a human side; her other self loved whistles and loved that Bowen was good at them.

Playmate, it thought again.

“Your fate is in Carlotta’s hands,” she said, never stopping her covert touch. “If she wants to share, that’s up to her.”

“Hmm.” Carlotta’s censorious tone had them both looking at her. “I don’t hold with wolf-whistling.”

“Coma-brain,” Bowen said. “I should get to use that as a free pass at least once a day.”

“Not even my grandchildren have managed to come up with that particular excuse, so I suppose you deserve some pie for the outlandishness of it alone.” Carlotta picked up a knife she hadn’t used for her lunch and neatly cut the large slice in two.

As the other woman put one slice on Bowen’s plate, Kaia made herself break skin contact before she fell into a sensory coma of her own. Because while she’d stroked him in an effort to ease his hurts, give him the comfort of clan in a place where he was far from his own clan, the touch threatened to turn her into an addict.

The sudden disconnection caused a stutter inside her, and she saw Bowen’s shoulders tighten, but he said nothing, just forked up a bite of his pie. Instead of walking away as she’d intended, Kaia hesitated long enough that she saw his eyes close as a deep groan formed in his chest.

Her toes curled.

* * *

• • •

BO opened his eyes to see Kaia walking away, a luscious woman in scarlet who could cook like a goddess. “No more wolf-whistling,” he said firmly. “This pie . . .” He forked up another bite even as he continued to watch Kaia.

“She has a flair.” Carlotta ate a bite of her own pie. “And you can’t take your eyes off her.”

Bo didn’t look away from the gifted, frustrating, tender mystery of Kaia. She’d stopped at another table and was chatting with a clanmate. “Do you blame me?”

Carlotta’s smile was thin. “No, but has anyone told you about Hugo?”

Instincts sharpening, Bowen snapped his attention to the older woman. “I know he’s her friend.”

“They’ve been two peas in a pod since babyhood. It’s generally believed they’ll end up mates.”

Bowen leaned back deliberately in his chair, his shoulders relaxed. “I don’t think Kaia’s the kind of woman who’ll do the expected.”

Taking a sip of her coffee, Carlotta continued to watch him. “No, and it’s interesting you know that.”