Balanced on the Blades Edge #2 Deathmaker by Lindsay Buroker Page A

though at some point, her gaze drifted to his collarbone and then down to the pectoral muscles visible beneath his vest. She supposed, if one could get past the I-think-I’m-really-tough pirate clothing, one might consider him attractive. She didn’t, of course, especially considering his plans for her, so she merely acknowledged that some people would.
    Tolemek put down the rag and opened the ceramic jar. The grayish green color of the thick goop inside reminded her of the stuff that had been growing on the walls in those underground ruins. Its dubious scent smelled more medicinal than natural, but she wasn’t sure about having it smeared on her face.
    “What’s that for?” she asked. “And does it have a more confidence-inspiring name than Green Goo Number Three?”
    He rotated the jar so she could see the label.
    “Healing Salve Number Six,” she read.
    “It’s to assist the body in healing and also to prevent infection. There are antimicrobial compounds.”
    Anti-what? “Oh, good. And it’s stronger than the first five iterations, I’m guessing?”
    “More effective, yes.”
    “It’s good to know—” Cas made a face when he touched the first cold, slimy dollop to a swollen cut at her temple. “Good to know some of the things you make are for helping people.”
    Tolemek had been focused on applying the salve, but he looked into her eyes a moment, his face inscrutable.
    “It’s not what your reputation is about,” she said, explaining by stating the obvious. As if he wasn’t aware of his reputation.
    “I know,” he said softly. Now he avoided her eyes, dabbing goo to her cut lip.
    It seemed like there was a hint of regret about him. But maybe this was part of the game too. Pretending to be someone decent, someone who cared.
    “I suppose you have to keep your pirate allies healed up, so you have help—” Cas stopped herself from saying raping, pillaging, and slaughtering, but barely. Nice prisoners that could be trusted didn’t sling such accusations around. “—on your missions,” she finished. There. Wasn’t that tactful?
    “Most of them prefer the sawbones’ sketchy draughts to mine,” Tolemek said. “The army too. I tried to send them some of this compound, since it’s superior to the crude antiseptic they plied us with when I was a soldier, but knowing it was from me, they wouldn’t take it. I even tried to sell it at an exorbitant sum, so they’d be more likely to believe there was something in it for me, but the medical general said no soldier would risk using something I had made.”
    “So the Cofah hate you as much as the Iskandians, huh?” Oops, so much for tact. That had been rather blunt.
    And he winced. “Yes.”
    “It—what they think—bothers you?”
    He had finished with her face and set the jar down. “It... serves me.”
    Not quite an answer to her question.
    “As Gor—the captain has always been quick to point out, enemies aren’t eager to pick fights with me. They, too—” he gestured toward the ship as a whole, “—leave me alone to do my work undisturbed. Reputations aren’t always founded in truth—the captain’s breastplate, for example—but there has to be enough truth to make it believable. The instant someone stops believing, he’ll try to kill you for your position and for your share of the earnings.”
    Plunder, Cas’s mind replaced the word.
    “In addition to worrying about rival clans and armies and lawmen, you have to worry about your own allies. The captain fends off assassination attempts from within every month or two. He owns the ship and a share of the outfit, and anyone who kills him, gets his stuff. That’s what passes for law in here. It’s like the jungle. Survival of the strongest and the most cunning.”
    “Why stay in such a place?” Cas thought of the support and camaraderie she got from her unit back home. After the awkward discomfort she had always experienced with her father, it had been a delight to have a