Gladiator’s Bite (Starscale Mates #4)

Chapter One

Sunny

Teddy’s side of the bed was cold.

I groaned and pulled the pillow over my face. This was going to be weird. He was going to make this weird. Hell! Fuck, it already felt weird. I glanced around the bedroom. For decades, we shared a small bedroom on the Medwin 2 and nothing ever happened between us. We were best friends and were once teammates on a rugby team. Why now? I knew the answer. We were too far from home for too long. There was too much missing here.

“Don’t make it weird,” my dragon yawned into my thoughts. “A romp is a romp.”

Was it just a romp? Teddy got in his emotions about plenty of stuff. Why not sex? Why not us?

There wasn’t an ‘us’. Not that way at least. He was still my best friend. We still had each other’s backs. Surely, he wouldn’t tell anyone we romped. Did the others hear us? Did they pick it up on their freaky-deaky flight link mind reading bullshit thingy? I hoped not.

“Eh, the Starscales won’t care even if they did.”

I sniffed the air. Someone was cooking breakfast, but I wasn’t ready to face Teddy. Whether he was in his emotions about it, regretting it, or wanting to talk it out. I wasn’t ready for any of that bullshit. Instead, I grabbed my phone and checked on my Moonscale Media account from back home. My newest hatched sibling, Acadian, looked so much like both of my parents. I missed them with an ache that I didn’t know was possible.

The first year or so of my life was marked by my flight going to war with a hate group called Mundanes Before Magic. Our house was attacked and after the war was official, I lived with my eldest brother and his mate for nearly a year. Even after the war ended, I spent plenty of time back in Heartville with them. It was how I ended up being friends with Teddy in the first place. His eldest brother lived there with his mate and kids.

I rubbed the heels of my hands against my forehead and switched over to my Starscale Flight Account. Starscale 2 was accepting walk-in gladiators today. I grinned, imagining myself tearing into another dragon for fun. Everyone back home called rugby violent, but I was sure these matches would make rugby look tame. My stomach growled, forcing me to roll out of bed and head into the kitchen. I paused in the corridor, silently pleading with him not to make this messier than it had to be.

Sure.

We hooked up.

We’d hooked up with other people before.

This didn’t have to be a big deal.

Taking a deep breath, I swung open the door to the kitchen to find it empty. A plate of food sat on the stove warmer waiting for me, but Teddy wasn’t anywhere in sight. He hadn’t been in a while by the smell of the kitchen. I stood at the stove eating the ‘pig patties’ aka what we called sausage patties back home.

Yep. This was gonna be weird. I scrolled through my Starscale account, but everything was the same ole same ole. That was the biggest issue about living on a world that had few problems. I hatched during an age of chaos and sometimes my cells craved it. At least, it felt that way. Castor brought me along to play diplomat for our home flight but Hush and the other leaders didn’t see much use for me. They already had a treaty with our flight and unless someone went bat shit and broke it from our side, they weren’t worried about what we did or didn’t do.

I scrolled back to the top ready to close the app when I saw the gladiator invitation again. We’d been allowed to participate in every other part of flight life. Would they turn me away at the door of this one? There was only one way to find out. One way to have a good reason not to be here when Teddy came back. Some time apart would make everything less weird.

A flash of tactile memory played over my skin. His chest pressed against my back. His arms wrapped around me and his mouth dragging over the back of my neck. I shook my head. Good sex was always good. It didn’t change how I felt about him and I hoped it hadn’t changed much on his side either. I didn’t want to lose my oldest friend. Last night had been so fucking stupid. So fucking immature. So bloody—not lonely. What was the word for that?

“Filled up,” my dragon teased.

I huffed and a ring of smoke escaped my nose. Alphas didn’t get ‘filled up.’ Only, that wasn’t true. I wasn’t sure what sex lives were like back home. I never thought to ask anyone. It seemed rude. Hell, in Moonscale London it probably would’ve gotten me in a fight. Here, I’d been to the purple district often enough to know that here, alphas did what they wanted as long as they had the consent of everyone involved.

“Is that the question now? Do we want to be a Moonscale or a Starscale?” my dragon mused.

The answer was we were both. Moonscale by birth and Starscale by the bright orange star on my chest. I got lucky there. The newly grown scale was almost the exact shade of orange as the rest of my dragon. It showed up not long after the Medwin 2 touched down on Starscale 1. It meant my mate was somewhere on one of the three Starscale worlds.

“And we’re here because Teddy wanted to come to outer space,” my dragon reminded me.

I grabbed the memo pad from the counter and scribbled down a quick note to let him know that I was off to 2. We hadn’t ventured off 1 yet but it was time to pop that travel cherry.

“Running away again,” my dragon said.

“I haven’t ran away before. It’s like you said we came here because Teddy wanted to go to space.”

“If you say so,” my dragon said.

“Are you a dragon or a sphinx? Because I am not vibing with this riddle.”

He huffed and another ring of smoke escaped my nose.

***

An hour later, my overnight bag and I are on the shuttle to Starscale 2. Every compartment of the spaceship is more crowded than I expected it to be. Most passengers are men, sitting in groups, laughing and talking boastfully. Muscles are flexed and shown off and moves talked about. I sit in the back of the last compartment and consider how many of these guys’ asses I could kick in a controlled environment.

The Gladiator matches on Starscale 2 were a sport and from what I read online about them; they were pretty regulated. Dragons got hurt, nearly maimed at times, but you didn’t off flight members – even for entertainment. They may have borrowed the human word from Earthside, but they didn’t put up with bullshit and no one fought lions. They might’ve if lion shifters lived here but they didn’t. Animals weren’t considered someone with the ability to consent to fighting. Just like anyone under the age of twenty-five.

“Moony!” Someone shouted and I fought off the urge to flip them the bird.

Moony wasn’t the insult it sounded like. Starscales were proud of their birth flight and didn’t understand why shouting ‘Moony’ at us might make us cringe. Why wouldn’t we be proud of where we came from? I was the biggest Moony on world after all since my parents led the flight.

I nodded up at him. He was a tall blonde with the sort of lips that would’ve gotten comments back home. He was clean shaven – face and chest - and clad in some sort of long loin cloth looking getup.

“You gonna fight?” he asked, moving from his friend group to an empty seat near me.

“Thinking about it,” I shrugged.

Teddy was the talkative one. If he were here, he’d have the guy’s whole life story out of him by now.

“None of you Moonys have played yet,” he said, leaning his arm on the back of his seat. “Was wondering when you’d show up.”

“And?” I arched a brow.

“Nothing really. Figured you guys were more into fucking than fighting. You guys stay on 1 so much.”

“That’s where the diplomacy work is,” I lied.

“Hush doesn’t do diplomats from 2 or 3. He’s not entertaining you. My dad went to school with that scaly fuck. He’s not a bad dragon but he’s certainly not that hands on. Don’t worry. No one will question why you’re there. You’re there to fight like the rest of us. Just don’t tell that lie. Come up with a believable one, if you’re gonna lie.”

“Oh, yeah. The freaky-deaky flight thing.”

The blonde laughed and shook his head as if I were a kid. He was definitely older than me by the smell of him. Maybe as old as Fred. Maybe older. I wasn’t sure. All dragons over a certain age looked the same unless they were sick or nearing the time for their door of life and death to show up.

“That’s one way of putting it. I’m Selt,” he reached out his hand and I shook it.

“Sunny,” I said.

“I know who you are. You’re the kid of the leaders of the Moonys. Don’t have to be in the ruling family to know that one. It’s how you carry yourself.” He paused, waiting for me to say something, but I let him keep talking. “So, you Moonys any closer to hooking us up to the network?”

That was it.

That’s what Selt wanted.

“Not really my area of expertise. They’re working on it over at the Star Room, though. They welcome anyone to stop in and ask about it. You have information on this lady everyone and their carrier is looking for?” I asked.

“No, but remind me after the fights tonight. There’s a guy whose grandcarrier was a seer. We don’t get as many as you all do. He’s an omega but he’s a mean bastard on the field. Usually, it’s an omega who wins these days. We don’t go easy on them, but they get more vicious every year. Anyway. I suspect he’ll be around tonight to test the new meat.”

“Is he a seer?” I asked, ignoring his comment about omegas winning. It was flavored with a little too much biological essentialism for me. The only fate I believed in was decided by souls in the Other World not by some biological markers or some other bullshit like that.

“Dunno but I’ve heard rumors. I figured since you’re the Moony diplomat and all, you could ask him,” he shrugged.

“Maybe after he’s done cleaning up the arena with you,” I shrugged back at him.

“Be so lucky to get put into Laken’s fight class. Aim isn’t straight enough. It’s like the wind’s always against me,” he laughed.

“Maybe it doesn’t like you.”

“Starting to think you don’t like me.”

“At least you’re thinking.”

He laughed. Selt was right. I wasn’t fond of him. He seemed like a bit of a sore loser. Smelled like one too. Maybe I’d talk to whoever was in charge and get this Laken guy set up to kick his ass. Might teach the fucker a lesson.

After a few long moments of silence he said, “I’ll introduce you after the fights. Maybe you can get him to talk. None of us can.”

I made a mental note to mention this dragon to Hush. I doubted he lived on 1 because anyone in the purple district would deck him for such undertones that he implied with the word talk. Him and his buddies probably took turns asking Laken out and he probably told them all to fuck right off. I didn’t blame the guy at all. I knew some alphas like him back home. More trouble than they were worth.

A second later, Selt took the hint and made his way back to his friends. An older lady smiled at me from across the aisle.

“They’re not all as bad as him,” she said, moving to take up the seat he just vacated. “The flight link is a nice checks and balance system for guys who even consider it. Imagine him saying or thinking about doing something too much over the line and then his mother is suddenly in his ear or his friend or --- the little old dragoness at the back of the shuttle.”

I smiled at her unsure of what to say. Starscales were a friendly bunch and always treated me and the rest of the crew like we belonged here. Maybe it was because we were the best chance for those whose mates weren’t on one of the three Starscale worlds.

“Are you going to watch the walk-in matches?” I asked her.

“How much do you know about them?” she tucked a strand of silver hair behind her ear. “I’d guess not much since you don’t recognize me.”

“Uhh…. Should I? I’m sorry,” I apologized and meant it.

There was something that always squirmed inside me when I disappointed someone who was truly an elder.

“Eh, maybe if your captain had landed the Medwin 2 on Starscale 2 instead of 1. I used to compete. I mean, back when the arena was first built,” she held up her hand before I could ask what was on my mind. I didn’t need to ask after all. It was us Moonys who didn’t know how to work the flight link. “I don’t know who the nameless lady is. I’m not that old. She has to be older than me and I was one of the dragons still in their eggs when we left Earthside.”

I opened my mouth to ask more about it but she told me I could read her book at any flight library or grab a digital copy online for free.

“Not that I don’t love that story. It’s an important part of history but if I told the whole story every time someone asked, I wouldn’t have time to do anything else.”

“Is there something special about today’s walk-ins, then?”

“My grandson thinks so and maybe he’s right,” she shrugged.

I almost asked who her grandson was but realized two things. They didn’t do the whole great-great-great thing here for the most part and I probably wouldn’t know who the guy was anyway.

“Laken,” she smirked, answering my question.

“OH! You’re going to watch him wipe the arena with the alphaholes, huh?” I smirked.

“Eh, more to it than that, but it’s not something I’d ever pass up the chance to watch. He’s a good fighter. Has good genetics, a good temperament, and has trained hard to be the best. I don’t know how they do combat sports on Earthside these days, but it’s not divided up by sex, gender, or alpha/omega status. You go through a bit of a training test and then they match you up. They give you a stage or class and you go up or down depending on how you perform. Most dragons would perform fine in a real fight but there’s an art to it. You don’t want to take too many hits for entertainment, and you’re not trying to kill or maim your opponent either. You want to give up when it’s clear you’re going to lose but not too soon. Never too soon. That’s a blow to your pride and your opponent’s. Not to mention to the audience too. It’s a lot of fighting, a lot of showing off – but not too much, and a lot of good sportsmanship if you want the audience to like you. And if you want to fight for a while you want that. No matter who wins – everyone’s proud because we’re all flight. You’ll be at a disadvantage, though. You don’t read the flight link as well as those of us born onto it. Try to tune into your opponent. If you can catch stray thoughts it’ll probably help. Lots of fighters try not to have them but most do.”

“Thanks,” I said, trying to remember everything as she said it.

“You’ll have fun. That’s the important thing. Enjoy yourself and respect your opponent. Well, unless you get matched with some annoying dragon who needs knocked down a few pegs, then really give it to him, you know?” she winked at me as the shuttle pulled into the station.