Chapter Four
Galen
I was not as impatient as Mac implied. I was not! He was my fated mate, and I waited three years to tell him. See? I had some patience.
Young dragons could mate with dragons, but adult dragons mated with kobolds. That had always been the way of it. I was not reinventing the wheel or breaking it. I was following tradition, fate, and my cock. Only one of my genital appendages counted as a cock, but both wanted Mac. One wanted to fuck him senseless. The other wanted him to put a baby in me already, so I could give birth to the next generation of human/kobold dragons.
Or was it kobold/human dragons? Either way, it gave me pause. I knew nothing about actual humans. When I recognized the ones from Mac's favorite movies, shame rolled over me like a tidal wave. I had known Mac was my fated mate, and that he was part human, but at no time in the past three years had I tried to learn what that meant.
I assumed I would learn his past with time, but then I saw the images he had memorized from human media. My Mac had not lived a human experience himself. The priestesses saved that privilege for the alphas and omegas. Now, I was asking him to travel to a foreign plane so I could learn firsthand how unaltered humans behaved.
I trusted Mac. He was sweet, caring, and honest to a fault. Though he feared my fiery rage, he told me the truth. Even when he tried to hide facts from me, his scent gave him away. I always knew when he was lying, and it was never to deceive me on purpose, merely to curb my temper.
He would be angry, too, if his parent had run off to who knows where looking for a mate for me without asking what I wanted. Granted, until I met Mac, I didn't know what I wanted, but now? They'd been off searching for a kobold I didn't even want, which meant I'd spent the last century alone for no reason. If my paragon showed their face at The Spike again, I now understood why dragons greeted each other with fire.
I trusted Mac with my whole being, but I didn't know what to expect from his human genes. I'd never met a human. I worried they were as devious as the cinema characters Mac shared from his memory.
I knew Mac was my mate, but that was only biology, a suggestion. From the moment he had volunteered to serve me, I wanted to learn everything there was to know about him.
Years. I'd had years to get to know him. All I'd learned was how he handled new situation after exotic setting after unique experience. Mac was still as much of an enigma to me as the rest of Ignitas was to him.
He'd been born at The Spike, and his job as dragonet trainer was important to him. I flew him to the barn every day when we stayed at The Spike, even weekends and holidays. He taught me the importance of a daily schedule for my routines. Before I had moped in my cave until I was hungry, then hunted, then ate, and finally slept until it was time to mope again.
Mac brought his cookstove to my cave at the top of my mountain, and then everything changed. He was my favorite cook by far. He used seasonings I'd never tried before. I distrusted them at first, based on my previous experience, but he promised they wouldn't make me sleepy. I learned to trust him, and everything he cooked for me was delicious. He prepared bite-sized portions for me, called "cutlets," with varying blends until we found my favorites. I had yet to taste anything I didn't like, even when Mac went shopping for exotic foods on Earth.
I wanted to try everything again when I was human sized on Earth. I also wanted to try things I'd only heard of. I especially wanted a mint julep. I liked mint, and I liked jewels. Drinking them might be a little strange. When I asked Mac how they tasted, he said he'd never had one, and I would have to see for myself. Well, now I could!
I had only a few more hours to think about it. Mac and I would be leaving Ignitas once Punky and Lark had secured their four children with glamour spells strong enough to last the week.
Our purple-striped friends were still fiddling with the spell when we arrived at the dragonet barn. All four of the kobold children were taller than I'd expected them to be. They'd molted while we were gone.
Mac was already in his human glamour, and now it was my turn, since my wings were no longer needed. I shrank down to the strange human form I'd seen in Mac's head. The hardest part was binding my horns inside the glamour. Even squeezing into the strange clothes Mac gave me didn't feel as confining as hiding the part of me that made me feel most like a dragon. I used my horns to judge air currents and steer into them. Putting them away, even for a week, meant I couldn't be who I was. I hated it, but I would do anything for Mac.
"We're staying with my parents," Punky whined. He shoved his purple-tinged black hair back from his face. "The kids' glamours have to be perfect. You know how fussy my mom is when even one hair is out of place."
I didn't know the alpha boys by name, but one had orange hair and the other's was blue. Neither would fit well on the human plane. Their omega, Robin, had black hair like Punky's, and their daughter Clementine had her white hair pulled back into a braid. At least their hair colors were natural human colors. Punky and Lark could change the color and affix their hair so it didn't move to satisfy Punky's mom.
Or maybe Punky's comment wasn't about hair at all. Sometimes, I confused myself regarding kobold word choices because I didn't know what they meant.
"It'll be fine." Lark pulled Punky into a hug.
While the three boys wrestled for control of a tablet, Clementine approached me with a scowl on her face. "Why can't we stay with Mac and Galen?"
"You know it's me?" I asked.
"I watched you transform from a gigantic dragon into … this." She scrunched her nose at my human form. "Pretty sure it's you, Galen."
I laughed. She had me there.
"We could stay at the hotel," Punky pleaded. "That would be so much easier. The kids could sleep in their own beds, and we could drop the glamours at night."
Lark sighed. "We could, but we don't have that kind of money."
This was the first I'd heard of a money shortage. "Do you need financing?"
"It's nothing," Lark said. "We had to settle with some of the human parents when their children returned to Ignitas early, that's all. The fortress is a little short on cash, but we'll be fine."
I instantly felt guilty. This was why dragons didn't make rash decisions and burn changeling circles on a whim. There were always consequences to our actions, and now Lark, Punky, and their children were suffering for my foolish decision.
"Will they take jewels or gold?" I asked.
"Will they!" Clementine walked over and took my hand. "I knew I liked you."
I met her shrewd gaze and couldn't help but smile. She was everything I wanted in a dragon child.
I wanted a baby. My gut ached from the realization, or maybe it was just squeezed too tightly inside my glamour.
"Galen, you don't have to fund our trip," Lark said. "We can stay with my in-laws like they've asked. Right, Clementine?"
Clementine did not look happy, which made me feel even more guilty.
"I destroyed the changeling circle," I said. "I'll pay for your stay, since it's my fault you can't afford the hotel on your own."
I knew what a hotel was from a comedy show about a bellhop. Mac said our hotel wouldn't have bellhops, but we would have a room of our own, and now we could have our friends next door if I worked my magic.
For Clementine's entertainment, I weaved my hands around like a magician I'd seen in an Earth movie, thanks to Mac. Voila, a hefty chunk of gold appeared in my palm.
"Where did you get that?" Clementine asked, her voice low with suspicion.
"If I told you, I would have to eat you, little kobold."
I dropped it into her outstretched hand, and she scampered back to her parents, handing the gold off to Lark before hiding behind Punky's legs.
"What do you say to Galen, Clementine?" Lark asked.
"Scary Galen," she said. "He said he was going to eat me!"
"He was joking!" Even while leading a high-strung dragonet out of the barn's bay door, Mac tried to cover for me.
"I was joking, little Clementine," I reassured her. "I wouldn't tell you where I got the gold because I don't want to eat you."
She stepped out from behind Punky and gave a sharp nod of her head in my direction. "Good."
"Are we all arranged?" Mac asked. "You all still look like kobolds to me."
"We'll only need a sixteen-hour spell," Lark said. "There's enough gold here to pay for a world cruise, Galen. Are you sure?"
It was one nugget from a cave lined with gold. If I wanted more, all I had to do was knock a chunk off the wall. "I'm sure."
I had a feeling my kobold father had stolen some of my paragon's gold to pay for trips to Earth behind our backs. Without either party available to confirm, I had no way of knowing. I didn't know if I was fixing past mistakes or making them worse.
* * *
Punky and Lark combined their power into a spell strong enough for their family of six for sixteen hours. Their glamour spell was powerful, but I could see through it. I was glad. I wouldn't have been able to tell my friends apart. Human families all looked alike, according to Mac. To me, that only made it harder to tell them apart with my human sense of smell.
Finally, it was my turn to travel to Earth to see what all the fuss was about. We hopped on our respective mounts. Mac directed the dragonet to follow Lark's dire weasel, Odessa, since she knew where we were going.
This wasn't my first time to another plane besides Ignitas, but I had been a young dragon then. My family and I had gone to a world filled with islands and clear water teaming with fish. It had been the most beautiful place I'd ever seen.
I hugged Mac to me as the sky seemed to brighten with the light of a million stars at once, and then it dimmed to the deepest black. I stared into nothingness, and it stared back, finding my loneliness and exploiting it. I couldn't feel Mac against me anymore, and I panicked.
I opened my eyes to find the dragonet had turned into a large vehicle like the van the cartoon ghost hunters used. The spell was complex, similar to my shape changing spell. I wondered what it looked like on the outside.
"The dragonet's name is Rapture," Mac said. He stared at me, waiting for my response while our mount sped into unknown territory.
I had fallen asleep during the magician movie last night, curled around Mac to keep him warm. Rapture sounded like a spell. I didn't know what kind of spell, so I admitted defeat. "I don't get it."
"During the rapture, Christians believe they'll be transported to a place called heaven immediately when their savior returns. That's where all the good people go."
"You've named our interplanar vehicle after a religious transportation term," I guessed.
Mac chuckled and nodded. "Yes. You've been raptured!"
I shook my human head on my very short neck and sighed. "You are silly."
"Is that what the kids are calling brave and foolish these days?"
"I am not a kid." I chafed every time he hinted at my youth. I was almost two centuries older than he was, after all. Who was he to call me a kid?
"It's a saying, dearest. I meant no harm."
He sat so far away on the opposite end of the bench seat. I couldn't smell him with my inferior human nose. I unbuckled the belt at my waist so I could scoot closer to him and sniffed the side of his neck. "You're telling the truth."
"I am." He barked another laugh. "Is that why you're always sniffing me? Is your nose some kind of lie detector?"
"Yes."
Instead of being angry that I had been using secret intelligence tactics on him, Mac grinned. "Good. You should know by now. I could never lie to you."
Now that he'd said it aloud, and I smelled the truth in his words, I did.
I turned my head to hide the heat in my face. I glanced out at the land flying past us and grabbed for the belt still over my shoulder. I returned to my place and buckled in. "We're going too fast, and too low to the ground!"
"We're on a road," Mac said, pointing out the front window.
I'd heard of roads, but we didn't use them on Ignitas. Why have a road when one could fly or bounce around the countryside on a dire weasel? "Humans don't have a means to fly?"
"They do," Mac reassured me. "They fly in large metal tubes designed to carry many at once. The rest of the time, they use land vehicles."
A vehicle shimmering with kobold magic passed us.
"Lark must have bribed Odessa with a burger or two," Mac said.
I watched as the half-dire-weasel, half-van sped to an intersection, slowed to a crawl, and then turned right after a non-magical vehicle crossed in front of them. Then they followed the other vehicle to a shorter road that curved into a strange alcove.
"See? They're going through the drive-thru to grab her a snack. Do you want a snack, Rapture?"
Our vehicle growled and followed.
Mac talked the entire time we were in line, but I wasn't paying attention. I tried to make sense of the shifting symbols on the board before us. Mac had walked me through preparing my own language spell like the one the kobolds used to understand humans, but this language was unlike any I'd read before. It changed into words I didn't recognize. Burgers. French Fries. Sweet potato fries. Onion rings. Jalapeno poppers.
"What is this?"
"It's a menu," Mac said.
"For food?"
"Yes."
"Why have I never heard of these foods?"
"You've had a burger," Mac said. "You didn't like the bread."
"Right. But what are fries?"
"We have our own tuber chips on Ignitas. You like them better."
I loved tuber chips, but, "I want to try them. I want to try everything."
Mac tapped on his phone and laughed when it chimed with an answer. "Lark says to get you whatever you want. There's a park nearby. We can share whatever you can't eat with their kids."
I didn't want to share, but it made sense. This body was far smaller than my usual size. The mass of paper bags covered in grease stains was smaller than an appetizer back home. Still, I needed to be on my best behavior on Earth. I thanked the human who handed the bags to Mac. My mate pulled away before I could ask any questions about Earth, their employment, or what a straw was, since I thought it was a type of hay.
"Straws are hollow," Mac said when I asked. "We stick them through the tops of the cups and drink through them."
I watched as he pulled two paper-wrapped tubes of plastic from the last bag the human had given him. He unwrapped them and stuck them through the crosscut squares in the middle of the plastic lids.
"Strange," I said.
Trying to suck through the straw was even stranger. Once Mac and I were seated across from each other at an outdoor picnic table large enough for all of us, I tried to mimic how the children drank from theirs. I ended up choking on the sweet liquid before I swallowed. After several attempts, I finally had it down.
"I understand now," I said after a second successful sip. "It's like sucking marrow from bones."
Punky and Lark stared at me like I was a horror movie villain.
"Mac, do you feel safe in your relationship with Galen?" Lark asked.
"Blink twice if we need to rescue you." Punky blinked his eyelids shut in an exaggerated fashion.
"Don't worry." Mac handed me a burger and a sampling of each of the sides we'd ordered. "They're a fast learner."
"What am I learning?" I asked.
"Later," Mac whispered in a conspiratorial, "Not in the presence of children," tone I remembered from my youth. I'd never been on the adult side of those conversations before. I couldn't wait to discuss my adult education with Mac later.
First, I ate everything he offered me. I didn't like the jalapeno poppers. They burned my human tongue and most of the way down my throat. I was sucking up air from the bottom of my cup before the pain went away. Thankfully, the rest of the items were a balm, and the tub of ranch dressing dipping sauce cooled the fire in my mouth so I could enjoy the fried mushrooms, potatoes, and sweet potatoes.
Rather than let his children eat them, Lark threw the peppers away. "I don't like them either," he said.
"They smell bad." Clementine's little button nose scrunched halfway up her face at the declaration. "You're brave to try them, Galen."
Punky glanced down at his watch. "Crap. We're late." He ushered Clementine back to the van with the others. "We still need to check in at the hotel and slip over to my parents' place to say hello."
It was my fault we'd taken a short break to try all the food. I'd also had a hand in the extra stop at the hotel.
"He's just nervous about seeing his adoptive parents again," Lark said. "Will you two be all right tonight? They invited us for dinner."
Punky rolled his eyes and climbed into the front passenger seat. "Thanks for the reminder."
"We'll find something to do," Mac promised.
The kobold family left the park while we were still cleaning up all the paper bags and plastic containers.
"Humans are wasteful," I said as I filled a third bag with our refuse of paper napkins, plastic sauce containers, and cardboard boxes.
"Convenience and food safety practices come with a hefty price," Mac said. "I'm sorry you didn't like the peppers."
"I am here for the sensory experience," I reminded him. "Not everything will bring me pleasure, nor do I expect it. I would like to speak to some humans, though."
"I understand," he said slowly, "but we can't risk them discovering the truth about us."
"I won't tell them I'm a dragon," I huffed.
"Humans can smell the predator on us," Mac said. "You should have seen the way folks ran from us on extractions, and they knew we were coming!"
"They won't run from a child," I said, forming a plan in my head. "Clementine already understands scientific experimentation. She might be willing to interview the humans for me."
Mac tossed the rest of the rubbish into the large metal barrel near an old grill unit and pulled me to my feet. "She's busy visiting her grandparents," he reminded me.
"Not the entire time." I'd talked Lark into letting us tag along to a tourist trap called a botanical garden. Maybe Clementine could do some scouting for me then.
"They are on vacation," Mac reminded me. "They're not here to do your bidding."
"I know, but I need answers."
He turned to me and took my hand between his. It was strange having a hand with such thin, weak claws, but it felt nice when he slid his fingers between mine and squeezed. "We'll observe and research, first. If you still have questions, we can ask Punky and Lark."
"That's a decent compromise."
I whined when he dropped my hand by the van's passenger door, but then he reached for me again once we were both inside.
I didn't know much about being a human yet, but this, I liked.