Page 16 of Bitten in the Wild

“Can he eat cheese?” I asked Nycto, glancing over my shoulder at him stretched out naked and on his belly on the kitchen table.

“It hasn’t killed him yet,” he shrugged.

“Well, he’ll have to wait until it’s done cooking.”

More than a week of days slipped through our fingers. I tried to remember to contact Castor every day, but wasn’t great at keeping track of sunrises and sunsets while dwelling under Nycto’s nest. We might have truly gone on like that forever if not for the miniature earthquake caused by an anxious visitor.

One of the items all of Nycto’s food deliveries included were frozen pizzas. My mate liked to add wild toppings he foraged in the woods to make them tastier. We were just about to sit down to dinner when something heavy banged against the trapdoor, sending Waj out of his chair at the table to hide under it.

“Does Starscale 1 have earthquakes?” I asked, grabbing the tea pitcher before it was overturned.

“No, it was designed better than Earth was,” Nycto said, pushing his chair away from the table. “What day is it?”

“Friday,” I said after glancing at the phone.

“Shit!” He cursed and sprinted off. “I’m okay, Mom! I’m alright!”

Waj peeked out from under the table and raised one paw in the direction of the door as if I should follow him. The dotter was right. I wasn’t about to let my true-mate face an angry wild dragoness alone.

“She’s not angry. She’s worried,”Nycto cut into my thoughts over our link.

Normally, he took the back doorway out of the house, but I made it to the entryway just in time to see him scramble up the slide and push the trapdoor open. He was tugged out by someone with red scales.

“Why didn’t you come!? Too many suns have passed! You could’ve been eaten! Stuck somewhere! Captured by townies!”Her meaning washed over my brain too.

Bloody Frost in a pit of cannibals! I was on the flight link of the wild dragons of Starscale 1! Her communication didn’t come solely in words. It came in scents and sounds and images as I scrambled up the slide to join them.

“Mom! Mom!” Nycto shouted over her worried rambles. “I’m alright! I’m sorry I lost track of time. I met Mine!”

Her big golden eyes turned on me and I froze for a second. Then, like an idiot, I reached out a hand to shake one she didn’t have. Much to my surprise, she raised one massive, clawed paw and put it on top of mine in greeting.

“This is Izora. He’s a healer and my mate. We just lost track of time,” Nycto explained.

She leaned forward and sniffed the top of my head before sitting down on her haunches inside the nest. She moved her tail to reveal a deerlike creature that had both antlers and a pointed horn in the middle of its head. I was about to ask who crossbred a unicorn and a deer but didn’t have time before she snapped offthe horn and handed it to me with the point face down as if it was an ice cream cone.

“The stuff inside is the best tasting,” Nycto said.

“Is it safe to eat raw?”I asked him over our mating link.

“Hasn’t killed anyone here,”he shrugged.

“Thank you,” I said aloud to my mother-in-law.

The horn was filled with marrow and that I ate at first out of politeness and then because they were right, it was rich and fatty, with a trace of gamey taste one didn’t find often back in Moonscale London.

“I’ll grab our pizza and we’ll eat up here with you, Mom,” Nycto said, leaning against her massive side for a moment before disappearing down the slide into the house again.

“Sorry to make you worry about Nycto,” I said because I always had hated awkward silences.

“Safe,”the word came across the flight link.“He safe. You safe. All okay. That will make a good drinking horn. That’s what Nycto uses them for.”

“Thank you again,” I said aloud as Nycto scurried back up the slide.

I almost said we should’ve made more pizzas but realized his mother had brought her own food along. Perhaps it started as food for her son if something had gone wrong inside the house, but it served as her meal as we ate our pizza. Nycto and his mother spoke and I mostly listened while I ate.

After dinner, all of us drifted off. It was a habit I was quickly picking up from Nycto. A good nap afterwards was the only thing that made an excellent meal even better. My dreams were strange and thick as if I could run my hands through the webbing that held them all together. I dreamt of flying upside down while the stars tried to shoot me out of the sky as if the whole world was an old arcade game.

“It’s the mushies,” Nycto whispered to me. “I forgot townies didn’t eat them for food. It’ll be okay.”

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