Chapter Twelve
Galen
Once Mac was in the water with the children, he was a natural swimmer, as I knew he would be. He'd always balked at joining me in the quarry, and I hadn't pushed. Without arms, I had only my teeth and claws to pull him out if anything happened. Now, I could guide him into a float with my arms beneath his back or pull him to where his feet didn't touch and show him how to dragon paddle.
I could tell the moment his brain kicked in and he started to flail.
"Don't think about it. Let your instincts take over."
I swam behind him and balanced him on my lap, continuing to kick between his legs to keep both of our heads above water. "Kick like me."
He stared at my feet and matched my movements. Once he had the hang of it again, I moved back to where I'd been in front of him.
He noticed I wasn't holding him up anymore, and he laughed. "Thanks. This is fun."
"You'll come swimming in the quarry now?"
"Yes."
He already accompanied me and lounged on the stones at the water's edge, but his confirmation pleased me. We would be closer now, treading the same water, bobbing on the same waves.
A swell of homesickness caught me off guard, and I accidentally swallowed a sip of lake water. It tasted of gasoline and algae, nothing like the lube I'd lapped up earlier in the day.
"This water can't be good for the children," I said. "We should get out."
Mac helped me corral the kids toward the beach, where Punky and Lark waited with giant towels for each of us. I hadn't thought to bring anything like that with me, so I thanked them both. I also told them what I'd tasted in the lake, and Punky nodded. "We'll shower before we leave and then shower again when we get to the hotel. Thanks for the warning."
"You are all welcome in my quarry," I said. "All kobolds should know how to swim."
"Mac watched too many horror movies as a child," Lark teased. "Remember when you thought sharks lived in the water treatment plants? And farm ponds?"
"You'll never let me forget." Mac tried to frown but ended up laughing when Punky bent over and did his best impression of a shark, one arm raised up from his back like a fin.
"I don't remember sharks being scary," I said. I'd liked the movies we'd watched about the great white sharks hunting around a tourist island, but the creatures didn't look real. Mac had also played documentaries of the animals on his tablet. While they had sharp teeth like mine, they couldn't leave the water, and they couldn't breathe fire. Boring.
"I'll protect you from sharks," I promised Mac. I glanced out at the lake with my superior vision. Even in the dirty water, the largest creature I could see was a bottom-feeding fish on the far side of the lake, hiding in the shallows beyond the bridge. "There are no sharks here, though."
"Glad we got that settled," Mac muttered.
I started to walk away, hesitant to be near him and make him even more uncomfortable, but he ran to catch up to me and grabbed my hand. "I'm sorry," he said. "You didn't mean to hurt my feelings. Lark and Punky didn't, either. They don't understand. They grew up here. They know the difference between fresh and salt water. They know where sharks live and where they don't. I still don't know if that was fresh water or sea water, and we were swimming in it."
"After tasting it, I can tell you it was supposed to be fresh water, but it is contaminated. That isn't the same as sea water, though." I grinned. "I will take you east of The Spike sometime. You can swim in the great sea and taste the salt on the air without fear of sharks."
I didn't tell him about the water dragons. It wouldn't have helped.
* * *
I expected the sex shop to be a dank cave with crevices full of toys, bottles, and other supplies meant to be hidden away. I did not anticipate bright purple-white lights and wide aisles with hanging wardrobes on each end-cap. Their leather aisle rivaled the harness selection in the dragonet barn. When Mac explained humans used riding crops and whips on their sexual partners, I ran for the door, nearly tripping over my feet in my haste.
Mac stopped me with both hands on my shoulders. "Not all humans. It's a kink."
"Appreciating dragon cock is a kink. Hurting someone else is abuse."
"Not if it's consensual."
"Why would someone consent to being hurt?"
"They like the pain." He leaned in and whispered, "The same way I liked the burn when you fucked me. Your cock is huge, but I'll take it again and again."
"I didn't mean to hurt you!" I tried to keep my voice to a whisper, but I drew the attention of the clerk standing behind the cash register near the door. I'd almost made it back outside, away from this uncomfortable conversation.
I felt the heat rising in my chest. I was a tiny meltdown away from releasing smoke into a building equipped with ceiling sprinklers. I didn't want to set them off and ruin all the fine leather and lace.
"You like pain," I said, starting over with the facts.
"Yes."
"You want me to hit you with a riding crop?"
"No."
I nodded. Good. That was good. "You will tell me if I'm hurting you in the future, so I can stop."
"Also no." He rolled his eyes. "I don't know how to tell you this, but it doesn't hurt. Not really. It's huge, it burns, and I have to accommodate it, but it's not like you're trying to hurt me. And once we get going, it only adds to the pleasure."
I still didn't get it, but maybe I would when it was my turn to take his cock. He wasn't a dragon, but in this form, he would be a lot to handle in my tight human ass, or even in my alpha kobold form until I adjusted for it.
I swallowed hard as we walked back through the leather aisle. I wanted him inside me. I wanted him to mark and claim me as his. I wanted to have his dragon children, human genes be damned, or blessed, however it went.
I still feared the unknown, but humans, kobolds, and dragons weren't as different as I thought. We all had our issues. Learning about humans had helped me realize my own misguided contributions to kobold culture and tradition.
I was going to abolish my temple when I returned to The Spike. Priestess Alma would be free to teach the kobolds, but she no longer had to worship me. I certainly didn't want little Clementine tied to me for the rest of her life. She would be free to do whatever she wanted.
"Is it wrong of me to think about our priestesses and religion while we're shopping for butt plugs?" I asked Mac as he led me to the next aisle. This one was full of long, veiny dildos resembling everything from sea dragon tentacles to large animal cocks and everything in between. None looked like Mac's cock, though.
"Our priestesses are very sex positive." Mac grinned. "I think Priestess Alma would approve."
"What if I'm thinking of firing her as my priestess?"
He snorted a laugh. "Why?"
"I want to disband them. All of them, if the other dragons agree. We don't need temples. I don't deserve to be worshipped. Dragons are another species, not your deities."
Mac's reverence for me started as worship. I sucked in a startled breath. "You don't worship me anymore, do you?"
He frowned at me, and the hurt in his eyes made me wish I could take the words back. "Of course I do. You're magnificent."
"I'm your mate, not your god." I hoped he understood. I didn't want to be worshipped as something more or better. I wanted to be loved for me.
"I know that." Mac dragged me to the next aisle. He picked up a starter kit of three progressively wider plugs.
"Too small," he decided. The next set were long and thin on the ends but widened to the width of my knot in the middle. "Better."
He moved on to more bulbous plugs. Among some novelty items, he found a device meant to wrap around both penis and testicles, giving them the firmness needed for penetration.
"I can work with this," Mac said. I felt a whisper of magic around my cock and ovipositor, and then the item in Mac's hand stretched and shifted until it would fit nicely around my parts. Another burst of magic glamoured the item to look like the original until we got it back to the hotel room.
"If I have to wait until we get home to try on my hat, you have to wait until then to try this."
"You can try it on in our hotel room," Mac said. "You just can't wear it out on the town. Those hats are meant for one day a year, and we missed it by a month."
"Thank you. Now I understand." Human culture seemed to allow for fun, but only in tiny increments. One day a year to wear a horse hat was silly. Horse hats were meant to be worn until the toy horses fell off and you needed a new one. "I thought Tuft was the rule for humans, but it seems he is the exception."
Mac grinned. "We're lucky to have him."
"I want to be more like him when we return home." I was going to wear my derby hat to the dragon pavilion every week when I watched the recreation leagues play. Now that I could shift into a kobold, I could even play while wearing my hat. I couldn't wait.
Mac paid for his items with cash, and we returned to Rapture. The sun had set while we were inside, and ours was the only vehicle in the parking lot. The little dragonet sniffed at the plain paper bag and snorted smoke at Mac.
"I know. I'm sorry. You'll have to wait for breakfast tomorrow."
I was excited for our trip to the amusement park with Punky, Lark, and their children tomorrow, but I'd realized something else while helping Mac choose his items.
"We need to talk," I said once we were back on the highway.
"That sounds ominous."
"Momentous," I said. "I want you to fuck me before we return home."
Mac snorted. "You couldn't tell me that before I spent all that money on toys?"
"We have two more nights," I said. "Plenty of time to do both."
Mac shook his head. "Not both. I'll gladly fuck you when we get back to the hotel, but I won't be ready to take your cock and ovipositor until we're home." His cheeks bloomed with pink. I didn't need to smell his arousal to know the thought turned him on. "And only if you help me prepare."
"Yes, anything."
This was going to be fun.
* * *
Once again, my body failed me. I took a quick shower before Mac, but by the time he joined me in bed, I was too sleepy to keep my eyes open.
"I want you inside me." My plaintive growl sounded more like a whine with my human vocal cords.
"It was a long day," he reassured me. "Tomorrow will be a lot of standing around. After dinner, we'll call it an early night."
That meant an entire day of anticipation. It would test my limited patience to the brink, but I was willing to withstand it for Mac.
"Does this mean you've decided kobolds are still worthy to sire dragons?" He whispered it, like he thought I was already asleep.
"Yes," I answered. "You are part human, but you are still kobold. We failed you by making you so small and cold-blooded. You are better equipped to withstand dragon fire now. I wouldn't take that away from you."
"You don't think we're too violent?"
"As a species, no more than dragons." Humans had us both beat with their wars and backward ways of raising their children to desire violence over sex. I didn't understand it, but I was grateful my kobold friends still taught their children to honor sex before violence.
Weld, the green-striped alpha who had attempted to mate with Tuft, had chosen violence. He had been reprimanded for biting Lark. He had also kicked another kobold pair from their cavern in the grotto, but only to protect his disastrous first clutch. Now that he knew he would be mated to Lark and Punky's son Robin when Robin came of age, Weld strived to be better. Mac and I had accompanied him to several kobold villages over the last two years in his attempts to stay busy and teach other kobolds efficient uses for their magic.
I respected kobold culture far more than I did these humans. They weren't the same, even with their shared genes. I was willing to bet my future hatchlings on that.
I was too tired to say all that to my beloved mate. Instead, I relaxed against him. He anchored me in place with his arm across my chest while we slept.