“A crawling cautionary tale.” She watched the man trying unsuccessfully to drag himself away.

“Everyone keep moving,” one of the sentries yelled.

Putting aside the image of the brutalized man, Mara fell in step beside Kell as they continued on to the main building. She didn’t want to think of herself, or Kell, lying bloody and broken in the dirt.

The main building was a filthy warehouse, rusted and grimy, empty of anything except throngs of people and a dais at the far end. A short flight of steps led to the top of the dais. As she and Kell pushed their way through the crowd, Gavra climbed the steps, her stocky body making her resemble a red-headed sarvikpotemus.

“Fifteen solar minutes until the auction, swine,” she bellowed. “Fifteen more minutes to check out the Black Wraith before it gets locked up.”

Kell and Mara exchanged a look. Adhering to their plan, they followed the crowd through a side door to an alley between storage buildings. Armed mercenaries lined the alley, which led to a hangar that had doors wide enough to accommodate a light ship. Security panels kept the doors sealed, and people could only go inside through a small entry, monitored by cameras and sentries. She had never seen so many security precautions in her life, not even in Skiren Palace.

Once inside, she understood why. Her first glimpse of a real Black Wraith ship. Kell clenched his jaw as if just barely holding in a curse, but she gave a soft gasp of amazement. “It’s beautiful.”

A sleek, dark knife of a ship, the Black Wraith gleamed beneath the sodium lights. It seemed formed of a single piece of seamless metal, even the guns projecting from beneath its curved wings.

Another gun sat mounted on the back, presumably to be used when being pursued. A window indicated the cockpit, yet Mara could find no way to actually get inside the ship.

Kell whispered the answer to her unspoken question. “Only Black Wraith Squad has access to the interior.”

“Then it’ll be worthless to PRAXIS or anyone else.”

“A precisely calibrated plasma saw could breach its shields and split it open. The ship would be ruined, but they could pull it apart and learn how to make more.”

That definitely should not happen. The Black Wraith radiated deadly potential, sleek and lethal,

not unlike Kell. He had mentioned that the ship’s pilot had a unique way of interacting and communicating with the vessel, making them an almost unbeatable force. A fleet of these ships could wreak devastation from one end of the galaxy to the other.

Kell spoke tightly. “PRAXIS already greatly outnumbers 8th Wing. Black Wraiths help, but it’s never enough.”

Gods only knew how many more worlds PRAXIS would conquer if they had such power at their disposal. She fought a shudder.

She made sure they were at a distance from the people milling around the ship before she spoke.

“It takes more than the chip to fly a Black Wraith.”

“Years of training, depending on the pilot.”

“You probably learned in a year.”

“Ten solar months,” he answered.

“Always a fighter.”

Pride flickered in his eyes. “Celene was quick too. Took her sixteen solar months. The second fastest record in the squad.”

Something in his tone told her more than his actual words. “You were lovers.”

When a hint of flush darkened his tanned face, a hot blast of pure anger cleaved through her. She wanted to grab a plasma rifle from one of the guards and start shooting out the sodium lights, maybe even club a few people with the butt of the gun.

“Or maybe you still are,” she said, her voice like broken glass in her throat.

“Were, not are.” He stepped closer.

She turned away to feign interest in the Black Wraith. Damn it, she was jealous. She had never experienced that emotion before, but now she wanted to find Lieutenant Jur. Hurt her as Mara hurt now.

She did not recognize herself—the scavenger with attachments to nothing and no one. The idea of Kell making love to someone, to anyone who wasn’t her, felt like the bitterest betrayal. No matter how long ago it had happened. How would she face it in the future, knowing that he wasn’t in her bed but someone else’s because of a choice she’d made?

“Fifteen minutes are up,” Gavra’s voice over a comm announced. “Get the hell out and make your way to the main warehouse. Now.”

Armed sentries herded those attempting to linger toward the door. No one but Mara saw the microbot hidden in the cuff of Kell’s pants scuttle away. Two more of the tiny bots clung to the cuff, but if someone noticed all he would see were a couple of dustbeetles hitching a ride. Kell moved with the crowd exiting the building, betraying no signs that he directed the movements of the microbots using his tech implants. She could only marvel at his control. His engineering ability was damn impressive too. He’d built the little bots out of spare parts en route, hunched over the table in Arcadia’s galley.

Torn between admiration and anger, Mara walked silently beside him as they returned to the main warehouse. Her timing was worse than a sipkaswine accidentally wandering into a Joppian cookout. This was not the moment to stew over Kell and the lieutenant’s affair. But hard as she tried, she couldn’t get the images out of her head, envisioning Lieutenant Jur’s hands—and other things—all over his hard, solid body. Him kissing her with the same hunger he’d shown for Mara. Biting the lieutenant’s neck.

Gods, she was going to lose her mind, and the real danger hadn’t even begun.

“You have to stay with me, Mara.”

She nodded, feeling ridiculous. The only way they could survive the next hour was to stay alert.

“I’m here.” She would make herself focus.

They entered the main building and saw that the crowd had thickened. Scavengers, smugglers and other assorted criminals from all over Ryge filled the warehouse. Mara knew most of them, and she traded nods of reserved greeting. The atmosphere held no friendliness, not even good-natured rivalry.

Profit was all that mattered this day. The air droned with collective anticipation at the prospect of bidding on both an 8th Wing ship and an 8th Wing pilot.

A beautiful pilot. Who once shared a bed with Kell.

Stop it.

He paused to lean against the wall. As he did, the remaining microbots scurried off of him and up the wall, blending in with the other dustbeetles and grimespiders darting back and forth. She made certain not to follow the progress of the bots, lest she draw anyone’s attention to them. Aside from the subtle twitching of his fingers, no one would suspect that Kell controlled the tiny machines.

“Everything in place?” she murmured.

“Positioned and ready.”

He cleaved a path through the mob. Or, rather, people stepped aside to let him through, including some of the toughest and most ruthless lawbreakers she knew, men and women who would trample their aged grandparents to steal an aurelia nugget. Yet these coldblooded thieves gave Kell a wide berth.

Mara stayed close, drifting in his wake, and she, too, felt the strength of him, his energy and ferocity. Intoxicating, dangerously alluring. And targeted toward a single goal. Soon, Kell had crossed the length of the warehouse to stand right in front of the dais. She positioned herself beside him, both because it was part of the plan, as well as in response to an instinct that told her it was the safest place.

“We need to find out where they’re keeping Lieutenant Jur.” He spoke low enough so that only Mara could hear. “Following the guards will take us to her, then it’s a matter of overpowering them and decoding the locked chamber they’re most likely keeping her in. Then we—” She laid her hand on Kell’s arm. “I’ve been thinking about how Gavra operates. We won’t need an elaborate plan.” At his frown, she added, “Trust me.”