Quit Your Waning (Over the Moon #3)

SIZZLE

“Ohh, we should definitely put a glowing ball in that tree!”

Jihae leaned her face into the blackened abscess of a dead biria tree, its soft bark being eaten away by moss the color of human blood. I swiped the decoration off the levicart while she got the hammer, preparing to mount its charging station at the back of the crevice.

On previous days, we’d finish a single levicart before lunch, then I would check in with the security team and start patrols, and she would do… whatever she did. If she walked home with a bounce in her step, got naked, took a shower, and then spent the afternoons printing those creepy cartoon faces for the humans’ festival gourds, I definitely didn’t know that.

Sadly, she was never naked when she worked on the gourds.

…

Anyway, today we stayed.

The weather was lousy, which meant it was actually enjoyable, so instead of going our separate ways, we reloaded the levicart. The humidity had the smallest bite to it that cooled the skin and relieved the constant stuffiness of my thick pelt. I didn’t usually mind feeling like a half-boiled shag rug, but with this new itch in my neck and nose, I was more aware of it now. I wanted my undercoat to shed already. Hadn’t I been on this pea-sized moon long enough by now?

As if on cue, I sneezed, snout tingling all the way up the snarling wrinkle between my eyes. I clasped a claw over it and held my breath until the sensation subsided, then growled.

“There,” Jihae said, putting her hands on her hips. She nodded at the tree carcass, satisfied. “What’s next?”

I licked my teeth, gauging the thickness of the boughs of the tree, carving patterns into the soft ground beneath my front claws absently. “Perhaps the orange gourd abominations.”

Jihae snickered, pushing her silk off her forehead as she set the glowing orb on its charging station. “Jack-o-lanterns. Just admit you like them. You’ve eaten two today.”

I licked my teeth—all of them—staring at her ass as she bent over to check that the orb was charging.

“Maybe I’m craving something else…”

The orb fell off its charger and she swore.

“Aysh, just hand me a few and we’ll put them around the roots.”

It took effort to pull my gaze away, but when I managed to turn around to examine our stash, I found Davor leaning against its side with curiosity instead, his long black claws holding a jakko lantern by the eye sockets. His tall ears twitched at Jihae’s soft sound of surprise, and I lifted my lip in a snarl.

Immediately, my mouth claws loosened where they were laced over my throat teeth. I flexed them open with a territorial shiver of the membrane between each digit like the frill of a lizard.

“Cousin,” I snapped with sarcasm, a trickle of steam seeping from between my throat teeth and bathing my fur in vapor. He waved the gourd at us as if it was nodding hello, unperturbed.

“Hello,” Jihae said tentatively, slowly. It was obvious he made her wary, or at least, that she didn’t know him.

When Davor’s stare shifted to Jihae’s face and a smile crept up his muzzle, I huffed bitterly, my tail thwacking the air like a broom. But Jihae didn’t smell afraid, so I waited, tensed to pounce, every muscle quivering with the effort to be more civil than I felt.

“Ah, you must be the architect of the trail of terror. I’ve taken the long route to the hangar every day, enjoying all the ways the trail changes between shifts.” The fucker’s tail swept the ground in a long, whip-like curve, brushing leaves and grass and natural mulch underfoot. He tapped the tip against Jihae’s ankle and I snapped my teeth, ears perked. He glanced slyly at me, smile widening. “Miss Jihae, right?”

“Just Jihae’s fine,” she said, wiping her hands after setting down the hammer. She bobbed her head rather than extended her hand.

“I’m Davor,” he said, mimicking her gesture. “I was told to pick Sizzle up for our patrol this afternoon, since he didn’t report to the hangar.”

I snorted. Fine. Yes. I might have ignored Imani’s comms for a turn or two, but I was already in the general vicinity of my patrol. Jihae didn’t know I’d been playing hooky, and Davor didn’t have to be such a narc about it. I resisted spitting acid at him when she blushed with guilt, but just barely.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make Sizzle late for work.”

“Not at all. I’m sure I would be late too if I got to spend the afternoon with you decorating for such a charming human holiday.”

Davor’s stupid tail slid by me again and I slammed my claws down on it, points first. Only, like a pest, it slipped between my digits. I’d be blowing steam out of my ears before long if he kept encroaching on my very delicious company. It was Davor that was the problem. The way he breathed in her scent and flicked his pronged tongue, memorizing it, rolling each note in his palate. I wanted to maul him for the way his eyes dilated when he looked at her, how he smiled in that way advenans did when they showed off the meaty muscles at the base of the primary fangs they tucked against the roof of their mouths, flexing their gums and rippling their facial scales so that their colors flashed in a shock of neon across their muzzles.

If my tail were as long as his, I’d have wrapped it around Jihae by now.

“You said you were cousins?” Jihae’s eyes bounced between us with confusion. She wasn’t as wary anymore but crossed her arms over her chest with a crease between her brows.

“Not by blood.” I snorted. “But we’re both chimaeri. It’s more than rare for us to be in the same place. How do civilized people say it…”

“Statistically improbable with low survivability.” Davor shrugged one lithe shoulder, a teasing shiver surfing down his spine.

Jihae glanced at me with a little ahh in her throat, just the smallest hum. She was asking me to explain. I sat on my haunches with a huff, scratching the itch in my neck, though it didn’t help at all. I snapped my teeth in frustration, licking each eyeball rather than blinking so I wouldn’t lose a millisecond of staring Davor down like he was lunch.

“Bilongs are advenan bastards engineered to be indestructible, very much unlike our sires…” I leaned forward just so, ready to lunge. “And neither of us like sharing territory.”

“I’d say we get along well enough.” Davor’s smile sharpened. “We’re called chimaeri for a different reason though.”

“What’s the reason?”

Jihae fell right into Davor’s trap. My hackles rose. I didn’t want him to talk about it, to push my easily frightened pet that hates long, curious shilpakaari tendrils and eyed his tail like it might bite her. Because if he scared her, maybe she would begin to fear me too. My tail lashed the ground in warning, a low growl rumbling through my chest.

But Davor ignored my warnings. His slit-eyed pupils sharpened then blew open with invitation. “Universal seed. We can both breed just about anyone. What do you bet we can breed hu—”

A sharp snap of my jaws was the only warning before I lunged at him, intent on ripping off his face. My claws tore into the earth, ripping up young roots threading their way through the undergrowth. Davor ducked under the levicart and I swerved as my throat teeth closed over the empty space he’d been occupying. I caught him by the base of his tail and threw him like a rag doll into the biria Jihae and I had just decorated, snarling so viciously the birds and insects exploded from the trees in fright. Several of our ghosts and spiders rained down on the path.

“Ya!”

Jihae’s hoarse shout caught one of my ears as Davor staggered, then lashed out with his tail. It snapped against my muzzle like a whip, carving through my flesh and leaving a deep groove that would have flayed a lesser beast to the bone. I didn’t so much as blink at my patrol partner-turned-hors d'oeuvre, steadily stalking forward. He tried again, wrapping his tail around my jaws to keep them shut.

That annoyed me. He’d spent time around bilongs, it was obvious. He knew to bind my snout near the tip, where I had the least strength and he could crush my nostrils closed. It wouldn’t stop me, but it would distract me. Adrenaline—or whatever other chemical primed my body for a fight, fuck if I knew—coursed through my blood and made my vision audibly crackle like a power cable. The visible light spectrum dimmed, and the parts of my eyes that saw blood and heat rose to prominence. My pupils dilated until my yellow eyes were large black voids.

“Keep talking,” I growled through my throat, my voice there guttural, rough, almost unrecognizable as speech.

Davor’s ears twitched with fear, but his gaze was steady as he pressed his shoulders into the tree. The hollow crumbled against his back and Jihae’s glowing orb tumbled out, blinking to announce its battery was low. It rolled under a fern and strobed against the red leaves like an evacuation light.

“The Hunt is sweeter when you have some competition.”

“I am Death made flesh.” I opened my throat down to the sternum, giving Davor a good look at what few lived to speak of. “You are not my competi—hngk—!”

Birdlike fingers wrapped around one of my tall ears and yanked hard. The world toppled, and I tripped sideways as my head snapped. My mouth claws found fabric, an arm pulsing with an intricate web of capillaries and blood vessels, drawing it towards my maw on instinct.

Then Jihae was standing between me and the soon-dead advenan with her hands planted on her hips and my throat teeth aimed at the ragged hem of her shirt. She cracked her fingers over my nose like a riding crop, catching Davor’s tail with her stinging blow. Both of us retracted our limbs, chastised.

“Play nice!” she told me in that sultry rasp, jaw set. “Davor came because you’re late for work and you’re gonna eat him? Tch, nappeun nom ah!”

I froze as my brain misfired, my entire maw still spread wide open. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Such a tiny, quivering thing was scolding me? In the middle of a fight? I truly was set on eating Davor and dealing with the consequences later.

Instead, I found myself sitting back on my haunches and howling with laughter like the day we first agreed to be mutual pets. It rippled through my open throat as the pink light of the canopy glinted against my fangs. Davor stood up straight, no longer cowering like the rodent he was against Jihae’s ruined little nook of decorative horrors.

“Ya!” Jihae shoved me with the cutest human growl I’d ever heard, trying to bully me into silence. My bifurcated bottom jaw spread open wide in a renewed fit of guffaws, tears trickling from the corners of my eyes.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone swat a bilong before,” Davor wondered. “Twice.”

Still laughing, I slammed my claw against his chest and pressed him into the biria trunk until its soft bark creaked under the strain. I licked the split in my lower jaw slowly, looking at Davor for the first time with real hunger in my eyes. I didn’t particularly like the taste of flesh, but I would have savored silencing the loudmouth.

“I’m a protective beast,” I said with a playful eye roll and a shrug, real cutesy. “The humans are my territory, you understand? Not the jungle, not the paths, not the scrapyard…” I leaned in, blowing steam in his face until the plumes on his cheeks curled from the heat. “The humans.”

“Got it,” he strained, forfeiting air he couldn’t breathe back in under my weight.

My voice lowered to a murmur against his tall ear, so similar to mine. “They aren’t here because they want to be, cousin. Keep your dicks in your pants, unless you want me to make them universally unsalvageable.” I pushed off of him, shaking the tree’s canopy, and he sucked in air.

“Are you okay?” Jihae asked, curling her fingers around his shoulder. She helped him right himself and I snorted.

“He has all his limbs, doesn’t he?”

She shot me a glare and brushed off his scales like he was a blanket covered in shed fur, then the divot between her brows creased and she slowed her patting with a thoughtful hum that gurgled to a graveling cough. She cleared her throat.

“Humans will think you can’t get someone, ah, pregnant. That’s what you meant by… by breeding, right?”

Davor’s eyes shot to me, then back to her, his ears divided between the two of us. I feigned disinterest, realigning my teeth. Click click click click…

“Yes. Our seed is used for diversification procedures,” Davor explained, far less flirtatiously than before. I preened, resisting the urge to coo at him, even though I’d just tried to take a chunk out of his face.

Positive reinforcement and all that.

“If you, you know…” Jihae’s cheeks turned succulent pink as she pumped one finger in and out of her other hand. Davor and I both stared at her hands with preternatural stillness, and she stopped as soon as she was sure we understood, rubbing her palms on her pants like it might erase the lewd finger-fucking sign. What a sweet thing. “Tell them that first. Okay? The pregnant thing.”

Davor hesitated, then nodded to her once. “I will.”

“I mean it,” she warned, that flare of bravery shining bright again.

The advenan smirked confidently. “The hesitation was not about refusing to tell a partner. It was for the impossibility of having one in the first place.”

Jihae tilted her head with confusion, but before we could get mired in a conversation about history and politics, I rubbed my itchy neck against her side, pushing her towards the levicart.

“Start our shift without me,” I told Davor over my shoulder. “We’ll finish up, and I’ll come find you along the path.”

He grinned after us as Jihae bent to retrieve our scattered orbs and gourds.

“Take your time, cousin. The jungle is noisy tonight.”

Davor slinked into the canopy, and I wrinkled my nose at the biria tree that Jihae had been so excited about.

“I think you killed it,” she lamented, pushing her silk out of her eyes.

“Nonsense. Davor killed it by choosing a terrible retreat. Besides, it’s not—” I flicked my claw against the trunk and the back of the hollow splintered under the weight of the tree, its canopy tilting precariously. My eyes went wide.

“Nevermind. It’s definitely dead.”

Jihae chuckled, sending me a conspiratorial grin. She was at ease, turning her back to me, her senses occupied with the feel of plas under her fingers, blowing stray silk from her sweaty forehead, and making all the odd sounds a human made when they worked.

Hup.

Hyeh.

Umf.

Ngh.

Tch.

Ooysh.

Tsk.

“That took guts,” I praised her, realigning my throat teeth again. They still didn’t feel right after all the attempted chomping, and my mouth claws worked busily at smoothing the fur of my neck.

“You were being bitey,” she huffed, setting her hammer on the levicart’s edge to keep the jakko lanterns from rolling off again.

“And that doesn’t scare you?” I slid another gourd onto the cart without looking, my stare fixated on her neck where her silk brushed the pale, sweat-misted column. “I truly was going to eat him.”

Jihae stood up straight and turned towards me. “Should I be scared?”

I didn’t answer because I didn’t know. I felt hungrier than I had since I was a pup, but oddly, nothing tasted good. My appetite was zilch but my stomach wouldn’t stop aching. Except when I looked at Jihae. Just a little taste…

She took my silent struggle as a prodding jest and rolled her eyes, stuffing her arms full of blinking orbs with low charges hidden amongst the ferns. “You aren’t a feral animal—”

“Oh, I am definitely feral,” I preened.

“And I just know that you wouldn’t hurt me.” She shrugged, as if that were an absolute truth. “You’re a good guy.” Then she dumped the orbs into a basket and smacked the levicart. “I think that’s everything. Should we go?”

But it wasn’t everything. I stalked over to her and nudged her with my snout. She stumbled back and I grasped her hand with my mouth claws. Her skin prickled as I pet her, letting her feel the sharp points of each digit as they pitter-pattered over her delicate bones and veins.

“The alien refugees in the colony, morsel… Do you know how they got here?”

“They claimed sanctuary during a fight over the mechanic. Bree.”

I hummed with encouragement and it came out like a purr, vibrating through my mouth claws and into her skin. “Before they claimed sanctuary I ate, hmm… Five? Six? I didn’t count. Maybe their friends. Family. The guy that owed them money. I swallowed them whole, flayed the flesh off their bones in the crush of my maw, then spit them back out like hairballs.”

“Okay...”

My mouth claws tightened their grip, tugging on Jihae’s wrist until I’d pressed it against the top of my throat teeth. I spoke through my muzzle as my teeth unzipped across her hand. She twitched with the instinct to pull away from certain death as I reeled her in. Tighter… tighter… Her pulse picked up and my eyes dilated.

“Stepping between me and my prey is risky business, morsel.”

She swallowed audibly.

“You’re just being a brat,” she said, though there was less conviction in her tone. I threaded my fangs through her fingers and pulled them into my throat. I felt the tremor in her hand, the one that belied her hunger. It was something I understood…

But suddenly, I worried that maybe it was fear after all.

“Do I scare you? Tell me the truth, because if I do, I will find you another guard for your trail of horrors.”

Jihae softened. She shook her head, letting me take her arm into my throat. “No. But this part is a little weird.” She wriggled her fingers, smashed within my muscular esophagus.

I seized up, snorting back a chuckle.

“Hey now, that tickles,” I hissed, my ears falling wide with an uncharacteristic flop.

Jihae’s eyes narrowed malevolently. “Oh?”

She wriggled her fingers again. I snorted and sneezed her hand out, clasping my claw over the tingle in my muzzle. She laughed like her belly was full of bells.

“Such a rude pet.”

“Me or you?”

We grinned at each other, and then I rubbed my neck against her arm, strolling lazily towards the playfield. “You’re the one that’s made me late to work.”

The incredulous gasp she gave me was worth the swat to the nose.