“Have you asked Vasic?” Some teleporters could lock onto faces as well as physical locations.

“Yes. He’s being blocked the same way he was with the other vanished. They were deliberately scarred so their faces no longer matched available images.” A vein pulsed in his temple. “The survivors we’ve recovered say the bastards moved quickly to cut and brand them. Within minutes.”

Bowen realized at that moment that he was capable of cold-blooded and violent vengeance. “Go. Keep looking.” Ending the conversation on that order, he activated the same network he’d used when they’d been hunting George. But this time, he limited it to those who’d checked in as being on the water. That done, he went to power his way to land and to a plane . . . when he realized he had one other option.

It might not work, but it was worth a shot. If he used it, however, he could put the Alliance in debt to a man who’d use that advantage without compunction. So he’d have to think, be smart in what he gave up.

Picking up his phone, he input a code not many people had. “Krychek,” he said when the cardinal telekinetic answered. “I need a favor. Can you ’port to me? I’m not in my office.”

“I’m on my way.”

Kaleb Krychek appeared in front of Bo almost before he’d hung up the call. As always, the cardinal teleporter was wearing a black suit. But there was no tie today, his white shirt open at the collar. And his hair wasn’t as perfectly in place, the black strands tumbled.

“An unusual location.” Krychek looked out at the water lapping against the small but fast vessel, his balance so perfect you’d think he’d grown up on boats. That was the thing with teleporters—they had a preternatural physical grace.

“I’ll give you a human mind for the PsyNet,” Bowen said, his hands clenching on the control panel that was currently humming in wait for his next order; he’d stopped the boat in anticipation of the conversation with Krychek. “Mine.”

“It’s not that easy,” Krychek answered, the eerie white stars on black that was a cardinal’s gaze impossible to read. “The connection must be a true emotional bond to be of benefit to the PsyNet. Or the unscrupulous would’ve already forced humans into the network.”

“You have empaths.” He might not trust powerful Psy, but Bo wasn’t a monster; he worried about the millions of Psy who weren’t powerful and who’d die horrific deaths should the PsyNet fail. As a result, he’d been thinking about the implications of Krychek’s request since the day the other man made it—and today, driven by desperation, he’d seen something the Psy seemed to have missed. “I like empaths. Friendship with one won’t be difficult.”

“Friendship.” Kaleb’s midnight voice was musing. “Love works to create the right type of psychic bond, but friendship? No one has considered it.”

“Probably because Psy-human friendships are all but extinct.”

“Possible. It’s also possible I’ll be the loser in this bargain.”

Bowen held the other man’s inscrutable gaze. “I won’t sell out the Alliance.” If Kaia discovered he’d bargained humanity into bondage for her freedom, it’d destroy her. “But my mind is my own and I’m handing it to you. Any experiment you want to run, I won’t fight it.”

Krychek raised an eyebrow. “You have a shield.”

Bo had never thought he’d want to rip out the shield inside his head. “Break it,” he said flatly. “I know Psy can smash changeling shields with massive use of telepathic force.” It usually led to death or to severe brain injuries, but Krychek was clever enough to recover enough of Bowen’s mind to make it worth his while.

Kaia would hate him for the choice, but Bo wasn’t about to leave his mate in enemy hands. “And if none of that works, then I’ll owe you as many favors as you want. Me, not the Alliance, but I’ll owe them for a lifetime.” It’d be a millstone around his neck because he had no illusions about Krychek’s ruthless nature, but the price was one Bowen was more than willing to pay.

“A fair deal,” Krychek accepted. “As for the attempt at joining the PsyNet via a friendship bond, why would you agree to an action you find abhorrent? You’ve made it clear you don’t trust Psy to respect the sanctity of the human mind—should friendship be enough to form a bond, you’d be surrounded by millions of telepaths on the PsyNet.”

Bowen kept his roiling gut under vicious control. “You can teleport using a face as a lock, correct?”

“Yes.”

“I need you to find my mate.” Krychek was undoubtedly the most powerful teleport-capable telekinetic in the world; Bowen had to try this, had to know if Krychek could pick up “signals” that were invisible to Vasic.

“I need a clear image of your mate’s face.”

Taking out his phone, Bo showed Kaleb the picture of Kaia he’d snapped in the kitchen one day while she’d been laughing. “I have more.” He swiped through.

“No lock,” Krychek said almost at once. “You’re sure she’s alive?”

“Yes.” Bo thumped a fist against his heart. “She’s right here.”

Krychek might be a pitiless bastard, but he was also mated to another Psy. That was how every changeling Bowen knew described the cardinal’s relationship with Sahara Kyriakus. It felt like a mating bond to those who’d been close enough to the couple to get a sense of their emotional connection. So it didn’t surprise Bo when Krychek just nodded. “Is she wearing anything distinctive?”

“No.” Kaia had gone into the water naked, would’ve shifted out of it naked. “What else can you use?”

“Something that can lead only to her—or to a strictly limited number of people. Eye color won’t work. Neither will hair color or even a tattoo unless that tattoo is unique. Most scars won’t work unless it’s a collection. There can be no blurred ID lines for a lock.”

Krychek rode the rocking of a wave with ease. “When I try to find her this way,” he said, “I’m effectively treating her as a place—and to find a place, I need a detailed image of the location. The smaller the ‘location,’ the more specific the image has to be because there’s nothing around it to give it context or to differentiate it from another similar location.”

Kaia had no tattoos or other distinctive markings on her body, except—“What about a small toe that’s twisted inward and slightly overlaps the fourth toe?”

“Too general. Too many likely hits.”

“The toe also has a scar and is missing the nail. Kaia had small multicolored dots tattooed on it with ink that lasts through a shift and back.” Such a small thing that her abductors might’ve missed it; the colors on her “diva nail” blended in with the polish she liked to wear on her other nails.

“Yes,” Krychek said. “That’s probably unique enough, but I need an image.”

Bo went frantically through his photos. So many of her laughing face, her body in motion, none of her feet. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Chapter 70

Say “I’m going to bake my favorite man a blackberry pie.”

—Bowen Knight taking a photograph of a laughing Kaia Luna

BO WENT THROUGH the photos again—and halted on a video of Kaia he’d taken one morning while lying in bed. She was sitting up making faces at the camera and had suddenly pounced on him.

He’d dropped the phone . . . and there.

Freezing the image, he turned it to Krychek. “Is this clear enough?”

The cardinal took almost a minute to examine it, zooming in and out. “I have a lock,” he said without warning. “Faint but usable.”

“Do it.” Bowen put his hand on Kaleb’s shoulder. He had a feeling the telekinetic was too powerful to need the contact, but he had no intention of being left behind.

A shift in time and space, and then he was standing on a floor that rocked under him. A boat. Even as the thought passed through his head, he saw Kaia sitting on a bunk inside the small room. Head hanging low, she was shivering, wrapped only in a thin blanket. She also had a massive bruise down one side of her face as well as thin cuts that crisscrossed her face on both sides.

Dropping to his knees in front of her, he gently stroked back her hair as she stared at him as if he was a ghost. “What did the bastards do to you?”

“Bo! You’re real!” She hugged him tight, the blanket still gripped in her hands. When she drew back, she tried to smile. “Ouch.” Wincing while he fought his rage, she said, “Punched me when I bit one of them.” She sounded very satisfied by that, but her voice came out slurred, something inside her face broken or badly bruised.

“They cut you.”

“No, it’s from the net. My dolphin skin marks easily.” A glint in her eyes. “I bit the asshole so badly he dropped his knife into the ocean. Others said the bruise plus the marks from the net would hide me until they got his hand bandaged up. He must be the designated cutter.” Her voice slurred even further, her eyelids flickering. “Shit, I—”

Scooping her unconscious form into his arms before she could slump forward, Bowen looked at Krychek. “Can you get back here?”

The cardinal nodded. “I have enough specific location markers.” A glance at Kaia. “Where?”

Bo’s instinct was to take her to an Alliance hospital facility, but he wouldn’t hurt Kaia by bringing her to land. Neither would he betray BlackSea by taking her—and thus Krychek—to Ryūjin. “Do you know Malachai Rhys’s face?” The other man should be on Lantia coordinating the search.

“Yes. I leave the water changelings alone but I know who they are.”

The answer put Bowen’s final concerns at ease; if Krychek knew Mal’s face, he could’ve teleported to Mal at any time. Bo wouldn’t be breaching BlackSea’s wall of security by showing the other man a photograph. “Go.”