Chapter Seven

Izora

As much as I wanted to sample my blood right away, I was in no condition to fly or walk all the way back to the ship. Nycto offered to let me ride on his back, but I was too woozy from considering it to take him up on his offer. It took two full days and nights of resting and hydrating as best as my mushie hangover would let before I was ready to go back to the estate. Nycto stayed by my side and acted as if I might drop dead the second he looked away. The hangover was annoying and unpleasant, but his constant worry and guilt broke my heart. I hadn't lied when I told him I didn't blame him. I was on an alien planet and wildlings had something unique to their digestive systems that us townies didn't have. I tried my best to be a good patient and let him dote on me because his worried scent felt like a punishment for not feeling well.

"Are you sure you're ready to fly?" Nycto asked, wiggling into his pants.

"Are you concerned your inner beast won't let you back out?" I turned his question back around on him.

"Not now," Nycto shook his head. "He's just as concerned about you as I am."

"I'm fine, mate," I said, tugging my shirt over my head despite the odd look it got me from him.

Not many dragons wore shirts at all on Starscale 1. They were always flying here and there and it made sense.

"I hope my mother doesn't see you. She even thinks pants and underwear are ridiculous. She sees you with that thing on and she's going to think I really did try to kill you," Nycto frowned.

"I thought wildlings didn't care what anyone thought?" I arched a brow in his direction.

"Even wildlings don't want a hundred questions from their mothers," he crossed his arms.

"Well, lucky for you, once I shift, the shirt won't be visible," I shrugged.

"You weren't wearing it when I first spotted you," Nycto pointed out. "You know the townies don't really wear them either."

"Well, Moonscales do. I think the only ones who really adjusted to the no shirt life have been Fred and Sunny. Sometimes you'd think they were father and son instead of Fred and Teddy. I'm getting off topic. I'm not going to show up shirtless for a meeting with the captain."

"So, you guys wear shirts when things are serious?"

"Definitely then. Other times too. It's just the way it is," I shrugged again.

"But do you like the way things are?" he asked, leaning one arm against the wall.

"I'll also be checking over his hatchling and Casimir's egg," I told him. "I was surprised that most healers here don't even wear shirts while they're working."

"Everyone knows you have nipples," Nycto shrugged, and I laughed. "Hiding them doesn't make you smarter."

"Does my shirt make you uncomfortable?" I asked.

"Only because I'm sure it makes you uncomfortable. You're recovering from being sick. You should be comfy right now."

"I am recovered," I reminded him and leaned over to steal a kiss.

He wasn't wrong about Starscales and shirts, but I was a Moonscale first and clothes let us all pretend we were less emotionally involved in each other's lives than we actually were.

***

As anxious as I was to get back and tell the others about my vision, Nycto and I still took the long way back to the estate. Waj perched on Nycto right behind his head. The little dotter leaned back against him as if the sky was merely another lake for him to float in. We flew over the nest of Nycto's parents and stopped long enough to wave a wing at them. His mother smelled relieved to see us out and about. I wondered how much she understood about what happened to me.

"She knew you didn't mean to act like that. She's seen the townies do it for fun, but she knew you didn't know it would happen from the pizza," Nycto said over our mating link.

"I'm still getting used to you hearing so much of what goes on in my head."

"I like it. It's the only reason I know you actually forgave me for poisoning you."

"I'm not having this debate again, mate," I sighed. "You did not poison me."

"You're a doctor. You should know it makes you and the other townies see things because your bodies can't process it correctly."

"I do, but you didn't poison me."

"I thought you weren't having this debate again," Nycto said and snorted out a ring of smoke from his giant, scaled nose.

"I'm about to win it."

"What? Gonna bite me?"

"Later, yeah, probably, but no, I poisoned myself. I cut the pizza. I put it on my plate, and I ate it. There. I poisoned me."

"But I put it out there and cooked it and ---"

"Can we let it go? I'm not mad. I wasn't even mad when it happened, and I don't want you to spend the next century feeling bad about it."

He didn't say anything for a long moment and then started toward the ground. I scanned over our mating link and it was his turn to feel sick. Sick and confused. Gulping down a huff of air, I followed him toward the ground. He landed before me and was in his human form heading toward the bushes before my claws ever touched the ground. Without our mating link I may have thought he was playing a game of chase.

Then came the retching.

"Egg," my dragon chimed into my thoughts.

Morning sickness was hit or miss with egg pregnancies, but my inner beast was probably right. I shifted back and followed him into the bushes. He held up a hand backwards, but I took it and turned his arm the right way around. I worked in medicine long enough that a little vomit didn't even begin to phase me.

Waj stood on his back legs watching everything unfold. He rested one hand on his little head as if he wasn't sure what to do.

"He'll be okay, Waj," I managed a smile for him despite how worried Nycto smelled.

"Is this stress?" Nycto asked.

"It could be," I said slowly. "Or it could be morning sickness."

"It's not morning, though. Well, it's not right when I woke up anyway."

"Morning sickness is a misnomer. It can happen at any time, day or night."

"I have some morning sickness gummies back in the clinic on the ship. Brought them in case someone got seasick in space."

"That sounds like a horrible book: Seasick in Space," he laughed and then instantly screwed up his face in regret.

"Okay. Can you sit down?" I asked.

He reached out for my hand and I took it to steady him. We walked several yards away from where he was last sick. I found a nice flat rock and helped him sit down.

"I'm going to have someone bring the gummies out, okay?"

"Will they be okay if I do have an egg?" he asked, glancing down at his flat, naked stomach.

"Yes. They're similar to what the Starscale healers use for morning sickness here. It was one of the first things the first group of healers I met here asked me about. They make it a syrup instead of a gummy, though. Tastes like cherries and some other fruit."

"You took pregnant medicine?" he arched a brow.

"Well, it's actually an anti-nausea med that's safe for pregnant people, but yes," I nodded.

"Do you think someone from your crew would fly all the way out here just for this?" he blinked at me.

"You're a Starscale. They bring you out food when you don't use your points. I'm surprised you'd ask me that."

"I know a Starscale healer would, but they're not healers and you made Earthside sound like a battle zone."

"Some parts of it are, but that has little to do with the crew of the Medwin 2," I said, pushing his hair away from his face and kissing his forehead.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. It hadn't lost any battery while inside Nycto's house. All the crystals he installed to power things kept phones charged without having any direct contact. I almost texted Castor first, but didn't want to interrupt his time with his baby or mate. Teddy it was. I felt bad about asking Teddy to fly all the way out here, but I knew out of all of them he'd do it without thinking twice. I was between a rock and a hard place – too far from the house to walk back and there was too far to walk to the ship with Nycto not feeling well. He answered my text in under a minute, confirming what I knew. Teddy was always the guy you could count on.

I massaged Nycto's shoulders and had him sip from a water bottle while we waited for Teddy to save the day. Eventually, I stopped rubbing his shoulders when he leaned back against me and closed his eyes.

"I think when I can fly, we should go back to the nest."

"Does anything hurt?" I asked, afraid that I mistook something more serious for morning sickness.

"No, but being in town is always awkward for me. Being pregnant and in town… Well, it feels like a punishment to just think about it."

"Are the townies particularly touchy with pregnant people? Castor didn't seem to have a problem with that," I said.

"No," he shook his head. "Everyone is nice. Really nice. It just --- It's hard to explain."

"Do wild dragons leave their nests while pregnant?" I asked him.

"They do and I will too. I just don't know about town."

"Has something bad ever happened in town?" I asked him.

"Not exactly. It's just different out there, I guess."

Rock and hard place again. I needed to tell Castor and the others about my vision, preferably face to face, but I wasn't about to drag my probably pregnant mate into town if he didn't feel safe there.

"Okay," I nodded. "After Teddy gets here and we give the gummies some time to work, we'll go back to the nest," I agreed.

Once upon a time, Izora Moonscale was all about the greater good of the flight. Now, that guy seemed to be a whole other lifetime ago. I'd have dug a den for Nycto where we stood if that's what it took to make him feel better. Perhaps this was the other side of that scale – the universe's way of balancing out my life.

I didn't have long to ruminate on the question because shadows swooped overhead. Teddy didn't come alone. He hardly went anywhere without Sunny and today's trip into the mushie forest was no exception.

"Sorry it took longer than we thought it would," Teddy said over the flight link. "Castor had to get us permission to fly this out here. As soon as they heard what it was, they gave us the all clear."

"You didn't take too long," I said, wrapping an arm around my mate as the guys found a place to land and shift back into human form.

Minutes later, they emerged from the trees. Teddy carried the bottle of gummies in one hand and my small, modern ultrasound machine in the other. I grinned. I hadn't even thought of that fucking thing! Thankfully, someone still had brain cells floating around their head because worrying about Nycto made me brain dead.

"No, it makes you a first-time sire," Teddy said aloud, passing the things off to me.

I opened the bottle before I bothered introducing Teddy or Sunny to my mate. The seal was still intact. I'd brought plenty along and we hadn't had to open a single bottle on the trip. I dumped two in my hand and slipped them into Nycto's mouth. Teddy turned away from the intimate moment. Sunny's head was on a swivel as if he expected a wild dragon to swoop down and make supper out of him.

"What's on your radar, Sunny?" I asked.

"A giant red keeps circling us. They're staying further out to not cast a shadow. They're being sneaky about it and I don't like that," he said.

Nycto and I both glanced up and he barely kept himself from laughing.

"That would be my mother-in-law spying on us. No, I won't be answering questions about that. No, I'm not joking," I said, adding the last part before Sunny's smart mouth made me pop him one.

"Do you want me to fly up and tell her you're okay?" Teddy asked, glancing at Nycto.

"She knows. We have a family link. I think she only came out when you two got here," Nycto said, letting out a long, slow breath.

"Would you be against me inviting the crew out here to talk to?" I asked Nycto over our mating link. "Not to our nest but just out here."

Nycto thought about it for a long moment and nodded his consent. I quickly introduced him to Teddy and Sunny and they both shook his hand. Teddy produced another water bottle from his bag and Nycto gladly took it. Sunny still had his nose pointed skyward.

"She'd win," Nycto said.

"Huh?" I blinked.

"He's wondering if he could take a wild dragon in a fight. He couldn't. Maybe a hatchling that was less than a decade old, but not one as old as my mother. She'd have him for dinner and floss with his scales."

That got Sunny's attention.

"Are you thinking about fighting wild dragons?"

"It was a hypothetical," Sunny shrugged. "I'm not really going to fight his mother."

"Townies," Nycto swore under his breath, and I almost reconsidered inviting the rest of the crew out.

Teddy flashed Sunny a look that I couldn't completely read, and Sunny sighed.

"I'm sorry," Sunny said a second later.

"It's okay," Nycto shrugged. "There's not really a lot of fighting out here, but we can hold our own. Maybe you should visit 2, if you want to fight. I wouldn't recommend fighting the wild dragons there, either. Stick to the townie fights."

Sunny opened his mouth but thought better of it. Waj waddled over and looked up at him. I left the dotter to ensure he didn't do anything untoward and turned my attention back to my mate. I rubbed slow circles on his back as the gummies took effect.

Teddy tilted his head to the side as if speaking to someone over the flight link. Probably, Fred. His father still worried about him as if he were still a hatchling. Teddy handled it better than a lot of dragons I knew.

"OUCH!" Sunny said and leapt back from Waj. "That little fucker pinched me!"

Waj fell back with little barks that I was pretty sure meant he thought it was hilarious. Sunny rubbed his calf, glaring at him.

"Yeah, he's protective of Mom," Nycto laughed.

"Didn't know it could pinch!" Sunny said and let out a long line of cuss words.

"He," Nycto said. "Waj is a guy not an it."

"Castor says they can fly out in a few hours if you want them to. Elio wants to come too," Teddy said a moment later, ignoring Sunny's bitching. "Melon will watch the babies along with her egg. Oh and her egg is healthy but still an egg."

"It's hard to tell how long they'll be guarding that baby that way," I said. "Tell Castor a few hours should be fine. We'll be able to give him an exact location soon."

"They can come to the house," Nycto said a moment later.

"Are you sure?" I asked, double checking with him over our mating link.

"I mean, I don't like new people most of the time and that one looks like a himbo, but they're your family."

"That they are. Himbo. Don't let him know you called him that. He'd probably take it as a compliment," I chuckled.