Chapter Thirteen
Mac
A knock at our door roused me from a sound sleep. I needed to learn how to set an alarm. I curled around Galen. I wanted to stay there, wrapped around their warmth.
"Uncle Mac?"
Shit. I couldn't tell their voices apart, but I didn't want to strand one of Punky and Lark's kids in the hallway waiting for us. I hopped out of bed, magicked some sleep pants to cover my nakedness, and opened the door.
"I had a nightmare about Galen," Robin said. "Are they all right?"
"I'm fine, little one."
Galen sat up in bed. They'd magicked a t-shirt to cover their delectable chest. When they held their arms open, Robin launched himself on our bed and fell against them, sobbing.
"It was so real," he cried. "You were chained up and these other dragons were so mean to you." He sniffled. "Weld was supposed to save you, but no one knows where he is."
"Oh, Robin." Galen propped themself up with pillows and smoothed the blankets between them before cuddling Robin in their lap. "I know where Weld is. If I needed him, I could reach out to him, and he would be here in time."
I'd expected my dragon to think they were the center of the nightmare, but they'd instinctively understood Robin's fear.
"Weld didn't leave to hurt you," Galen continued. "He wanted to give you the same chance Ernie and Grover have of growing up without their fated mates."
"But why? If I know he's mine, why can't I spend all my time with him?"
"Sometimes, when mates spend too much time together, especially when they're young, they stop developing as an individual and only know themselves as part of the relationship. He wants you to know who you are first."
"I don't want to know who I am without him."
Galen snorted. "I didn't say that. You are never without him. He's your mate."
Robin frowned up at him. "He's not here now! Of course I'm without him!"
"He's in here." Galen tapped Robin's chest. "Always. You can feel him there, yes?"
Tears filled Robin's eyes, and he nodded. "Yeah."
"I know you're sad because you can't see him, but he's always with you, even now while you're on another plane. You can still feel him."
Robin nodded. "But why?"
Galen shook their head. "That is a secret between you and Weld. You forged a connection so deep nothing can break it, not even the distance between planes. I don't know of any other kobold pair who has a bond like that, not even your parents."
Robin's eyes grew round. "Really? Not even Papa and Dad?"
I felt my own longing for Galen deep in my chest. I hoped he wasn't gaslighting the little kobold into thinking their bond was special.
Galen's words did the trick, though. Robin flashed his sweet smile at Galen and hopped off the bed. He gave me a quick hug and ran past a worried Lark in the hallway.
"Hi Dad! Weld is always with me!" He slipped through their room door and left Lark staring after him in the hallway.
"I've told him that a million times." Lark yawned, then waved. He pulled our door shut, leaving us blissfully alone and painfully awake. The sun wasn't even up yet.
"Come back to bed," Galen said.
"No. Might as well get up and face the day."
"If you're too tired for sex later, I will set this building on fire." Their purple eyes flashed red for a moment, and a hint of smoke ghosted from their nostrils.
I laughed. "Point taken."
I set an alarm on my phone this time. We still had a good two hours before we needed to be awake.
Once I curled around Galen, the conversation with Robin wouldn't let me sleep. "Can you sense the bond between them, or were you only filling his head with stories so he would go back to sleep?"
"I would never lie to a child," Galen said. "He and Weld have a dragon bond between them. I've never seen it between kobolds before, but you and I have the same type of bond. I always know where you are when you're at work, even when you're flying around the countryside on a dragonet."
I frowned. "That's news to me. Why am I just now learning about this?"
Galen laughed. "You didn't know we were fated, and I didn't want to scare you away."
"I can feel it, too," I said, touching my breastbone above my heart. Somewhere alongside the beating organ lay my connection to Galen.
"It has grown stronger since we've been here together," Galen whispered. "It will be hard to let you go back to work with the dragonets."
I chuckled and pulled them tighter against my chest. I both desired and dreaded the trip home. Our connection had grown stronger. I hoped our dragon bond wouldn't impact my ability to bond with the dragonet hatchlings.
While we'd traveled to the other kobold villages, Coz and Grindl's son Sunny had bonded two wild dragonets. When we returned, I needed to train him to manage their bonds. Once their training was complete, I would prepare him to pass those bonds to their chosen kobold caretakers. He would take my place as head dragonet trainer one day.
I slipped into sweet dreams about dragonet training. When my alarm went off, it took me another moment to remember where I was. The dream wouldn't let me forget the most important part of our trip. I needed to feed Rapture and Odessa before we left for the amusement park, and again tomorrow morning before we returned home.
After a quick shower, I drove to the local butcher's shop. I'd asked them to quarter a cow. Both Odessa and Rapture would get a quarter of beef a day to ensure they had enough energy to transfer us back to Ignitas.
Asking rapture to carry the frozen cow back to the hotel was almost more than the little dragonet could handle. He wanted to gorge himself, but I talked him into saving half for tomorrow. Each quarter was packed separately in ice, making it easy to divide. To any human passersby, I looked like I was checking under the vehicle's hoods while I fed them.
After I fed Odessa, she let me tuck her remaining quarter into her storage for safe keeping. Thankfully, the spaces were part of the vehicle spell. They couldn't break into it and eat the rest until we removed the meat and fed them.
I hadn't bought a cow for my mate, but they craved the scent of the meat chilling in the back.
"You had a whole plate of scrambled eggs," I reminded them.
"Beef smells so good, though!" They sighed. "But I remember what happened the last time I had a huge chunk of it."
Real beef in large quantities didn't sit well with my sweet dragon. They'd been sick after I'd given them a quarter for a Christmas present. Lark had looked at me like I was crazy when I asked him to bring it back for me, and then he'd given me a look that said, "I told you so," when Galen couldn't handle it.
"You should probably stick to a hamburger at lunch today," I said while we waited for Lark and Punky in the parking lot.
"And onion rings. And fries. And fried pickles and mushrooms."
Punky had been filling their head with tales of the state fair, but the amusement park had some of the same fried foods on a stick.
Finally, the family of six piled out of the hotel dressed in blue jean shorts and orange t-shirts. It would be hard to miss them in the crowd. I supposed that was smart, so they could find each other. I wore beige shorts and a white t-shirt, but Galen had copied a pair of orange and navy floral print shorts they’d seen on Tuft and topped it with a baby blue t-shirt. The kids loved the bright colors as much as they did.
We piled into our separate vehicles and got back on the interstate that ran through the heart of the city. Our destination was near the casino, and the parking lot was already almost full. I parked beside Odessa at the back of the lot, and then we got ready for the long walk toward the main gates.
A man in a red hat drove up to us in a motorized cart while the kids were still piling out of their van. "Do you need a ride to the front gate?" He tapped a glass jar filled with large bills on the dashboard.
"No, thank you," Punky said. "We'll walk."
"Suit yourselves." The man waved and drove off.
"We might want a ride back out here," Lark said. "We'll be tired."
"We can have Odessa pick us up at the gate," Punky countered. "The walk will teach us all that we need to stay in our rooms at night, even if we have a nightmare."
"Don't punish Robin on my account," Galen said.
"Oh, it's not just Robin." Punky glared at Clementine, who blushed and hung her head down to her crossed arms.
"I wanted a bucket of ice."
"I told you, no more experiments until we're home."
"But they don't have these kinds of insects at home and I want to study them."
"Clem, if you bring mosquitos back to Ignitas because you want to study them, I swear to god?—"
"I won't," she huffed. "It's fine. I'll learn about them online."
Galen walked ahead with her, taking her tiny hand and telling her about the different insect species she could find in other parts of Ignitas. "You can travel and study them when you're ready."
"Really?" She looked up at Galen as though seeing her freedom for the first time. "You don't want me to be your priestess? Alma's so old?—"
"She deserves a break, too. You all do. I don't require priestesses or worship. I'm a flesh-and-blood dragon. I want you all to be happy."
She glanced back at her parents, who heard them as well as I did.
Punky slid his arm around Lark's waist and grinned up at him. "I think we have a future entomologist in our midst."
"You can be whatever you want, my little friend," Galen said to Clementine. "If bugs bore you in a few years, you can change your mind. My only request is that you won't grow giant mosquitos like the ones in the dinosaur documentary Mac made me watch."
I laughed and jogged the few paces to catch up with them. "It's a movie, not a documentary. It's supposed to be funny."
"It wasn't funny," Galen insisted. "Bugs that big would bother me, and they almost killed that human."
Clementine slipped back to where her brothers walked beside their parents. Robin and Ernie dropped their hands to let her between them. I couldn't stop grinning at how cute they looked together.
I took Galen's hand as we walked. My mind wandered to a future trip, when we'd be bringing our own offspring. Once again, my cheeks ached from smiling so much.
A large billboard inside the park's gates displayed a map. I didn't see the dragon roller coaster I'd found online. Confused, I led Galen to the information kiosk a few hundred yards from the gates.
"Where's The Dragon?" I asked the attendant wearing a conductor's hat.
"Sorry. Tore it down to build another ride." They pointed to the tall rollercoaster behind us.
"Let's ride that instead," Galen said.
They loved the ride. To be fair, I loved it, too, but my stomach didn't. I called it quits on the bigger rides, and Galen stayed with me out of loyalty, even when they could have gone with the others.
It was late afternoon by the time we'd explored the park. Ernie and Grover wanted to go on the big rides again, but Lark reminded them they had dinner with their grandparents in an hour.
"One more meal before we leave tomorrow." Punky's smile looked more like a grimace.
"We can entertain ourselves," I reassured him over the kids' whines and cries.
We parted ways in the parking lot. On the freeway, they exited in the direction of Punky's parents, and we took the next exit for our hotel.
I had a hard time containing my excitement. If Galen was as ready as they said they were, we were going to have a wonderful night.
Still, I wanted the evening to be perfect. Instead of ordering room service, I ordered carry-out from the Italian restaurant down the road and drove to pick it up while Galen took a shower. On the road, I wondered if I was crazy. I was about to make love to my dragon, possibly to fertilize an egg that would grow into another dragon.
Was I even worthy to be a dragon's mate? I was nobody, a dragonet trainer, a beta. My life had been one of service to my village, and now to my dragon. I wasn't anything special, but Galen thought I was.
I felt warmth in that place beside my heart where my dragon bond lay. We would be parents to a dragon, and our shared efforts would keep them safe and loved. We wouldn't leave our child alone to navigate the tensions between our species. We would raise them together.
Once we bonded, I would live just as long as Galen. Our child would have the love and support of both parents, just as Galen would have all my love and support as their mate.
My fear shifted into excitement. We would bond tonight! Galen was my everything, and I intended to show them how much I loved them.