Bo had noted the names when he glanced at the panel. It made sense to him that a panel made for medical use would have that information out in the open—it functioned the same way as a hospital chart, albeit with more data. Which was also why he’d been able to see that the last access had been a few minutes after he’d fallen asleep—by Kaia.
The woman who treated him as the enemy had also kept him warm while he slept.
Fascinated though he was by the mystery of her, Bo never lost awareness of his surroundings. If this was a clinic, it was an atypical one. First of all, it was silent, with no calls over the public comm, no nurses rushing by, no beeps from other rooms. He could actually only see one other door that might lead to a room and it was situated halfway down the corridor.
As for the left wall, the majority of it was covered in a vivid mural of water shot with light, in the background of which swam a dark shadow—he could swear the creature was a sinuous water dragon. Intricately painted, the brushstrokes smooth, the mural wouldn’t have looked out of place in an art gallery or a museum . . . but there was a youth to it, too. A sense of unfettered life. So maybe not anywhere as formal as a gallery or museum.
Sounds finally slivered into the quiet after he passed the other door, were at first echoes he felt rather than heard. A few more steps and he could nearly make out distinct words. Multiple people talking—not a crowd, but more than two. However, he’d still not heard a single announcement over the comm system.
It solidified his growing belief that this installation was a private clinic. Probably the only patients were experi—
“Jesus.” Bowen froze.
The corridor had poured him out into a thickly carpeted atrium set up as a lounge area, complete with small tables and comfortable-appearing chairs and sofas—some with backs, others without. Beyond the generous open-plan space was a curving wall of what looked like glass.
And what lay on the other side of that glasslike material was water. Deep blue-green water lit by lights that must have been attached to the building in which he stood. “Venice,” Bo whispered to himself, his skin settling back into place. He had to be in Venice. The lower level of Alliance HQ also boasted transparent walls that looked out into the water.
He didn’t know how BlackSea had managed to build an installation this big right under Bowen’s nose, but what mattered at this instant was that he was close to home.
Walking through the currently sparsely populated atrium, he ignored the eyes aimed his way as he went to stand directly in front of the transparent wall. Murmurs sounded from behind him, but no one approached. Not even the hard-jawed man with dark blond hair whose expression had gone cold and flat when Bo appeared out of the corridor.
Tall and wide, the other man probably thought he could take Bo, but he moved with a heaviness that said graceful movement wasn’t his default. Neither was it Bo’s at present, but he’d already calculated how he could use the cane and a table or a nearby chair to incapacitate the male. The strongest man in the room didn’t always win the fight.
Not if the other party used his brains.
Bo made sure to keep the possible threat in his peripheral vision as he drank in the sight of the waters of home. Except . . . He frowned. Nothing looked as it did from the Alliance building. There was no sign of the piles that anchored Venice, or the remnants of buildings that had sunk prior to the building of the network of below-the-waterline biospheres that kept Venice a thriving city even as the waters rose. And, beyond the diffuse glow of the lights, the water appeared deeper and infinitely darker than in the Venetian lagoon.
Could it be an illusion caused by the way this structure had been constructed? Or a shield of some kind?
Bo had barely begun to consider that idea when a battle-scarred humpback whale swam by on the other side of the transparent wall, one huge eye looking balefully at Bo before the mammoth being disappeared into the endless darkness.
“Not Venice.” It came out more as air than sound.
Chapter 11
The deep is eternity.
—Iosef Luna
KAIA HAD RECEIVED a notification the instant Bowen Knight opened his door. With Atalina currently asleep on strict orders from Ryūjin’s resident healer, Kaia was on watch for experiments who got up and began walking around. Attie did have an assistant, but George preferred the clean edges of data and had gone a “bilious green” when Attie suggested he might want to interact with their subject.
Entering the communal living area of the atrium, she found the disturbingly attractive security chief of the Human Alliance in front of the seaward wall, his eyes trained on the deep. She understood his fascination—every single room in the habitat except for those in the central core had access to a seaward view. The latter were for non-BlackSea contractors uncomfortable with being reminded they stood countless fathoms deep.
Kaia empathized with their fear as most of her clan couldn’t. Terror and hunger entwined in her heart each time she looked out at the deep. She craved the cold slide of it as much as she feared the dangers of leaving safe waters. Monsters existed beyond BlackSea’s guarded territorial borders, and the worst of it was that they didn’t look like monsters at all.
Her pulse thudded, her breath threatening to turn shallow.
Bowen Knight’s face held not even a whisper of the fear that had dug its roots into Kaia’s soul, only a shocked wonder that made him appear suddenly young. The way his overlong hair fell across his forehead and kissed the top of his collar just added to that impression.
As she watched, Filipe did another sweep only inches from the edge of the habitat before swimming away and probably up to get air into his lungs. Ryūjin Station’s semi-retired handyman found it boundlessly funny to startle unsuspecting clanmates by appearing outside the seaward wall when they were just going about their business—or taking a sip of a well-deserved coffee.
You’d think a whale his age would be more mature, but no.
Hex poked his head out of her pocket at the same instant that Alden caught her eye. His jaw worked as he nudged it toward Bowen’s form. Frowning, Kaia shook her head before she began to cross the distance to him.
A close friend of Hugo’s, Alden knew the same horrific details as Kaia did. The difference was that Alden was six feet five inches tall and two hundred seventy pounds. If he decided to get violent, Bowen was in no condition to take him on. Unfortunately, Alden was a walrus with a serious problem controlling his temper.
So Kaia played dirty. “Do you want Atalina to go into premature labor?” she hissed at him when their paths crossed.
The big man’s shoulders hunched forward in the same curve as his thick handlebar mustache. “He hurt Hugo.”
Patting Alden’s shoulder, Kaia whispered, “We’ll find Hugo.” It was a wish as much as a promise. “But you can’t harm Bowen Knight—Attie’s entire experiment would fail and you know how she is.” Kaia’s cousin put her soul into her work, would be heartbroken at the loss. “We have to be careful with her feelings—especially now. Go on.”
Alden shot Bowen Knight another dark glance before accepting her instruction to leave. Kaia made a mental note to have a quiet word with his supervisor—a good friend of hers—suggesting that Alden should be kept busy for the foreseeable future; as an engineer, he was a godsend and, when in a good mood, a total teddy bear.
It just so happened that he’d been in a bad mood for the past six months. Walruses. It was like they turned thirty and lost their minds if they hadn’t yet found a mate. After that, it was sulking, temper, and general snarkiness. Hugo’s disappearance had just exacerbated Alden’s already black temperament.
He could kill Bowen with a single unthinking blow.
Skin suddenly chilled, Kaia took the final steps to Bowen’s side. The scanner was already in her hand. That hand happened to be covered in flour—she’d been mixing dough when this dangerous man had decided to mess with her schedule.
“What are you doing out of bed?” She synced the scanner with the fine “smart-mesh” that lay against his scalp, hidden by the soft ebony waves of his hair.
His readings were exceptionally good for a man who’d suffered such a grievous insult to his body. According to Attie, it helped that he’d been in prime physical condition prior to taking a bullet to save his sister’s life.
“I think I’m hallucinating,” he said, his eyes trained on the water. “I could swear that whale was laughing as he swam by.”
“Filipe has a strange sense of humor.”
Bowen Knight angled his head to search her face, as if he wasn’t sure if she was serious or not. But when he spoke, it was about another thing entirely. “I could’ve taken the big guy with the mustache.”
The hairs rose on the back of Kaia’s neck; she’d been sure he was utterly absorbed in the deep while she chewed out Alden. Hugo had been right to warn his friends to not let down their guard around Bowen Knight should they ever end up in his presence. “Fine. I’ll let Alden pound you into paste next time,” she said, forcing an ice into her voice that didn’t come naturally. “Try to do it away from here. Blood is hell to clean out of carpet.”
Bowen smiled. It lit up his whole face, the dark, dark eyes suddenly warm and the creases in his cheeks devastatingly attractive. “Thank you, Kaia Luna,” he said in a solemn tone. “I appreciate being protected.”
The other part of her poked up its head at the possibility of a playmate. Kaia sternly told it to stay underwater. According to Hugo, Bowen Knight was the kind of playmate who’d leave them both broken. “Are you hungry?” she asked curtly. “Attie won’t thank me if you faint because you’re starving.”
“I’ve never fainted in my life.” The affront in his expression reminded her so strongly of her male cousins that Kaia’s defenses nearly cracked.
Careful, Kaia. He’s a master at manipulation.
He was also putting out “bad boy” pheromones that spoke to her crazy—and to the wild, playful, and curious core of her nature. But Kaia had seen the photograph Hugo had found, and no charm onslaught was going to make her forget the carnage.