Page 18 of His Human Believer

The yard is loud and smells of scorched resin.

Crates are everywhere. Both suns are overhead. Rows of multi-colored gourds in graded sizes are on pallets, and workers move between them. The young Hellstone disappears almost immediately toward the gourd fabrication unit to speak with a worker who is clearly delighted to be asked.

Margaret stands in the middle of all of this in that green top, with her bare arms in the sunlight, looking fantastically beautiful, asking questions. Finally, she is at the enormous pile of oddly shaped orange gourds that have been specially created for this human Halloween.

“We call these pumpkins,” she tells me. “And this one I’m holding is the perfect size and shape for our needs. We will require forty of these, just to be sure we have enough. This is the one we’ll use as our sample. I need you to help me dig through all of these pumpkins to find forty of them that look and weigh as closely as possible to our sample.” She points. “The ones you find that you feel are a good match go on that pallet. And when we get to forty of them, we’ll be done.”

I nod at her instructions and get to work. Emberstone helps us too and the three of us work together. I don’t like this arrangement because he stands too close to her and finds too many reasons to converse.

And then, at the same moment we reach thirty pumpkins, Emberstone straightens and turns to her. I know precisely what is about to occur.

“Margaret.” His tone has changed. It is warm and it is not presuming anything, which is correct, because he can scent as well as I can that she is not aroused by him and he has arranged his approach accordingly. “I wondered whether you might allow me to⁠—”

One hundred and fifty nanco of wulver arrive between them.

Skylo strides into the space where the two of them are speaking, turns broadside, and sits down next to Margaret’s foot. All three heads look up at her and blow out small flames of greeting.

“Skylo.” Margaret is already laughing. She grabs the nearest horn and gives it a shake. “You menace. What are you doing?”

Emberstone steps back and rubs his horn and says something rueful about Hellstone’s beast. The moment between them is gone. It has evaporated and cannot be recovered.

I have never in my life been so grateful to an animal.

Finally, all forty pumpkins have been collected and the arrangements have been made for delivery to the compound. I finish speaking with an employee and turn to find Margaret.

She is not there.

I check the row of crates and then the vehicle. Then I stride over to the office and the loading bay. Where has she gone? The shaded area beside the fabricator where the young Hellstone was standing is now empty.

I glance around the entire yard. The wulver is gone too.

“Emberstone.”

He straightens up.

“Where is Margaret?”

“She walked off with the Hellstone boy.” He nods toward the far end of the yard, where the pallets end and there is nothing but a fence and some shade.

Chapter Six

Margaret

It’s such a beautiful day. This really is turning into a nice vacation. Avery and Mitry begged me to come for Halloween, and here I am, picking out pumpkins on the planet Tarvos.

I love my job back home on Salo. Being able to work on an independent audiocast, telling my stories exactly how I want them told, is wonderful. But maybe I have been working too hard? I must admit, it’s nice to take a break and not think about work at all. There’s even a built-in mystery happening here, for me to help privately solve, having to do with a Hyrrokin legend. But for once, I’m not going to turn this into content for my show.

That’s a breath of fresh air.

I’m dressed in a customary Hyrrokin tube top again, exposing my thick arms like never before. I’ve always considered my waist too thick for something like this but today I’m wearing it proudly. And I also have on a cute pair of white shorts and flip flops. All of this is borrowed from Avery, who is thrilled to lend me outfits she considers “trendy.” She thinks I have good legs, despite my weight, and that I should be showing them off.

I have to admit I feel unexpectedly…pretty?

The weather is just so nice, it feels good to expose my skin to the sunlight and the perfumed breeze.

I turn and see Vidar talking to an employee. That Hyrrokin is gloriously handsome. Those reading glasses are the frosting on the cake. He has no idea what he does to me. I’m turned on simply standing in his presence. All he has to do is work nearby, sorting pumpkins and I want him to take me to the nearest wall and fuck me blind.

Crazy but true.