This is about the mission, he reminded himself. Nothing else.

Still, after picking the one shirt that wasn’t either transparent or cut down to the navel, Kell took a grim satisfaction in using his regulation blade to shred the rest of the men’s clothing. He threw the remains into a waste compartment.

Brilliant. Why don’t you just piss on them while you’re at it?

He finished dressing, and was glad there wasn’t a mirror in her quarters. He didn’t want to know what he looked like.

If the expression on Mara’s face was any indicator, he looked damn good. He ambled back to the galley, dressed in his closest approximation of a smuggler. She sat in the cockpit with her seat swiveled around to face him. Her eyes went wide, and he waited for her to laugh. Instead, a flush crept across her cheeks and she slowly licked her lips.

“That’ll…work.”

He glanced down. His pants were standard black cargos, and he’d strapped his blaster back onto his thigh. The shirt was also black, sleeveless, and cut for a smaller man. It fit Kell a little snugly, revealing every ridge and contour of muscle. Judging by Mara’s glazed eyes, she didn’t mind at all.

Her gaze lingered over his exposed arms. He had to check the impulse to flex for her.

“What’s that?” She pointed to his shoulder.

He absently touched his fingers to the tattoo, an image of a serpent and a hawk locked in combat.

“Something to remind me of home.”

“Home.” She repeated the word as if she didn’t understand its meaning. “Where’s home for you?”

“With the 8th Wing, now.” Her question robbed him of any bravado he might have felt from her approving gaze. Coldness swept through his body, reminding him not just of the mission, but the reasons why he’d enlisted with the 8th Wing in the first place. “You?”

“This is it, now.” She waved a slim hand to indicate the ship.

Neither of them asked where home had once been. Before the 8th Wing, before the Arcadia. Yet the answer was there, just the same. A darker place. The kind of place that made them both find new homes for themselves, new lives. He wondered where she was truly from, what had driven her away.

It didn’t really matter what had happened. She was a scavenger and smuggler, and she had made it abundantly clear that she wanted nothing to do with the ongoing war between the 8th Wing and PRAXIS. Profit was her motivation, and that was all.

Yet as they stared at one another, he felt the edge of desire cut through him. Desire, and the uncharted map of a life he might have lived if he hadn’t found the 8th Wing. A kid with dreams of something more, something better in the sky—he could have wound up just like her, another scavenger stealing a living. Stealing freedom.

Is that what made her who she was now? Is that what he saw when he looked at her, what drew him to her?

A warning beep suddenly filled the cockpit, breaking the moment. Mara spun to the control panel and softly cursed.

He slid into the cockpit and took his seat. “Trouble?”

“PRAXIS.” She tapped a few keys, and a PRAXIS patrol-class cutter appeared on the display. It wasn’t the biggest or most dangerous PRAXIS ship, but it had a goodly compliment of weapons that could blast a little towing ship like the Arcadia out of the sky.

He tensed. “Tell me your ship is armed.”

“She is, but it won’t be necessary.”

The comm line shrilled. “Scavenger ship, prepare to be boarded.”

“Affirmative.” She cut the comm line.

He braced a hand on the control panel. “Don’t let them on the ship.”

They both watched as a shuttle detached from the PRAXIS cutter and headed toward them. One shuttle could hold at least six PRAXIS troops. He wondered how many were on the shuttle now, and if he could take them all down. His plasma pistol was charged. He eyed the narrow passages of the Arcadia. They didn’t offer much room for combat, but he was trained.

“Either I let them board peacefully, or they force their way on.”

“I’ll pilot. Use evasive maneuvers.”

But she shook her head. “Forget it.”

The ship shook slightly as the PRAXIS shuttle came alongside and linked. He rose to his feet and drew his plasma pistol.

“Holster that, flyboy.”

As she started to rise from her seat, his grip on her arm stopped her. “Going to turn me over to PRAXIS?” It made sense. She could rid herself of her 8th Wing escort, forget the mission, and possibly earn herself some leniency from PRAXIS.

She stared up at him, eyes burning cold. “Just keep your mouth shut, and I’ll get us both out alive.” When he still wouldn’t release her arm, she said, “Trust me.”

“Why should I?”

Their eyes locked. “No reason. But you should.”

Trust her? The woman was a scavenger, a smuggler. She lived only for herself. Yet, as their gazes held, he looked deep. His instincts had kept him alive his whole life, from his home world to the space battles in far-away solar systems, and they were the only thing he’d been able to count on when even technology failed. They told him that, yes, he could trust Mara Skiren.

His fingers slowly unclasped from around her arm. He nodded tightly.

Something shifted in her expression, a momentary hint of surprise that he would trust her,

followed by a flutter of…gratitude. His trust was an unexpected gift—they both understood this at the same time.

They turned when they heard the sound of the bay door open, and footsteps on the metal floor of the galley.

“Don’t say anything,” she warned.

He nodded again, and together, they moved into the galley. Kell kept himself loose, ready for anything. Mara asked for his trust, and he gave it, but he never trusted PRAXIS. They’d broken too many treaties, overtaken too many worlds, destroyed too many lives.

A PRAXIS officer and two armed troops stepped into the galley. Kell fought down the demand to just take the fuckers out. If anything happened to the officer, the clipper would open fire, and then everything would be over.

Unlike the 8th Wing’s gray uniforms, the PRAXIS Group’s uniforms were a spotless, gleaming white, as if they still believed themselves to be an influence for positive change and progress in the galaxy. Once, long ago, they had been, but greed had superseded the impulse toward advancement and worlds fell underneath the unstoppable force of PRAXIS’s demand for more. More wealth. More planets. More power. Any who disagreed or wanted their own governance were crushed.

Only the 8th Wing stood between PRAXIS and their complete domination of the galaxy.

The officer—a captain, judging by the bars on his collar—stepped into the passageway as if he owned it. He stared insolently at Mara and then Kell. Kell tensed, half expecting the captain to recognize him as the enemy. But the 8th Wing was always careful about keeping the identities of personnel hidden, especially his squadron.

Mara greeted the PRAXIS officer calmly, despite the weapons that were likely trained on her ship at that very moment and the presence of the two armed troops. Her composure reminded Kell of top fighter pilots, level-headed in even the most dangerous situations.

His admiration for her struck him unexpectedly, like an elbow between the shoulder blades.

Mara kept her focus on the PRAXIS officer. “This day gets better by the minute.”

The officer’s eyes lingered on Mara, liking what he saw. Kell’s fists curled and tightened. If that bastard so much as breathed on her, he would tear the captain’s limbs off.

“What brings you to this part of the galaxy, scavenger?” the captain drawled.

“Business.”

The captain smirked. “Of course. Bottom feeding, as usual.”

She didn’t respond to the taunt, even though Kell had the strangest need to punch the smirk off the captain’s face—not because he was PRAXIS, but because of his rudeness to Mara.