Page 91 of Wolf Bonded (Rejected Moons 2)

“And here I thought you liked getting out of control,” Milo says with a grin.

“There’s a time and a place,” I say. “What are we having for dinner?”

He holds up a flat can. “What do you say to tuna fish?”

“What the hell is tuna fish?”

“Some kind of fish.”

“Oh, okay, thank you.” I roll my eyes. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Well, maybe it’s what people used to call fish in a can before the Reversal.” He shrugs. “Back when they put fish in cans.”

“Damn weird thing to do, if you ask me,” I say. “Why would you put fish in a can anyway?”

“Don’t ask me to explain how the minds of pre-Reversalites worked. Do you want me to open this or not?”

“Go for it,” I say. I’m curious.

Milo fetches down another of the flat cans and uses the can opening tool to remove the lids. He hands one to me.

I stare down at it. “This is fish?”

“I guess.”

It’s meat floating in some kind of water. I sniff at it. It does smell fishy, so I pick up a bit with my fingers and pop it in my mouth experimentally. “Okay, yeah, it’s fish.”

“Is it good?”

“I mean, it’s not as good as fresh fish from the river. It’s better than starving.”

Milo shrugs. “That’s pretty much all I’m asking for.” He opens his own can of fish and starts to eat. “I can’t believe anyone went for this back in the days when they could get whatever they wanted to eat all the time, though.”

“Yeah,” I say. “But people were weird before the Reversal. I’ve definitely noticed that. They liked to play hardship.” That’s why we have things like tents and backpacks, even though they come from a world in which people had homes with running water and vents in the floor that made the air warm or cool depending on the season.

I like living out on my own. I like being self-reliant and strong. I wouldn’t have wanted to live before the Reversal, when things were easy and people were soft.

But I am glad the last generation of people left behind a few artifacts that can help us now, like backpacks and food in cans. I’m not too proud to be thankful for anything that will help make our survival a little bit easier.

I wouldn’t have expected that to include Moon Caster magic. But I guess it does.

55

MILO

It’sstrangehowquicklywe fell into a routine now that the threats are all eliminated.

We’re still watching for Moon Drinkers, but we’ve seen no sign of them since our battle with Emlyn’s pack. Wilder says they’ve probably left the area for good now. That Lord Enorio guy has been out of the city for years, according to him, and the Moon Drinkers we’ve seen have just been here on small group expeditions.

Maybe they’ve given up on whatever it was they wanted.

We still keep a steady watch, because even if the Moon Drinkers are gone, the Ravagers are definitely still around. But they’re easy to track. And they haven’t come anywhere near Giuseppe’s in the three weeks since Victor’s death. It seems as if Wilder’s warding magic is really working.

I’ve taken over most of the food prep. Nate likes to go out hunting for fresh meat, and sometimes Wilder goes with him and sets traps or catches fish in the human way. More than once, Emlyn has asked him if they can get fish by magic, but Wilder always says he likes fishing with a pole. If you ask me, I think he’s trying to steer her away from using unnecessary magic—which is something I support. I’m a fan of magic, but I’m really starting to think of it as an as-needed sort of solution.

Tonight, though, no one’s gone out hunting because it’s been raining all day. The storm is nice, actually. We can hear it pounding down on the roof, and it makes our little home feel secluded and peaceful. The wards keep us safe here, but the rain really makes it feel like no one could ever find us.

Our dinner tonight is pasta. I boiled the water on the woodstove and cooked the noodles. Then I heated up the contents of a jar of red sauce. It’s a meal none of us ever had before we came to Giuseppe’s, but he’s got a whole wall of boxes of dried noodles, so we eat pasta all the time. We gorge ourselves on it, and it’s the most full any of us has ever been. It’s like a fantasy.

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