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  When you make the Devil’s bargain, be prepared to take the heat. A lot of heat.

  Chronicles of the Malcolm, Book 2

  Most of Xia’s early memories are repressed, thank the Great Cat Mother. But her body remembers how to kill.

  The longer she and her fellow Malcolm crewmates are holed up on Cibari hiding from assassins, the twitchier she gets—until the planet’s insanely sexy warlord, Rahal Mizyar, borrows her skills to take out slavers.

  Rahal suspects Xia is his mate, but the human-raised female never learned the finer points of felinoid rituals. The solution: make her fall hard and fast for him, even if it means playing dirty.

  Hired to determine if Xia is the long-missing granddaughter of the felinoid prime minister, Cal Janssen has finally tracked her down. Getting past Rahal, though, is a problem—until he’s mistaken for a notorious arms dealer and playboy. And he finds himself the object of both Rahal’s and Xia’s seduction.

  When their first mission brings Xia’s memories bulleting back to the surface, she realizes she’s fallen for two men who don’t exist. Running away, however, could be her deadliest mistake.

  Warning: Contains an assassin with a swiss cheese memory, a badass warlord who’s getting tired of his own con, and a freelance lawman. Secrets, lies, and hot sex with no rules.

  Bad Kitty

  Teresa Noelle Roberts

  Dedication

  As always, for Jeff. I blame thank you more for this book than for all the others. You introduced me to anime and manga. The rest is history.

  Chronicles of the Malcolm

  Glossary and Slang Cheat Sheet

  Banjal: A low-gravity planet inhabited by winged, humanoid sentients. Banjal is the primary manufacturer of neurorelays, since the sensitive technology is best assembled in low gravity.

  Bellaphor fainting nuns: The cloistered nuns of the Bellaphor order are reputedly so holy and/or naïve that they will swoon at the mere mention of sex or violence.

  Blemond: Blemondians resemble stocky, thick-necked humans except for their eyes, which have slit pupils. Their blood, however, is green. Blemondians have a reputation for being adept at science and technology.

  Chillpills: Common light recreational drug, illegal but tolerated on many planets, legal on others. About as intense as marijuana.

  Cibari: Planet equally famous for its gemstone mines and its ongoing civil strife. Most of the planet has fallen into anarchy. Slightly less disgusting than Lysander, but just as dangerous.

  Clariito roses: These rare flowers are luminescent. They have thorns and they’re fragrant, but otherwise they don’t resemble Earth roses at all.

  Com-pads, aka coms: About sixty-five generations beyond our cell phones and tablets, these are slightly dated technology in the Malcolm’s universe. Anyone with enough credits now uses neurorelays to communicate and access the Galaxinet if their physiology permits. (Coms have stuck around because certain species can’t use neurorelays.) See neurorelay.

  Delebrians: Reptilian aliens with scales and snakelike heads. They come off as cranky to most other species because of their hissing voices.

  Delebrian ducks: They’re the only non-reptilian creatures on Delebria, and everything else regards them as dinner. Unlike ducks on most planets, these ducks have developed sharp, fanged beaks and quick tempers, and will often attack first. Hence, “madder than a Delebrian duck”.

  Dirtside: Spacer slang for on-planet.

  Driftdwell: Low-life scum. Derived from the fact that the very few organisms that can survive while drifting in the vacuum of space have neither roots nor brains to speak of.

  Expansion: The period of human migration from Old Earth to other planets. Pre-Expansion refers to the time when humans lived only on Old Earth.

  Felinoids: The Standard term for natives of Mrrwr, who have catlike ears and tails and retractable claws. The people of Mrrwr have given up trying to get other species to pronounce their own name for themselves, Mrrwr’wrn, and now use the Standard term whenever they speak with people from off-planet. Felinoids have also embraced the colloquial cat-girl or cat-boy, which appeal to their mischievous natures.

  Folasking: Banjali curse word, about the intensity of damn.

  Furagi: A native of the lush, tropical planet of Furag. Furagis have fair skin and blue hair. They also have exceptionally quick tempers, which their meditative spiritual practices aim to control. Furagi society is divided into two castes, priests and warriors. Not every member of the priestly caste becomes an ordained priest of the Light and not everyone from a warrior-caste family follows the Warrior Path to become a soldier. However, all young people are tattooed with their caste’s traditional symbols.

  Galaxinet: Similar to the Internet but even more all-pervasive—and often transmitted directly into one’s brain.

  Gingoids: Small marsupials with reptilian characteristics and vestigial wings that, like rats on Earth, infest the alleyways and dumps of some planets.

  Glaspoid: Vicious but tasty reptilian creatures with particularly foul feces. Everyone loves to eat roast glaspoid, but no one actually wants to get near a living one.

  History-flash or simply flash: Retro fashion—really retro, as in 17th- to 19th-century Earth—complete with capes, bucket boots, brocade, panniers, corsets and even swords. Often history-flash fashions are worn with no regard to which gender would have worn a particular style originally. Heavily influenced by 20th-century swashbuckler movies, which are enjoying a revival.

  Horslek: A small flying creature native to the planet Onar. Horsleks have tiny, black-tipped sensory appendages covering their bodies and from a distance appear to be spotted. Someone skilled with a laserpistol theoretically could “shoot the spots off an Onari horslek”, though few people can actually do so.

  Huthar: These amphibian natives of the damp planet Hutha have froglike faces and extremely long, agile tongues, which they can use for everything from snatching a snack to wielding a small weapon.

  Hypermarket: A supermarket meets a big-box store meets a vehicle dealership. Everything under one roof, including, on some planets, hookers.

  Lasercannon: A laser-based distance weapon. The larger ones can blow up asteroids, not to mention spaceships.

  Laserpistol: A hand weapon that uses precisely measured laser bursts instead of solid ammunition—very useful if you need to fight on a spaceship.

  Lysander: Arguably the armpit of the galaxy, this planet not only tolerates slavery, child prostitution, dangerous drugs and murder-for-hire, among other vices, it encourages them.

  Marl, marling: This curse word is about as rude as dropping an F-bomb but lacks any sexy, fun meanings. It conveys a degree of bad somewhere between a smelly plumbing backup and a life-support system glitching in deep space.

  Medicos: Combine the roles of Old Earth doctors and EMTs.

  Nashbet: Officious, boring person. Literally a small, burrow-dwelling rodent found on Banjal and neighboring planets and by extension, someone stuck on the ground, not reaching for the stars.

  Nav-sys: Navigation system.

  Neurorelay: Technology implanted directly into the brain that allows instantaneous communication and access to the Galaxinet.

  Regen: Short for regeneration, a medical procedure in which healing is accelerated to regrow damaged tissue at a rapid rate, usually in a tank of nutritive fluid. Regeneration of organs and limbs is possible if you have the credits to pay for such extensive work.

  Rodrantia: Rodrantians follow a strict code of honor that makes that of Old Earth samurai look laid-back. Adult Rodrantians carry a tiny, exceptionally sharp blade known as an honor-dagger to facilitate suicide i
n case of situations in which the choice is death or dishonor. The planet is also known for its blue wine.

  San’bal: This desert planet is inhabited by striped quadraped sentients. The planet’s main exports are raw materials for neurorelays (primarily to Banjal) and romance novels and holos. Love and sexuality feature prominently in San’balese religion and the festival of Kenu Aram is both a religious holiday and a wild, erotic party that attracts tourists from throughout the galaxy.

  Sexytime(s): Exactly what it sounds like (spacer slang).

  Smoothstyle: Elegant, expensive high fashion, and by extension, the lifestyle implied by such clothes.

  Standard (language): the language commonly used for trade and interspecies communication around the galaxy. Contains elements of English and numerous human and alien languages. Most people of all species know at least a little Standard; many humans speak it as a primary language.

  Standard year/day, etc.: A Standard year, day and other time measurements are arbitrarily based on the Old Earth unit. Each planet has solar years and days of different lengths, but using the Galaxinet, everyone can translate between their own planet’s time and Standard.

  Synthsilk: A laboratory creation—product of DNA manipulation—that is a precise chemical match for the extremely rare biosilk spun by silkworms. Only distinguishable from biosilk by the lack of biosilk’s subtle fragrance and a slightly inferior texture.

  Thermasheets: Embedded nanotechnology allows these sheets to adjust to the ambient temperature and the sleeper’s body, warming or cooling as needed. Thermasheets have made blankets a luxurious indulgence rather than a necessity in all but the coldest regions.

  Vega system: All the inhabited planets in this solar system are known for their rigid morality, enforced by strict religious laws. Violations of their sexual code incur especially draconian penalties.

  Xaquan: The dominant sentient species of the planet Xaqua’a has three physical sexes—male, female and shafti—and so many variants of gender expression that outsiders have pretty much given up trying to figure it out. It doesn’t help outsiders that Xaquan pronouns define neither gender nor biological sex.

  Xylac: A planet known for its extremely spicy food; violent, convoluted and tragic holo dramas; and summary justice. Its horned humanoid inhabitants resemble the demons of Old Earth lore, but are affable unless given reason to be otherwise.

  Zap stunner: This handheld device delivers a nonlethal but disabling electrical charge from a distance of up to 100 meters. The zapped person is rendered unconscious and remains groggy and uncomfortable for about an hour after coming to.

  Zelacxi nest: Zelacxis are among the few nonsentient creatures that kill for sport, rather than hunger, and will frequently eat their own young and mates, so a zelacxi nest is nowhere you want to be.

  Zipbike: A solar-powered vehicle, usually for one person, that resembles a motorcycle but travels a few inches above the ground most of the time.

  Prologue

  Fourteen Standard Years Ago, An Alley on Lysander

  Xia licked her bloodied right claws with a small, slightly bristled pink tongue, then made a face. Nastynastynasty nasty. Not only was he a bad man, like her trainer Olo told her, a man who liked to hurt little girls like her (and most little girls on Lysander didn’t have claws and fangs to defend themselves like she did, or Olo to teach them how to do it), he’d been taking some drug that made his blood taste icky. She’d tasted human blood before. It was surprisingly tasty, no worse than blood from prey. But this man’s blood was bitter. She had a feeling that if she had more than that tiny taste, she’d end up getting sick.

  She might just get sick anyway. All the blood. This driftdwell wasn’t her first kill, but he was her first human target, the closest yet to her own species. The Delebrian hadn’t bled nearly this much. Besides, he had scales, so she could pretend he was just a snake, ordinary prey. He’d even tasted a bit like one when she’d cleaned the blood off her claws and hands. The Blemondian’s blood had been green, so it didn’t seem like blood she had to think much about. He was prey, like the gingoids she caught in the alleys when Olo hadn’t given her enough to eat. Human blood was red, though, just like a felinoid’s. Like hers. No way she could pretend this prey wasn’t a sentient like her, even if he was a terrible person who hurt other kids. (And probably did a lot of other bad things too, if someone hired Olo and his team to get rid of him.)

  Besides, this blood wasn’t all from the target.

  Olo had said to let him get close, do whatever she had to do to lure him. Just like the other times, only this one had been on his guard, so she had to let him touch her. Do things to her. He’d said sickly sweet things to her while he touched her, but hurt her worse than Olo and the others ever had when they were trying to make her strong. They’d only hurt her on the outside, but this was inside and it hurt a lot.

  Xia thought she might cry. But tough felinoids didn’t cry. She was seven. Nearly a grown-up, they told her, although she was still awfully small compared to Olo and the other adults. But Olo was big even for a Furagi, and she was a felinoid. It had been so long since she’d seen an adult of her species that she couldn’t remember how tall they got, but people said they were on the small side. So she was almost a grown-up, and grown-ups didn’t cry.

  It would be all right to sit down, wouldn’t it? Her legs were awfully shaky. She really, really, really wanted to clean herself, but she wasn’t sure she dared. The drugs the bad man had been taking hadn’t done him much good—he’d been as easy to kill as a gingoid, once she got him to let down his guard—and she was small enough it wouldn’t take much to affect her. The blood on her tail was hers, though, so she could get that off. She hated the taste of her own blood, but at least it wouldn’t poison her.

  She usually tried to move gracefully, like they taught her; it made her look harmless so she could sneak up on someone better. But when she went to sit, she buckled and hit the dirty, bloody pavement with a thump.

  Pain jarred through her. The bad man had definitely hurt her, and the pain wasn’t going away like Olo said it would. And she needed to get clean because, even on Lysander, walking around all covered with blood from the tail to her knees would draw unwelcome attention.

  “Hey, little one. Are you all right?” She turned with a start at the deep, rumbly voice.

  It was a nice voice, almost like purring, but the voice’s owner was a Furagi. An even bigger Furagi than Olo, with spiky blue hair and skin almost as pale as the white tip of her left ear, at least where she could see his skin between complicated dark blue tattoos. Even his face had barred tattoos on it, which made him look even scarier than Olo. His eyes were purple, and they looked angry, but not at her. Since he was Furagi, the “not at her” helped only so much. They had awful tempers, and when they lost them, they couldn’t always tell friend from foe.

  “Yeah. Fine.” She tried to sound brave. She tried to sound like a grown-up. But she knew her voice was shaking like she was a baby kitten about to cry.

  What was she supposed to say if someone found her with a body? Olo had told her something to say, but she couldn’t remember.

  The Furagi was getting closer. She bet Olo had sent him to check up on her, and if she didn’t say the right thing, she’d get beaten. Again.

  Something snapped in Xia’s brain. Never again. I’ve killed three grown-ups for them, ones they were scared to go after because they couldn’t sneak up on them like I can. I’m not going to let them hurt me anymore.

  She forced herself to her shaking legs. The alley dead-ended at a building. She’d chosen it for that reason. But she couldn’t get out past the Furagi. Not unless she went up.

  Luckily she could do that.

  She’d run toward the Furagi to gain speed. At the last minute, she’d veer off and leap for the window ledge to the left. She couldn’t get that high, but thanks to the haphazard way they’d thrown together
concrete blocks to put up the building, there were plenty of handholds for someone as agile as she was.

  At least that was her plan.

  Instead, she ran into a shadow made solid, a man made of darkness.

  No, he wasn’t made of darkness and shadow, not really. He was just a dark-skinned human in black clothes, including a cloak that made him blend into the night—a human who smelled fresh and clean, like he hadn’t been on-planet long enough for the filth of Lysander to seep into his skin. She couldn’t help it; she inhaled deeply, enjoying that smell.

  Didn’t mean he was a friend, though. When he grabbed her, she struggled, popped out her claws.

  “Easy there, kitten,” the man said.

  “Not a kitten,” she hissed.

  Even though she felt very much like one in his firm grasp. Not in a bad way, though. More like she could trust this person to take care of her.

  Right, like that was going to happen. She was so exhausted it was making her dumb. She couldn’t trust anyone, and no one would take care of her except her.

  She raised a clawed hand. She’d killed one human tonight. It would be nothing to slash his throat.

  Then she looked into his eyes. They were gray, and as they gazed at her, they turned from steely and remote to kind. She remembered someone’s gray eyes looking at her that way, sometime in her blurry past. Those remembered eyes hadn’t been dull human eyes in a face with boring little ears, but eyes like hers, eyes with pupils that could be round or slitted, depending on the light. The man smelled human, was human, so he couldn’t be the person she dimly remembered as a safe haven. But the eye color was right.

  “Dad?” Her voice sounded younger than it usually did, like a kitten who was just learning to talk. He couldn’t be her dad, couldn’t be anyone related to her. But it felt right.

  “Don’t think so, kitten. Name’s Mik,” the human said. He had a funny accent, like the people Olo laughed at and called back-system hicks, but his voice was kind. “My friend’s Gan. Do you have family here? Someplace safe we can take you? It looks like you’ve had a rough night.”