Chapter One
Galen
Once, dragons ruled Ignitas, and kobolds worshipped us.
I hatched in the northeastern mountains on the largest continent. My dragon parent, or paragon (a combination of parent and dragon, but the word also meant a person viewed as a model of excellence, which all dragons believed they were) loved me and my siblings and raised us to respect kobolds. I couldn't remember my kobold father, my paragon's fated, but I knew he was born and raised in the village at the base of the mountains.
We called it The Pavilion once. It had been spacious enough for all dragons to meet every five years for a family reunion.
At one of those gatherings, the other dragons noticed a shift in our kobold population. They'd been getting bigger. They were still so small! I didn't know how anyone could tell the difference, or why they would care. Larger kobolds meant larger dire weasels, dragonets, and bovinji to feed us. They tended the animals for us, after all.
On rare occasions, they would give me seasoned meat from somewhere called Earth, which made my paragon angrier than I'd ever seen them.
"Don't taint our baby with food from that polluted world! You don't know what it will do to them!"
"It's perfectly safe," the kobold priestess said. "This is laboratory-grown beef from Ignitas. It's not contaminated. It's meat, plain and simple. It's so much simpler to grow without all the grain and water resources."
I didn't understand how it was possible. As interesting as it was to hear her stories about experiments and theories, I was stuck in my dragon form until my final molt. No lab coats and tiny test tubes for me, but beef was delicious. Especially when they covered it with fancy herbs and spices that made my mouth water just thinking about them.
I didn't know what had changed. Over the decades, our relationship with the kobolds of increasing size grew frostier. Then one day, without consulting my siblings and me, my paragon burned their village to the ground. They left a crater of obsidian where our dragon pavilion once stood and tumbled our old temple into a pile of rubble reaching for the sky.
Dragon magic was stronger than kobold magic, but there were more of them than us. Their coordinated clean-up resulted in a well-designed obsidian fortress with a spike pointing toward the sky. I didn't need to ask my paragon what the spike was for. It was a weapon they could easily aim toward incoming dragons.
Paragon referenced the design as proof the kobolds intended to fight back, and they left me alone at what we dragons now called The Spike. I was their youngest child, far from my final molt. They and my siblings left me to watch over the village.
"We will burn every kobold village from here to the sea," my paragon said. "Then we'll travel to planes where kobolds didn't combine their genes with those of humans. We will find one of those places and make it our own. Then, we'll come back for you and bring you a traditional kobold mate."
Dragons could mate with other dragons starting with our fourth molt. Sometimes, food was scarce, or we warred with other dragons. During those lean times, young dragons mated with each other to ensure the continuation of our species.
After their final molt, adult dragons mated with kobolds: specifically, beta kobolds. My final molt was approaching fast, and already I felt the desire to seek my mate. I didn't want to wait for my family to bring me someone, but I thought I had no choice. I'd been left alone with the orders to observe, not interfere.
That's how the kobold priestess who had angered my paragon had built the horrid magical contraption called the changeling circle under my nose without any pushback. Well, that, and they drugged me with a giant bovinji, a blue-furred grass-eating creature of the plains west of the mountain range. The kobolds' dire weasels and dragonets kept the animals out of The Spike's valley, so I should have been leery of such a delicious treat prepared for me. It was the last time I'd trusted kobolds to cook my meat.
While I was incapacitated, dozens of kobold mages sacrificed themselves to build the changeling circle, the place where all kobold parents across Ignitas transported their alpha and omega children. There, the priestesses wrapped the hatchlings in their changeling spells and transported them to Earth as humans.
I'd posed no threat to their alpha and omega children since my paragon left. My family, all dragons, would see such a brazen move as an act of war, and I was sad. I missed the betas coming to my cave to sweep away the uneaten bones.
Afterward, only the new priestess came, and with her, a child apprentice, Alma. They claimed sweeping away my refuse was beneath them, so I left it there. They also said I must go to the temple to meet with them instead. "We wouldn't want you to create more dragons, now would we?"
I'd been so furious. I almost incinerated her on the spot, but Alma stepped in front of her and bowed. "I'm so sorry, little dragon."
I was not little. By that time, I was already five times her size, maybe more.
The small priestess patted my lip with her tiny hand. "Please come visit us. It is a beautiful place for us to worship you."
Afterward, I visited the temple to the east of their main building, but there was nothing for me there but sadness. The betas feared me.
Then came the day Priestess Alma called Reemergence Day. That day, and the events that led up to it, changed my lonely life forever.
A month earlier, I'd scented my beta mate on pregnant omega Punky of the purple stripes and his purple-haired alpha Lark. Even the dragonet they rode to my cave smelled of my mate, but I had to focus on the matter before me. The alpha and omega pair wanted the freedom to roam in the daylight again. The breeding kobolds had been hunkered underground in the steaming caves left behind by Paragon's fire. The fire couldn't live forever underground, and neither could kobolds.
Thankfully, my mate had survived the poor conditions. I longed for him in an unfamiliar and almost overwhelming way.
I was ready to grant Punky and Lark anything, if only I could meet with the beta who belonged to that scent. On Reemergence Day, I got my wish.
I breathed his glorious aroma while I talked with the alpha with red hair and matching stripes, Coz, and his omega, Grindl. Coz and Grindl were older than Punky and Lark by a few seasons and had already lost two clutches of eggs. Their luck had changed when they'd moved into one of the nearby cabins they'd built to watch for me. Three beta hatchlings ran across their shoulders as evidence.
"Three betas. What a boon for your family," I said. I wondered if they would have dragon mates. "Will you agree to worship us at our cave, to bring your young to listen to the old stories and learn to be our dragon servants again?"
My paragon had told me to speak as though they were still here with me, so I used the plural, "we."
"Anything for them," Coz said.
"What are their names?" I asked Grindl.
"They don't have names yet." Grindl's voice wavered as he addressed me. "We didn't know if they would need names, or if you planned to kill us all."
I had no intention of hurting them, but an angry dire weasel and the same dragonet who smelled of my mate were trying to flank me. I couldn't have that. I knocked them away. When the dire weasel wouldn't stop, I commanded her, "Don't."
I did not want to hurt my new friends' pets. They were only being protective, which I understood. I would protect my mate with my life.
I turned my attention to Lark, who had arrived on the sable dire weasel. He smelled like slick, and admitted his omega had laid four eggs, as I'd predicted. I explained the deal I'd offered the red pair, which I'd planned to extend to Lark and his omega.
"What does that mean, your dragon servants?" Lark asked.
I hid my embarrassment with a plume of smoke. "You will roast our food over fire pits."
The alpha laughed at me.
"It tastes better when you do it," I admitted.
"As you say."
I scented my mate even closer, but I couldn't stop now. I'd made a full list of demands for the kobolds.
"You will listen to our stories and laugh at our jokes. You will return joy to our days. We have been so lonely here with no kobolds beyond those who come to the temple."
I spent my days following the same routine, each repetition more bleak and depressing. Spending time with these kobolds, or at least with my mate, would change that.
"You could have told the priestess you wanted company," Lark said.
"No." I growled at that, and another puff of smoke rolled over the kobolds before me. "They never leave the temple," I sulked. "They won't even send the betas. We've tried to talk to your betas. They are boring. Worse, they don't know where they fit in your society because it is fractured."
That was an assumption based on fleeting contact with the betas in the temple, but I was feeling sorry for myself. "Your betas serve no dragons, raise no children, and have few alpha companions. Betas are the true dragon kin. They worshiped us, and in turn, we coddled them." We mated with them, but I doubted these Earth-raised alphas and omegas knew that. "We destroyed your village when you took them away from us."
"We … what now?" the red-striped omega, Grindl, asked.
"The priestesses said your betas had too much work raising the young. There were more eggs after your infraction with human genes, and they chose the betas to pick up the slack. They would no longer have time for dragons. We were angry. We destroyed your villages with fire." I couldn't contain my own anger, unleashing a large volley of smoke over their heads.
"Where are the betas now? They rarely come to the temple with your priestesses, but I know they aren't taking care of your children if you send them to Earth until they come of age. This is not the way it should be."
"We'd like it very much if we could raise our own children," Grindl said. "We don't need the betas' help. We can raise them on our own. Look at how fast they grow in the sun. They'll reach physical maturity long before twenty-five Earth years, and then they can have clutches of their own."
I nudged Grindl with my snout. "Yes. This would be an acceptable compromise. Do you agree the betas can return to our service?"
The red couple nodded, but Lark intervened. "We'd need to talk with the mature betas," he said. "It's not fair for us to make a decision for our friends without their consent."
A contingent of betas armed with long spikes moved toward us, their magical metal armor making virtually no noise until they stopped three feet behind my conversation partners. The betas were fools if they thought their weapons could pierce my scales.
Before I could finish them with a gout of flame, Lark shouted, "Hold your fire! Please, hear them out."
I was grateful I hadn't spit fire at them when my mate stepped through their ranks and lowered his spear.
"We heard them," he said.
He was everything I'd hoped he would be, as handsome as his scent was alluring. He wasn't wearing armor like the others, so I could see the tousled brown locks between his pointed ears and the brown stripes marking his arms. He wore a short-sleeved shirt and long pants, but his feet were bare, exposing his gleaming black talons. He glared at me with fierce determination, but all I noticed was his intense gaze.
"They want us to be slaves to dragonkind again," he said.
"Not slaves." That word rankled. Slaves could not consent. "Servants. Those who choose to serve would be cherished. Those who do not could continue their current daily chores, whatever they may be."
"Why would we choose to serve the creatures that left us to die almost a century ago?" A green-haired alpha stepped through the line of armored betas, full of bluster until he saw Coz's red hair, or maybe the beta kobold hatchlings on his shoulders.
"This does not concern you, alpha," I told him. "I have already spoken to your better." I nudged Lark with my snout. He and his mate Punky were the ones who had approached me about a deal, after all. Now it was my turn to collect, and I wouldn't bargain with anyone else. My deal was with the new parents, Coz and Grindl, and soon-to-be parents Lark and Punky.
The alphas continued to talk among themselves, but my mate caught my attention instead. He strode forward and placed his hand on Grindl's shoulder. A beta hatchling curled around Grindl's neck, and my mate let the tiny kobold sniff him.
"I'll serve you, dragon," he said. "I don't know how many more of us will. Is one of us enough?"
My mate wanted to serve me! Of course, he was enough. He was braver than I'd hoped.
I motioned him closer with the tip of my wing and drank in his scent with the deepest breath I could muster. I exhaled, claiming him with my smoke.
He fell to his knees before me. The scent of his arousal, something I'd expected to take years of courting, already mingled with the tang of his fear.
It took everything I had not to exclaim he was my fated mate. I had an urge to lick him, to mark him from head to talons with my scent, but I resisted. Until I reached my final molt, I couldn't claim him the way I wanted. Only then would I tell him.
"You will do," I said instead. I hoped I sounded nonchalant, even though my heart thudded against my chest and rushed in my ears. "And any who wish to accompany you," I added, so I didn't sound too eager.
I couldn't hold in my smile, though. My mate had volunteered to be my servant! I launched myself into the air, hoping to hide my joy from the kobolds.
I wanted to take my mate home, but first, I had a changeling circle to destroy. My family wouldn't be happy if they returned to find the kobolds still sending their alpha and omega babies to Earth as human changelings.