You keep promising a banquet. She struggled for breath. But all Im getting are snacks.
Ill give you a feast. But our appetites are going to be unsatisfied for a while.
Im not good with delayed gratification.
Were both hungry.
Wish that gave me some comfort.
Hand-in-hand, they ran from the alley. Time kept moving onward, slipping away. Lieutenant Jur would be sold into slavery in a few hours. He readied himself for any threat, considering all the possibilities, all the hazards. Not just hazards to himself, but to Mara. Nothing would hurt her.
As they headed toward the docks and her ship, understanding hit him. Hed never been a covetous man. He deliberately kept his needs simplestreet life had taught him that. But now he burned with greed. Each time he kissed Mara, each time they touched it only made him want more and more of her. Until he had everything. Until she was entirely his.
Chapter Eight
Saying goodbye to Beskidt By wasnt a hardship. The place reminded Kell too much of what he had left behind on Sayén, what had been lost when PRAXIS used then abandoned his homeworld. Hed never known Sayén before it had been ruined, but he knew it after, as an animal that had devoured itself.
Even Mara, piloting her ship out of the city, looked faintly disgusted by what she saw, the same as when shed taken a long look at the clubs daylit interior. Long-held beliefs falling away to reveal something raw and new beneath.
Good to shake off that dumps grime, she murmured. She guided the ship above the skyline,
through the columns of greasy smoke and between the soundskiffs blaring pop songs and advertisements. Thick storm clouds formed a roiling, lightning-lashed boundary above them. Its time to start looking for a new place to roost.
Because of me. A flat statement of fact that nevertheless cut deep. PRAXIS had ultimately cost him his home, but the 8th Wing had taken Maras by forcing her involvement, turning her traitor.
Because of me . She glanced over at him sitting beside her, and her eyes were the crystal green of distant oceans.
She didnt blame him, though she had every right to. This day alone, she had given him unexpected giftsprotection, absolution. All he knew of honor and friendship was from the 8th Wing.
Mara owed him nothing. She was not a fellow soldier adhering to a shared code of conduct. What she gave him came from herself, her own will, her own strength.
He felt a change within his own self. Yet he did not feel diffused. Rather, hed never been so sharpshe was the stone that honed him into a razor edge.
Plausible deniability, said Kell. Tell everyone you didnt know I was 8th Wing. That I was working undercover as a pleasure slave, and I forced you to cooperate. Which wasnt far from the truth.
And lose my scavenger rep. Her mouth quirked.
Maybe your pride will get knocked down a little, he acknowledged, but youll come out clean.
As clean as anyone can be in the Smoke Quadrant. She guided the ship through the heavy traffic above Beskidt By.
You need cover, and Im giving it to you.
And you dont have to. Ive got some thinking to do. Maybe after this is over, Ill have to chart some new paths.
The idea that she might want to be anything other than a scavenger startled him. She seemed to cling fiercely to the life she had made for herself. Yet it made sense. She was wasted as a scavenger.
He hated to see anything, any one , squandered.
I feel like I should apologize, he said, but I cant apologize for something I dont regret.
The damn problem, she answered, turning away to look out the cockpit window, is that regrets in short supply for me too.
A silence that wasnt exactly comfortable, yet not completely strained, fell between them as Mara flew them out of the boundaries of the city. They both seemed to sense that they had strayed into unknown territory, where delineations of allies and antagonists, partner and lover, blurred. He understood only three things with absolute clarity. The first is that he would find and rescue Lieutenant Jur. Second, he would keep Mara safe. And thirdly, but just as important, he would have her. Nothing else held relevance.
Beskidt By disappeared behind them, giving way to stretches of scrubby plains blotched with signs of habitation. He thought he spotted a few private compounds nestled in the sides of hills and ringed with plasma fences that doubtless incinerated anyone stupid enough to try and breach them.
Smugglers lairs. Gods knew what kind of contraband or illegally-gotten merch was being stored down there.
It was a planet populated entirely by criminals. On his homeworld, he had also been a criminal,
doing whatever he needed to stay alive. He had killed, he had stolen. Nothing he was proud of. But he survived, just as Mara survived.
Cool and sleek as Almirian winter, she entered the coordinates for the auction site into the auto pilot. At the speed we have to travel, well just make the cut-off time.
He burned with impatience to get to Lieutenant Jur, but revving his engine for the next few hours would accomplish nothing except burning fuel. Give me as much intel as youve got about these auctions.