His gut twisted.

And he made a decision—he wouldn’t waste the time he had and he wouldn’t focus on the ninety-five percent chance of failure. He’d live. Protect his people. Laugh with his sister and his friends. Cross swords with a cook with long dark hair and a scent that frustrated and haunted.

If Bowen Adrian Knight was to cease to exist, he’d go out on his own terms.

Chapter 8

Baby girl, while it’s just us two, let me tell you a secret. One day, you’ll start to like boys, or maybe other girls, as more than friends. When that happens, watch out for the crazy in your bloodline.

—Elenise Luna (29) to her newborn daughter, Kaia

KAIA, HER SKIN cold from the inside out, arrived back at Bowen Knight’s room to find KJ just coming out of it. “Any problems?”

The short and compact male who looked deceptively normal in terms of strength, shook his head, the reddish blond strands of his hair glinting brightly under the simulated sunlight. “In bed and out for the count.”

She quietly released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “I’ll take over from here.” Attie needed a couple of specific scans that could be done with a handheld, but her back was killing her today.

Ordering her cousin to rest, Kaia had volunteered to return to the human who threatened to make her a traitor to herself. “I saved you a piece of pie.”

KJ pumped a fist into the air. “You’re the best!” After smacking a kiss on her cheek, the scent of the peppermint gum to which he was addicted a cool wash, he all but ran off down the corridor.

Kaia’s responsive smile faded nearly as quickly as it had appeared. Even though she knew Bowen was asleep, those penetrating eyes no danger to her, she had to take a second before she could step inside his room. The first thing she noticed was the scent of soap, the second that her cousin’s experimental subject was once again half-naked.

He’d obviously found the duffel bag she’d asked KJ to drop inside while Bowen was showering. It was Lily Knight—petite and with skin and eyes that made it clear she wasn’t Bowen’s sister by blood—who’d thrust that bag into the arms of one of the kidnapping team. “Clothes for Bo,” she’d said, her cheeks hollow and the shadows beneath her eyes bruised purple. “So he’ll have his favorite things when he wakes.”

Kaia hadn’t had the heart to let Malachai tell her they’d planned to bring Bowen and only Bowen back with them. She’d put the duffel on the stretcher and silently dared Mal to take it off. He’d just shaken his head very slightly and mouthed marshmallow heart at her while Lily was distracted saying good-bye to her brother.

Kaia would’ve decked the big smugface if she could. She did not have a marshmallow heart. It was pure cast iron with only tiny apertures for those who were her own. She didn’t care about humans or what happened to them. But Lily . . . she’d been so sad. And Kaia had stood in the other woman’s shoes once, helplessly watching two people she desperately loved slip away from her.

It had just been a momentary burst of sympathy, that’s all. “Nothing whatsoever to do with marshmallows.” Pushing the open duffel safely to the side against the wall, she made herself look at the human who’d caused her to burn a pie, she’d been so preoccupied.

He’d fallen asleep on his front, with a pair of dark gray sweatpants hanging off his hips and his black hair not so much damp as still wet. He’d also fallen asleep on instead of under the blanket she’d given KJ at the same time as the duffel. In order to get it out and make him more comfortable, she’d have to interrupt KJ’s pie eating. It might even take two orderlies to move Atalina’s subject.

Bowen Knight was a big man.

Strange, how he’d gained size after waking. As if the vital energy that burned in his blood had affected her perception. Then there were the tattoos that covered his back, the biggest a dragon in flight, one wing stretched out over his right shoulder, the other dipping lower on the left side of his back, while the creature’s sinuous tail spiraled down the right side of his back.

Kaia could feel the movement, sense the dragon’s powerful turn.

Color drenched every inch of the design, the mythical being flawlessly rendered in shades of orange, rust, and a deep bronze. It was a piece of living art and it was another thing that didn’t fit: what kind of pitiless security chief thought about fantastical creatures like dragons? It was strange, too, how well his tattoo fit on Ryūjin.

The station logo was a woodblock print of a dragon rearing to strike.

Kaia knew she shouldn’t, but she gave in to the compulsion to press up against the side of the bed and examine the lines of the tattoo more closely—only to keep becoming distracted by the silken brown of his skin. Even the muscle trainers hooked all over his back didn’t detract from the look of him.

Curls of sensation deep inside her, the creature that was her other half rubbing against her skin as it swam in inner waters.

Bowen Knight shifted.

Jumping back, Kaia stared at him. But he didn’t wake, didn’t catch her betraying Hugo and all the others. She pressed the heels of her palms to her heated cheeks in a futile effort to erase the burn before she went to the data panel and checked his stats.

He was in a deep natural sleep.

Deciding to forget about the blanket, she increased the room temperature instead. Then—teeth gritted against her disturbing response to him—she went and found a fresh towel, since the one he’d used was crumpled near where he’d abandoned his bag.

“It’s like a disease that crosses racial boundaries and is confined to the male sex—use towel, drop it,” she muttered to Hex as she began to dry the hair of the enemy.

Her pet white mouse popped his head out from the specially sewn top pocket of her apron, his tiny paws on the edge and his nose twitching with interest. When he clambered out of the pocket and down her arm to sit on Bowen’s lower back, she scowled at him. “You know you’re not supposed to do that.” For some reason, big, strong men were often scared of Hex.

What did they think he’d do? Nibble them to death?

Unrepentant, Hex curled up against Bowen’s lower spine and closed his eyes.

Ignoring her troublemaking pet for now, Kaia continued to dry the human security chief’s hair with gentle motions. She knew it was soft, with a wave in it when dry. Wet, it licked the bottom of his neck, the strands appearing longer than they did when dry. The softness of that hair was a lie, of course.

Even in sleep, Bowen Knight had a tension to his face.

“Stratagems and double crosses,” Kaia said softly, her eyes falling on the beaded wooden bracelet around her wrist that had been a gift from Hugo. “That’s what he’s dreaming about.”

She went and hung up the towel in the bathroom a short while later, then picked up the dirty one and placed it in the small laundry basket tucked at the bottom of the shelving unit that held extra towels, razors, toothbrushes, and the like.

Walking over to Atalina’s dangerous living experiment afterward, she scooped Hex’s relaxed form into her palm . . . and the back of her hand brushed the molten heat of Bowen’s back. She nearly dropped Hex. No wonder her pet liked snuggling up against the security chief’s back.

The man was burning hot.

She quickly put Hex in the pocket where he liked to spend his time when he wasn’t making her clanmates shriek by appearing on their bookshelf or in their shoe without warning, then checked the data panel.

Bowen’s temperature read as within a normal range for humans.

Yet the back of her hand continued to sizzle from the contact.

“Damn it, Kaia.” Her particular direct family line had always been known for bad choices when it came to lovers. Look at her highly intelligent mother. Before mating with a brilliant musician with a sly sense of humor, she’d dated two bad-boy convicts who’d ended up back in the slammer, an unemployed drifter who’d drifted away with most of her ready cash, an older man who’d had fluid feelings about fidelity, and a professor who’d cheated on her with a graduate student.

All before Elenise had turned twenty-three.

The only reason Kaia knew about the bad boys was that she’d pretended to be asleep in back of the family caravan while her parents shared a bottle of wine and rehashed their dating histories, both of them giggling tipsily. She hadn’t understood most of it at the time, had just liked listening to their happy voices while she lay tucked snugly into her bunk, but as an adult, she understood very well that she had a line of crazy in her bloodstream when it came to men.

“No.” She rubbed the back of her hand against her dress with harsh movements as the memory faded into pain as it always did. Because her mother had never had a chance to teach her about boys or about watching out for the crazy. She’d been dead and buried in the deep long before Kaia had come of age.

Her murderers had all been human.

As human as the sleeping male who caused a tug deep inside Kaia that she refused to acknowledge. She knew exactly who Bowen Knight was to her and it had nothing to do with that disturbing sense of intimacy. It had to do with war.

A war in which Bowen Knight was the brutal enemy general.

Chapter 9

“Sweetheart, why did you decide to climb down into such a big hole in the first place?”

“I wanted to see what was down there.”

—Leah Knight (38) and her filthy, muddy son, Bowen (7)

THE NEXT TIME Bowen woke, it was to an insistent gnawing in his stomach accompanied by a sense of heaviness in his muscles that told him he’d slept long and hard. When he stretched out his arms on a yawn, those arms didn’t quiver. Though he didn’t feel anywhere as strong as he was used to feeling, he’d improved from the last waking.

Rubbing at his face, he sat up in bed.

The machines hummed, the air was warm, and he was alone.

He took a quick but comprehensive scan around the room out of habit. He had no weapons and his physical status made him easy prey—yeah, that was a hard pill to swallow—but he couldn’t simply turn off that part of his nature. It was as much a reflex as breathing.