Page 1 of The Monster at the End of This Molt (The Monster at the End of His Pregnancy #4)

Chapter One

Robin

I'd been waiting twenty-six years for my fated mate to claim me. By my estimation, that was three years too long.

I sat at my parents' breakfast table, set with a lovely birthday spread for my three siblings and me. As we exchanged gifts and passed delicious breakfast foods, my mind wandered to the one kobold I wished was here but wasn't.

My parents said I recognized Weld as my fated mate the moment he came to visit when I was a week old. As kobold/human hybrids, we hatch from our eggs walking on all fours and climbing on the furniture. I hopped onto the couch, walked right to Weld's lap, curled up, and went to sleep.

They said I even hissed at Tuft, his ex-partner. Over the years, Tuft had become like an uncle to me, while Weld banished himself to the far side of the plane like some demon.

Ignitas isn't a small place. It's about the same size as Earth, but with more wide-open spaces and less air pollution. We have teleportation, dragonet flight, and magical technology, not to mention plain old magic. Thanks to our magical gifts, I have what my dragon friend Galen calls a "dragon bond" with Weld. That means no matter where he is, on this plane of existence or any other, I can find him.

When I lost my tail a month after I turned twenty-three, Weld was in the middle of a year on the Earth plane. I wanted to go to him right away but worried I would interrupt his work. Weld had progressed from teacher to scientist and inventor over the course of my lifetime. I didn't want to bother him, especially if he needed to finish a project before we could mate.

The year I turned twenty-five, he was bouncing all over Ignitas on his dragonet, inoculating the wild bovinji population with a flu vaccine. We'd all heard the stories from other planes, about how the original species of kobolds had died of a disease. Our alliance with the humans to combine our DNA had infuriated the dragons who made us, but it had saved us from extinction. If Weld could save our dragons' main food source from the same fate with his vaccines, who was I to stop him?

Well, here I was, turning twenty-six. Weld was back in his place of banishment, the one I called his home, where he'd spent most of the last twenty-four years. It was past time for me to visit and claim my fated mate for my own.

I hoped he had a residence there, unlike the hole in the grotto where he used to live. I visited the tunnels between our cabins and the huge obsidian fortress occasionally. I couldn't imagine trying to hatch eggs down there. It was far too cold and damp. Still, Weld and Tuft had fought my friends' parents, Coz and Grindl, for one of the warmest spots.

And then they'd lost their clutch, anyway. I empathized with Tuft, my fellow omega. Tuft's fated mate, Axel, had commissioned a memorial marker for Tuft and Weld's eggs and placed it outside their cabin. It resembled a human gravestone with the two names carved above etchings of two kobold eggs.

Every time I thought about that little memorial, I was glad the eggs hadn't matured. I hated myself for being so selfish. I would have loved them, and Weld, regardless, but I wanted to be the first to give Weld a viable clutch of eggs. The two of us would cover them with my slick and nourish them until they were ready to hatch. And then, once our healthy young emerged from their eggs, we would raise them together.

That had been my dream since before my tail fell off. It had been the plan on my twenty-fifth birthday, the day everyone said Weld would rush in like a knight in shining armor from the picture books and sweep me off my feet. Since I turned twenty-five, it had been my wish every single day.

Well, fuck it. It was the morning of my twenty-sixth birthday, and I was done waiting.

Something wet and slimy hit my cheek and started to slide toward my jaw. Gross.

"I asked you a question." Clementine was the last to hatch from her shell. My brothers and I gave her shit about being immature, and this was how she proved us right, by flinging food across the table to get our attention. The cafeteria had made us a cherry gelatin fruit salad for breakfast. I wiped the slimy goodness off my cheek and stuck it in my mouth without checking for fruit. A burst of Earth pineapple lit up my tongue, and I grinned. My sister knew how to give the best presents, even when her delivery left a lot to be desired.

"I missed it, sorry." I met my sister's golden eyes. Her white hair was pulled into a braid tight to her scalp, making her look even more reptilian than usual.

"Are you leaving today? I want your room."

"Clem, we already talked about this," our omega papa said. "When Robin moves out, you both move out. No arguments."

"Well?" she asked, her gaze still intent on me. "Is today the day?"

"It sure as fuck is."

My alpha brothers, who sat on either side of me, hammered my shoulders with their fists and busted up laughing at my overzealous swearing. They already lived in the alpha cabins behind our house. Ernie was still searching for his fated mate, but Grover had met Cook at a softball tournament over the summer.

At my remark, my alpha dad slapped his hands to his mouth to clamp it shut. For a moment, I thought he was going to contain his laughter, but then he snorted and we all started laughing again.

Papa shook his head at us until we finally stopped snickering. I was relieved when he rebuked Clementine first. "For the last time, young lady, you are moving to the fortress."

She sighed. "I know, and I will, but some experiments are too dangerous, and Robin's room?—"

"No." When Dad banged his fist on the table, we all jumped. "You will review all dangerous experiments with Galen first. They will know the safest spot, and I assure you, it's not Robin's bedroom."

"Galen already said no." She was so uncharacteristically quiet, I wondered if our dads heard her at first.

"We're changing the wards," Papa finally said, shoving his purple-tipped black hair off his forehead with a sigh. "You and Robin are welcome to leave as much as you want in your rooms. If you need it later, call us to make sure we're home."

"But Da-ad!"

I stopped listening to their conversation, my mind again wandering to what I wanted to pack. For now, I would travel light with only a few days' clothing and a water bottle. It wouldn't take long for a borrowed dragonet to transport me to The Meadows, if that was indeed Weld's location. It was the last address he'd given to the dragon temple. Our friend Opal, Galen's kobold daughter, was the temple's new attendant. Alma had retired to have a clutch of her own with her fated mate.

Like Alma, I hoped to be with my own fated mate soon. I couldn't wait.

* * *

My entire family showed up at the dragonet barn to bid me farewell later that afternoon. Papa and Dad hugged me tight, and both shed a few tears.

"I'll be back," I promised. If I couldn't convince Weld to move back with me, I would still need to return to pack up the rest of my belongings.

"I know." Papa hugged me even tighter. "That doesn't make this any easier."

"I went away to college for six years," I reminded him.

"That was different." He sniffled. "This time, you're going away to start your life with your fated mate, a guy who doesn't exactly like us very much."

"He didn't want anyone to accuse him of grooming me." I didn't blame Weld for leaving. I understood why he did it. Fated mates or no, the older generations, raised as changelings on Earth, would have said it was inappropriate for me to hang around him, all while our dragon bond pulled me to him like a magnet.

I hadn't understood what it meant to be Weld's fated mate when I was a hatchling, but I knew he felt like home. I wanted to go to that home now. My chest ached in the place beside my heart where I felt our bond, as though I'd waited too long already.

My alpha dad and brothers hugged me tight and clapped me on the back.

"You've got it so easy," Grover said. "I bet you fall right into his bed and forget about us for weeks."

"You're going to love knotting." Ernie had to jab me with one more sex joke before I left. My face burned so hot I thought I would melt into the long grass. "You don't know what you're missing."

I'd avoided sex with alphas because my brothers were such crass jerks sometimes. I loved them, but damn, we couldn't go a full day without one of them making knotting or slick jokes.

"I'll never know what I'm missing." Clementine rolled her eyes. "Betas don't have knots. Sorry, Mac."

Galen's beta mate leaned against the side of the barn where we'd been saying our goodbyes. He shook his head at my sister and brother. Instead of commenting on their jokes, he turned to me. "Are you about ready?"

"Yes."

"This is Peaches." Mac shoved the barn door with his hip, and the beautiful yellow-orange dragonet stepped out, shaking her head as the afternoon sun shone in her eyes.

"Hi, Peaches." I rubbed her neck and soothed her as Mac loaded my bags into her inter-dimensional space. After another round of hugs, kisses, and a few more tears shed between me and my parents, I finally climbed into the saddle to start my next adventure.

A minute later, I was certain I was going to be sick to my stomach if Peaches launched us through time and space again. I'd grown up riding dragonets and dire weasels. To go to college, I'd even teleported to Earth on the back of Odessa, Dad's dire weasel. Either the dragonet teleportation method was far inferior to the dire weasel method, or Peaches was singularly bad at it.

I did my best to keep the bile down. Here I was, moments away from finally having my first kiss with my fated mate. No amount of upset stomach was going to ruin the moment for me.

Finally, we reemerged from a twisting wormhole into the late afternoon sun over The Meadows. The heat in my chest told me Weld was nearby as we circled over the fields and landed in a paddock beside another barn.

"Howdy," a friendly beta said as he came to take Peaches's reins from me. "You need to rent a stall for her?"

"No, thanks. I need my bags, and then she can go home."

"Where's home?"

"Back to The Pavilion." We'd renamed it, now that both our kobold and dragon names for our village, The Fortress and The Spike, respectively, no longer fit.

The beta grinned. "The dragon place. This'll be my first year at the dragon gathering. What's it like to live there? Do you see many dragons?"

"All the time," I reassured him. "It's a great place. Good luck finding a dragon mate."

He chuckled. "Nah. I'm more interested in the girls."

Opal had lost her tail this past summer, and Galen had declared the dragon gathering a true mating gathering for the continent. Everyone would be there. Alphas, omegas, betas, females, and any eligible dragons. Most of our dragon population was too young to mate, but word of the festival had reached the other dragon planes, the ones where kobolds had been wiped out of existence. Some of their dragons had also found mates on Ignitas.

I wasn't here to play matchmaker, though. "Can you point me toward an alpha named Weld?"

"That old bastard?" The beta laughed and pointed to a nearby cabin. "He's probably out back of the machine shed beyond. He's been working on something he calls a tractor."

"Thanks."

"What's your name?" The beta asked. "That way, if he chases you off, I'll know who to look for back at The Pavilion."

"Robin," I said. "And he won't chase me off. He's my mate."

He paused for a moment, and then said, "I'm Tim."

My face burned as I realized he'd been waiting for me to ask his name. I'd rushed on with too much information like the air-headed omega Clementine said I was.

"We have some rooms for visiting omegas at the big house," he continued, pointing to an extensive structure with rough-hewn logs and a thatched roof. "If you need somewhere to stay the night."

Tim didn't have much faith in my ability to charm my fated mate. I was starting to wonder if I'd made a horrible mistake. What if Weld had moved on without me or decided to be a hermit for the rest of his life?

I couldn't think like that. I'd waited too long for this.

Tugging my backpack over my shoulders, I made my way to a worn path that led toward the building Tim said I wanted. The building's shadow stretched before me in the setting sun. I shivered as relative darkness flowed over me.

I didn't see a door, so I walked around to the side of the building. Still no door, but I could hear someone hammering out back. The sound reminded me of a blacksmith's forge.

I rounded a shipping container on wheels, still following the sound. In a clearing, Weld stood with his back to me, naked to the waist. His green hair was dark with sweat at his temples and neck. He swung the hammer hard, trying to shift the bent metal back into its rounded shape.

I hadn't seen him in twenty-four years, and still, he was the most gorgeous kobold I had ever seen. He was tall, even for an alpha kobold, and he'd gotten bulkier over time. His muscles bulged with each swing, and he made little grunts when metal impacted with metal. It wasn't hard to imagine him making the same sounds in the bedroom.

He dropped the hammer to the ground with a sigh of frustration. "Tomorrow."

I shrugged off my bags, expecting him to turn at any moment and see me. The bond between us pulsed now that I was this close to him. Instead, he grabbed his shirt from where it draped over his water bottle, using it to dry his brow before taking a swig.

I should have said something, but my mouth wanted other things. His scent already made me drool from his proximity. It had been so long. Finally, here I was, close enough to scent, touch, and take what was mine.

I grabbed Weld's shoulder and spun him around. Before he had a chance to register who I was or what I was doing, I kissed him.

He shoved me away, his face twisted with revulsion. "What the actual fuck do you think you're doing, omega?"