“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.

Chapter 57

They’ve just crossed our border.

—Message from border sentry to the alpha of the SnowDancer wolves

IT WAS A bare five minutes later that the vehicle’s lights glanced off silvery eyes on the side of the road. “We’ve got wolves,” Bowen murmured, bringing the car to a halt.

A man appeared out of the falling snow. His hair was a stunning silver-gold, his eyes a strikingly pale blue. All Kaia could see of his body through the window were bare shoulders and a bare chest that gleamed with a slick of heat.

He looked like a wolf in human form.

She knew exactly who he was; a man that distinctive tended to be spoken of, especially among women—she was looking at the alpha of the SnowDancer wolves. And what she saw was that while he might be the stuff of female fantasies, his real-life presence was a crash of violent power. Her blood chilled at his presence, the tiny hairs rising on her arms.

His mate clearly had an iron constitution—and was maybe a little insane. No sane woman would consider this man anything but a deadly predator.

“Hawke.” Bowen nodded. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

“I like to keep an eye on what’s happening in my territory.” Icy blue eyes landed on Kaia as snow dusted his shoulders and caught on his hair. “You smell afraid,” he said softly.

Kaia’s entire body grew tight. “I’m fine.” Folding her arms, she told the lethal wolf alpha to “shut up” with her eyes, because the fear he’d scented wasn’t because of him—and she didn’t need Bowen reminded of her small madness.

Hawke’s lips tugged up in a slight smile—and even then, she was glad he was all the way on the other side of the vehicle. “Your clanmate’s taken shelter for the night with a family that lives down the drive you’ll see about a hundred meters along on your right.”

“Wolves?” Kaia couldn’t imagine George asking such dangerous predators for sanctuary. “He has an acute sense of smell.”

“Not wolves, but SnowDancers all the same,” said the wolf in human form. “Go get your boy.” He drew back into the falling snow. “We’ll stay far enough off that he doesn’t scent or spot us.”

Raising a hand in silent thanks, Bowen pulled away to continue on down the road.

Kaia saw a shower of light beyond the windows, caught the merest glimpse of a huge silver-gold wolf in the rearview mirror. Exhaling quietly, she said, “He is the scariest person I’ve ever met in my entire life.” She stared at Bowen’s jaw. “How can you just talk to him like he’s an ordinary person?”

“That’s how you deal with alpha predators.” He shot her an unexpected grin. “Never show fear. And Hawke’s not that bad if you don’t pull shit in his territory or against his people.”

“No,” she murmured, “you deal with him alpha to alpha.” Bowen didn’t wear his power in as primal a way as Hawke, but it was drenched into his bones. An alpha’s power grew with the trust of the people who gave him or her their loyalty—and Bowen had the loyalty of humans across the globe.