Page 24 of Crush
“I wouldn’t have opened the door.” She stepped back. “What’s up?”
For an instant, his gaze flicked to the ceiling before she guessed his translator explained the idiom. “I just wanted…” He tugged at the pouch sash across his chest, as if the wide band was choking him. “I thought I should check on you.”
Caught between curiosity at his tension and lingering unhappiness, she finally gestured to the sitting cushions. “Can I get you something to drink?” Despite her complicated feelings, he looked wilted in a way that made him seem…well, not small, but somehow more her size.
“I have to get back to the bay,” he said. “Sil is still running tests with the assay team, and I don’t want to leave them there. It’s going to be a long night.”
Sympathy piped up before she could censor it. “I can make you some coffee, if you think the caffeine would help your energy level.”
His antennae perked. “Earther coffee? I’ve heard about it. It’s listed as a stimulant with some addictive properties, and possibly some aphrodisiac effects.”
“I don’t know about that. Unless it’s falling in love with more coffee.” She went to the kitchen area. “I’ll start a cup. It’s quick and you can get right back.”
She made a cup of tea for herself—something from the orc stash labeled clearly enough ‘fermented leaves for brewing’—and joined him on the orc version of a couch. His big body pressed into the cushions, leaving her elevated above him.
“Thank you,” he murmured, accepting the mug. He took a drink, and his antennae flared so wide she could see between each feathery strand. “Slag and sludge,thisis what the galaxies rave about?”
She chuckled. “It’s an acquired taste.”
“Acquired at great expense usually, which I fear may be beyond the orcs at this time.” He cradled the mug in all four hands, his head bowed, antennae drooping.
“We all knew that your crew was not rich,” she said quietly. “The IDA is very clear that they facilitate partnerships, not gold-diggers or sugar daddies.”
“We do dig for gold sometimes. But I understand your meaning. Still, if we show up at Luster Station without the fortune we’ve been teasing, our reputation will be tarnished, making contracts more difficult to come by, and delaying or even damaging permanently our chances of joining the consortium.”
She eased back in her cushion. “Tell me more about why the Luster is so important to you.”
For all his comments about the flavor of the coffee, he took another drink and then another, as if to wash down something even less palatable. “It’s what our apex wants,” he said in a stoic tone. “Or perhaps I should say rather it’s his obsession. For reasons he will not explain to me or anyone—maybe Amma, but she is not sharing either—Mag believes that a dedicated berth at Luster Station will be our new home, even as we work the deep space sectors.” He stared at his mug. “Only Amma remembers our homeworld. The rest of us were hatched from stasis here on theDeepWander. All we’ve known is this journey through the dark, capturing bits of lost rock.Thisis our home now. Yet for some reason, that’s not enough for Mag. Right after we found that strange stone, he contacted the vreign of Luster Station and demanded an invite, claiming the promise of a fortune such as they’ve never seen. And then he immediately contracted with the IDA for…for you.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “He risked everything. And now I think we will lose it all.”
She swallowed hard, and the orc tea was faintly bitter in her throat. “When you say lose everything…”
Teq looked away. “I caught a glimpse of a private communication that makes me think Mag consigned theDeepWanderas a surety that we would have a slot during the main auction.”
A terrible chill swept through her, erasing all the warmth of the tea. Just her luck to have escaped an embezzler’s family to end up on a gambler’s ship. Or maybe it wouldn’t even be his ship much longer.
And then where would her home be? What bed could her child call his?
Worry had been her constant—and only—companion for so long, but it seemed exhausted now too. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “It’s so hard. When my father handed me off at the wedding to his business partner’s son, I felt like I lost my home. But at least I had a planet.” She reached over to set her hand on Teq’s elbow. In some ways, it didn’t matter how many elbows he had, just more places for her to offer what she could of consolation.
He finished his coffee and set the mug aside, and although he’d said he needed to get back, his big body seemed to sink deeper into the cushions, canting her slightly toward him. “I don’t think I would’ve realized—or perhaps I should say acknowledged—how hard it was until…” He looks down at her hand. “Until you.” He glanced up at her, and from this close distance, she was mesmerized by the glint of light across the facets of his big, black eyes, not the simple reflections of the human pupil, but something else, something coming from within like bioluminescence, far away but maybe more tantalizing because of it, as if drawing her closer…
“It wasn’t my intent to make things harder for you.” She gave his elbow a gentle squeeze before releasing him. “A connection shouldn’t hurt more than being alone.”
Barely had her skin parted from his before he was reaching out to capture her hand again. “Not your fault,” he said gruffly. “According to Sil, you Earthers may have just discovered a previously unknown life form. What an astonishment.”
“Ugh. Ollie’s pet rock.” She grimaced. “And that’s making things harder for you too.”
“The orcs will survive. We always have.”
She’d told herself that plenty of times, each time fearing she was losing more and more, slipping farther away from whatever dreams she’d once had. But… Had she really ever had dreams of her own? She’d gone from barely more than a child herself to married to the worst sort of childish man, only to have her own child, beloved more than life or dreams. And here she found herself, in the darkest nights with this alien man and his mesmerizing sparkling eyes…
She reached out, her palm hovering just beyond the curve of his tusk. And for once, that fearsome tooth seemed not menacing but the promise of protection, a weapon she might wield against the true dangers of the universe. “Your eyes…” she murmured. “They glow so bright.”
The harsh exhalation of his breath gusted across the sensitized skin of her inner wrist. “I can’t control it. The i’lva. It’s a signal in your presence. Just ignore it.”
She leaned a little closer, and the light in his eyes flickered softly, not unlike the rock, isolated in the ore processing bay, whispering to itself and any other ears that might hear.
What was this mighty crusher refusing to say?
