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  Caid passed Uma’s papers to Siobhan. “Here you go, Mrs. Roveta,” Caid said mockingly, bowing lowly.

  “Only in public!” she hissed, her ire boiling.

  “Violetian women don’t correct their mates, even on the rare occasion they may be in the wrong.”

  “Then we might as well give up this charade, as I refuse to keep my counsel.”

  “If that’s your decision.” He touched his fingers to his arched brow and bowed, backing away. “Nice to make your acquaintance, sweetheart. I best be on my way. My crew could use some help fighting the Grawkings, so Vizzy and I will bid you farewell here. But beware that Violetian women never travel without male escort so you will stand out like a sore thumb.”

  He was helping her first, putting her before his crew? She didn’t begin to understand the man but stepped back and tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. “I’ll keep my own counsel.” Even when he did something stupid.

  Caid got in her face, bending so that they were nose to nose, and his hot breath rasping over her. “Swear to it.”

  Like cross her heart and hope to die swear to it? He was addled, no doubt left about it. “I will not. I’m captain of a Class-A Confederation starship with a crew of four hundred. You’re captain to an unmanned vessel.”

  Caid placed a chaste kiss on her lips, clicked his heels together, and pivoted on the ball of his foot. “See you around, sweetheart.”

  Sighing, she closed her eyes, and counted to ten to reign in her fury. “Get back here.” She crossed her heart with her finger. “I swear.”

  Caid beamed at her. “I knew you’d see it my way, Uma.”

  She tried to peer under his surface. Why was the scoundrel sticking with her? Surely sex with her was no better prize than sex with any of his many port-of-call painted cats. Perhaps he wanted to get his hooks into her family fortune? Or perhaps he was a spy for the opposition trying to derail her?

  But then why had he gone to the trouble to save her? Or change his pigmentation and features? Never before had she made the acquaintance of such a complicated man.

  He crooked his arm out for her and she took it reluctantly. In an aside, he whispered, “Violetian females cling to their mates in public. Stay close to my side.”

  With distaste for the whole charade, she hooked her arm through his but maintained as much distance as possible. When he scowled at the space between them, she sidled closer so that they might as well be glued together. “Is this better?”

  Caid licked his lips, leering down at her. “Much.”

  When a bawdy Barukian wench winked at him, she tugged him down the dark alleyway. When several other well-endowed women flirted with him, she wanted to scratch out their eyes, all the while wanting to examine her head for entertaining these inexplicable twinges of jealousy. “Keep your eyes in your head and your mind on the mission.”

  Caid’s glanced roved about the pedestrian traffic, and he led her to a private residence. His gaze darted to and fro, before he led her through a secret passage covered by heavy foliage. “Esmelita’s compound. Our new ship awaits us here.”

  Siobhan nodded, feeling relief in her chest to be leaving this so-called haven that had felt more like a prison.

  “I put out some feelers and have located your fiancé.” His words reverberated in her ears down to her soul.

  Her ears perked up and she froze, her attention rapt on his every word. “Where is he?”

  Caid put a finger to his lips. “Hold your questions ‘til we’re safely away.”

  The craft’s door opened and the first mate’s bulk filled the opening. Howling, he wobbled down the ramp with joy on his face. But when he got a closer look at his captain, he pulled up short, snarling.

  “Before he rips us to shreds, tell him who you are,” she hissed. She was ready to take the creature down if need be but she’d rather not injure him. She had developed a soft spot for the hairy beast.

  “It’s me, Captain Jeremiah Kincaid.” He held out a lengthy lock. It gleamed very violet in the sun’s rays and Caid stared at it with a scowl. “Recognize my hair? My voice?”

  His nostrils flaring, his fur standing on end, Vizzy sniffed at the pirate captain cautiously. A slow smile dawned over his face and without warning, he enveloped Caid in a giant bear hug and swung him around.

  “Whoa! Watch the hair. And my ribs. I haven’t finished using them.”

  Vizzy set Caid on his feet and hung his head. His shoulders drooping, he slinked away, the ground shaking. Huge green teardrops plopped to the ground, breaking Siobhan’s heart.

  Slapping her erstwhile husband on the back, she ordered, “You can’t let him go off like that. Go make up.”

  Caid checked his ribs, touching them gingerly. “Listen, mate. I meant no offense. Don’t cry. I’m not angry with you.” Under his breath, he said to Siobhan, “Shelliks tend to be overly sensitive. You have to be careful what you say to them.”

  “I’d say to take your own advice,” she whispered back, eager for this scene to play out so they could board ship and find out what he knew about her fiancé.

  “My lungs were collapsing. Was I supposed to waltz with him ‘til I stopped breathing?” Caid hacked deeply as if his lungs were still under great strain.

  Vizzy’s eyes watering, he lifted his head, the ghost of a smile trembling on his lips. He rushed back at Caid who held out a hand to shake instead, babbling in his incomprehensible language which Caid seemed to understand perfectly well.

  “Good!” Siobhan said with false sunniness. “We’re all friends again. Let’s go.”

  The men conversed a few minutes more and then Vizzy hugged her, more tears dripping from his eyes.

  “He’s welcoming you to the family.” When she arched her brows, Caid explained, “I explained that we’re married.”

  “You did what?” she exploded, incensed. “We’re no such thing.”

  Caid put his finger to his lips. “Shush. He has to believe it if we’re to get away with this.”

  “So does he believe we’re really Violetians now?” A scarier thought choked her. “Won’t your pursuers recognize your first mate? Perhaps he should stay behind.”

  Caid stroked his clean-shaven chin, then thin air as if he’d forgotten he no longer sported a beard. “He won’t go for that. He’ll remain aboard ship. No one will see him.”

  “What if we’re boarded?” It didn’t follow that the Shellik needed to believe they were married if Caid didn’t think he would be in contact with anyone. But then, when did Caid ever make sense?

  Caid wrinkled his nose and put a comforting hand on Vizzy’s wrist. “I think it’d be best if you stay here.”

  When Vizzy became teary-eyed again, Caid rushed to finish, “So you can bail us out of trouble, like you rescued me from death’s corridor. If you’d been with me then, both our heads would be decorating someone’s mantel.”

  Vizzy pursed his lips as if in deep thought and nodded.

  “Is he okay with that?” Siobhan whispered. “Can he stay here?”

  “Fine time to think of that after you talk him into staying.” Caid glowered at her over his shoulder. “Luckily, I’m tight with the owner of this establishment.”

  As if on cue, a buxom topless woman with handsome if not striking features, bustled into the yard brandishing a long deadly knife. “Leave now before I castrate the lot of you.”

  Caid chuckled as if he derived great amusement from the flustered woman, making Siobhan doubt his sanity again. “It’s me. Caid. Captain Jeremiah Kincaid, one of the brethren.”

  Was this the infamous Esmelita? Siobhan eyed her with interest.

  After a few moments hesitation, circling him, she guffawed and slapped her leg. “Now why’d you go and destroy your handsome face? Ah, come here and give me a big, wet kiss. You’re still a charming devil, if ever I knew one.” She flung herself into Caid’s arms, kissing him senseless. When she tore away, her face was flushed and her lips were swollen. “Caid, my lovely, where’ve y
ou been hiding yourself? How long you been on world without visiting me?”

  Caid extricated himself with a glance of trepidation in Siobhan’s direction. “Not long. You know you’re always the first person I visit as soon as I finish my business.”

  Always? Just how good friends were Caid and this woman? Since Caid didn’t seem to want to make the introductions and what was fair for him was fair for her she adopted a diplomatic smile, clasped Caid’s hand in hers, and announced, “We’ve been on our honeymoon. I’m the Mrs.” Piqued, she stuck out her hand in greeting, wondering how a pirate’s better half should behave. “My husband isn’t very good with the introductions.”

  The woman paled alarmingly, her shoulders hunching. “You’re married? You promised to marry me, you slimy Denevian grech!” She slapped him resoundingly on the cheek, knocking him back a few paces.

  Fury shook Siobhan. How dare this Esmelita attack Caid! If she wasn’t so deep undercover, she’d make the bitch sorry she had ever been born.

  Their erstwhile hostess waved her knife in the air again, drawing dangerously near to Caid’s precious gems. “I want you and the little Mrs. off my property now. You have five minutes ‘til I serve your balls to the authorities on a silver platter.”

  Caid’s lips tugged down on the corners as he put his hands together as if in prayer. “Hear me out, Esmelita, my sweet. It’s not what you think. There is a perfectly plausible explanation…”

  If Caid divulged her true identity and jeopardized their escape, she’d serve his balls on a platter. Seething, she glared at him.

  Esmelita scooped up a handful of rocks and hurled them with fury. Maybe Siobhan had done Caid a huge favor after all and revealed the woman’s shrewish nature before he made a huge mistake. Ducking, she ran for the spacecraft, bypassing the loping Shellik.

  “We’re going!” Caid yelled, scuttling behind her, keeping his head low. “You’re coming with us, Vizzy. Get your butt on board before she stir-fries your balls.”

  Vizzy grabbed his crotch, crossed his eyes, and let out a horrible, ear-shattering screech that nearly brought Siobhan to her knees. What was it with men and their balls?

  “And don’t you dare show your two-timing face again!” The shrew threw the double-bladed knife at them, missing Caid’s head by a scant inch.

  “See what you caused?” Caid said, dragging in huge gulps of air as he yanked the hatch closed behind them and fell to his knees.

  “She’s working both sides of psycho street and you lament her loss?” Siobhan breathed heavily and coddled a sore foot that had been punctured by some kind of native burr. “I did you a favor, mister. Besides, you’ve been announcing our nuptials quite freely, I don’t see that it’s such a crime that I played along with the charade.”

  He touched his head gingerly and pulled back bloody fingers, frowning. “I’m human. I bleed.”

  Her bravado turned to concern. “The bitch injured you? Let me see.” She led him to the captain’s chair and examined his wound, relieved to see it was only superficial. Still, scalp wounds could bleed profusely.

  “Vizzy, do we have any medical supplies aboard?”

  Vizzy was preoccupied with lifting off and grunted.

  “I’ll be fine.” He slanted a glance at her. “Long as you don’t sabotage me like that again. Were you jealous?”

  Shocked at his wild if alarmingly accurate conclusions, she almost beamed him in the head. “Jealous of that lunatic?”

  “I think thou doth protest too much.” He captured her hand and placed sultry, mind-numbing kisses on the palm.

  Tingling to her toes, but loath to let him know how the mere touch of his lips affected her, she snatched her hand away so fast she almost stumbled backwards. “Need I remind you that I have a fiancé waiting for me?”

  “And how do you know the wench wasn’t my fiancée?”

  “You should have warned me if you were engaged to the wench. Were you?” Bristling, she objected to women being called a “wench”. The woman, vile as she was, had intimated as much although he had neither confirmed nor denied the fact.

  “Not precisely, but she could have been.”

  Frustrated beyond belief, she threw up her hands. Not precisely? Caid was a real piece of work. “Give me a list of people I’m not supposed to tell we’re married.” Just how many “wenches” did he have at every port of call?

  “Don’t you want to hear what my sources revealed? About your fiancé? And the imposter?”

  Hearing mention of her fiancé, she pursed her lips. Inching forward cautiously, she was apprehensive of the hook. Men like Jeremiah Kincaid always had at least one ulterior motive up their sleeve and he had very wide sleeves. “What did you discover?”

  “That he had been in your company, at your side, pillaging and plundering the Kaloba Colonies until you were arrested. He went into hiding after you were apprehended, but he’s been spotted on Losterain.”

  Dennis! Her heart wrenched and she longed to reach her fiancé before the Confederation authorities. He could be a prisoner of war. He could be dying…or dead. Time was the enemy. She moaned at visions of him awaiting a death sentence in death’s corridor.

  “I told you, I didn’t pillage or plunder anything. We can’t afford to sit around. We must find my fiancé.” Thoroughly frustrated, she lowered herself onto the top step leading to the bridge and massaged her pounding forehead.

  “Could you have suffered amnesia? Or was your brain wiped blank in that prison?”

  “None of the above.” Of course, would she remember if she had amnesia? But such conduct wasn’t in her nature. She was not the pirate here. She had sworn to protect the universe and its citizens with her life, and she had done it over the objections of her family who had arranged a lucrative marriage for her to the son of their largest competitor with whom they had planned to amalgamate.

  Nor would Dennis go along with anything so vile. He, too, had taken the oath to protect the Confederation at personal sacrifice. Perhaps someone was imitating him as well. She jumped to her feet and paced the bridge in front of the pirate trying to puzzle out the mystery. “The most viable theory is that there must be a pair of imposters.”

  When Caid continued to study her in silence, her temper erupted. “What? You think me capable of mass destruction? Of taking innocent lives? I don’t need power or money. My family has more than I could ever want.”

  “You make a point. Yet there have been hundreds of eyewitnesses. How do you explain that?” He seemed to look inside himself for answers, his eyes calculating.

  She groped for any plausible or implausible explanation. “Everyone has a double. Or I have an evil twin from which I was separated at birth? Perhaps someone has had alterations done to look like me?”

  Caid’s fingers skipped across the computer keyboard. “There was irrefutable DNA evidence.”

  All farfetched, but none completely impossible. All sounded ominous. But only one explained why Dennis supposedly participated in the mayhem and hostilities. “The perpetrators must have had alterations if they’re masquerading as both Dennis and myself.” So where was Dennis? Perhaps if she found the imposter, he would lead them to her intended.

  “Maybe she’s not an imposter. She could be a clone.”

  His portentous words stole her breath. Cloning was possible—but… “Cloning was banned in the twenty-first century. It merits the automatic death penalty.” Still, her mind raced. It made more sense than any other theory they’d bandied about.

  “If someone’s cloned her, they’re in deep. The rascal probably masterminded it. If caught, they’ll be facing the death penalty, regardless. What’s the difference if they’re sentenced to die once or thrice?”

  In a morbid twisted manner his theory made complete sense, except for two things. She sifted her fingers through her hair, pushing it behind her ears. She stared at the beautiful nebula whirling just beyond the view screen, barely seeing it. “Who would want to clone me? Who do I know who’s that evil?” A
s a starship captain she’d made her share of enemies but no more so than any other commander. So why choose her and not another? Perhaps her family’s fortune was responsible after all.

  “I s’pose this is where security would say to make a list of everyone who hates you or holds a vendetta.”

  Acid gurgled up in her chest, burning her esophagus. She swallowed hard. “For starters, the entire Veskan Empire. The Tortons vowed eternal revenge. The Pecteriats put a price on my head…”

  * * * * *

  “Well that narrows it down. Perhaps…” Alarmed at the growing list of enemies, Caid stood and blocked Siobhan’s progress, staring deeply into her eyes. A pirate, he didn’t have that many enemies. She’d been busy. He almost felt sorry for the wench. Almost…

  Her position called for her to be discerning about people, especially those under her command and those with whom she chose to open herself. In his experience, the uniform didn’t make the man. He’d met many a good pirate and many an evil Confederation officer. His gut told him that the captain wasn’t evil, even though she was too often contrary. But what wench wasn’t?

  He dropped his hands onto her shoulders and gave them a commiserative squeeze. “Think about it, sweetheart. Who would have access to your DNA?”

  She turned and lifted a combative gaze to his, and he sensed the battle deep in her soul, felt it in her tense muscles. Defiantly, she jutted her chin out and spread her hands wide. “Too many people to recall. All the physicians who have attended to me over the years. My entire crew. My family’s domestics…”

  This was proving impossible. As a starship captain, she’d been in contact with hundreds of people, any of which could want to frame her. However, his bet was still on the fiancé.

  “Are you sure one doesn’t have more motive than the others?”

  “I’m not sure of anything anymore except that you’re a pirate.”

  There she went again with the pirate bashing. Frustrated that she couldn’t see the good in him, he shoveled his fingers through his hair and suppressed the sigh building in his chest. “A pirate who saved your pretty little neck.” Just because he worked against the law of the land governed by a corrupt cabinet, he was automatically a criminal in her book.