They stood near the entrance of the Grand Ballroom surveying the thousands of beings crowding the enormous room.

Shada gave a quiet sigh. "Sometimes I feel like it's just the two of us against the entire galaxy."

"Don't think for a second that that's not true," he told her. He took a deep breath, steeling himself. "Shall we?"

She looked over and gave him that polite but slightly bored smile she always wore at these functions. It never ceased to amaze him how such a keenly intelligent woman could look so vacant eyed when the need arose. He supposed it was part of her Mistryl training in disguse. "Of course," she replied, her voice rather flat and disinterested.

Arm in arm they made their way into the milling throng searching out those they needed to maintain connections with.


Taking a break from mingling, they found a quiet alcove to relax in for a few moments. Karrde plucked two glasses of sparkling wine off the tray of a passing serving droid and handed one to Shada.

"You have got to stop looking at me like that," she told him quietly, her eyes on crowd beyond them.

"Like how?"

"So…pleased," she said after studying him for a moment.

"I am pleased," he told her. In fact, he'd never been more pleased in his life. "It's my lifeday. I have a very fine glass of wine in my hand, a beautiful woman on my arm, and she just claimed me as her own. I could only be more pleased if we were in a private venue." He watched her blush slightly and he leaned in close to her unable to restrain himself from teasing her. "You have got to stop blushing like that. Just imagine what manner of filthy things everyone thinks I'm whispering in your ear to make a former Mistryl Shadow Guard blush." She glared at him, but her blush deepened as he intended. He loved that he could make her blush with just a few words.

She reached out and grasped the ring on his finger giving it a half hearted tug. "Give it back. I made a mistake. I don't want a man so insufferable."

"Oh, no." His other hand closed over hers stilling her. "You'll have to pry it off my cold dead finger."

"I can have that arranged. Rather easily I might add." Shada produced a small vibroblade from her sleeve.

He just grinned at her. He couldn't stop himself. She was right, of course. People would begin to wonder whey he looked so happy in contrast with his normal sardonically amused expression. "I will try to look less pleased. Look, there's Admiral Ackbar. Let's go speak to him. He's sure to make me displeased."


Mirax Terrick Horn and her husband drifted up to them after General Cracken and his wife moved away through the crowd.

"Okay, Karrde, you look entirely too pleased with yourself," Corran Horn said by way of greeting. The man seemed unable to shake his Corsec suspiciousness even after all this time. "What are you plotting?"

Karrde felt Shada give him a sharp 'I told you so' poke in the ribs. "Why, Commander Horn, I'm shocked that you would suggest such a thing." He gave Mirax a roguish smile. "Though to be honest I am plotting to steal your wife away from you." He held out his hand to her. "Would you honor me with a dance?"

"Love to." She placed her hand in his and he led her out to the dance floor. "I don't know why they bother to call these things balls. No one hardly ever dances except for you and Shada."

"It's Shada's reward for hanging off my arm impassively as a doll. If she stabs a politician she doesn't get to dance."

"I don't know about that. I think you're rewarding yourself, Karrde." Mirax smiled slyly. "So did you get what you wanted for your lifeday?"

Karrde allowed a rare genuine smile. "I did. Exactly what I wanted."

"I'm happy for you."

"Thank you for your part in it."

Mirax shrugged. "I had no idea what Shada planned to do with it when I mentioned I had come across a ring from her family. I thought she might want it as a memento."

"Never the less, I appreciate it." The song ended and Karrde escorted her back to her husband. Shada had disappeared and Luke Skywalker chatting with Horn.

"Mara stole your date," Horn said reaching out to pull Mirax back to his side as if he didn't trust Karrde not to truly steal her away.

"Trouble?" he inquired.

"No," Skywalker said. "Business talk."

"Ah." Karrde held out his hand to Skywalker. "Good to see you, Skywalker. How are things?"

"Good," Skywalker shook his hand and gave him a peculiar look before grinning. "You seem to be doing well yourself, Karrde." That grin made Karrde wonder what the Jedi was picking up from the Force about his current mood.

Just then Han Solo wandered up. "How much longer is this thing supposed to last?" he asked no one in particular.

"Too long," Horn replied and Mirax elbowed him. "What? Don't tell me you're actually enjoying this."

Karrde's focus drifted from the couple as he searched the crowd for Shada and Mara. A few moments later he was amused to see the crowds unconsciously parting to allow two of the most dangerously beautiful woman in the galaxy pass. He wouldn't want to be in their way either.

When Solo saw them approach, he glanced about looking suddenly alert. "Trouble?" he asked.

"No, business," Mara replied.

"Good," Solo said, but he looked a little disappointed as if he would have preferred a firefight over this ball.

Shada moved back to Karrde's side. He gave her a questioning look, but her answering smile told him that whatever she and Mara had been discussing didn't require his immediate attention.

"So, Shada," Solo began with the mischievous look on his face that Karrde dreaded. "When are you going to make an honest man out of this old pirate?"

Shada focused on Karrde with an inquisitive quirk of her eyebrow. "Where you ever a pirate?"

"No, I never had to resort to such things," he replied casting a significant look at Solo.

"And have you ever been dishonest with me?"

"Of course not. I wouldn't dare."

She turned to Solo with a dangerously sweet smile. "I'm afraid you've been misinformed."

Solo scowled. "You two are no fun."

"We're not here for your amusement." She reached up and adjusted one of the zenji needles in her hair with implicit threat.

"Leia, you'd better come save your husband," Mara called to the woman approaching the group. "Shada's about to stab him."

"I may just let her." Leia glared at Solo. "You left me with that annoying little ambassador."

"Hey, it was them most diplomatic thing I could do under the circumstances," he protested.

Leia sighed and stole the drink from her husband's hand, taking a large sip. "That's probably true."


Shada awoke from her very lovely dream with a cry of pleasure caught in her throat. Her back arched and she tried to shift her legs but they were pinned down. She panicked until she heard Karrde's soothing voice, "Easy, Shada." His warm hand rubbed calming circles on her bare belly. "It's okay. I've got you." She relaxed back against the mattress, panting hard waiting for the thundering of her heart to ease. He shifted slightly releasing her legs from where he had them pinned.

"What are doing?" she gasped when she finally caught her breath.

"Playing with my lifeday present." Karrde's goatee tickled her hypersensitive skin as he pressed kisses along her inner thighs that did nothing to calm her, only keeping her on edge.

"Lifeday present?" She couldn't seem to process a complex thought at the moment.

"You."

"Ah," her hands tangled in his hair trying to pull him up.

He resisted her efforts and asked in a teasing voice, "Do you want something, Shada?"

"You. Come here." She grabbed at his shoulders, but he resisted her. Instead he stayed where he was, concentrating on building her back up. He stopped just before she was about to teeter over the edge of her release.

She growled in frustration.

"What do you want?" he asked his voice rough with desire.

"You. I want you," she said breathlessly.

He surged up and took her mouth, devouring her. She could taste herself on his lips and tongue. He pulled away. "Say it again," he demanded.

"I want you, Talon."

He attacked her neck, one hand sliding down to her wet sex. "I want you too, Shada." He plunged a finger into her and she scored his back with her nails. "Tell me you're mine."

"I'm yours, Talon," she gasped. "Stop teasing me. You know I'm yours."

He slid into her. "You're mine, Shada."

"And you're mine." Her nails bit into his shoulders as she held him close.

"I am," he agreed, meeting her mouth for another hungry kiss.

They were both so close that it didn't take more than a couple deep thrusts for them to both come nearly together. Shada bit down on his shoulder stifling her cry as she came.

They lay there panting and still joined for a long while before they came back to themselves. Shada winced slightly when he pulled out of her. He rolled over onto his back bringing her with him. She sat up for a moment pulling her damp and sticky nightgown over her head casting it onto the floor. She settled back down laying her head on his chest. She pressed a kiss to his salty skin, feeling supremely satisfied. "You know it's dangerous to wake me up like that."

"Yes and I got the broken nose and concussion to prove that." That had been a rather embarrassing episode especially the trip to the med center. It had been the first and last time he had awoken her like that. From then on he made sure she was awake and aware before going down on her. He liked to catch her in that languid half awake state and she enjoyed the delicious blurring of dreams and reality. "But you are just too delectable to resist." He pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"You are a very strange man."

"I'm your man." His arm tightened around her.

"Yes, you are." She reached out grasping his hand and rubbing her thumb over the ring on his finger.

They lay there entwined about each over for a while, the sun peaking in through a sliver in the curtains. Shada was nearly asleep again when he spoke, his voice barely a whisper. "You know, I wanted you from the moment I saw you flinging those zenji needles at the Imperials on Trogan." They only ever seemed to share these little confessions in the aftermath of sex. Usually the room dark so that they couldn't even see each other as they spoke their deepest secrets. It was the closest they ever got to expressing the true feelings that they kept hidden safely away from the rest of the galaxy. "I could hardly shoot straight for staring at you. I'll never forget the sight of you in that red and silver dress and your hair flying about in all those little plaitlets."

She remembered Trogan very well. It had been the first time she had seen him. He had not been what she had been expecting based on Mazzic's description. She remembered being surprised that he was handsome and abstractly noting the twinge of attraction she felt when he spoke so eloquently about the proposed Smuggler's Alliance. But she hadn't given him a terrible lot of thought, other than ascertaining what level of threat he was to Mazzic. He'd come across as calculating and more than a little arrogant, but not a threat to Mazzic on a personal level. What she remembered most was that he took out an Imperial that had her in his sights.

"You saved me that day. You shot the Imperial that was aiming at me when I ran out of needles." She stroked the hand she still had in hers. "I doubt you still wanted me after I held you at blaster point when Mazzic accused you of staging the ambush."

"It made me want you even more," he confessed. "I swear the scent of your perfume lingered on my clothes for days. I was planning on stealing you away from Mazzic after Thrawn had been dealt with."

"But you didn't."

"I discovered you were a Mistryl Shadow Guard and I knew you wouldn't leave your assignment."

"No, I wouldn't have, but I'm here now." She pressed another kiss to his chest. She didn't want to think of might-have-beens, so she changed the subject. "How would you like to celebrate your lifeday today?"

"I would like to stay in bed all day long, sleeping and having sex with you."

Shada huffed a laugh. "All day?"

"All day," he repeated. "When was the last time we indulged ourselves so?" She couldn't even remember. They'd been so busy lately. "But at this moment, I'd like breakfast." Then he added, "In bed."

"That can most certainly be arranged." She she sat up and got out of bed. She put on her dressing gown before bending down to give him a lazy kiss running a hand through his hair. "I'll be right back," she told him and then went to go order breakfast.

The End