Sil let out a sound of amusement. “Teq scares us sometimes too,” he said in a muffled aside, as if letting them in on a secret. “He’s a crusher, and sometimes I think he can just glare at rocks and make them fall apart.”
“I am not trying to crush anyone here,” Teq said when Sil twitched his antennae meaningfully. “I will try to be less intimidating when I did not intend to frighten you.”
After another long moment, Adeline slowly released the tight grip she’d held on herself. Much to Teq’s relief, since he’d been strangely distracted by the way she changed shape when she wrapped her arms around her body. It wasn’t just movement in the soft folds of fabric that the Earthers had wrapped around themselves; the curving flesh under her clothes morphed too. Orc bodies were too hard and tough for such shifting. Was all of her so squishy?
She finally gave him a slow nod. “And I’m sorry I grabbed you earlier. I saw you holding Ollie and I…I panicked. I shouldn’t have let my feelings overcome me like that when you didn’tintendto be terrifying.”
He gazed at her. Was her wording a shrewd acknowledgment that he was reserving the right to be intimidating when hedidintend it? “Your hatchling is vulnerable and squishy, and the protective instinct is hard to control,” he allowed magnanimously. “Besides, I barely felt it.”
And he was only half lying.
Sil gave him a curious look then flicked one hand. “I will take Kinsley to the lab and see what I can rig up for a translator until we get to the Luster for something better.”
“A space laboratory!” Ollie scampered up to his mother, wrapping an arm around her. “Can I see it too?”
Adeline put her hand on his head, as if she didn’t want to let him go. “Maybe later would be better.”
“I’ll go with them,” piped up another of the Earthers. She’d been introduced as June, Teq remembered, which was a small word for the smallest of the Earther females. “It’s not like we can get lost now.” She flashed her tiny square tusks and let out a huh-huh sound.
“Mom,” the hatchling said, peering up at her. “Is something wrong? You don’t have to be scared of the dark anymore since they turned on the slug light.”
“You’re right, owlet. Go ahead, but you listen to June—and Sil too.”
“I know. I will.”
Slowly, Adeline released the hatchling who grabbed June’s hand instead, and the two tagged along behind Sil and Kinsley, leaving Teq and Adeline alone in the corridor.
As if proving the hatchling’s point, a slymusk crept past them. In the smear of bioluminescence, Adeline’s dark eyes reflected the silver as she gazed after her friends. “I brought him this far,” she murmured. “To freak out now would be ridiculous, right?”
Teq shifted from one foot to the other. “Are you asking me?”
“Not really.” She let out a very long breath. “Sorry again that I freaked out on you.”
As he looked down on her from his greater height, he found himself again distracted. The tunic she wore was woven with threads that included a hint of metallics, like a vein of precious ore threaded through a mountain. It outlined her generous contours in a way that kept snagging his focus. Obviously she and the other potential wife-mates had gone out of their way to make themselves appealing, just as many of the orcs had done, following Amma suggestions to buff and shine their tusks and carapaces.
Teq himself had been too busy reading up on the Intergalactic Dating Agency to do the same, and now he felt dusty and drab by comparison.
She crossed her arms again, changing shape under the pretty glitter of the tunic in a way that made it all but impossible to concentrate. “Is this as awkward for you as it is for us?” She did one of those smile things that the IDA handbook warned might seem threatening to some species.
“In some ways no,” he said. “Because at least we are still in our home. In some ways…” He tried to mirror the smile thing, although his tusks got in the way. “In some ways worse, because we are obviously desperate to have you, which leaves us less options to negotiate.”
She did a thing where she changed the shape of her mouth, which intrigued him, her lips together and pooching to one side. “Negotiating. I didn’t think of it like that. But I suppose you’re right. We’re trying to figure out how to get to know each other, which is the reason we are dating and attending this Luster ball together.”
“This is our chance to extract a good life from the void,” he said. He watched her closely to see if his candor would change how she looked again. Would she be frightened off by the truth? Would she try to take advantage?
She only bobbed her head in a way that signaled acknowledgment. “It’s the same for most of us too, I think. We’re here—far from home, as you noted—because this is our chance too.”
When she gazed up at him, the silver glow seemed brighter in the sheen over her dark eyes. Was she telling the truth? Should he try to take advantage to make sure these Earther brides hadn’t agreed to this farce only to steal the orcs’ newfound treasure, leaving them alone and adrift in the heartless darkness of the cosmos?
But he didn’t know Earthers well enough to guess their intent. He knew only what he’d read in the handbook.
She was nibbling at her lower lip in a way that made him wonder if he should offer her some of the Earther-appropriate foodstuffs that had been added to theDeepWander’s supplies. But when he opened his own mouth parts, what came out was, “May I kiss you?”
Chapter 4
Adeline froze in place as if the lethal cold of space had instantaneously flooded every cell in her body. “May you…what?”
The huge crusher stood up taller than he already was, but at the same time, he flattened back the feathery whiskers of antennae that had made him seem even taller. “Kiss? May I kiss you? I read about it in the IDA handbook, and it seemed to suggest that such a behavior would be perhaps expected on a first date. If I understand the concept, we would place our mouths together in a way—”