Power Trio

Dee feels her mouth drift open. She exhales as he inhales, and he breathes deeply, like he’s trying to get every bit of her air into his lungs. Her tongue presses up against her left tusk, the way it does when she’s lining up a shot with her revolver.

Last week you faced down a charging quillbear, Dee. You didn’t blink then.

She blinks now.

She slaps him chummily on the back and he seems to get the message, parts from her so that they’re a companionable arm’s length away.

“Can you teach me this thing instead?” she asks. “The bass?”

“Sure.” He takes a hesitant seat on the amp combo. “I’ve played it off and on. Get Evan to give you some pointers, though. I’m not all that great a bassist.”

“Whyzzat?”

“It requires taste and restraint,” Nick says. “That’s not what I bring to the table. Musically.”

“Taste and restraint, huh?” Dee rubs her chin. “Does it always need that?”

“You can cut looser if you’re in a power trio.” Nick holds his guitar up. “That’s usually guitar, bass, and drums.”

She snaps her fingers. “Anise.”

“As our drummer?”

“Yup. I’mma ask her to be the third member of Quillbear.”

“What’s Quillbear?”

“We’re Quillbear. You sing, right?”

“Dee, yeah, but—”

“Do you want to be in a band with me?”

Nick shuts his mouth. He blinks. “Yes I do,” he says. “Do we have to name it Quillbear?”

“We could name it Snowdrift instead.”

“What if we named it after something that hasn’t almost killed me?”

“That’s an ever-shrinking list, man. We can’t handcuff ourselves like that.” She picks her bass back up. “We’re not done yet, right? We can play more, right?”

“I don’t know, Dee. My packmistress says I have to translate the prehistory of the North Darian packs before bed.”

“Fuck your packmistress, Nicky,” Dee says, and before either of them can look too long at the implications of that statement, she continues. “Plug your shit back in and let’s get loud.”

* * *

By the time they return to her yurt, Dee’s fingers ache and her shoulder is abraded where the strap of her bass rubbed against it. There’s no electronics in her tent, but she’s brought the bass with her, anyway. She just enjoys looking at it.

She zips herself out of her winter clothes. The nervous excitement has made her sweatier than usual after a day in the chill. She’s glad they’ll be passing through Magakurk tomorrow. Good bath houses there. A refreshing change of pace from the pack’s crummy pump showers.

She’s heard about jacuzzis. An odd word for a fascinating Earth creation. That’s item one on the list of fancy shit she’s going to buy with Anise’s paychecks. Actually, it’s item two now. First thing she’s getting is a bass amp.

Nick goes back to his orcish homework as Dee finishes shucking her outer layers. She begins the bendy process of taking off her sports bra without removing her shirt and then pauses.

It unsettles her, going back to this much quiet after their eruptive rehearsal. She hears the low wind, the crunch of far-off footprints in the snow, the scratching of Nick’s pen. He’s being quiet. She’d like to hear his voice.

“You’re learning well?” she asks.

“Aye.” He looks up from the page. “Packtongue is...” He searches for the word. “Simple. But in a good way. Efficient.”

“Yup.” She takes a seat next to him. “Human is a lot floofier, that’s for sure. Bunch of words for the same thing. It gets annoying, but it’s easier to do nuance.”

“Why does so much of Pack Voraag know it?”

“The first humans popped out on Daria,” she says. “Only a few hundred miles from here. Human is tougher than Packtongue, but it’s a hell of a lot easier than Heimisch or Kyssaki, so it spread. And orcs get along with humans. They’re easygoing, they’re talented craftsmen, and they have a… reputation.”

Nick cocks an eyebrow. “What kind of reputation?”

“Small. Cute. Uh, friendly, let’s say. Here’s a pack joke for ya. How’s a human like a yurt?”

“How?”

“They fold easy and fit more than you think from looking at them.”

He snorts. “That’s my mom you’re talking about.”

“I’m sure she’s a very classy lady.”

“It’s funny you call it Human, you know. The language. Back on Earth, humans have a ton of languages. And we called packtongue orcish.”

She snickers. “There’s a lot of highfalutin city orcs who would really hate knowing that.”

“You’re not a fan of cities, huh?”

“I’ve had some bad times in them.” And that’s all she’s willing to say about that.

“I was a city guy, you know,” Nick says. “Before I ended up out here. Spent my whole life in New Laytham. This is the first time I’ve been more than a few miles from it.”

She lays a hand on his knee. “Ask me, you’re adapting just fine. Don’t think I haven’t seen how well you’re riding these days.”

Nick grimaces. “It’s good motivation when the alternative is your nuts get knocked into your esophagus.”

“Yeah, well, talking about adaptation. And motivation.” Dee picks her words carefully. “We’re porting tomorrow to the south edge of the continent, this country called Vatramor. It’s warm down there. We’re gonna need to shear the rhinos to keep ‘em from getting too hot. They’ve got their winter pelts on. And so do the Voraags. We’re a northern pack. We rely on a certain amount of, uh, cushion.” She clears her throat. “What I’m saying is we run hot. And this situation with the holding each other for warmth thing, we’re gonna need to make some changes.”

Nick’s lips thin. He rubs his forearm. “Okay. Am I gonna get my own yurt?”

“We could do that. If it’s what you wanted.”

They lapse into silence. They look at each other.

“What if it isn’t?” Nick asks.

“In that case.” Dee’s chest tingles like there’s a little animal battering around inside it. “You’re gonna need to get used to me sleeping with less on.”

Nick’s dark eyes search her face. “I can do that.”

“Good.” She balls her hands into fists around the hem of her shirt. “Maybe we should get used to it now. Do you think?”

“Whatever you want.”

She lifts her shirt off herself. They make eye contact again. His expression is so intense that it’s picking Dee’s pulse up. He pulls his own shirt off. He’s in the middle of his first bulk phase, and her efforts in getting him active and eating right are reaping their rewards. The thin half orc she called Slim has put on heft, his shoulders broadening, his waist thickening. He looks sturdier, hardier. His posture is prouder. There’s another tattoo on his hip she hasn’t seen before, a woodcut-style skull with a crown on its cranium.

Her hands stray to the drawstring of her pants and undo the knot. She peels her sweats down her thick, smooth thighs. They stick together softly as she parts them. His gaze slows her hands, turns the simple act of undressing presentational. He follows suit, uncovering his close-bound boxer briefs, his carved quads and graceful calves.

They’re both down to their skivvies now. Dee finds her voice. “Think that’s enough for tonight. Still cold as balls out there.”

He nods. She gets up, moves her clothes to the corner, and folds them for tomorrow. His intake of breath draws her stomach taut. He’s seeing the criss-crossing scars on her back for the first time. She isn’t sure what she’ll say if he asks about them.

But he doesn’t, as she pads back across the carpets and wraps herself in the furs. She can see by the goosebumps across his body that he’s feeling the chill.

She raises the flap of the fur covering. “If you’re waiting for me to say come here, then come here.”

He climbs into bed, turns over and slides his back up against her. His shoulders are as wide as hers now. Human half be damned—once he’s finished with this recomposition, she can tell already he’s gonna look like an orc. A thin orc, maybe, with a tapered body and eyes like a bird of prey and and silky hair and long, dextrous fingers and a warm, musky scent.

But an orc.

Her orc.

Dee snuggles up to him, presses her warmth to his cool, firm flesh and nudges a pillowy thigh across his waist.

“I ain’t really used to being the big spoon this much, Nicky. I’m kinda short, you know. For an orc girl.”

He turns onto his back and coils an arm through the crook of her hip. His hand rests lightly on the valley of her lower back, just above her butt. He tilts his face to hers. Their noses are almost touching. She listens to the sound his eyelids make when they blink. “Maybe we could just lie like this, then,” he murmurs.

He doesn’t want to spoon you, because you’ll feel how hard he is, Dee realizes. And that lights a little fire in her stomach. There’s something going on between them, something scary and exciting. Maybe it’s been going on for a while. But tonight she’s looking it square in the face. She’s found a good man, and he’s cute and loyal and talented, and he likes her back. There’s a few little inside-voice rules that are getting quieter and harder to hear, even as she repeats them to herself.

And don’t Kell always look so happy, she thinks. Happy with her mates.

“All right, Nicky,” she whispers. “Like this.”