Renall watched Clara walk in front of him. She was stunning, and his body ached as he took in her lush curves. He sighed inwardly. He needed her in his gambling ship, not in his bed. He had a dream to accomplish. A world of his own. One small enough to be prosperous and livable but not so large to offer resources or profit to anyone who might consider plundering it.

He knew just the place too. But first, he had to get his coin in order.

Renall stopped at a door. He said, “This will be your chamber, unless Talon has assigned it to someone else. It doesn’t look like he has.” He shot a look down the corridor. Weeping came from one chamber and sounds from others. He sighed inwardly. He hadn’t counted on walking off with women. They weren’t supposed to be on the ship. Once again, he was stuck with a human cargo, much of it worthless. Unless he wanted to trade it off to slavers, which he was violently opposed to doing.

So what to do with them all?

“Thanks.” Clara stood at the door. “What do we do until we get to wherever it is we are going?”

Hell if I know. He said, “I will have you informed of meal times and such.” Then he strode off.

Talon stood near the bridge guiding the ship in that easy way of his. Renall often envied Talon that talent. Renall was blessed with different abilities, and between the four brothers—Renall, Talon, Marik, and Jeval—they were steadily acquiring the necessary funds to get that world they all wanted.

One world. Four peaceful kingdoms on it. No more pirating, dashing in and out of far-flung galaxies where only the roughest and the most outcast of the space trash hung out and where shady deals were just all part and parcel of the game that played out.

The oreonium they had harvested from the transport ship would be taken to one of those planets where it would be given a fake log, and a shipper would take a large cut of the profit that they’d earned. That planet killed most off-planet inhabitants so few ever really knew for certain whether or not there was actually oreonium there or not, a boon. There wasn’t, at all, but who’d live to say if they went investigating?

Talon spoke. “I sent the others to a chamber.”

“I put her in one too.” Renall shook his dark head. “Give me the rundown on the others.”

Talon’s lips compressed. “We have a Capo onboard.”

Renall’s shoulders tensed. “Oh?”

“Yes.” Talon slanted a look at him. “She’s been in a healing cryo. She was beaten pretty badly. I ran a scanner on her memory, without mentioning it to her of course. If she’s a spy, she’s been wiped pretty clean. That doesn’t mean she won’t turn out to be the obvious Capo spy on our ship. It just means that she doesn’t know she’s a Capo spy on our ship.”

Renall considered that. The four brothers made no decisions alone. Everything was subjected to a vote. “How are you and the others leaning on her?”

Talon shrugged. “I saw what she went through. It may very well be that they wanted her gone for something she knew. But they wiped her so she wouldn’t recall it so whatever it was, they had to have her so far away she could not speak on it if she remembered.”

And a brothel would have made sure she had no voice. Besides, they had come across the transport almost by accident. It had been cruising fast and headed right for Narnlia, and with no manifest listing the women as being aboard. The decision to strip it so close to that planet had been risky and last minute. So the odds of the Capo using her to bait them into that stripping were nil.

“I think it’s just a coincidence, and a rather unlucky one. Let’s see if we can use her for something. She can sure fight.”

Talon chuckled. “I agree. She clocked me a good one.”

Renall took a seat. Marik appeared, a frown on his face. Renall asked, “What is it?”

Marik lifted a hand to his hand and rubbed at his forehead but didn’t manage to work the frown off his face. “One of them won’t make it.”

Renall asked, “Why not?”

Marik’s lips twisted angrily. “She’s carrying Low-rot.”

Talon said, “I hope you quarantined her.”

“I need to do more than that.” Marik’s eyes were troubled. “She can’t be on here when it starts getting worse. Why her government saw fit to sell her off in that condition is beyond me.”

Renall shook his head. “They likely didn’t know, not if she was not showing signs. The cryo pods would have kept it from getting worse.”

Marik’s lips went flat. “No, they knew. They just didn’t care. Her family sold her to get a brother out of pawn. Seems he’s a better-tiered worker. She is sick. So.”

Renall shook his head yet again. Humans never ceased to amaze him. “What do you propose?’

“Fast gas,” Marik said, “She won’t know it’s happening. We’ll jettison her. Best thing, really.”

He didn’t say that lightly. Taking a life was serious business. They all had, of course. Nobody could be in their business and not, but they usually reserved blood and death for heated battles, not the way that Marik was describing killing—and a woman too.

Renall blew out an exasperated breath. “Where’s Jeval?”

“Here.” Jeval appeared. “Just finished helping total up the take. Minus the cut for the crew and those bastards on Hylion, we still come out flush. Not bad for a little work.”

“We need to fast gas a woman that was on the ship,” Renall said.

Jeval groaned. “You know we don’t kill hostages unless they’re a danger.”

“She has low rot,” Marik said.

Jeval recoiled. Then he said, “That makes it different then, doesn’t it? Will it be painless for her?”

Marik nodded. “Fast too. I’ll make sure.”

Jeval asked, “Are we all in agreement?”

They were. That brought Jessica into play. Again, they all agreed she might be useful, and that the odds of her being a Capo spy were low enough to keep her onboard and not fast gas and jettison her along with the other woman.

Renall explained the situation with Clara and, as he did, her face swam up into his mind’s eye. Desire hardened his body. Ire came with it. The last thing he needed was an attraction to a human. Humans were untrustworthy and fickle. They had the temperament of children and lived far too short lives for them to ever be romantic life partners.

Besides, they had all agreed to marry the daughters of the ruler of the planet not far from the one they were eyeing. They needed alliances, and that meant that Clara Waters, the alluring human, had to stay out of his bed, and head. Not that he was considering bedding her. He needed her cooperation more than he needed sexual encounters in his life.