Adiron (Corsair Brothers 1)

The female flips the patch up and gives me an utterly exasperated look. "And here I thought this disguise wouldn't be enough. Turns out males really are dumb creatures." The voice modulates, growing more feminine, less ragged. "You really do only see what you want to."

I stare in surprise—and delight—at the female. "Bethiah! What are you doing here?"

Bethiah glares at me through the slot and flips the eye patch back down over her perfectly good eye. "Trying to rob this female of her ship, of course. You just had to show up and kef everything up, didn't you, you big fool."

I bite back a laugh of delight.

The universe has just given me the advantage I needed.

66

ADIRON

"Don't call me Bethiah," the female pirate hisses through the meal slot. "I'm Vathi on this ship."

I lean against the door. "What the kef are you doing here, Vathi?"

She snorts. "Didn't I just tell you?"

Yeah, but… "I'm gonna need a bit more context."

"Okay, well, I had an incident with my own ship—"

"Incident?"

She shrugs. "The original owner might have stolen it back. Whatever. Then, I'm on Haal Ui Station, drowning my sorrows in a vat of ooli brew, when this female just saunters in with a ship full of idiots." Bethiah-slash-Vathi shoves her face down into the food slot, next to my noodles. "I mean, if you staff with just greenhorns, you're just asking to be robbed, aren't you? So it's not really a bad thing. It's me teaching them a well-deserved lesson. Do you know how easy it was to get a job on this ship? It's pathetic, really."

I can guess. Shaalyn has a few weak spots, and most of them involve money. "Let me guess, you offered to work for cheap?"

"For free! An internship! I said I wanted the experience! And they bought it!" She shakes her head, incredulous. "They turned me down at first, but unfortunately for them, one of their crew had SUCH an unfortunate accident while on station. Really, such terrible timing." A wicked smile curves her lips. "They're so lucky I was there."

"The luckiest," I say dryly. Bethiah is my friend Jerrok's cousin and…I'm not entirely convinced she's not half-mad. Chaos seems to follow her, a lot of it entirely of her own making. "You killed him, didn't you?"

She shrugs. "If you're trying to make me feel guilty, I don't. He was not an upstanding sort. Do you want details?"

I shake my head and make a rolling gesture with my finger. "Just get on with it. How are you taking over this ship?"

"Well, my original plan was a much slower sort of takeover involving lots of mind-games. But that was before you showed up." She props up her chin on her hand, peering at me through the slot. "You're kinking my plans. Now I have to rethink things."

"Or we could work together," I propose. "Partners." Sure, partnering with Bethiah will be like partnering with a black hole—unstable and completely dangerous—but I'll take those chances.

"Mmm. I work best alone." She scrutinizes me. "Let's say I entertained thoughts of your partnership, though. What sort of split were you considering?"

I shake my head. "I don't want anything Shaalyn has. I just want to get out of here alive with Jade."

Bethiah rolls her eyes. "So you want to keep the human female? They fetch a fair amount of credits, you know. That's not exactly 'nothing.'"

"She's a person," I growl. "You're not allowed to sell her." I can see right now that I can't trust Bethiah any more than I can trust Shaalyn. The moment Jade's safe, I can't rely on Bethiah's assistance any longer. There are the people in the stasis pods to consider, too, but I'll take things one crisis at a time.

Right now, I'm focused on Jade. She's the only thing that matters, because if I lose her, I have nothing.

"Touchy, touchy," Bethiah says. "I guess that's an acceptable split…for now."

I don't miss the grudging tone in her voice. Until everything's settled, I'll be sleeping with one eye open and a blaster at my side. "So what's the plan?"

"Take over this ship," Bethiah says immediately. "Tow that derelict hulk to Jerrok's asteroid so he can strip it. Profit."

It's not the worst plan. Jerrok won't betray his cousin or me. His asteroid base is remote and secluded and the ships will need to be stripped of their identities before they're taken anywhere. And…Jerrok's sympathetic to humans. At least, I think he is. If anyone can make him sympathetic to a human's plight, it'll be our soft-eyed little Sophie. She's the gentlest little thing.

Poor Sophie. I hope she hasn't given up on me and my brothers.

My brothers…

I lean in toward Bethiah, confronting the piece of news I didn't want to think about. "Is what Shaalyn said about Kaspar true? Is he alive?"

She shrugs. "Ish?"

I scowl. "How can you be 'ish'? It's either a 'yes' or a 'no.'"