A few hours, he thought grimly, could alter everything.

In front of him, Malachai was still going over the data on the organizer George had provided. Dr. Kahananui’s assistant appeared to have been clinically precise, to the extent of recording minute details of every conversation he’d had with his contact.

“Can’t say George wasn’t thorough”—Malachai’s gaze went to where the man sat with Kaia and Ivy—“but his contact only made that single slip.”

It didn’t surprise Bo that Malachai made no effort to hide the data from Vasic. The Arrows were at the forefront of the fight against the Consortium, and Vasic Zen was their rumored second-in-command.

“We’ll run the data through our systems,” Vasic said in the cool voice of a man who’d come of age in Silence. “It’s possible the computers may pick up a hidden clue.”

“We can do the same,” Bo said, half his attention on Kaia and her emotional state.

“I’m most interested in the identity of the traitor selling out our people.” Malachai’s fury was a darkening storm.

That was when Miane Levèque pulled herself out of the water not far from them. Black hair sleek against her skull, she wasn’t naked, as Bo had half expected. Changelings came out of the shift in their skin. But Miane wore a sleeveless black wetsuit that went from neck to ankles.

Bypassing them, she went straight to where Kaia and Ivy sat with George.

Fear flickered across the man’s face, but he made no attempt to escape his alpha’s anger. Miane hunkered down in front of him and began to speak, her voice too quiet to reach Bo. Swallowing hard, George just listened. Miane spoke for several more minutes before gripping George’s face between her hands.

Eye to eye, she leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips.

George was crying when she left him, but it seemed a catharsis rather than a result of shame or fear. When Ivy reached out her hand, he took it, his other hand locked with Kaia’s.

“Gentlemen.” Miane stopped beside Bowen, her eyes a shade of hazel that appeared green in this light. “Thank you for bringing back one of mine.” That was directed at Bowen. “And thank you, Vasic, for bringing your mate into the heart of our territory.”

The words were calm, controlled . . . and her anger a cold burn against Bowen’s skin. She reminded him very strongly of Hawke. Both alphas who could be perfectly polite and civilized—and who’d tear out your throat if they considered you a threat.

“Mal told me you were able to save the clanmate who was attacked,” Bo said.

“Unfortunately, he may choose death when he rises to consciousness and realizes we couldn’t retrieve his mate.” Miane’s eyes went an eerie obsidian that was somehow less “human” than the midnight of Kaia’s other self. “We’ll take care of things from here.”

Bo hadn’t been expecting any other response; this was Miane’s kingdom and her people who’d been hurt. He’d have made the same call. “If you’ll excuse me. I have to speak to Kaia.”

Miane and Malachai exchanged a look before Miane said, “Walk with me.” It held the command of an alpha.

Certain enough in his own skin and his own power not to bristle, Bo went without argument. Miane shot him a narrow-eyed glance. “Never follow another alpha’s orders.”

“I will if it’s in my own best interest,” Bo said in a tone as unbending.

Pausing on the edge of the deck, Miane stared at him before a small smile lit her inhuman eyes. “Interesting. Humans have an advantage there. No changeling alpha would ever do the same, even if it was in his best interest.”

“That’s why it took a human to end the Territorial Wars.”

“Your ancestor.”

Of course Miane would know; she wasn’t alpha because of brute strength alone. Like most changeling alphas Bowen had met, she had a razor-sharp mind. “Yes.”

“I’d do well to remember that.” Turning to face the ocean, she nodded. “This is Kaia’s home and where she’s at peace. Attempt to take her from it and you may permanently break her.”

Bowen knew Miane was doing only what came naturally to any alpha—protecting her own. If only she knew that Bo would cut off his arm if it would save Kaia from hurt. “The decision will be hers.” He shoved his hair back from his forehead, watched a wave come in to crash against the edge of the deck. “But first, we have to run another gauntlet.”

Miane’s eyes were a strange in-between shade when she turned to face him. She held out a hand. “Good luck, Bowen Knight. You are far more intriguing a man than I first understood.”

He shook the sleek strength of her hand, but his attention was on another woman getting closer, the scent of her whispering to him on the breeze. “And you, Miane Levèque, are a far more lethal predator than the world realizes.”

Her laugh was dangerous but the arms she opened to Kaia affectionate. “The shell is waiting,” she said to Kaia. “Go, fight this battle. Surrender is not for the likes of us, Kaia Luna.”

* * *

• • •

MALACHAI was already in the water when Bo and Kaia got into the windowless shell and sealed it behind them. Bo had spotted the “straps” with which Malachai would pull them, but there was no sign of what Mal might become when he shed his human skin.

The shell began to move through the water.

“Fuck.” The ride was smooth, the speed insane.

“I used to hold on to him as a child and go racing through the sea.” Kaia’s smile faded as their eyes met. “You know.”

Tugging her into his lap, Bo gloried in the warm weight of her, his siren with her marshmallow heart. “You find it so horrifically painful to be on land that you have to medicate yourself to get through it.”

“It’s a child’s fear,” Kaia said starkly. “Yet it feels like a clawed grip around my lungs. Squeezing and squeezing until I can’t breathe and my face is all hot and my gut churns.”

Bo hated the idea of her in such anguish. “Have you spoken to anyone about it?”

“The clan and my family tried when I was younger, but I refused to cooperate.” She kneaded his shoulder in a restless movement. “I was so angry. I didn’t want to go to land and I didn’t understand why they couldn’t accept I was quite content to stay in the blue near Lantia.”

Bowen could see her, a furious little girl with a spine of steel and the grit to withstand the desires of the adults around her. “Are you still angry?” It came out husky, his heart right there for her to see.

A single tear rolled down her face. “Oh, Bowen.” Pressing her cheek to his stubbled jaw, she whispered, “It’s too late. The fear is rooted in my soul.”

Wet against his skin. “Six months after my parents’ deaths, I agreed to at least swim in the wider ocean. I went out with my aunt and uncle and an hour into the swim, I swam ahead a little and into an illegal net cast by poachers—I panicked and shifted and nearly drowned. It didn’t matter that my aunt and uncle got me out in under a minute, I never wanted to swim wide again. I just wanted to be safe in the heart of BlackSea.”

Bo’s own soul raged, wanting to reach out and capture her, this luminous creature who had never been meant to be his and yet was. He might be human, but he’d been around enough changelings to understand the primal tug of the mating bond. It was a gift. One he couldn’t accept when his future was a black unknown and when taking Kaia from Ryūjin would be to destroy her.

But he had to tell her, had to do what he could to make sure the future wouldn’t further scar her. “I love you, Kaia Luna.” Never had he spoken those three words to a lover. “With all of the man I am, the good and the bad, the mistakes and the glories. I love you to the depths of my being, and if tomorrow I don’t wake as me—”

She pressed her fingers against his lips. “Don’t.” A shaken word, a fresh wave of tears streaking down her cheeks.

Kissing those fingers, he tugged them gently away. “No matter what tomorrow brings,” he said, “know that I, Bowen Adrian Knight, belong to you for however long I exist as myself.” It was his turn to press his fingers to her lips when she parted them to speak. “If the worst happens, please don’t feel obligated to me. Even if a glimmer of my mind remains, knowing I’m a burden to you will torture me for eternity.”

“You could never be a burden!” Scalding heat in her voice.

“Promise me.” He grabbed her hand, pressed it to his cutting-edge mechanical heart that would keep going long after he fell. “If it goes wrong, you’ll walk away. Promise me.”

“How can you ask that?” She shoved at his shoulders with angry hands. “You’re my mate!”

Bo shuddered under the emotional blow. “I know.” He’d found the one person who sang to his heart and he’d found her at the worst possible moment in his life. “And your mate asks this one promise from you. Don’t live your life loving a shell—I won’t be in there, Kaia. I’ll be dead. Mourn me, but please don’t bury yourself with me. Promise.”

A mutinous look. “I’ll decide tomorrow, after you wake.”

“No.” He shook her with furious gentleness. “We decide now, when we’re both whole.” Kissing her hard, devouring her, he broke away on a gasp of air—and admitted his deepest horror. “I can’t go into this knowing I might be consigning you to a living death.”

“Mates are forever, Bowen! Forever!” Her face set in dangerous lines. “You’d never walk away from me if our positions were reversed.”

No, he wouldn’t, but that wasn’t the point and oh fuck! Bowen’s instincts blared a screaming warning. “Don’t you dare!” he yelled. “Kaia, don’t you fucking—”

But it was too late. She dropped her defenses and the primal fury of the mating bond did the rest, whiplashing into his own wide-open heart. Because, as a changeling had once told him, when a man and a woman mated, it was the woman of the pair who made the final choice—and Kaia Luna had chosen Bowen Knight.