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Chapter 10

Why had he agreed to let Trixie come?

Besides not having the authority to forbid her, of course. And not being entirely certain she wouldn’t do as she threatened and follow him separately.

And also, if he was being truthful at least with himself, he knew how she felt and he respected her wanting to confront those feelings.

As the small shuttle swept out of the system, they passedtheGrandyat dock just beyond the Azthronos estate world’s smallest moon. Nor stared out the viewport at the illuminated dreadnaught, his chest tight with longing even though the mighty flagship was already his. Everything she represented had become his, for a small additional fee.

And was it enough?

He turned away from the view before theGrandyhad slipped away behind them.

Reviewing thelikely testing points identified on the neural gel’s map, he assigned each dot to a team of two crewmembers. The sketched search areas showed the outlines of stasis pods where the abducted women had been kept, corridors down which they’d been transported, areas around empty life pod hatches where they might’ve scrabbled for handholds, reaching for anything that might’ve saved them from being ejectedtoward the singularity…

Nor banished the disturbing images. He hadn’t known those women, hadn’t known about their plight at the time. Even if he’d been involved in his own share of thieving, smuggling, and sometimes killing over the lightyears, he’d never trafficked in sentient beings or targeted innocents. That was far too similar to his own fate after his sire’s rejection. And still, guiltgnawed at his guts.

Or maybe that was the pixberry tea he’d stolen from Trixie. He should’ve gotten something else to eat.

After he’d divided up the tasks, he had nothing else to occupy him. Not wanting to appear fidgety to his young crew, he looked for a place to sit.

Only one seat was empty. Of course.

He settled with a disgruntled thump next to Trixie.

Since she appeared occupied withher dat-pad—hisold pad, strapped to the arm ofhisleft-behind fatigues—he rummaged in his pocket for one of his favorite candies. Meanwhile, from the way her thigh angled surreptitiously away from his, he knew she was aware of him. Rudely, he shifted his leg closer.

She sidelonged a glance at him. “Quit manspreading.”

His translator hesitated. “Is that like perving?”

Her lips twitched. “Sortof.”

“I’m sorry I sneaked out like a larf-licking quark-lunker this morning,” he found himself saying. He never felt the need to chat with his previous lovers, definitely never felt the need to explain why he walked away from them. Why did he find it so easy to talk to her when she didn’t even have a universal translator?

She tilted her head, and he supposed she was puzzling out what he meant.“I’m sorry I pretended to be asleep while you were sneaking,” she said at last. She held out her hand, palm up expectantly.

After a second, he deposited the candy in her palm and chuckled as he leaned back in his seat. “I guess neither of us gets any reward for courage.”

She let the tight clamp of her knees relax while she unwrapped the candy, so the edge of her leg brushed his. “I guess weshould be brave not for the rewards but because it’s the right thing to do.”

“Nobody expects a pirate to do the right thing,” he mused.

“Or the clueless closed-worlder,” she agreed, popping the candy between her lips. “But we are more than that now.”

He gazed at her thoughtfully. In his cast-off clothing, she didn’t look necessarily bigger or bolder. If anything, the tight braid of her blondhair only made her fine features seem that much more delicate, her brown-green eyes wide and deep as secret pools on some unexplored border world.

No one had ever expected more from him, not even the dowager duchess when she sold him his commission on theGrandiloquence. People had only ever seen him as whatever value, plus or minus, he had for them: his mother saw him as a blackmail scheme,the old duke as a shame to be exiled out of his presence, his first owners as hull-scrubbing cannon fodder. Only Trixie had ever challenged him to be more than what he was.

He wasn’t entirely sure he appreciated it. But here he was, in a pointless rescue trip for missing souls whose very atoms no longer existed in this universe.

He startled when Trixie bumped her knee against his lightly.

“You don’t have to think of ways to blow me off or sneak away anymore,” she said. “I know last night was just a…” She hesitated, as if she didn’t have the words even in her own language. “A nice moment.”

He narrowed his eyes. “A nice moment.” Maybe that meant something different in Earther, but he didn’t think so and neither did his translator. “Ithought it was an encounter unlike any other I’veever experienced.”

“Oh.” She glanced around them furtively, her cheeks flushing with riotous color. “Then why…why did you leave?”