Kaeko Adaria leaned into her dressing room mirror, evaluating every brushstroke as she worked on her eyes, layering smoky shading against her lavender skin. Despite the cool weight of the glittering gem on her left ring finger, she was here on approval and she knew it.
She hated everything about this place. Public spaces on Cato Nemoidia catered to offworlders, but their private chambers echoed the hives from which they sprang: close, dark, cavelike.
She already felt as if she were suffocating. How could she spend the rest of her life here?
It had all happened too quickly—the sudden loss of her husband, Ryuymo Adaria, and the advent of Rominger Ascaris. On the pretext of protecting her and her interests in the seat on the Trade Federation Directorate that her husband had so suddenly vacated, Ascaris had swept her away to quiet lunches and dinners before the funeral was even over.
She knew why, of course. It paid to be Twi'lek—the most beautiful race in the known galaxy. And Kaeko was no different, with her skin a rare shade of light amethyst, her gray eyes, a figure she knew was unbeatable, and her fourlekkuframing her face. Yet, look a little closer and there was no mistaking the deepening grooves from her nose to her mouth, the sagging under her eyes no makeup could conceal.
To be only the common-law wife of a powerful Trade Federation Director—not a hereditary position without benefit of full legal matrimony, and vulnerable even then—had left her on a precarious perch. One from which it was all too easy to fall.
Rominger Ascaris, the younger of the two Duros brothers on the Directorate, had swooped in to save her. Oh, she had been aware of the way he looked at her for quite some time, although she wondered at it; why would a Duros of all people not be attracted to their own kind? Their own scaly, green, bulbous, ugly kind? The whole unlikely incongruity of it surprised her. Could the Duros species even breed with a Twi'lek? She was glad she was almost too old. What would the child of such a mesalliance even look like?
And yet, she thought, carefully shaping her brows and contouring her cheeks, it was all for the best.
Rominger had inherited all three hundred million. It put him in a most advantageous position; her strongest possible ally. Yes, if she married him,shehad access to that three hundred million, herself, and then her own Directorship receded in importance. And this time sheshouldget married. Failing to secure the ring and the marriage certificate, she saw now, had its consequences.
But a Duros! Ugly beings they were, harsh and cold. And theysmelled. She would almost rather fall back into obscurity than marry Rominger … but when she remembered the dance halls and brothels in her past, she knew that submission to even a hideous Duros was better than to fall back there.
Her looks had saved her once, and they would save her again. Best to take full advantage now, before they failed her entirely.
She stood, adjusting her headpiece and checking one last time the fabric tape that kept her skimpy black gown secure over her breasts. Rominger insisted she dress for dinner, that he may leer. Out of respect for her all-too-recent bereavement, he had not insisted on anything more as yet.
But she knew it was coming. Only the three hundred mil and his new power as the wealthiest and most influential member of the Directorate could ever make this bearable.
She stood, sighed, lifted her chin, and put it out of her mind.
She was good at that.
She found Rominger at the head of his long, polished dining room table staring intently at messages scrolling up on his datapad. He was worse than Ryuymo for always being buried in work, yet he stood when she walked in and held out a hand to her. She crossed the padded floor to him, feeling claustrophobic under the low, gray ceiling. His scaly, long-fingered hand spidered across her back. He leaned in and she felt his dry tongue scrape her cheek. Duros did not have the soft, flexible lips of Humans and Twi'leks, nor did they have noses, so a Duros kiss involved licks or nibbles.
"Fashionably late, Kaeko," he said, and she murmured an apology and slid into her chair. "A thing of beauty, as always," he said.
She smiled and nodded at his datapad. "Busy day?"
"It is," he said. "I hope you will excuse me if I seem a bit distracted at dinner. We're looking for some lost ships."
"Lost ships, my lord?" said Kaeko, shivering. If he enjoyed her in bare gowns, why did he have to keep the temperature so cold? But she, being the daughter of an equally beautiful Twi'lek slave, knew when to slip in an honorific.
Rominger's serving droid appeared bearing a tray with soups and drinks. Rominger's were both green, but she was pleased to smell Ryloth lakefish soup and discover that her goblet contained deep orange wine, probably from the desert outskirts on Ryloth where the moisture level was just right for the perfect variety of orange grapes …
She tasted her soup. Perfect! Kaeko was beginning to wonder if Rominger had hired a Twi'lek chef just for her. Her soup tasted as if her mother could have made it. The odor of his soup was far less appealing. And she would not want the green gloppy stuff in his goblet.
He had not answered her. At last he looked up and said, "Forgive me,kriláh."She did not know enough Durese yet to translate that. "Yes, we've decommissioned several freighters, as you may know, and I'm informed they've not arrived at the dry dock facility. What concerns me is this is on the ledger of my brother, Baylis. I suspect something afoot, and we've been searching for three Trade Federation freighters at places like Kuat Drive Yards, Rothana Heavy Engineering …"
Kaeko savored her broth and chewy shellfish, feeling out of her depth. She had left these matters to Ryuymo. Finally she went with, "And have you found them?"
Rominger stared down at his datapad. "I believe we have. Our operative at Kuat is reporting the arrival for refit of three Captor-class cruisers."
Kaeko raised her head. "Bacta," she said, the cargo these armed cruisers were built for.
"Exactly," said her future husband. "No serial numbers, supposedly owned by the Gran Protectorate. Except I know they're not … because the Trade Federation has never sold any Captor-class vessels to the Gran Protectorate, ever."
Kaeko concentrated on her soup. "Why would your brother make off with three decommissioned bacta tankers?"
Rominger clicked through several screens on his datapad with his spidery long fingers. A whiff of a putrid fishy odor reached Kaeko, ruining her soup, and she knew he was displeased. "Were you aware the Federation now has competition for the new contract delivering water and supplies between Alderaan, Eriadu, and Malotrok?"
"I wasn't," said Kaeko.
"Easy to retrofit bacta tankers to carry water," said Rominger. "Let me guesswhothis competition is."