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  But if there was any chance this young woman was the missing Xia Merrin, or even another felinoid displaced as a child, it seemed he owed it to her and everyone who came into contact with her to see that she learned how to deal with the darker side of her nature. Stars, he’d never known felinoids had a dark side. Even when they were robbing you blind or seducing your partner, they were so charming you ended up laughing about it.

  But he’d never been around an enraged felinoid. They did have teeth and claws like…what was the Old Earth animal that featured in pre-Expansion stories? A liger or tigon or something like that. A gigantic wild feline that sometimes ate humans.

  “I’ll take the job,” he said. “Please tell the family I can’t guarantee the results they want, after such a long time. But I guarantee I’ll do my best for them and hope to find them some kind of answers, if only the closure of knowing their Xia is dead.”

  When the paperwork was complete, the attaché asked for his neurorelay code and transmitted the background on the case. Cal spent a few minutes in a fog while the files sorted themselves in his brain—and then he knew all the information that had been amassed since Xia Merrin disappeared almost two decades ago.

  He only had one thing to say. “She’s the marling prime minister’s granddaughter? And she disappeared after both her parents were murdered during an assassination attempt on Madam Merrin? My rates just tripled. The only reason I’m not ripping up the contract and walking out is that if she’s still alive, she deserves to know she has a home and a family.”

  Chapter Three

  Xia jumped awake when Mik stumbled into the galley. The automatic lights were brighter, meaning it was morning somewhere, and by default, morning on the ship. No one remembered anymore what time zone the Malcolm’s cycle was set to, but it no longer mattered to any of them except Drax, who was still adjusting to “morning” and “night” being purely arbitrary.

  Xia was curled up on Buck’s lap. Somewhere in the course of their drinking, she’d let her robe fall open, and Buck had been wearing only boxer shorts to start with. They’d gone through two bottles of whiskey and had started on a bottle of San’balese green bubbly. She felt fine. She bet Buck wouldn’t. He was older than she was, and human metabolisms weren’t as fast as hers.

  This was how she often spent the nights she couldn’t sleep, but usually she made it back to the cabin before anyone else was up.

  She prepared herself for her adopted father’s reaction. Depending on his mood, he might laugh or lecture. Either option would require the right snappy comeback. Mik was wearing a particularly elegant history-flash outfit today, including a greatcoat, a pair of skin-tight breeches and a brocade corset, so she figured he was in a good mood.

  Mik grinned at her. “Buck?” he whispered. “He’s a bit old for you, but he’s a good man. Plus, scars are sexy if someone got them for the right reasons. Which he did.”

  “Dad!” Buck was attractive in a battered, weathered way, but he was too close to family. Although, it was the stars’ own truth that two people with tenuous grips on sanity and training in ending people’s lives might be better off with each other than with someone who didn’t have the skills to fight back. She pitched a wad of napkins at Mik. Then she sprang to her feet and gave him a big hug. She realized as she did that her robe was still hanging open. Not that her father was likely to notice, or care much if he did. She was, after all, female. As far as she knew, she and occasionally Rita were the only female adults he’d even hug. Even with close female friends, he kept contact to a quick handshake. Queerbent one hundred and ten percent.

  Buck opened one bleary eye. “Ain’t nothing like that, Captain. Xia’s a night person too, so she keeps me company when I can’t sleep. Xia and me, we understand each other. And because she accepts me, maybe someday I’ll be fit company for a human woman.”

  Hearing that, Xia felt happy for the first time since San’bal. No, the second. She’d felt pretty good when she’d help reunite Rita and Drax.

  Even if it meant losing a cabinmate.

  “You know I’d be happy for both of you if you did hook up. But since you’re not, fasten your robe, kitten. Not nice to tease Buck if you’re not going to do anything about it. Besides, Drax is awake and he still isn’t used to your ways.”

  “Yeah, but any time I think I’ve finally shocked him, and goodness knows I’ve been trying, I find him and Rita hovering around the ceiling doing something that’s illegal in the Vega system.”

  “And looking damn good doing it, I’m sure. But don’t torment the man too much. Don’t want you and Miss Rita to have words.” He scratched behind Xia’s left ear, the white one. “Buck, you in any shape to make breakfast? Rita and Gan are busy and it’s not pretty when Xia or I try to cook.”

  Buck groaned and stretched. “Think so, Captain, if’n you start coffee. You can manage that, at least.”

  “On it. Gan already demanded a pot or six. He and Miss Rita will be landing us on Cibari in about three hours, and Drax says they’ll need their wits about them.”

  “Bad approach?”

  Mik sighed as he turned the coffeepot on. “That and there may be people shooting. Not at us,” he added quickly, “but it makes life interesting.”

  Buck dragged himself to his feet. His prosthetic leg stuck out at an odd angle until he kicked it against the counter a few times. Xia winced at the pain that washed over his face. “What do you think, Captain? Sober-ups or tranqs for today?”

  Mik thought only briefly before answering, “Sober-ups. Cibari is a shoot-first, ask-questions-later kind of place. Drax’s friend the warlord is supposed to send some of his people to escort us to a safe place, but we all know plans can go amiss. I’ll be counting on you to shoot faster than everyone else if it comes to that.”

  “Stay here and start breakfast,” Xia insisted. “I’ll get your pills. That way you’ll feel better faster and we’ll all eat sooner.”

  She had to get out of the galley. Had to hide the thrill that tickled her spine at the idea of exploring Cibari, of being one of the less dangerous people around, rather than the menace she’d felt like lately. Of maybe having a good excuse to stalk and leap and use her claws. Hiding out from the assassins who were after Drax and the rest of the crew on a lawless planet full of toughs and criminals was going to be fun. Hiding out with Drax’s friend the warlord, no less—cosmic! If her crewmates caught her grinning like a fool and bouncing, though, it would worry her dads and rob Buck of the little bit of comfort she’d managed to give him last night.

  Drax had predicted accurately. People were shooting as they landed on Cibari. But that wasn’t the disturbing part.

  What freaked out even Xia was a scan of the planet that showed the area they were going to had a lot less shooting going on than the rest of the planet. The other regions had bombs and lasercannons going off every couple of seconds. Some of the explosions were big enough you could actually see them from atmospheric orbit without using the scanner. Even so, their destination had enough weapons going off to make Buck start to clean his guns again.

  The small arms fire popping around them as they landed at the Siantana Spaceport on Cibari was just enough to make Xia’s tail twitch, her claws work in and out involuntarily. Something interesting was happening out there, something exciting and violent.

  Maybe it would give her an outlet, a way to satisfy the dark place in a way that wasn’t bad, a way that actually helped the people she loved.

  The dark place was hungry. She’d woken it up when she had to fight Nitari Belesku, and now it wanted to be fed.

  Most of the time she could pretend it wasn’t true. When she’d been with Buck last night, she’d felt almost normal, just a girl having a few drinks—okay, more than a few, but no one was counting—and shooting the shit with a friend. But seeing the laserpistol flashes, her heart began to race, and not from fear. It was almost like flirting with
someone you’d made up your mind to go home with, at the stage the two of you were playing games with words, just waiting for the right moment to get someplace private (or not, if it was that kind of party) and let the fun begin.

  She understood why Mik insisted on waiting for a lull in the action before they opened the big bay door and headed out. She and Buck were the only ones who actually wanted to get into a fight, and she wasn’t all that crazy about gunfire. Up close and personal was more fun, and something about the way laserpistols flared reminded her of something bad. Something related to the cold, dark place.

  But at the moment, adrenaline was surging through her body, lighting her up, heating her, and she felt like she might never be cold and dark again.

  Buck put a hand between her shoulder blades. “Easy there,” he said in his gruff voice. He wasn’t actually gruff most of the time; he’d just inhaled too much gas and smoke during the war and it left his voice all froggy. “Not sure I like how your tail’s twitching. Kind of like my trigger finger.”

  “Not good, is it?”

  “Gotta find a balance. People like us and Mik can be useful when things get ugly. But we can’t stay in that spot.”

  She leaned against him, suddenly pulled back to sanity. This was the right way to get warm and bright again, by being with her friends, not by giving in to the violent urges. Mik and Gan had taught her better. Even if Mik could go to the dark place himself, he went there only when things were really hitting the fan, and had taught her to do the same. If some people did need hurting, she wasn’t going to let herself enjoy it the way the dark place wanted her to.

  On the bright side, maybe Mik and Gan would let her help more with their other work—the times they slipped away and came back with frightened children they’d deliver to an orphans’ home or a monastery or the police. They wouldn’t include her before, obviously afraid it would trigger bad memories. Well, she’d remembered all sorts of things she wished she hadn’t. Might as well make the pain useful. Driftdwells who hurt kids just begged to be on the receiving end of her rediscovered skills.

  Just when things quieted outside and they opened the bay door, a boomer grenade arched out of nowhere. A single boomer wouldn’t do much to the Malcolm, even if it hit dead-on, but shrapnel might be a problem—and a person hit by a boomer would be in serious trouble.

  Some of the crew ducked farther inside for cover. Mik pushed Gan out of the way. Xia, Buck and Mik didn’t move. Mik just stood there—arms crossed on his chest, eyes like gray ice—as if he dared someone to mess with his ship and crew. Buck cursed and began to twitch. He reached for his gun, but Xia laid a hand on his arm.

  “There’s no one to shoot yet,” she said. She was eager to take on their enemies, but Mik had taught her to make sure she knew who really was an enemy. This looked like they’d landed in the middle of someone else’s fight.

  It might be fun to get involved, but it could escalate into more than they could handle, considering they didn’t know the players. The words echoed through her head in Mik’s voice, though it was a physical strain to heed them. If her dad didn’t feel the need to do anything yet, Xia was going to tough it out. Even if the adrenaline and the urge to fight something made her feel like she was drunk or careening toward orgasm.

  “Not like you to be all reasonable,” Buck grumbled, but he stood down, though he glanced pointedly at her twitching tail and working claws.

  The grenade wasn’t intended for them. Looked like it was aimed at a fancy red-and-black flyer, which neatly dodged while it did something with a force field to lob the grenade back in the direction it came from. Even before the boom of the grenade detonating, the flyer opened up gunports—serious gunports, not the little miniguns most personal flyers had if they were armed at all—and let it rip in the grenade’s direction.

  Silence followed the gunfire and the explosion. Either the attackers had fled or none of them was in any shape to return fire.

  “Marl, they have a lasercannon!” Buck looked extra twitchy as he said it.

  Even Mik’s calm seemed rattled.

  Xia turned her head to get a better look. “Cosmic. I’ve never seen a lasercannon in action close up.” She turned to her father. “Can we get one, Dad? Please. I’ll save my money.”

  A reluctant smile cracked Mik’s concern. “Kitten, you scare me. Of all the things in the galaxy you’d think a pretty girl might want, you want a lasercannon?”

  She giggled, suddenly feeling like her old self again. “Silly Dad. Other people buy me flowers and jewelry and stuff. Complete strangers, even. But who’s going to buy me a lasercannon?”

  “A girl’s got to have priorities,” Rita said, coming up from behind and scratching Xia between the ears. It felt like old times. No, better than old times. Rita was smiling more than she used to and had a just-been-laid spring in her step and a handsome Banjali with colorful, black-tipped wings hovering two steps behind her—literally hovering, since the bay door, designed for cargo as well as people, was tall enough he could get a few inches off the floor. “Though I’d rather you got jewelry. At least you’d let me borrow that. You’d hog a lasercannon.”

  “Around here, a lasercannon would be a lot more useful than flowers or jewelry,” Drax, Rita’s pretty-pretty Banjali man, said.

  The flyer landed neatly, but way too close to the Malcolm for comfort. This time, even Mik reached for a weapon, though he was gesturing the others to stay back.

  “I believe we’re all right,” Drax said in his educated, smoothstyle voice. “I know that flyer.”

  Chapter Four

  The flyer’s door opened.

  Two heavily armed people who looked like bodyguards stepped out—one a human, the other a Xylac, obvious from his horns. Body armor, Mae-90 personal power laser guns, the works.

  In contrast, the person who exited the flyer next was unarmored and unarmed.

  Make that the person who slinked out like a holo star. Most people looked awkward getting out of a flyer. This one led with his pelvis and his long, lean, leather-clad legs, then unfolded and opened his arms. “Drax Jalfricki!” he exclaimed. “Welcome to my hellish little paradise. Don’t mind the idiots with explosives. Eventually they’ll learn better. Either that or they’ll die. Entertaining either way.”

  “Rahal, you’re right on time and right up to your ear tips in trouble, as usual.”

  “Of course I’m on time. I wouldn’t want to keep my brother waiting. As for the trouble…” He shrugged, a lovely motion that set the muscles in his broad, bare chest rippling.

  “It runs in the family.” Both men laughed.

  Xia drew in a sharp breath.

  This guy wasn’t Drax’s actual-factual brother, though he was even more spectacularly good-looking than the Banjali. A woman might die from all the excess of masculine beauty. (A quick glance suggested Mik and Gan might also be in danger. They were devoted to each other, but they weren’t blind.)

  Rahal, Drax’s “brother”, was a felinoid.

  An insanely gorgeous felinoid, lithe and well built, with clear green eyes, a swarthy complexion and long black hair that matched his black ears and tail. He wore black leather pants designed to accommodate his tail, and a big, gaudy gold pendant studded with red and green stones. Xia had to assume the massive thing wasn’t actually gold and rubies and emeralds, but the metal glinted softly in the sun, the stones brilliantly, as beautiful as she imagined the real deal would be.

  Then again, maybe it was the real deal. There were a lot of gemstone mines on this planet. That was what had started the planet fighting like Gamian lizards in a barrel—everyone wanted control of the mines.

  Xia’s tail began to twitch. She licked her lips and drew herself up a little taller. She was petite, even for one of her people—the medicos said she’d been malnourished when she was a kitten—and this drink of tastiness was as tall as Mik. Not exceptionally tall for
a human, but definitely tall for a felinoid. She didn’t want him to mistake her for an adolescent.

  Drax swooped off the flyer.

  Xia caught a subtle gesture to the bodyguard types—relax, he’s safe—before Drax and the stranger caught each other in a big, manly hug, muttering the mixture of curses and endearments that guys seemed compelled to offer at moments like this.

  “Yummy! Good enough to eat, aren’t they?” she whispered to Rita.

  “You mean isn’t he, as in Rahal? You look like I felt when I first laid eyes on Drax. And this is a dicey situation too, with someone trying to kill him, which is a weird coincidence.”

  “Wouldn’t it be cosmic if it’s some kind of pattern? I’d love a chance to play with that hotness.” She tried not to squeal so loudly the stranger could hear her. Sure, he was felinoid and might appreciate her enthusiasm, but it was better to wait for eye contact before letting him, and everyone in the area, know about her lust. Just in case he was queerbent one hundred percent or something, she didn’t want to embarrass both of them.

  “Bad news is this one has pants on. Good news is he’s not tied up and bleeding.”

  “Yet.” Xia flexed her claws. “Tied up isn’t my kink, but I’m all for getting a little rough. We have claws for a reason.”

  “Hunting, right?” Rita said drily.

  “Right. And I plan to hunt this Rahal until he catches me.”

  Sex was better than violence, any day, for lighting up the dark places.

  After some chatting and handshakes and hugs—Xia kept waiting for the backslapping to start, but apparently it wasn’t something people with wings did, and she couldn’t imagine the elegant felinoid being quite that hearty—Drax and Rahal approached the Malcolm.