It was a party out there now, complete with dance music across the atrium’s system, and Junji and KJ having a dance-off while KJ’s wife egged him on. The mini soufflés disappeared at the speed of light, were replaced by bowls of tortilla chips and dip, along with thick sandwiches, and plates of chocolate cookies from Kaia’s emergency party stash.

“It’s always like this,” she murmured to Bowen while they danced and Armand flirted with a blushing Tansy, having backed her extremely willing friend up against the seaward wall. “Everywhere the five of them go, they attract people to them.”

Bowen, his arms around her, bent to press his forehead to her own. “I’m not like them.” His eyes were fathomless. “It takes me time.”

“I know.” Bowen was like water on rock, a slow, relentless, determined pressure. “I like your patience, Bowen Knight.” Such an understatement when she adored each and every part of him.

His honor.

His commitment to the Alliance.

His courage in walking into the unknown.

The way he’d never, not once, hesitated in looking into the terrible darkness that might exist in the heart of his own organization.

And most of all . . . the way he looked at her. As if she were a dream come to life.

Her stomach clenched. Only a moment, she reminded herself. Only the now.

* * *

• • •

KAIA wasn’t the least surprised when Edison found her an hour into the gathering and, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, gently walked her away from the crowd. Kaia was aware of Bowen watching them go, but he didn’t interfere.

She and her second oldest cousin walked in silence to the connecting bridge between habitat one and habitat five, then stood there looking out at the water. Schools of wild fish swam beyond, their bodies giving off a faint luminous glow. A bigger body would swim past every so often, usually a clanmate from Ryūjin.

They were drawn by the activity in the atrium and as soon as they spotted one of her cousins, nearly all headed for an entry pool. While Atalina was deeply respected and loved, her brothers were flat-out adored by clanmates as well as by Attie herself.

The boys even had the ability to make Malachai unbend.

Last time the five had taken their lone Rhys cousin for a night out at one of the bars on the closest inhabited island, all six had come back three sheets to the wind. Kaia had never before seen Malachai drunk, but that day, he’d scooped her up in his arms and swung her around in a zigzagging dance he’d insisted was a waltz.

Big as Mal was, she could do nothing but laugh and hang on until he got dizzy and decided “the waltz was fucking hard.”

“Kaia, you know what I’m going to say.” Edison’s body was warm next to her own, his arm a heavily protective weight around her shoulders.

She wrapped one of her own arms around his back. “I can take care of myself.” All her older cousins—Attie, Mal, Edison, and Armand—still saw her as the shattered, broken girl who’d come to them at seven years of age, but that had been a long time ago.

As an adult, Kaia had never wanted to live in a bubble.

Which, of course, was the irony of ironies. Because she did literally live in a bubble. But it was a bubble of her own choosing. A bubble she could leave at will. And oh, how well she lied even to herself. Big words didn’t prove the measure of a woman. It was what she did that proved that.

“I’m such a fake,” she whispered before Edison could respond. “Hiding down here and pretending I’m a big, tough, independent changeling.” None of her family would ever say that, would ever confront her with her cowardice, but no matter the justifications she sold herself, Kaia knew.

Edison squeezed her closer. “I wouldn’t mess with you.”

She snuggled into the comfort of him. He’d been fifteen the day her world ended, and he’d hugged her then, too. His scent was familiar and of family and she could let down her walls with him. “I heard Sera laid one on you.” It was easier to talk about that than the terrors that kept her swimming range limited to the areas around Ryūjin and Lantia. Never beyond the patrolled borders.

He blew out a breath. “Where has she been all my life?”

“Right under your nose.” It tickled both parts of her that one of her best friends might end up her sister-in-law. Because she’d never before heard that tone in Edison’s voice when he spoke about a woman.

It happened that way at times with changelings. Two people who’d known each other all their lives suddenly realizing they were never meant to be just friends. Kaia had always thought it was when both reached a point in their lives where they were ready for one another.

Sera was younger than Edison, couldn’t have handled his intensity even a couple of years ago. Now, however, her friend was well bedded into her role as assistant station commander and could go toe-to-toe with anyone. Including a certain Kahananui male.

“We’ll get back to my future mate,” he said in that quiet Edison way, “but first things first. Have you told him?”

She should’ve known better than to try to distract Edison. “I’ll tell him once the experiment is complete.” Not telling Bowen about the telepathy had truly been an oversight, but this was a conscious choice. “There’s no point bringing it up now.”

But she was talking to the cousin who, as a youth, had taught a fearless five-year-old Kaia to swim beyond the clan’s boundaries, the cousin who’d helped her jump fences so they could escape out into the great blue. He’d always watched over her when they played outside the fences, but she’d felt so free, so wild and dangerous even though they were only meters from the safe zone for the minnows of BlackSea.

Kaia felt a keening pang for that small girl who’d swum without fear. Who hadn’t understood the pain and death that awaited. That girl had lived.

“You have to tell him.” Edison cupped her face. “You have to give him the freedom to make that choice while he can make it.” She knew then that he’d spoken to Atalina about her experiment, understood that Bowen might not make it out of this whole. “I trust your instincts when it comes to people, so I know he must be a good man; he deserves the truth.”

“I don’t want him to see me as permanently damaged goods.”

Edison’s face tightened at her shaken whisper. “If he doesn’t see you for the gift that you are, then he doesn’t deserve you. Don’t sell yourself short, little sister.”

When Kaia didn’t answer, he said, “And what about you?” A kiss pressed to her forehead in that big-brother way of his that made her feel profoundly rooted. “You love so deeply, Kaia, that your heart breaks into a million pieces when you lose someone. How will you survive him if the experiment fails?”

Kaia laid her head against her cousin’s chest, allowed herself to be enveloped in the warm comfort of his arms. “I don’t know.” It came out a broken sound. “I don’t know if I will survive him.”

Bo wasn’t simply a lover.

He was Kaia’s.

And she was his.

Chapter 47

Life cuts us. A million bloody slices.

—Adina Mercant, poet (b. 1832, d. 1901)

BO TUGGED KAIA away from the atrium an hour later to steal a kiss . . . and to try to erase the faint sadness that had lingered in the back of her eyes since she’d returned from speaking with Edison. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

Huge brown eyes looked up at him. “I have a secret.” It was a bald statement. “It’s a bad one and I’m scared to tell you.”

He didn’t misread what she meant. “Nothing you say could ever change how I feel about you.”

Swallowing hard, his tough Kaia with the marshmallow heart said, “Give me a little more time?”

“Take all the time you need,” he whispered.

Her eyes shone wet for an instant but she blinked away the tears and they danced in their quiet, secret place as if time weren’t racing forward toward an unknown future.

Her cousins were gone by the time they got back to the atrium.

“Damn it.” Bo looked around, spotted a distinctly ruffled-looking Seraphina—her curls were a mess and she didn’t appear to have much lipstick left. “How long ago did they leave?”

The assistant station commander blinked. “A couple of minutes maybe.” Breathy voice, her hand pressed to her chest.

“Which exit pool?”

“Um”—Seraphina smiled dreamily—“I think he said three.”

Dropping Kaia’s hand, Bo began to run. “Back soon!” he yelled over his shoulder and, from the burst of laughter that washed over his senses, his siren knew exactly why he was running like a madman.

He was glad for his foolishness if it had made her forget the sadness.

His heart pounded, that mechanical piece of him keeping exact time as he dodged around the startled changelings in his path. And the coolly strategic part of him thought—this heart is better than my old one. It could last longer at higher rates of activity. It’d give him a physical advantage once he was back to full strength.

But it remained a heart. His heart. A human heart.

The mechanics didn’t change the blood that ran through it, or the mind of the man in whose body it was integrated.

Now it pumped with smooth efficiency as he pelted down the bridge to habitat two, the sea flashing by on either side. A large being swam alongside him for a while, its eye appearing intensely curious. Before Ryūjin, he’d have thought it impossible to read the gaze of a creature of the deep. Now he knew nosy fish who liked to poke about outside the window to his room and who he swore laughed when they startled him by appearing without warning. As for his current companion . . .

A fucking hammerhead shark! Who here was a shark? Or was it someone from the city above?

He ignored the extraneous thoughts as he crossed the bridge to habitat three and exploded into the habitat proper. Kaia and the Kahananui men were cousins, not siblings, but they all displayed a similar mischievous playfulness. Even Taji, the acknowledged grump of the group, had gleefully snuggled Seraphina, then informed Oleanna—with utmost solemnity—that he didn’t stir out of bed for anything less than ten tentacles.