The breath shuddered out of her, the defensive coldness cracking. “He’s everything to me, Teq. I can’t lose him. Maybe you won’t understand since you don’t want to feel anything.” The last of the air left her on a harsh laugh. “That must make life so much easier.”
The big crusher angled his head away, gazing past her. “No. I think it doesn’t.” Without explaining more, he straightened. “I need to return to my apex.”
She gritted her teeth until they ached too. “Are we confined to quarters like Kinsley?”
He stiffened another degree. “No, of course not. And she will be released as soon as we can confirm she isn’t a spy or a thief.”
Though she didn’t particularly want to be fair, Adeline said, “I don’t think she intended to steal the rock or endanger Ollie. But judging from her questionable skills and her reactions, I’m not sure she is completely innocent of other things.” She shook her head and stared hard at the orc at her door. “Whatever happens, I remind you of the IDA contract.”
For a heartbeat, he didn’t reply, but then he said, “If we cannot fulfill our vows to you, we must let you go.”
She nodded once and pivoted back to the room. As the door closed silently—not even a quiet whoosh; so not cool, as Ollie would say—she forced herself to not go back, to throw herself into his arms and beg for comfort as if she were still a child herself.
She couldn’t go back, and some promises could never be kept.
***
After a patient discussion about following the rules of a game as well as the rules of one’s mother, they ate dinner, and Ollie declared it almost as good as Teq’s. Later, as Adeline settled Oliver in his bed—they could at least start in his own bed—he blinked up at her. “Roxy will be okay, won’t it, Mom? Teq won’t crush it, will he?”
She wanted to reassure him. That had always been her first instinct, of course, even as things had gotten worse with Robert and his family. But Oliver had been younger then, and platitudes had been all she had. “I don’t know what will happen,” she told him. “But we will do our best. That’s what we always do.”
He nodded, but behind his glasses, his eyes, so like hers, narrowed with the first inkling of doubt that what he was promised would always happen.
Yes, his eyes were maybe too much like hers.
She kissed his forehead, lingering for a heartbeat but not so long that he would absorb her worry. “Sweet dreams, owlet. Your pet rock can talk to you during regular business hours.”
He giggled under his breath, a peaceful sound that still ripped open her heart, then he rolled to his side with a deep sigh, falling off to sleep before she even reached the door. She held back a sigh of her own. Maybe she hadn’t done such a terrible job if he could still fall asleep so easily, after everything.
She propped a few containers from the pantry against his door that would tumble and wake her if he left his room. She couldn’t leave the datpad with him; he wasn’tthatgood a little boy.
Just as well she brought the device with her, because it pinged as soon as she collapsed onto the sitting cushions in the living room. June’s image flashed on the screen, and she toggled the connection.
“You okay?” she asked immediately.
June nodded. “Kinsley is still locked in her bedroom—I mean she locked herself in there; the orcs didn’t do it—and she’s refusing to talk to me about what happened. We’re okay. I don’t think the orcs would do anything to scare or hurt us.” She pulled the screen closer to her face and whispered, “You don’t think they would, do you?”
“I think don’t grit your teeth or it will give you TMJ disorder.” When June just gave her a dubious look, Adeline sighed. “Oh, I think they’ll abide by the IDA rules. So Kinsley didn’t say why she reacted so strongly to the idea of going back to Earth?”
June shook her head. “We all have our reasons, but she’s not sharing.”
Adeline bit back an annoyed grunt. Maybe the cagey Kinsley and recalcitrant Teq would be a good pair: no sharing allowed. “Well, if she wants to be on her own, there’s no reason for you to be there. You’re not in trouble.”
June gave her a little smile. “Kinsley did come out long enough to give me a bar from her precious stash of chocolate. So she’s definitely bribing me to stay.” The smile faltered. “If she really tells me to go, I will. But just because people say they want to be alone doesn’t always mean it’s true.”
After asking how Ollie was doing, June reported that she’d checked in with the other Earther women and none of them had heard the rock. “From what I’ve been able to put together, the orcs really thought they’d found a grand treasure,” she explained. “It’s why they brought us to be their dates to the Luster—because they thought they’d finally made it.” She let out a gusting sigh. “Man, do I know how that feels.”
Before Adeline could comment on making it, the front door pinged a request for entry.
June’s eyebrows went up. “It’s late.”
Adeline knew her cheeks flushed again. “They better not think I’m going to wake up Ollie to talk to a rock,” she grumbled.
“Go get ‘em, mama.” June closed the connection.
Of course it was Teq standing there. And suddenlygo get himtook on a new meaning that sent even more blood rushing to her cheeks.
He hesitated there. “If I’m bothering you…”