our lesson, Thraxa?”
I’m aware that Catherine is glaring at Thraxa. And that Thraxa is loving it. Thraxa must know that I fucked Catherine, but we’ll both continue to not outright acknowledge it to save face. The swarm is one of the last concentrations of pure Cygnian blood outside of the aristocracy. We need the physical edge to stay formidable. If each subsequent generation outside the swarm is more and more human, then we can physically overpower them. Any pirate who fucks a human can stay in the swarm, provided he abandons his human and any child they may have. No hybrid can be brought into the swarm and dilute our lines.
Pirates were known to mess around with humans after first contact. The swarm lost a lot of numbers in the early years. Many pirates chose their humans and their hybrid offspring over the swarm. It became more and more taboo, if not outright banned. Things settled themselves as pure blooded humans became more and more rare--and valuable. Soon it was not at all common for a swarm pirate to even come in contact with a human, and without that temptation, the problem mostly solved itself.
Will Thraxa tell the rest of the swarm? No, she won’t. As long as I go along with her job.
I didn’t think I’d feel as embarrassed as I do. I’m not a born pirate, so the swarm’s taboos shouldn’t be as deeply ingrained in me. It’s the promise I made to myself, after I lost Aria. I broke it in the worst way. I slept with a human. I gave into her scent. I was weak. Now Thraxa is witnessing my weakness, and exploiting it.
How can I blame Aria or her human lover now? I was just as weak as them.
“What’s the job?” I ask.
“I thought you’d never ask. But first, let’s get the fuck off this rock.”
“A fucking spear?” I hiss. “Are you shitting me, Thraxa?”
“Two million credits for it,” she says. “You’ll get five hundred thousand. It’s a very, very famous spear. It’s over one thousand years old. It’s the spear that General Yslia used to duel Kroxa the great. It ended the--”
“That spear still exists?”
She nods. “And we have a buyer for it. It’s owned by some fat aristocrat on Summer’s Breeze. I’m pretty sure we can steal it. Especially with her.”
Thraxa points to Catherine.
“Me?” Catherine asks. “I thought you were going to chain me up in the cargo hold? You were calling me it. Now I’m her?”
I wasn’t going to allow Thraxa to chain her up anywhere. Saving face or not, I will not let Thraxa lay a hand on Catherine.
“It hit me,” Thraxa says. “As we were taking the shuttle back up to my ship. It’s the perfect plan. Krakon. You grew up outside the swarm. You look like you’ve got a stick up your ass most of the time anyway.”
“What?”
I know what she means about me, but I pretend not to. My blood is aristocratic. My great grandfather did something wrong, though, and our line was purged from the aristocracy. Even our history was erased, so I’ll never even know what he did. Before I joined the swarm, I was one of the few pure Cygnians outside of the swarm or the aristocracy. It’s fitting that I joined the swarm. It felt like home.
“I mean look at me,” she says. “Sure, I could mask my scars, take all the metal off my face, but I still move and talk like I was born into the swarm. I couldn’t pull it off.”
“Pull what off?”
“Be an aristocrat,” she says. “And do you know what says ‘big shot asshole aristocrat’ more than anything else?”
Shit. Her whole plan snaps together in my mind. I don’t like it.
“What?” Catherine asks.
“You,” Thraxa says. “Catherine. Krakon will be some bigshot from Epsilon Eridani, and you’ll be his human. They won’t question it.”
After Catherine goes to sleep, I stop Thraxa before she gets to her quarters.
“This plan is fucked,” I growl at her, blocking her door.
“So was yours.”
“And look what happened,” I say. “I guess the swarm was right. Maybe when no one is willing to do a job with you, it’s a good sign that it’s not a job you should do.”
“I need to make a name for myself, Krakon,” she says. “I’m getting older, and no one worth a shit wants to marry me.”
“What about Rikal?”
She laughs. “That fat fuck? Come on, Krakon, I want to keep my line strong. I want to die knowing my