“Let me handle it.” Malachai was a wall of strength in front of her, a man she’d never seen lose his temper. “I know several Canadian members personally, people I trust. I’ll pass on the information to them, have them feed it out to those they trust. It should lower the chance of treachery.”
“Do it.” Miane knew her brain was hazy with rage, her decision-making skills compromised. She needed Malachai’s calm, his way of being a still pond even in the midst of a crashing sea.
When he pinned her with those clear eyes of pale gold unseen on any human or Psy or terrestrial changeling, she glared back. “What?”
“You need to swim.” It was an order. “You’ve been out of the water far too long.”
Unsaid were the words that no water changeling did well after too long a separation. Leila might already be dead because of that need, her captors ignorant that a water changeling needed to swim as much as he or she needed to breathe. A strong adult could survive years deprived of enough water to allow a shift, but they’d probably end up mad. Leila had always been small and a little fragile physically, her mind her most important asset.
In her changeling form, Leila was as delicate and colorful as the fish she studied. A pretty tropical dancer who knew nothing of war or of enemies who would steal BlackSea’s members and attempt to turn them into assassins.
Terrestrials often forgot to look at water as a threat, ignoring rivers and streams as roadways when they blocked other routes into an area. It was a detail BlackSea had long used to its advantage. The fact that the Consortium had also figured it out pointed once again to a traitor. Humans, Psy, even land-based changelings, they simply didn’t think that way. You had to be a creature of water to understand its full potential.
Leila had loved the sea so much she rarely set foot on land.
Now she was caged in a barren place far from the ocean.
Miane reminded herself of Leila’s stubbornness, of how the other woman had become the youngest marine biologist on record through endless dedication and sheer hard work. A woman with a will that strong would fight to survive. “I don’t like to be far from Lantia,” she finally said to Malachai.
The world didn’t know this floating city deep in the Atlantic was their central base, didn’t know that the city beneath the waves was far bigger than the city above. This entire region was heavily patrolled by BlackSea and covered by the aquatic equivalent of a no-fly zone. Air traffic was permitted, but only at so high an altitude that it made spying impossible; to make certain of that, the wavelike curves of Lantia were covered with tiny antennas designed to emit a signal that scrambled any radar or sonar equipment pointed at it.
Below the water, the ocean was BlackSea’s.
Anyone breaching the city’s clearly advertised and legally defined borders did so knowing the penalty was death—and BlackSea would enforce it. The world had hurt them too much for BlackSea to believe in mercy. Especially when no one got this far out into the ocean by accident. No, anyone trying to sneak up to or under Lantia did so with full knowledge of what they risked.
“We have so many of our young here,” she added.
“Protected by over a thousand of our strongest,” Malachai reminded her. “You’re making bad decisions because of anger and tiredness. Go.”
Miane was the First here—alpha in terrestrial changeling terms—but she knew full well Malachai wouldn’t hesitate to throw her bodily into the ocean. Not that he’d succeed. Or survive. Still, the fact that one of her blood-loyal seconds had threatened that, even if by implication, was reason enough to pay attention. “Keep them safe,” she ordered, and, swiveling on her heel, headed to the far edge of the city.
She could’ve gone into the water at various other points on Lantia—the entire city was built to ensure easy access to the ocean—but it was important her people see her, see that she was present and strong and in control.
Especially now.
When she stripped and dived beneath the waves, the salt a familiar taste and the cold slide of the sea over her skin a welcoming kiss, several more bodies slipped in with her. They shifted in the water, sleek and fast and built for the ocean.
This was their home. They would defend it to the death.
And they would find their missing. Every. Single. One.
Chapter 4
“I WANT TO kill the Consortium,” Mercy muttered after reading the e-mail Lucas had sent out to all the sentinels about the kidnapped BlackSea changeling. “Chop them into little bits and throw them into that canyon we visited in Arizona.”
“The falcons might object to all that rancid meat in their territory,” her mate said mildly from where he stood beside her, reading a message from his own alpha.
“Hmm.” Mercy placed her phone on the nearest flat surface, then leaned back against the porch railing of her old cabin.
Given her need to be closer to the DarkRiver healer with the pregnancy this far advanced, she and Riley had made the decision to move down from their usual home a week earlier. They’d requested any open cabin on DarkRiver lands, but the packmate currently living in Mercy’s old cabin had cheerfully offered it to them for the duration.
All Rina had asked was that they spill the beans on the number and sex—or sexes—of the pupcubs so she could win the betting pool. When Mercy had threatened to shoot the young soldier instead, Rina had laughed and taken off—but not without hugging Mercy first with the wild affection of a packmate who knew her touch would never be rejected.