Though her stomach wasn’t exactly settled, Kaia took a deep breath and accepted the offer.

“This have anything to do with the Consortium?” Mercy asked once they were away. “Or is it just a clanmate gone AWOL?”

“We’re not sure yet,” Bowen said. “I heard you had triplets. Congratulations.”

Kaia momentarily forgot her nausea. She couldn’t imagine this sleek and deadly woman having given birth—it was like trying to imagine Miane doing the same. “Do you have photos?” she asked, and when Mercy shot her a cat-curious look, felt compelled to explain. “I have triplet cousins. They once booby-trapped my room with extremely realistic rubber spiders.”

Laughing with a deep warmth that made Kaia certain she could come to like this lethal woman very much, Mercy slid out her phone and passed it over. On the home screen was a shot of three naked babies against the wide chest of a heavily muscled brown-eyed man. His smile made it obvious he was hopelessly besotted with both the photographer and their babies.

Kaia sighed, her anxiety not proof against such gorgeous sweetness. “Your mate is wonderful.”

“No argument.” Tapping her finger on the steering wheel after putting away her phone, Mercy began to go through George’s movements to date. “He’s not very good at being stealthy, but he mostly seems to be trying to avoid DarkRiver. One of our people got close enough to sniff out his pack and caught chemical scents she couldn’t identify, but she was able to confirm no trace of explosives.”

Though the DarkRiver sentinel kept her eyes on the road, her attention was a scythe against Kaia’s senses. “You two know anything about those scents? Your commander assured us this guy isn’t carrying a deadly pathogen or disease.”

“He isn’t,” Bowen confirmed before pausing. “Kaia?”

Realizing what he needed to know, she said, “Atalina’s been in touch with Ashaya Aleine. DarkRiver knows about the project.”

Mercy’s gaze connected with hers for a heartbeat, a powerful understanding in them. “Brain chip?”

And at that second, Kaia realized Mercy wasn’t as hardhearted toward Bowen as she appeared. “Yes.” That was all she could say before her throat dried up, the fear this time having nothing to do with being on land and everything to do with the clock that continued to count down in her head.

Nineteen hours.

“How long to get to George after you leave us?” Bowen asked from the back, his tone as pragmatic as always.

Bowen Adrian Knight would never surrender, Kaia thought. He’d never slide silently into the forever black. He’d fight to the end. And yet, in an effort to save those he loved, he’d agreed to be part of an experiment that wrenched control from him.

Clenching her hand against the side of her thigh, Kaia spoke to the gods she’d broken with the same day her parents’ bodies were consigned to the ocean that had been their home through all cycles of life: You do not take his life. You do not punish his courage and honor by consigning him to an existence where he’s a mindless ghost of himself. You don’t do that!

“I’ll get an update as we go”—Mercy’s voice, breaking into her furious thoughts—“but currently, he’s three hours from our present location.”

That wasn’t so bad. Until you factored in that Atalina was in the deep, far, far from here and she was the only one Kaia would trust to inject the compound into Bowen’s brain. Others might attempt to follow her notes, but only Attie knew exactly where to inject and how to do it. And no one would want Atalina putting her body through the strain of surfacing to Lantia, not with her due date so close.

Don’t panic, another part of her brain said, reminding her that Mal could pull down the submersible, increasing its speed to the level of madness. That was true, but they had no margin for error. A single lost hour could end Bowen’s life.

Kaia’s heart thumped double time. Her skin flushed. And her hands began to tremble, her anxiety about being on land colliding with her anxiety about Bowen to create a toxic stew that threatened to overwhelm her.

She’d slipped a preloaded injector into her pocket, knew she had to use it before she curled up and began to whimper like a trapped animal. Clearing her throat, she said, “Could we stop for a quick bathroom break?”

“Oh yeah, sure. I should have asked earlier.” Nothing in Mercy’s tone betrayed whether she’d picked up the scent of Kaia’s fear.

She must have, was simply being polite in the changeling way in not drawing attention to it.

Not long afterward, the sentinel pulled to a stop in front of a small café on the road out of the city. Backed up against tall green firs and painted pink and white, then decorated with strings of tiny white lights that glinted against the fading light, it looked like a fairy-tale cottage.

“Belongs to a packmate.” Mercy opened her door to the icily crisp air. “Restroom’s through the back.”

Avoiding Bowen’s incisive gaze, Kaia slipped inside the café. She knew she had to tell him, but every time she thought about it, she couldn’t make her mouth work; all she could think was that she should’ve gotten over this fear long ago. It was childish and stupid and oh God, it hurt.

A sob caught in her throat.

Her hands began to tremble.

She barely made it inside a private stall before shudders racked her body so hard that her bones rattled.

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.