Page 59 of Orc's Forbidden Claim

“The one rule I’ve followed all my life,” Addison says, “is that the only stupid question is the one you don’t ask.”

“Oh,” I say in surprise.

It’s not a rule I’ve ever heard. In fact, the wrong question at the wrong time has caused me innumerable problems in my life. The downfall of having your every word, every micro-expression analyzed and searched out for meaning that you may or may not have intended in it.

“I know,” she says shrugging. “Probably not a rule you have used in your life, but then I’m not you. I’ve never wanted the spotlight. Honestly, I prefer to be as far from it as possible.”

I smile, truer and deeper because her admission warms my heart and displays an understanding that people outside the gilded cage Wren and I live in rarely understand or admit that they know.

“Yeah,” I chuckle. “Definitely not something I’ve ever been able to think with.”

“Right, so your question?” she turns and looks down the hall then past me. “We’re alone. It’s safe, and I promise I won’t feed it to those do-nothing vultures who’ve served literally no purpose even before the ship crashed.”

“You sound like one of us,” I observe, and she smiles, then nods encouragement.

Heat creeps over my chest and onto my cheeks. This is a stupid, terrible question but I need to know. I have committed my heart and myself to having a baby and I’m not going to back down from that, but I don’t want to be broken either. I like sex. A lot and I don’t want to lose that.

“I, uhm, I saw…” I trail off too embarrassed to admit that, so I change direction. “I haven’t seen any… the women who’ve had… you know… hybrids… they only have one…”

“That’s not strictly true,” she says. “There are a few of the first group who are pregnant again.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.”

If they did it again, then their parts work. And how bad can it be if they’re willing to go through that again?

“You’re worried about having a hybrid baby?” I bite my lower lip and nod. She smiles and places a reassuring hand on my arm. “Don’t be. I don’t know how, but human and Zmaj bodies are compatible.”

“It was… I mean… I saw…”

“Oh, you were the one who opened the door,” she says, understanding on her face. I nod. “I know it looks horrific, but oh—” She cuts herself off and her eyes widen. “You’re worried about after.”

“Yes,” I say too quick. “Am I terrible? I feel like I’m terrible.”

Her smile is as reassuring as anything even before she shakes her head.

“No, not at all,” she says. “Of course you are. Especially given what you just saw but believe me your body is made for this. It will hurt, sure, and it will get a bit rough, but you’ll pull through.”

“But after…”

“It takes a month to six weeks, but you’ll return to perfectly normal.”

“What if… what if it’s not a Zmaj?”

“Well of course it’s fine, that’s been happening for thousands of—” she stops and shakes her head as understanding comes over her face. “An Urr’ki?”

“Uh, yeah,” I say.

She nods, her brow furrowing.

“We don’t know, yet, about the compatibility of the two species, but in general… they’re smaller when grown.” She is thinking hard and it’s clear that she’s mostly talking to herself. “The only point of concern with them would be how the tusks form and when. It might be necessary to do the birth in reverse, but that brings its own difficulty. It shouldn’t be that much different thanthe Zmaj horns, but those are cartilage at birth, only hardening outside the womb…”

My eyes are wide. My stomach is churning in open rebellion as a cold sweat forms on my forehead.

“Oh,” I say, feeling faint.

Addison pulls out of her deep thinking when she sees the effect she’s creating. She grabs onto my shoulders to steady me while shaking her head.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I was thinking out loud. Assuming that the species are compatible, I assume that… well the parts fit and are at least mostly… normal?”

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