Page 35 of Crave

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“Guess my uncle was doing it the hard way,” she muttered.

Sil shook his head. “Their work wasn’t just pretty or expensive. It was…more than that. And somehow less. It was precious in a way beyond galactic credits.”

Kinsley gazed up at him.More…and less. The words almost throbbed in the space between them. He’d always been the serious, nerdy type. But this mysticism was something else, a hidden facet of him that seemed to align with some secret place in her. Not the suspicious, shady part of her that her uncle had taught to identify an easy mark. But the part of her that had always wanted something to believe.

Her heartbeat skittered with a kind of fear somehow worse than when the debris had buffeted the shuttle. At least that danger was obvious.

What was the threat to Sil finding his destiny and living out his dream?

Ignoring the ugly roil of her own feelings, she took one of Sil’s free hands in hers and laced their fingers tight, as if by doing so she could make herself drop her own doubts. She swallowed hard. “Tell me. Why was it so precious?”

He looked away. “I only ever read about it.”

“Well, you only ever read Earth romance novels, and you’re pretty damn good at romancing, so…” She squeezed his hand. “Who were the stone singers to the orcs, to you?”

He let out a slow breath. “In stone they sang the stories we told ourselves. Not just histories, in the same way their carvings were not just sculpture. It was more a hope for the future as our homeworld began to fail. Those that were left took to the stars, but by then, only the biggest and toughest, marked with the most essential glyphs, remained, the ones necessary for manning the ships.”

“Emphasis on man,” she said.

“Our version of male, yes. For generations, there had been fewer hatchlings, almost no wife-mates. Such lack made stone singers even less wanted.”

“That’s so wrong. Your glyph should’ve had a place with the rest.”

He tilted his head. “I think it wasn’t truly about dwindling resources, but about fading hope. The songs couldn’t keep that alive.”

“But now you can.”

“With Adeline and Ollie choosing Teq, with the other Earthers deciding to remain, no matter what happens at the Luster, maybe the orcs have reason to hope again.”

She glanced away. “For you too.”

“Perhaps.” He unsealed the cylinder and poured the contents onto the counter.

She managed to not make a disappointed sound. But it looked mostly like the contents of a shop vac, with the same dusty smell. There wasn’t even the hint of a quartz-like sparkle. Not a fortune, not a dream come true.

“What do you do next?” She found herself whispering, which was silly but seemed respectful.

“I sing. As I did when I sonoscryed you.”

A hectic flush raced through her skin, the remembered intimacy sinking deeper. “Um. Is it something you’d rather be alone for?”

“Together,” he said, sounding like Roxy.

He hadn’t burst into power tunes while he’d been powering into her, and it wasn’t a ballad now. But the low vibration emitting from him like faraway thunder struck her with some kind of music, as if her heart had become a tympani drum and her nerves the strings of the growliest base guitar. The pebbles danced on the counter, dust rising in a fog.

Which was an interesting party trick but wouldn’t impress the orcs, much less potential buyers at the Luster.

Though the sound continued, Sil let out a shaky breath. “It’s not working.”

Kinsley brushed a consoling hand against his elbow—and almost rattled out of her skin at the strength of the harmonics moving through him, generated by the almost invisibly rapid thrum of his carapace.

Her muscles tightened in sympathy—and a strange desire. Not sexual, or at least not only sexual, but just to be part of the hopeful dream he was trying to make out of dust and long-ago loss.

She wrapped her fingers more firmly around his arm. “You can do it. Not for the Luster or the orcs or anyone else, just for you.”

The deep vibration from him never ceased but it took on another tone that seemed to squeeze her ears and her chest. The shuddering pebbles and dust swirled closer together.

Another pitch joined in.