Page 7 of Claim
“Who is the ghost?”Even as he asked, June popped out from the shadows where Teq and Oliver had been hunting.She was making a noise that his translator couldn’t decode, and he pushed half upright.“Is she dying?”
“Ghost are already dead,” Kinsley said.“That’s June’s attempt to be scary.”
Mag grunted.“She doesn’t even have tusks.”
She wasn’t that fast either, though she dashed after his crusher with apparent homicidal intent, making those not-scary noises, instigating an even higher pitch excitement from the hatchling bouncing on Teq’s hip.
The way the little Earther female bounced too as she pursued her potential victims was…intriguing.Knees and elbows at odd angles, her smoky quartz hair flagging behind her, an extra adipose layer giving her a gently rounded shape, like a particularly valuable and easily captured asteroid tumbling through space to be scooped up by theDeepWanderfor a fortune.
Earthers were softer and more delicate than orcs, with a wider range of motion, but he hadn’t noticed what that meant in terms of differences in biomechanical dynamics.Compared to a stiff-jointed, thick-skinned orc, her movements were smoother, and her flesh moved in ways that made gravity and dark energy seem like a dance.
An apex did not dance.
“If I can sing, you can dance,” Sil said.
Mag slanted a glance at his brother.He hadn’t meant to speak aloud.But sometimes egg-twins didn’t have to say anything.
“Mag, you should volunteer to be the ghost,” Kinsley said.“Everyone is on edge waiting for the Luster.Seeing you play would help everything seem on course instead.”
He frowned at her.“The shipison course for the Luster.And I don’t play.”
She let out a long, gusting breath.“But wasn’t your reason for bringing in IDA brides to change your lives?”
He gave her a harder look.“What does that have to do with me being a ghost?”When Sil gave him a look in return—though not so hard as his own—he pushed to his feet.“Very well.How do I become the ghost?”
“You get caught by the current ghost,” Kinsley explained.“And before you say that you can’t be caught, just a touch is enough to make you it.”
This was all very confusing and unnecessary, but he wasn’t unaware that theDeepWanderneeded more than fuel and maintenance to run well.His brother had always instinctively understood those subtle factors from the time they’d been Oliver’s size, while Amma had sometimes had to explain to Mag—repeatedly and in exhausting detail and with a mug of yezo in three of her four hands, quaffing the fermented cavern algae beverage whenever he told her he didn’t need to eat or sleep.Now Sil’s wife-mate was offering a simple way to ease the tension for his crew.
With a clack of his tusks, Mag rose and strode across the gather-hall.His crusher—still toting his smaller burdens—had reached the safety of the dais, but June was still chasing a few stragglers.As she darted after one of his orcs, he stepped directly into her path, and she slammed into his body.
Despite her momentum, he caught her effortlessly with one arm.“I am it.”
Chapter 3
It was like running headlong into a rock column if a rock column were hot and muscular, and if the rock wrapped around her like it would never let go, sweeping her right off her feet.
June said, “Whoof,” and looked up.
And up.Wow, Mag really was tall, so tall.She’d already said that, hadn’t she?He wouldn’t be called apex if he was short.
Her breasts were pressed up tight against him, her legs half spraddled around him, like a cartoon coyote smacking into a stony pinnacle—except rated R.Because she’d had a dream during the sleep period after she’d measured him, and that had definitelynotbeen a kiddie show.
She’d had no chance to catch herself before she smashed into him, and now her hands were flattened on his chest.Even with her fingers spread wide, her hands were nothing more than two distant stars on the shadowed sky of his broad, bare pecs.
She wasnotgoing to squeeze…
His arm tightened around her, squeezing.“Am I the ghost now?”
Gah, she was going to die of embarrassment.Because her legs had decided to squeeze instead.His waist was as thick as the rest of him and stretched her thighs wide…
She swallowed hard.“Oh, yes.That is…you are definitely it.Since I caught you.”
“You?Caught me?”His mouth stretched wide, revealing those fearsome tusks to the root.“Ha.Ha.That is a joke, yes?So I am laughing like an Earther.”
To her abject humiliation, she giggled.“It is kinda funny to think of me catching you.”
But even as she said it, her amusement faded.Yeah, even as a joke she couldn’t catch a king.
