Staring out at the night that cloaked Venice, Bo thought of that angry little girl and he thought of all the things Kaia had told him the nights they’d spent together on Ryūjin. All the stories she’d shared about that heartbroken girl’s journey back to the world.

And his tactically minded brain saw a way to reach his mate through her grief.

Chapter 67

Chess is a game of patience and strategy.

—Jerard Knight to Bowen Knight (8)

KAIA STEPPED ONTO the deck of Lantia with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. It was the worst anxiety she’d ever felt, a nauseating, twisting sensation that she’d made the most horrific mistake of her life. But the realization hit up hard against a wall of cold that separated her from the world. She saw it, knew it existed, but nothing could reach her.

“Bebe?” she said, spotting her beloved many-times-great-grandmother not far from where Malachai had docked the boat they’d taken from the island. “What are you doing here?” Bebe rarely visited the city, preferring to spend time on Ryūjin, or on her island.

“I’ve come to take you to my island,” Bebe said, as if that was perfectly self-explanatory.

And it was.

Not waiting, Kaia stripped off her clothes right there on the deck and dived in, shifting form as she hit the water. It took Bebe longer, but Kaia swam near Lantia until Bebe slipped in quietly beside her. Her island wasn’t so far—close enough for even an elderly changeling to make it without undue stress.

Once they reached it, Kaia shifted, found the blanket she’d stashed under some rocks, wrapped it around herself, and tucked her body against Bebe’s shell. She didn’t know how long she slept, but she had terrible shivers at some point as the medication wore off. Still, they passed, and when she next opened her eyes, the sun was rising on the ocean.

They went swimming again and her other self fed because Bebe made it clear she was to feed. It didn’t taste like anything. Back on the island in their human forms, the sun’s rays warm on their skin, Kaia clasped her arms around her knees and thought she should cry, but the tears wouldn’t come, her eyes as gritty as the sand on which she sat.

She clung to the bond inside her, afraid she’d float away without it. “Why did I leave him?” It seemed a madness now, when she needed him so desperately.

“Because you carry your fear like a third soul.” Bebe’s tone wasn’t harsh, just pragmatic. “Now it’s stolen your mate from you.”

Kaia snapped her head toward her grandmother who was so old she was an ancestor. “He’s still here.” She slapped her palm over her heart. “He’s still mine.”

Shrugging, Bebe said, “Who’s holding him while he hurts? Not you.”

Kaia thought of how strong Bowen was, how much weight he carried on his shoulders—and how she’d silently vowed to show him joy, to be the person with whom he could be young and carefree and playful. “I told him I saw land in him.” Horrified, she dug her fingers into the sand. “I didn’t mean that! It wasn’t me saying that!”

“No.” Bebe bit into a hard fruit that grew on a tree on her island.

“Hugo died, Bebe.” She couldn’t deal with the rest of it, could only handle one pain at a time. “Hugo died.”

“I know, child.” A wrinkled arm around her shoulders. “And you’d already been so brave while your mate underwent Atalina’s experiment. You walked with him even knowing he might not make it through, only to be reminded that he could die at any instant. Just like Hugo.”

Agitation inside her skin, fear stealing her breath. “It took all my courage to be with Bowen while he was undergoing the experiment. I haven’t got anything left.”

“Will you give him up, then? Repudiate your mate?”

Jerking away to end up on her knees, Kaia stared at her grandmother. “He’s mine.” It came out furious, cracks shattering the cold that isolated her from the world. “He’s mine!”

Bebe bit into the fruit again, as if she hadn’t brought up a subject anathema to Kaia. Chewing with relish, she swallowed before saying, “Why isn’t he here with you, then? A true mate would be here with you.”

“I told him not to come!” Kaia was outraged Bebe would blame Bowen for this. “It was my choice.”

“What kind of man accepts that?” Another bite. “Probably because he’s human. Repudiate him,” she said, like that was a thing that happened every day instead of being so rare it was more fable than reality. “Find a new mate.”

“NO!” Kaia had never yelled at her grandmother in that tone of voice. “I will not!” Deep inside her, the mating bond warped, then settled again. What was that? Was it Bowen’s pain? Was her mate hurting because she’d abandoned him? “Don’t you dare blame him for my choices!”

“I’ll do what I please.” Bebe finished off the fruit and threw the core into the small bushes on the shoreline. “Anyway, the security chief of the humans isn’t a good match for you. All these people out to kill him.”

Kaia’s breaths hurt, her abdomen rigid. “He’s strong and he’s smart. He’s not easy prey.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure! He survived a gunshot that destroyed his heart, came back from the dead, and had three injections in his brain using an experimental compound! Bowen is tough.” And as she spoke the words, the scared child inside her realized their truth.

Bowen wasn’t Hugo, a gambler and a charmer who’d fallen prey to professional predators.

Bowen wasn’t her mother, a physician who never had a care for herself.

Bowen wasn’t her father, an artist who saw beauty in the world but ignored the darkness.

Bowen saw the dark, Bowen saw the evil, and Bowen was a predator, too. One who chose to walk on the side of good, but who’d strike out against the dark if threatened. Bowen would fight like a berserker to his dying breath.

“I still think you should repudiate him.” Bebe’s expression was intransigent. “Let him find a nice biddable human woman. Then you can stay in the blue and he can stay on land.”

So enraged she could barely think, Kaia splashed past the foam-white breakers hitting the sand. “No, no, no! He’s mine!” And she was going to make sure he knew it.

She dived into the water.

* * *

• • •

SIGHING, Bebe creaked up to her feet. Maybe she should let the healer do the knee surgery he kept going on about. Impudent young man that he was, he’d told her he’d have her dancing in no time.

“Hmph.” Finding the rock she wanted, she sat down on the sand again and pushed at the rock until she revealed the thick metal container hidden beneath.

It was Edison who’d given the container to her.

She kept snacks in there for when she didn’t feel like swimming or doing anything. She was old and she’d outlived too many of her descendants. She hadn’t planned to outlive her mate, too, but two days after his death, a heartbroken little girl had curled up next to her shell and then how could Bebe give in to her own terrible heartbreak?

She was allowed to be lazy and to eat chocolate bars five days in a row if she wanted.

Digging through the chocolate bars that the special container kept hard even when it was hot—she didn’t know how and she didn’t care, just that it worked—she closed her hand around a sleek black device.

The phone was cutting-edge, given to her by another one of her grandchildren. There were too many greats to fuss about at this point. It wasn’t like she wanted to be reminded that she was positively ancient. Armand kept worrying she’d hurt herself on the island and no one would know. What worrywarts her descendants were!

Inputting the call code by memory because her brain worked just fine, thank you very much, she wasn’t surprised when the call was picked up on the first ring. “Young man, do you play chess?”

Bowen Knight’s voice had a crack in it when it came on the line. “It’s been a year or two since I last had time for a match.”

“I’ll set up a game on my end and you do it on yours.” Kaia’s human had a strategic brain that intrigued her. “Did you let her go because she asked, or because you think three steps ahead?”

“I wasn’t thinking much . . . for the first few minutes.” His voice was no longer uneven. “Then I remembered that Kaia is possessive of her people and that she’ll talk to you even when she shuts down with everyone else. She told me about your island and how she used to sleep curled up next to your shell.”

Bebe chuckled. “It will be a good game, I think.” She went to hang up, because men as beautifully devious as Bowen Knight shouldn’t always be rewarded for their stratagems, but then she remembered her own beautifully devious mate and how soft his heart had been when it came to her. “It worked as you said it would.”

Then she hung up.

A man should wait a little for his woman. Even if he had reached out across oceans to claim her.

Bebe smiled. “I like you, Bowen Knight.” He saw her Kaia in a way others never had, not even her cousins who’d become brothers and a big sister; he saw her fears and he saw her flaws—but most of all, he saw her incredible heart.

Kaia Luna never let go of those who were her own.

Bebe included.

“I’m going to smack that boy’s fin in a minute,” Bebe muttered bad-temperedly when she spied a familiar form in the water. “Now not only do I have to deal with worrywart grandchildren, I have to stay alive long enough to win a chess match against Bowen Knight.” And to make sure Kaia had another pair of arms she trusted to hold her when her world fractured.

Because sooner or later, death came for them all. If you were lucky, as Bebe had been lucky, it was after decades and decades and decades of love and joy and children and grandchildren and even worrywart who-knew-how-many-greats grandchildren. Her mate had seen Kaia born, had held her in his wrinkled hands and kissed her on her plump little cheeks.