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  torso. “You know, I can put on my own armor.”

  She gave him a faint smile and went on settling the cuirass into place. “I know. But you’re my man, and I want to be sure it’s properly fitted. If not, I want to be able to tell the armorer exactly what to change.”

  My man. There was something faintly medieval in the way she said the phrase, like an ancient lord claiming responsibility for a vassal knight. Something about the words sent warmth expanding through his chest, and he frowned.

  I’m not her “man,” he told himself fiercely. I’m getting the hell away from her as soon as I get the chance.

  The traitor owed him a blood debt, and he was damned well going to collect.

  The cuirass shifted to accommodate his width, then sealed with a soft hiss. Rance smoothed his hands over the slick, gleaming surface. If he knew combat armor—and he did—this was quite possibly the most expensive suit he’d ever worn. It seemed to weigh no more than a thin tunic and moved with him easily as he twisted his waist and swung his arms.

  One thing was for sure; the lady wasn’t cheap.

  He watched her lift the next section of the suit from its gleaming black case. She rose gracefully and fitted it over his biceps, her long fingers skilled and competent, as if she were no stranger to armor herself.

  Rance mentally totaled the imperials she must have spent, between buying him and the armor. He frowned. “Just exactly how much danger are you in?”

  Her pretty face went grim. “Enough.” She bent and picked up the right bracer. Rance fought not to focus on the curve of her ass. The last thing he needed right now was a hard-on. “There’s a very good armorer on this station,” she said in a blatant change of subject. “When Casus told me he had a shifter, I ordered this fabricated. The woman tells me it will change when you do, but you’ll want to test that. I don’t want any ugly surprises in the event of an ambush.”

  A dozen questions crowded Rance’s tongue, but he kept his mouth shut. He needed to play the obedient slave until Lady Selan dropped her guard.

  Though he hated to contemplate what he’d have to do to this pretty, delicate creature in order to make his escape. She wouldn’t want to let him go—and he couldn’t let himself be kept.

  Lady Selan picked up the groin section and crouched at his feet. He stiffened, suddenly, painfully aware of her face so near his cock. Don’t, he warned it. God, don’t.

  All she’d have to do is lean forward to take it into her mouth…

  Groping for a distraction, he said, “You realize Casus is probably recording this?”

  Her teeth flashed up at him in a feral smile. “Oh, he tried. I put a stop to it. I’ve got a pretty good nanosystem.”

  Rance blinked. “You disabled Casus’s cameras? He’s not going to like that.”

  “Do you truly think I care?”

  He laughed. “Not really.”

  But any sense of amusement faded as she paused, green eyes on his cock. The shaft promptly began to lengthen under her attention. He heard her swallow. She leaned forward…

  And fitted the hip section around his groin. Rance gritted his teeth as it sealed, pressing into his growing erection. The fact that she’d obviously been tempted was no help at all.

  “There.” She rose to her feet and tilted her head, studying him as he towered over her in a suit that could have stopped a star tank blast. “You look quite formidable.”

  “I am quite formidable.”

  “We’ll see. Now shift. I want to make sure that suit accommodates the change.”

  Since he wanted to know, too, he sent a mental order to his nanos. The shift surged through him as the ’bots realigned cells, altered bone and muscle and flesh. He shuddered at the hot, familiar pain. The room blurred.

  When his sight sharpened again, all his senses seemed to explode to vivid life. He looked down at her. And down even farther, since he was almost half a meter taller now.

  She looked so delicate, so fragile. And she smelled deliciously feminine, like distilled sex. Like everything he’d ever craved in a woman.

  His kind had been created to protect the colonists of a savage world filled with predators that would have slaughtered an ordinary human, no matter how well-armed. Instincts bred into his every cell drove him to speak despite the dictates of common sense.

  “Why did you do that, lady?” His voice emerged in a deep, alien rumble. “Ordering me to transform like that? I could kill you before you even had time to activate my collar.”

  There was a hint of icy warning in her smile. “I think you underestimate just how fast I really am.”

  He doubted that. “You shouldn’t take such risks.”

  “Perhaps.” Selan shrugged. “My father used to say you never know whether you can trust a man unless you give him a chance to betray you. It’s better to watch what he does than be unpleasantly surprised when you’re not expecting it.”

  Rance stared at her, appalled. “This was a test?”

  “And lucky you, you passed.” Her eyes dropped to the ring on her hand. “My father knew all about betrayal. He was good at it.” Pivoting on one booted heel, she started toward the door. “Change back, Mad Dog, and let’s go. We have a schedule to meet.”

  The nickname carried a surprising sting it had never possessed before. “Rance. My name is Rance Conlan.”

  She gave him a siren smile. “Rance, then.”

  Grinding his teeth, he let the power roll through him again, then slipped ahead of her like the loyal guard dog he definitely wasn’t.

  She’s playing into my hands, he told himself. She doesn’t know as much about betrayal as she thinks she does.

  The thought left a surprisingly bitter taste in his mouth. Betraying women was for aristos and slavers, not for Freeworlds shifters.

  Too bad he didn’t have a choice.

  THREE

  It wasn’t easy to keep her mind on business with her body thrumming in a sweet, electric buzz. I can’t afford this kind of distraction, Zarifa realized with a grim jolt of alarm. What if Gerik shows up? He’d have me in chains before I saw him coming.

  And yet…Her gaze slid up to the shifter’s towering shoulders as he preceded her through the door. Yes, she’d needed to test him, but if she were honest with herself, she’d insisted on helping him don his armor simply because she’d wanted to touch him.

  His tanned, smooth skin had felt like velvet over steel. And the way his cock had grown under her gaze…Stop it. Get your mind on the job.

  Casus looked up as they walked into his office. He was seated behind an ostentatiously massive desk, his ’borgs flanking him like bookends. As Rance fell into a snappy parade rest just behind her, all three came to full alert. Even the guards looked nervous. And Casus was one deep breath from panic.

  Not that she could blame him. Rance had looked intimidating stark naked, but fully armored he was huge, a gleaming human weapon. But it was more than just the armor. He exuded a calm, deadly confidence that nobody in the room had a prayer against him.

  Zarifa turned her head to watch as he gave Casus a long, cold look that suggested he was remembering every time the other man had tortured him. He smiled, slow and chilling.

  Casus went dead white.

  Oh, sweet Lady, Zarifa thought, fighting a panic surge of her own. Can the nanobots take Rance down before he kills the little idiot?

  If he murdered a man who hadn’t attacked her, he was dead. And Zarifa herself would be detained, which meant officials would discover her true identity in short order. Gerik would arrive to haul her back to Throneworld within hours, and everything would be lost.

  Just as she started to activate her nanobot control ring, Rance spoke, his deep voice as smooth and courtly as any knight’s. “Milady? You said we’re on a tight schedule.”

  He wasn’t going to attack. The relief was dizzying. Zarifa managed a nod. “Yes. Yes, we are.” She turned to the slaver, who had frozen in his chair like a bird hypnotized by a snake. “I believe that compl
etes our transaction.”

  “Yes.” Casus blinked and swallowed with a visible dip of his Adam’s apple. “Yes, fine. Your funds have transferred. Take him.”

  Rance didn’t even give the man a second look as he walked from the room. Suppressing a relieved grin, Zarifa followed him down the corridor past the slave cells and out into the space station beyond.

  Casus slumped as the outer door closed behind Mad Dog and his aristo bitch. Sweat slicked his underarms beneath his expensive velvet jacket, and his heart hammered like a volehare’s. For a moment there, he’d thought the fucker was going to tear him apart.

  But then, Casus had been having nightmares about wolf fangs sinking into his flesh since he’d acquired the hulking bastard three months ago. Doing favors for the regent could be lucrative, but sometimes it wasn’t exactly safe.

  He turned toward Aaren, the chief of his guards. “Did you get past Selan’s image shield?”

  The big man shook his head. “I couldn’t crack her system defenses. Hell, I couldn’t even get proper readings on her true height and weight, much less what her face looks like.”

  Casus felt his jaw drop. A former stellar guard, Aaren could make a slave’s nanos dance to his tune like no one else. “Why the seven hells not?”

  “I can’t be sure because of her shielding, but I suspect she’s got an Imperial Combat-grade nanosystem. Those bastards are designed to be unhackable.” He frowned. “But an aristo courier wouldn’t have a system like that. I’d expect her to top out around a Nova grade. And I’ve hacked those before.”

  “Think she’s military? Maybe some kind of special ops agent?” Though everyone had nanos—for communication and emergency healing if nothing else—it was illegal for civilians to possess the same systems the Empire’s warriors used to enhance their speed and strength.

  “Could be, but I’ve met elite forces soldiers before, and she’s a little too jumpy. The lady does ice bitch aristo better than anybody I’ve ever seen, but there’s just a hint of fear underneath. I think she’s running from somebody—and it’s not some corporate rival after whatever file she’s carrying.”

  Casus came to full alert, smelling the profit of his dreams. “You think she’s the fugitive?” The one whose name they dared not even mention.

  The guard shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “All right.” Casus drummed his fingers nervously on his desk. “I’d better report in. Just in case.”

  “That would be wise,” Aaren said in such a mild tone that Casus knew he’d damned well better get on the comm to Throneworld.

  It was midshift on Market Station, and the main concourse was crowded with shoppers. Spacers and elaborately dressed aristos strolled along under the massive transparent dome, while tourists stopped to gape upward, shameless in their awe. Rance couldn’t blame them. Overhead, the Cordovo Nebula gleamed against the black of space like a woman’s silk scarf, a shimmering veil of purple and red dotted with gemstone stars.

  The view inside the concourse wasn’t nearly that elegant. Merchants pushed massive antigrav carts displaying wares from a hundred worlds. Spidersilk in countless shades, robot toys that pranced and sang, even spices from the Freeworlds that gave Rance a pang of homesickness. A naked slave girl danced in front of one of the dealer shops, her voice musical and lilting as she invited passersby to sample her wares. Yet despite her bright smile, there was desolation in her eyes.

  Fucking aristos.

  Selan glanced at the girl as they passed, and a spasm of pity—and oddly, shame—crossed her face. Pity he could understand, but what the hell did she have to be ashamed of? She hadn’t made the girl a slave.

  Frowning, Rance eyed his new mistress, then turned to scan the surrounding crowd with all his senses, both wolf and nano. He spotted no one who seemed to have an assassin’s unhealthy interest in her.

  Good. Still, he didn’t dare relax.

  As they’d left Casus’s shop, Selan had returned most of his nanobot functions to his control, which said a great deal about how much danger she thought she was in.

  “You know,” Rance said aloud, “I’d find it a lot easier to protect you if I knew what I was protecting you from.”

  Selan shot him a cool look, one hand riding the hilt of her sword. “Not here. Once we get to the ship, I’ll brief you.”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  She lifted a brow, no doubt detecting the edge of sarcasm in his voice. He hid a wince, half expecting her to give him a nanobot jolt for his impertinence. Instead she went back to scanning the surrounding crowd, tension visible in the set of her slim shoulders. She may be paranoid, but at least she’s not a bitch.

  It might have been easier if she were.

  Still, bitch or not, nanos or no, he had to escape. He had a traitor to kill, and he needed to warn Kuarc Lorezo about the mole in his organization. God knew how much damage the spy had done to the Rebellion.

  Rance frowned in worry at the thought. He’d known Kuarc for years and considered him a friend. Though an aristo, he’d sworn to abolish slavery once he became emperor. Which was why Conlan Shipping had been providing his rebels with weaponry and armor for the past ten years.

  It was damned sure Kuarc would make a better ruler than his drunken excuse for a sister. As far as Rance could tell, the only thing Zarifa Lorezo had going for her was that she was legitimate while her brother wasn’t. Yet the man they called the Bastard was far more honorable.

  So if Rance had to hurt Selan to escape, there really was no choice. Friendship, honor, and his own thirst for revenge gave him no alternative.

  On the other hand, I could always seduce her… The thought came from out of nowhere, with the particular ring of something that had been percolating in the back of his mind for a while. Rance blinked, then narrowed his eyes in interest.

  Seduction had always been an effortless skill for him. Women were fascinated by shifters, who had a reputation for animal sexuality and inhuman endurance.

  Unfortunately, though sex came easily, romance was a bit more difficult. An arms-smuggling run to the Empire might be profitable for Rance, his company, and his crew, but it also meant months away from home. More than one of his partners had fallen in love with someone else by the time he returned.

  Still, Rance knew women, and he knew Selan wanted him every bit as much as he did her. He could get her into bed, romance her, make her care about him. With a little patience, he might even be able to convince her to let him go.

  And if that didn’t work, he could always get ruthless.

  Gerik Natalo stalked into his father’s privy chamber, the heels of his boots clicking on the gleaming gemstone tiles.

  He found the regent crouched over his royal compdesk like a heron hunting in the shallows of a swamp, long nose pointed downward, narrow face fiercely intent as he stared at screens of data.

  Umar Natalo was almost as tall as Gerik himself but weighed a good fifty kilos less, his skin stretched taut over bone and sinew. The shoulders of his black velvet coat were padded in a vain attempt to make him look as if he had some meat on his frame. Black lace spilled around his narrow hands, and a ruby gleamed like a pool of blood on his intricate black cravat. The dark, rich clothing only called attention to his pale skin, making him look rather like a vampire from some ancient myth. Which, knowing Umar, was probably his intention.

  The regent didn’t even look up when Gerik came to attention before his battleship of a desk. Gerik wasn’t surprised. His father had yet to forgive him for letting Zarifa slip through his fingers.

  Well, he’d find her eventually, and she’d pay dearly for humiliating him. They didn’t call Gerik the Regent’s Fist for nothing.

  Waiting for Umar to deign to notice him, Gerik drummed the fingers of his right hand on the hilt of his sword and let his eyes drift around the richly appointed room. It barely missed gaudy with its gilded furniture, red upholstery, and golden statues of naked slaves. Umar’s common blood had a way of showing in a certain lack of taste.
r />   It was fortunate Gerik’s mother was a member of the royal line. Not only did she compensate for his father’s multitude of sins, her ancestry made Gerik an acceptable candidate for Zarifa’s hand. At least in the eyes of the nobility.

  Zarifa was another matter. The ice bitch hated him—and it was mutual.

  “She has been found.”

  Gerik jolted. “Zarifa?”

  His father lifted a coal-black brow under hair styled in an elaborate tumble of black curls. “Is there another fugitive who has escaped you?”

  Stung, he glowered. “I’m not the only one she escaped, Father. Have you discovered how she managed to break your control?”

  Umar’s icy gaze narrowed. “It seems you were right. She has gotten her hands on an Imperial Combat nanosystem.”

  He’d suspected as much from the way she’d fought, so different from every previous time she’d tried to stand against him. “Have you found out where she got it?”

  The regent shrugged. “Black market, no doubt. She had the money for it. I’ve found evidence she transferred three hundred million imperials out of her personal accounts.”

  He cursed. “She could have bought a battleship with that much cash.”

  “Among other things. It seems she’s also purchased a certain werewolf slave.”

  “Conlan?” Gerik ground his teeth. “I told you we should have had that bastard killed!”

  “And I felt slavery was a far more galling punishment.”

  “No, you were just looking to line your pockets!”

  “Watch your tongue!”

  Gerik subsided, glaring at his father. “I don’t understand how she even managed the independence to have the system installed to begin with. When did she break your control?”

  Umar shrugged and leaned back in his massive thronelike chair. “The money transfer was three weeks ago. One assumes just before that.”

  “On her birthday.” Gerik raked his hands through his hair and gave it a frustrated jerk. “Must have been one of the gifts.”

  “Probably. There were several things her father’s will specified she receive when she reached her majority.”

  Gerik glowered. “And you allowed that?”

  Umar drummed his ringed fingertips on his desk. “Apparently the emperor’s lawyer was more determined than I expected.”

  “Have the bastard killed.”

  “Oh, I did.”

  A new thought struck him, drew his belly into a sick knot. “Do you think she knows?”

  Umar shrugged. “We must assume so.”

  “If she tells the Bastard—”

  “She won’t get the opportunity.” His father’s voice was hard and icy.

  “She’d damned well better not. Where is she now? I’ll—”

  “You’ll stay right here.” Umar’s voice could snap like a slaver’s whip when it suited him. “I have put a plan into action. We’ll have her back in hand shortly. In the meantime, you will best serve me here. The Bastard is planning something—I can almost smell it on the wind.” His long nose twitched, as if catching Kuarc Lorezo’s scent.

  “Don’t worry about Kuarc.” Gerik’s hand tightened on his sword. “I’ll deal with him.”

  Umar lifted that brow again. “You’d better. If you fail this mission, my son, there will be no others.”

  FOUR

  Zarifa could feel Mad Dog walking behind her, pacing like a great animal. Something about him seemed to broadcast raw sex. She could feel his intense sensuality in every hair that stood on the back of her neck, in the nipples that rose to hard, tingling attention, in the tension that clenched between her thighs.

  We’re going to make love. Then she corrected the thought with the brutal self-honesty her father had taught her: No, we’re going to fuck.

  The idea shimmered in her mind, dancing on the waves of heat that surged in her blood. It had been six years since she’d known a man’s touch, six years since she’d dared risk the fumbling rush and furtive pleasure of sex. After watching her lover’s execution for treason, she’d had no taste for risking another man’s life. Not when Umar had made it so viciously clear that he’d do anything to control her and keep his grip on power.

  A grip she was damned well going to break. Escaping him and his son had been only the first stage of the plan. There would be more to do later, but for now she was free—free to sample her seductive Mad Dog.

  Unfortunately, she had no idea how to go about it. Asking him to make love to her seemed a bit too bald, but her personal experience didn’t extend to seduction.

  Still wrestling with the problem, Zarifa led the way down the vast, echoing corridor that was the Gamma Deck, past the endless rows of airlocks that led to umbilical docking tubes. Each tube held a ship at a precise distance from Market Station. Some of the tubes were scarcely wide enough for two people to walk abreast, while others—those for cargo vessels—were as big around as some ships.

  Spotting the ’lock she wanted, Zarifa sent it a silent message through her nanobot communication system. “This is my ship,” she told Rance as the thick door slid open with a chirrup of greeting.

  They stepped inside and paused, waiting for the airlock to cycle and let them out into the tube. She stole a glance up at her slave’s stern profile. He looked grim and tough, more wary warrior than sex toy.

  He met her eyes. Heat leaped between them like a flame, so searing she had to catch her breath. He studied her, his eyes wolf-fierce, with an elemental hunger that had nothing to do with submission and everything to do with pure, male demand.

  The airlock slid open, breaking the hot tension. He stepped through as Zarifa followed.