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  He sighed. “I thought we’d get less flack as a couple of females. But since I apparently make one seriously ugly woman…”

  “You do.” I tried to stifle a laugh and couldn’t quite manage it. “Sorry but you really do.”

  “Ah, well…” He shrugged and grinned. “We’re Majorans then. A mated pair. Which means…” He looked at me, the humor fading from his face to be replaced by a strange intensity. “Means I’m devoted only to you, darlin’, and have no interest in any other female.”

  The way he said it and the intense look he was giving me made the blood rush to my cheeks but I tried not to show it.

  “You don’t have to be anything, you know,” I said, trying to ignore my hot face and pounding heart. “You don’t have to go down to the planet at all—just let me go. I’m a female so they shouldn’t have a problem with me.”

  Thanks to the universal translation viruses the Commercians had been sending through the hole in Earth’s ozone layer, I should be able to communicate with any sentient species in the Galaxy—at least, that was what Grav had told me when he explained about the Alien Mate Index. So I thought I would be able to do the job with no problem.

  But Grav clearly didn’t agree.

  “Let you go into danger by yourself?” His face darkened, making him look scary despite his drastically altered appearance. “No fuckin’ way, darlin’, not gonna happen.”

  “But I thought the danger stemmed from the fact that you’re a male trying to infiltrate an exclusively female planet,” I protested. “Or at least, the wrong kind of male since only mated Majorans are allowed.”

  “That’s part of it. But…whew…” He seemed to relax and the human-looking image faded, replaced by Grav’s normal appearance again. (Which was much better, at least in my opinion.) “That image is fuckin’ hard to hold,” he remarked. “Look, the danger isn’t just that I’m a male—a Braxian male at that—invading their sacred female-only planet. There’s also the fact that the guard is being held at the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy.”

  “So?” I said.

  “So the Temple is on sacred ground. The only way Princepae Kiv’orop could get the Geminanian authorities to let us question Teeny’s guard is by saying we’re acolytes of Naamah.”

  “Acolytes of who?” I frowned. “I thought everyone whose planet was seeded by the Ancient Ones worshiped the Goddess of Mercy.”

  “Most do. But Naamah is the Goddess of Truth on Yall’ala Prime. It’s an entire religion devoted to truth-telling and transparency.”

  “Really?” I frowned. “Well, I guess I’ve heard of religions founded on weirder things.”

  Grav nodded. “People come from all over the galaxy to undergo the initiation process and join them. Believers in Naamah literally can’t lie. And a lie can’t be told to them without their knowing it. They drink some kinda special herb concoction to enhance their natural abilities of discernment.”

  “They really can’t tell a lie? Not even a little white lie?” I thought of all the pretending I’d had to do with Gerald to protect his ego when we were making love and I wasn’t feeling a thing and grimaced. “I bet that makes for some happy marriages.”

  “Don’t know about their joining habits.” Grav shrugged. “I do know they always come in pairs—one Truth Sayer, who speaks the truth of Naamah, and one Truth Knower, who can tell if someone is lying. I thought it’d work best if you were the Sayer and I was the Knower.”

  “Acolytes of Naamah sound like a really, uh, interesting people,” I remarked dryly.

  He nodded. “Yeah, fascinating. And they make fuckin’ good interrogators. In fact, I would have told the Princepae to get some for real, except that they’re on the other end of the Galaxy and they generally won’t work for a male outside their faith.”

  “How will we explain that, then?” I asked. “If the Gemina authorities know we’re being sent by the Princepae?”

  Grav shrugged. “If they ask, we’ll tell them it’s a special exception since Teeny is a female and an innocent.” His expression darkened. “At least, she’d better still be an innocent when I find her. Or those fuckin’ bastards that took her are gonna pay twice as bad. They won’t just die…they’ll die slow.”

  I shivered at the look on his face. Most of the time he was so gentle he seemed almost like a big, cuddly teddy bear. But every once in a while I got a glimpse of the other side of him—the animal side. And there was nothing soft or cuddly about it.

  It was terrifying. But thankfully, not directed at me.

  “Um, Grav?” I said after a moment, probably interrupting half a dozen bloody vengeance fantasies.

  “Mmm?” He frowned.

  “So once we get down to the planet and fool the authorities, how will we get her—the guard I mean—to talk? And how will we know if she’s telling the truth?”

  “Oh, she’ll talk all right,” he said grimly. “I can promise you that.”

  “You’re not going to…hurt her, are you?” I asked, feeling sick. I was sure the guard deserved some kind of punishment for whatever part she’d played in Teeny’s capture but the idea of watching Grav torture anyone—especially a woman—made me nauseous.

  But I had misread him.

  “Hurt a female?” Grav looked offended. “Fuck no, darlin’! That’s not me. But I do have this.” He pulled something out of one of the pockets on the black leather vest he wore. It looked like a long, thin, green porcupine quill to me.

  “What’s that?” I asked frowning.

  “Something else I got from Shekk—a truth-saying spike. One prick with this and she’ll spill her guts.”

  “And you’ll be able to tell if she’s telling the truth?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Got a lie detector of my own.” He laid one finger to the side of his nose. “This.”

  “What?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you telling me you can smell it when somebody’s lying?”

  “Sure can. The chemical composition of your sweat changes when you lie—even the coolest customer can’t help it.”

  “Wow.” I looked at him admiringly. “I didn’t know your nose was that sensitive.”

  “I smell everything,” he said darkly. “Lies, truth, fear…” His white-on-black eyes raked over me. “Desire.”

  I thought of how horny and needy I’d been feeling the last few days, ever since he’d healed me for the second time, and felt my cheeks heat with embarrassment.

  “Um…so we get down to the planet, get the guard to tell the truth about who took Teeny and where they took her, and get back up here as quickly as possible?” I said, trying to change the subject. “That’s the plan?”

  He nodded. “Essentially. But remember, the Temple Guards will be armed and ready to kill anyone committing blasphemy on their sacred grounds. So we have to be careful—don’t give them any reason to doubt us.”

  “But is it blasphemy?” I looked at him curiously. “I mean, do you feel bad about what we’re going to do? I thought you worshipped the Goddess of Mercy too.”

  “I do,” he said shortly. “And I’m sorry to invade her sanctuary under false pretenses. But what’s blasphemy is kidnapping and hurting an innocent like Teeny. We have to get her back before any kind of permanent harm is done—I think the Goddess would understand.”

  “All right.” I took a deep breath. “Well then, let’s get going.”

  “Not just yet,” he said. “First we have to get changed and I have to get the generator implanted. C’mon—let’s go to my fresher. I have everything I need in there.”

  Grav

  “Implanted?” Leah asked once I was positioned in front of the viewer in my fresher—what she called a ‘bathroom’ for some reason. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean the image generator can’t hold my new image steady without me concentrating on it all the time—unless it’s actually inside me,” I explained. “See?”

  I concentrated again, bringing up the