“You’d better come into my kitchen so I can get on with work while babysitting you.” She put away the scanner, then turned and walked toward the back end of the atrium without waiting for his response. The kitchen area was located behind a partial wall that protected it from the atrium foot traffic but left it accessible to the clan.
Once in her domain, she moved past the large table on which her kitchen hands regularly put out fruit, cookies, sandwiches, and other “in-between” snacks. In a station this big, someone was always hungry.
She ruffled the messy golden brown curls of a ten-year-old trying to sneak a cookie out of the jar and put an apple in his hand instead. “You’ve already had three.”
Bodie gave her a long-suffering look out of big hazel eyes. “You got the cookie jar under surveillance, right?”
“I’ll never tell.”
Sighing, the ten-year-old trudged off . . . but she heard him bite into the apple before he disappeared from view, her hearing plenty sharp enough to catch the sound even in the midst of the other noises in the air. Of Bowen Knight, there was no sign.
Kaia frowned, nearly took a step back out before shaking her head and striding onward to the currently empty working heart of the kitchen. As she’d reminded herself only minutes earlier, the security chief of the Human Alliance was far from helpless. He might even be the deadliest person on Ryūjin.
Washing, then drying her hands, she returned to the counter where she’d been working on the dough. And ignored the jerk in her pulse when he finally came into view. His progress was slow but he didn’t appear to be leaning on the cane. And when he pulled himself up onto a stool on the other side of her work counter, she noticed that while his skin was flushed, he wasn’t sweating.
Rather than tired, he looked vividly, potently alive.
“So,” he said, his gaze watchful in a way that wasn’t a threat but that made her skin prickle and his voice full of complex layers that sank deep into her with unsettling ease, “do I have to worry about poison?”
Kaia would never use food to hurt anyone—for her, food was warmth, was how she showed her love even when the scars inside her stole her voice. “I wouldn’t ruin Atalina’s experiment.” Firmly ignoring the electric sensations crackling across her skin, she dished him up a plate, then poured him a glass of water. “Eat slowly unless you trust me to save you if you choke.”
He forked up a bite, his eyes closing as he savored the taste.
And Kaia’s toes curled into the rug she kept below her workbench. Wearing shoes had never come easy to her, and she still tended to kick them off as soon as she could.
Exhaling gustily, Bowen lifted his lashes. “Damn, you could bring me to my knees with food alone.”
Heat bloomed in her core, her gaze locked to his. She had to fight to shape a response that didn’t betray her visceral and unwanted reaction to his presence, his voice, him. “Charm and flattery don’t work on me,” she said in her most cutting tone. “Eat, then leave so I can work in peace.”
Kaia had scared off more than one would-be suitor with that tone, but Bowen Knight didn’t even blink. “Any particular reason why you think I’m the spawn of Satan?”
The blunt question hit her hard in the center—and she responded without thought, her heart thundering and her cheeks hot. “You’re the security chief of the Human Alliance, and humans are heartless, cruel creatures who love pretending to be the underdog. Like a wolf putting on a sheep’s fleece.”
Silence hung in the air, a sword about to fall.
Not about to back down from the ugly truth, Kaia sealed and set aside this lot of dough to rest, and opened up a batch that was ready to use. She got busy rolling out the circles for the dumplings she intended to make as part of dinner. Her kitchen hands would be arriving in thirty minutes and she’d put them to work prepping other items, but these dumplings needed a more expert touch.
She tore off small hunks of dough, rolled them into patties, then picked up the rolling pin and got to work. Circle after perfect circle, her body moving automatically even as a storm churned inside her, the being who swam under her skin as agitated as the human heart of her.
“What did humans do to you?” Bowen Knight’s voice continued to please her ear on the innermost level, the deep tones of it flawlessly balanced.
Angrily rolling out another circle, she said, “Do you know that before water changelings banded together to become BlackSea, become strong, humans caught and ate us?” No one ever talked about that particular piece of gruesome history, but that didn’t erase it.
“Changelings can shift very quickly.” A steady voice, unflinching attention.
Kaia slammed the rolling pin down on the counter. “I don’t have to lie when the truth is so awful.”
Wrenching off another ball of dough, she began to shape it into a patty. “A harpoon through the heart does a fantastic job of ending any chance of a shift.” Kaia had seen the pictures, read the heartrending memorials. “A water changeling killed in its animal form will remain in that form.”
Putting down his fork, Bowen stared at her. “Tell me it doesn’t happen anymore.” The words came out harsh, raw.
“Only because BlackSea controls its borders with deadly force—and even then, humans creep at the edges with their illegal nets and rusting ships.” Kaia’s skin crawled with the remembered terror of the child she’d once been. How the hard plas fibers of the net had cut into her delicate skin, how her cries had been unheard . . . and how she’d nearly drowned after panicking and shifting back into the form of a human child.
Bowen’s eyes didn’t leave her face, and she knew he saw too much, this man who was far too intelligent to trust. “I’m sorry for the crimes of other humans. There is no excuse for what was done to your people—but I swear to you, I’ve never knowingly taken part in any such evil.”
It was a pretty thing to say, but Kaia had seen Hugo’s proof, knew that at least two of their vanished would never again be coming home. The tears she’d shed that night had scraped her down to the bone. Even now, each time she closed her eyes, she saw their bruised and mutilated bodies, and she heard Hugo’s voice telling her how the Alliance was playing a horrific game with BlackSea’s most vulnerable as chess pieces.
Chapter 12
Kaia, I think humans might be the enemy masquerading as our friends. I have proof that Bowen Knight and the Alliance are deeply involved in the vanishings.
—Hugo Sorensen in a message to Kaia Luna
“HOW MANY PEOPLE in this habitat?” Bowen asked when she said nothing in response to his attempt to separate yesterday from today.
“A hundred right now, but this kitchen services all five residential habitats on Ryūjin, so that’s approximately four to six hundred people, depending on who’s in and who’s out.” Kaia had no reason to hide the facts from him—as Mal had pointed out, once on Ryūjin, Bowen had no way to escape.
If he did somehow manage to summon help, there were hundreds of heavily armed people on the floating city above who’d shoot down anything before it ever reached the deep. And, after a ruthless campaign run on multiple fronts, BlackSea had cornered the market on submersible vehicles. Others might build them, but they’d never match the deadly grace of the ones on patrol in BlackSea territory.
It was only once her people ventured beyond their territorial borders that they became prey—and BlackSea was made up of countless creatures who ranged across the world’s oceans. They couldn’t always be safe . . . but Kaia still didn’t understand why Hugo had broken the border when he knew human ships were prowling.
Why had he put himself at risk?
“Four to six hundred people.” Bowen Knight’s voice was deeper and rougher than her friend’s smooth tenor, and right now it rubbed over her skin like sandpaper. “Lot of people for you to feed.”
“I try not to fade away from overwork.” Having prepared the filling earlier, she dropped a spoonful on each rolled-out skin before accordioning them into dumplings.
“I hate to point this out, but you seem to have a mouse problem.”
Kaia glanced down to see that Hex was poking his nose out of her pocket, his paws on the edge. He knew better than to jump out in the kitchen, but he clearly wanted freedom. “His name is Hex, and he’s healthier and cleaner than anyone else on this station.” She put him on the counter beside Bowen, then washed her hands again and got back to work.
In front of her, Bowen and Hex seemed to be taking each other’s measure.
Catching a halting movement out of the corner of her eye, she picked up a plate she’d kept on the counter, took off the thermal cover, and walked over to thrust it into a skinny teenager’s hand. “I better see a squeaky clean plate when you’re done.”
Scott’s grin cracked his face, the starburst birthmark on the top of his left cheekbone crinkling with the movement. “You made my favorite.” After pressing an enthusiastic kiss to her cheek, the boy who’d recently had a run-in with a wild inhabitant of the sea—and come out worse off—grabbed a fork and began to stuff his face. His eyes, however, were on Bowen Knight.
Kaia put her hands on his bony shoulders and physically turned him around. “Go sit in the atrium.” He was sure to find a friend out there; a thirty-strong group of children lived in the habitats because their parents worked on Ryūjin. The kids could’ve stayed in the city on the surface, but they chose to live and play in the deep—because family was life, was heart.
Kaia’s own heart pulsed with decades-old pain as she returned to her counter. Sometimes she forgot her grief for long periods, but it was always there. And this hurt was one she wanted to feel, because when she did, she also remembered the love that had enclosed her, the warm arms and soft kisses, and a bearish laugh far too loud for a BlackSea changeling.
She was conscious of Bowen Knight watching her with security chief concentration, but though the tiny hairs on her body rose in warning, she ignored him to finish this set of dumplings.