particularly devoted to the cause.'
Bane's arm shot out and grabbed her by the waist, pulling her in close for another savage kiss. She gasped in surprise, then closed her eyes and gave in to the physical pleasure of the moment. This time it was she who finally pulled back with a faint sigh.
'You were right when you said I came back for something else,' he said, still holding her close. The treacherous poison on her lips tasted just as sweet the second time.
'The Brotherhood cannot fail,' she promised. 'The Jedi are on the run, cowering and hiding in the forests.'
He let her go and stepped away, turning his back to her. He desperately wanted to believe she was capable of becoming his apprentice once he'd destroyed Kaan and the Brotherhood. But he still wasn't sure. If she truly believed in what the Brotherhood stood for, then there was no hope.
'I just can't accept what Lord Kaan preaches,' he confessed. 'He says we are all equals, but if all are equal, then none can be strong.'
She stepped up behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders, applying gentle pressure until he turned to face her once again. Her expression was one of amusement.
'Do not believe everything Kaan says,' she warned, and he could hear the naked ambition in her voice. One to embody the power, the other to crave it. 'Once the Jedi are destroyed, many of his followers will discover that some of us are more equal than others.'
He swept Githany up in his mighty arms with a joyful roar, spinning her around and around as he gave her another long, hard kiss. This was what he wanted to hear!
'I can't wait to see the look on his face when you tell him about this meeting,' he replied, still pretending he was unaware of the poison raging unchecked through his blood.
'Neither can I,' she replied, her voice giving nothing away. 'Neither can I.'
As the surface of Ambria fell away beneath her and the glorious rings came into view, Githany couldn't help but feel a twinge of regret. The passion she'd awakened in Bane had given him a sudden, surprising strength; she'd felt it in each of his kisses. But it was clear Bane was interested in her, not in joining the Brotherhood of Darkness.
She punched in the coordinates for the jump back to Ruusan and leaned back in her seat. Her head was spinning from the poison that had coated her lips. Not the rock wont venom; that was only there to lull Bane into a false sense of security. But the synox she had mixed in with it, the colorless, odorless, tasteless toxin favored by the infamous assassins of the GenoHaradan, was having an effect despite the antidote she had taken. She had no doubt Bane would soon be feeling much, much worse than she did. A single kiss would have been enough to kill him, and he had received a triple dose.
She was going to miss Bane, she realized. But he was a threat to everything Lord Kaan was working for. She had to side with one or the other, so naturally she had chosen the one with an entire army of Sith at his command.
It was, after all, the nature of the dark side.
Bane watched the Buzzard until it disappeared in the sky before turning his attention to gathering up his camp. He would have to act carefully now. Githany would tell Kaan she'd tried to poison him. When he showed up at the camp still alive things could become. difficult.
He could simply stay away and let events run their course. The Jedi on Ruusan would rally, turning the tide of the battle once again. It was a given; Bane was counting on it. Desperate, Kaan would then turn to the gift Bane had sent him. He would unleash the thought bomb, unaware of its true nature. And then every Force-user on Ruusan, Sith and Jedi alike, would be destroyed.
This was the most likely scenario. But Bane had come too far to leave the end of the Brotherhood of Darkness to chance. When Kaan's army faltered this time, there were those in his camp, like Githany, who might turn against him. They could flee Ruusan, scattering before the Jedi. And then Bane would have to deal with each of his rivals separately before he could become the unchallenged leader of the Sith.
Better to be on hand, guiding the events to the outcome he desired. That, however, meant he'd have to come up with a plausible story to explain his desire to join the Brotherhood even after a failed assassination.
He thought about it for nearly an hour, considering and discarding a number of ideas. In the end there was only one reason any of them would believe that he had come back. He had to make them all think he wanted to overthrow Kaan and become the new leader of the Brotherhood.
Bane smiled at the subtle beauty of the plan. Kaan would be suspicious, of course. But all his effort and attention would be focused on holding on to his position. He wouldn't realize his rival's true purpose: to exterminate the Brotherhood completely; to destroy every last Sith on Ruusan.
'Ungh!' Bane let out a grunt and doubled over as a vicious pain ripped through his stomach. He tried to straighten up, but his body was suddenly racked with a prolonged coughing fit. He raised his hand to cover his mouth, and when he let it fall it was covered in frothy red flecks of blood.
Impossible, he thought, even as another stabbing pain through his guts dropped him to his knees. Revan had shown him how to use the Force to ward off poison and disease. No simple toxin should be able to affect anyone strong enough in the dark side to be a Lord of the Sith.
Another coughing fit paralyzed him until it passed. He reached up to wipe the sweat rolling down his face and felt something warm and sticky on his cheek. A thin trickle of crimson tears was leaking from the corner of his eye.
He rose shakily to his feet, turning his focus inward. The poison was still there. It had spread throughout his entire body, polluting and corrupting his system and damaging his vital organs. He was hemorrhaging internally, bleeding from his eyes and nose.
Githany! He would have laughed if he hadn't been in such unbearable agony. He had been so confident, so arrogant. So convinced she was underestimating him. Instead he had underestimated her. A mistake he vowed never to make again… if he survived.
He had read enough about synox to recognize the symptoms. If he had detected it immediately, he would have been able to cleanse it from his system, just as he had done with the rock worrt venom that had concealed
