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  The T’varri measured her with his eyes.

  “Why is every ring miner this side of the galaxy about to descend on the rings? Because there’s a fortune to be made, of course. And because Verrai and his squad cleaned out the nest of pirates on Chndra.”

  “So we heard,” I said. “Just didn’t know if we could believe it.”

  “Oh, you can believe it. They brought back footage—saw vids of the bodies myself.” He nodded and took another sip of ale.

  “And the Widow?” I asked. “What about her?”

  The T’varri shrugged. “Nobody knows. Her control station is quiet—nobody goes in, nobody goes out. That’s why everyone’s been holding back. But now that the Gold Skins proved you can get in and out with no problem—even if you kill the Widow’s pet pirates—I’m thinking a Hell of a lot of miners are about to follow.”

  “You could be right.” I knew for sure I was going in. Teeny had to be on the small moon, Chndra somewhere. The Net being down and Verrai’s squad killing the pirates made my job a hell of a lot easier but it also made me nervous.

  It seemed…too easy somehow.

  “Wasn’t the head pirate who was killed a, uh, T’varri?” The name sounded exotic on Leah’s tongue. “Like you?” she asked the T’varri timidly. “I mean, did you know him?”

  “Who—Arn?” The T’varri laughed, eyeing her again in a way I didn’t like. “That son of a motherless grondag had it coming.”

  “How so?” Leah asked.

  The T’varri frowned. “He wasn’t honorable in his dealings. That’s the problem with pirates—they got no fucking values. Word was, he’d kidnapped an innocent female and was holding her against her will.”

  My heart thumped in my chest at the indirect mention of Teeny but I tried to keep my face blank.

  “Is that right? Any word on what he did with her?”

  He shook his head. “Not that I heard—I only know he took her.” He frowned. “It’s shameful to take a female without a contract like that.”

  “A contract?” Leah raised her eyebrows. “What does that mean?”

  I cleared my throat. “The T’varri sign a binding and legal contract with a female before they bond her to them. It spells out exactly what they’re willing to do.”

  “To do?” Leah frowned.

  “Sexually.” The T’varri’s voice dropped a note and he eyed her again, his live tattoos writhing with interest. “We demand that a female submit to us completely but only within the confines of the contract. To take a female without establishing her limits and learning her sig`nal is shameful.”

  “Seen-yahl? What’s that?” Leah asked.

  “When love play grows rough, as it so often does with my kind, the female must have a word they can give that will stop their male from continuing,” he explained. “It keeps things from…going too far.”

  “Oh, I see.” Leah’s face got a little paler and she took a step closer to me. “Like a safe word.”

  “Enough about that,” I growled. I was tired of discussing the depraved sexual practices of the T’varri and doubly tired of the way this one was eyeing my female, which was definitely how I thought of Leah, even though we weren’t bonded.

  “Suit yourself. I was just explaining.” He shrugged and took another drink of the bright blue ale. “So, are you going to the rings? Got a stake in a mining operation? I didn’t think Braxians went in for that kind of thing.”

  “Not mining exactly.” I thought about hiring him…and then decided against it. If the pirates were dead—and it seemed certain they were—I would have no need of mercs to watch Leah’s back while I went after them. We could concentrate all our time on the search for Teeny.

  “Well, if there’s nothing else, I do have a stake to claim.” The T’varri rose, scraping his chair back against the metal floor.

  “That’s all,” I said. “Thank you for your candor.” I offered him a warrior’s clasp and after a moment he took it, gripping my forearm tightly.

  “May you find what you are seeking,” he said formally. And then, with a look at Leah, “Though it seems to me you’ve already found it.”

  “Thanks,” I said shortly, releasing my grip. “May the Goddess go with you.”

  “Oh, she wouldn’t have me.” He gave me a dark grin. “But thank you anyway, brother. And thanks for the ale.” He looked like he might say something else to Leah but a look at my face changed his mind. He simply nodded and left.

  “Whew…” Leah blew out a breath and looked up at me. “Now what?”

  “Now,” I said. “We go find Teeny.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Leah

  “She’s not here. I swear by the Goddess of Mercy I’ve searched every-fuckin’-where I could think of and I can’t find her anywhere,” Grav growled, sounding extremely upset.

  I couldn’t blame him. We’d been searching for hours and had turned the pirate’s compound upside down but we hadn’t been able to find Grav’s little ward anywhere.

  The compound itself was a large, split-level building set in the middle of a scorching blue desert. There was sand swirled everywhere in drifts and dunes and all of it was different shades of blue from the palest sky-blue to the deepest shade of midnight. I didn’t know how the different shades stayed together instead of mixing to form one single multicolored-hue, but somehow they didn’t.

  The different shades swirled around each other without ever mixing, making me think of waves in an ocean or clouds in the sky. Since the sky was a light tan, it made me feel like I was caught in an upside-down beach where everything had been reversed.

  Outside, to the right of the compound, the Imperial Guards had stacked the bodies of the pirates they had killed. I tried not to look at the grisly sight but it was hard—my eyes kept wanting to wander back to those bodies stacked like so much cordwood in the shifting blue sands.

  Though it couldn’t have been long since they had been killed, the desert was already beginning to dry them out. Some of them even had gray faces and lipless mouths that had drawn back to reveal black gums and yellow teeth.

  “Don’t look, darlin’,” Grav muttered, seeing where my gaze was going. “It’s not a sight a female like you oughta have to see.”

  “I was just…just thinking that the desert is already drying them out,” I said, my voice coming out slightly sick. “Look—those ones with the gray skin—”

  “Those are Biters,” he interrupted me. “They always look like that.” He took a step closer and leaned over, examining the bodies. “Looks like the Gold Skins knew what they were doing—these were shot in the head. It’s the only way to keep a Biter down for good.”

  “A Biter is one of the cannibal people you and the Principae—Teeny’s grandfather—were talking about, right?” I asked. “Which of the Twelve Peoples are they?”

  “They’re not,” Grav said flatly. “Biters aren’t born—they’re made. The Biter’s Curse is a virus that’s passed in the saliva and blood of one of the infected. When they bite you and the virus gets into your bloodstream, well…” He shook his head.

  “There’s no cure?” I asked.

  “None. And the Curse rots your brain. Makes you an eating machine and what you want to snack on is other sentient beings.”

  “So…they’re some kind of zombies?” I shivered. “That’s awful! But how could the pirates use them as soldiers if they’re so mindless?”

  “They can be controlled—usually with impulse collars.” He nodded at one of the Biters. Around his throat a scratched gray metal collar was winking in the pitiless desert sunlight.

  “But they’re not the same person they were before they got bitten?” I guessed. “Even with the collar on?”

  “Exactly.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Gods, I wish we could find Teeny and make sure she’s all right! Just the thought of one of those Biters going after her…” He glared at the neatly stacked dead bodies, as though he wished h