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After a few runs like this, we’re full up with coin and we’ve earned the trust of the human outlaws. We become their go-to for overseas transport, hauling all sorts of goods past tax collectors and inspectors. With our heads together, we are much too clever to get caught.
It’s raining one day—pelting us, really—as we try to navigate our small skiff out of harm’s way.
We need a bigger boat,Rimi says, out of seemingly nowhere.
Do we?This ship has been sufficient so far.
Something sturdier, she says.More space.
I think about this as the storm calms. When we’re done putting the sails out, Rimi is breathing hard, and I help her sit down inside the cabin where it’s dry.
Why is the boat not good enough all of the sudden?I ask. I know a little storm wouldn’t rattle her, not after everything we’ve been through.
With a twitch of excitement, she scoots over to one side and invites me to sit down next to her.Because there’s going to be another person on board, she says.At least one.She brings my hand to her chest, then drags it down until it’s resting over her belly.
My heart leaps into my throat.Is that so?I lean down, pull up her shirt, and kiss her exposed stomach. So this is where my whelp will grow, big and strong.
It is so, she says with a giggle.
Whatever happens, I know they will have the most doting parents possible.
That night I take my mate slow and gentle, and she cries out underneath me until she’s squeezing me so tight, I doubt if she’ll ever let me go.
That would be quite all right with me.
* * *
Rimi
Once I’m so enormous I can’t navigate the boat any longer, we set up camp not far from a human village, where we hired a midwife to help with the birth. The moment she sees me, she says, “Oh, there’s two of them?”
Twins. That’s why I’m full to popping, apparently. Every day Lo’zar plays with my breasts, licking them when they drip milk, and looking immensely pleased with himself.
But if there are going to be two of them,he says, sucking on my nipple,where’s mine?
Lo’zar!I snort.You can’t get jealous of my tits. And you’re the one who put those babies in there, by the way.
He rubs his chin.I guess I did. And I won’t be happy until we have a whole clan.
Going to start an organized criminal enterprise?I ask.
We could own the sea with just a horde of our children.He runs his hand down my rather enormous belly, ducking it between my legs.You know, at our last stop, I overheard that there are others. Like us.
Others?I’m not sure what he means.
Other pairs of human and trollkin.
I gasp as he runs his finger up and down me, testing how slick I am for him.Really? So we aren’t the only ones?
I heard some live in Eyra Cove. A troll and a human, just like us.
Well, we must meet them,I say.Maybe our strange children can be friends.
He chuckles that boyish chuckle I love.All right, my little mate. Perhaps you can find a friend, too.
* * *
While we wait for the twins’ arrival, Lo’zar sends a note to Graz, but we don’t hear anything back. Perhaps that brilliant orc found what he was looking for, and decided not to return to Kalishagg—or he discovered some treasure even greater than we did.
