Page 22 of The Monster at the End of This Molt (The Monster at the End of His Pregnancy #4)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Weld

Three weeks after Clementine moved to The Meadows and became Tim's mate, she texted us with good news. "I'm pregnant."

The family group chat blew up with congratulations and dick jokes, all of which she took in stride. "Still don't have a dick, jerk wads. How did you manage to grow up in the same house with me and you're all so ignorant?"

"Ha - just kidding!" Ernie replied.

"Sounds a lot less fun to be you," Robin said.

"I still have all the fun times. We have to be sexually stimulated to lay our eggs."

"Ew! TMI!" All three brothers posted at the same time.

Satisfied Robin could deal with his family on his own, I muted my notifications and went back to egg watch. The most recent coat of slick still glistened on three of the shells, which meant it would be any moment now. I swore I saw the largest egg move, but I also had been holding my eyes open for minutes at a time. I only blinked when the room spun around me, so I probably wasn't the best judge of movement.

My hearing was excellent, though.

A thick crack startled Robin, and he dropped his phone to the bed. "What was that?"

I pointed to the hairline fracture in the largest egg. "They're coming!"

He squealed and tossed the phone onto the nightstand, his family chat forgotten. We both hunkered down to watch on our hands and knees with our chins resting on the nest's pillow ledge.

A second egg cracked. I nudged Robin with my shoulder, and he leaned against me.

"It's happening!"

I wished they would hurry, but at the same time, I dreaded their arrival. Was I ready to parent four children? It was too late to wonder now.

"We're going to be great parents." Robin shoved the blanket wall out of our way and lay down, resting his chin on his arms.

"Please tell me you can't read my mind."

Mac hinted at being able to read Galen's mind through their dragon bond, but Galen was an actual fucking dragon, and we were both kobolds.

Robin laughed. "I don't need to read your mind. Your worry is all over your face."

I rolled onto my side facing away from him. He answered by tickling me until I rolled back to my stomach and rested my chin on his bicep.

"Stop worrying. I went to school for this."

Robin would win every father of the year award. Of that, I had no doubt. "I'm not worried about you."

He kissed my cheek. "You're going to be amazing."

Amazing, perhaps, but patient, I was not. I wanted to grab a rubber mallet or chisel and break our babies out of their prison shells.

Instead, I sat up so I could sit on my hands. After at least a half-hour of inactivity, I coated our smallest egg with more slick and wrapped the blankets closer around it.

Robin lay his head in my lap. "Wake me when they're here."

The largest egg stirred at the sound of his voice. After a few hard cracks sent chips falling down the side, a greenish-brown snout shoved through the opening. I knew what his name would be before I saw the distinctive brown hair and yellow-green stripes. As he molted, his stripes would shift toward the usual brown most betas had, but for now, he looked like, "Boober."

Robin sat up so fast he almost knocked his head against my chin. "You didn't like 'Duddy,' but you think 'Boober' is acceptable?"

"We don't even have nipples! It's a great name, and it means absolutely nothing here." As soon as Boober shook free of the egg, I picked him up and cradled him in my arms.

Robin petted our little football-sized baby lizard and shook his head. "That might be true if we didn't have human television shows and movies."

"If Jim Henson can name one of his creations Boober, so can I!"

Robin laughed at my mock outrage, and then he gave in. "Fine. Boober the beta kobold, it is. I hope he's braver than his namesake."

As though answering him, Boober wrapped his long tail around Robin's wrist. "Look who's a brave boy," I cooed at him.

Fresh tears pricked the corners of my eyes. Boober was perfect, and I already loved him so much.

The other two shells rocked on their bases as our little ones fought their way out. The next to emerge was an adorable alpha with lavender hair. Thankfully, he was lighter than Lark, or I'd never hear the end of it. I also had the perfect name for him. "Gobo."

"Gobo." Robin grinned. "He looks like a Gobo." He leaned over the blanket wall with his hands splayed to pick Gobo up. Our little one must have been hungry, because he bit down on Robin's index finger.

Instead of reacting the way my adoptive parents would have, Robin only grinned and shuffled the little one over to the tarp to help himself to the slick still collecting there. Boober seemed interested, too, so I placed him on the tarp.

"Who's next?" Robin asked as he smeared more slick on the smallest egg. It continued to absorb nutrients. "Not this one."

The final large egg shook as the baby inside hammered away on the shell. "They have decent rhythm."

"Oh no." Robin sighed. "I object."

Finally, our little omega emerged by tipping his egg over on its side and busting out the top with a shake of his head. "Wembley."

Robin blinked. "Okay. I don't object."

"What did you think I was going to say?"

"Pipebanger, Doozer, or something equally ridiculous."

"Our babies deserve main character names!" I leaned over to pick Gobo up from the tarp. "Though I might call our little alpha Convincing John, just because."

Robin scooted Wembley to the tarp for his first snack outside the egg. The little omega turned his nose up at it and scampered back to his eggshell, looking up at Robin expectantly.

"Time for a real meal?" Robin picked him up, and he immediately crawled onto Robin's shoulder.

I grabbed Boober, who was still milling about the tarp with his nose in the air and followed Robin to the kitchen. I had bowls of rice and vegetable soup waiting on the table for them when we arrived.

"This is so weird." Robin slipped under my arm and leaned against me, clutching my hand to his chest as we watched them eat. "I babysat newborn humans, but hatchlings before their first molts …"

"We keep them fed until they molt for the first time, and then we send them to school."

"You make it sound so easy," Robin said. "Do you think our littlest will stay behind the rest?"

I tucked him to my chest and rested my chin on top of his head. "No. She'll catch up."

"You think she's a she?"

"Yep."

"Whatcha gonna name her?"

"We'll have to wait and see." The boys had already finished their meals and were trying to find a way down from the table. They reminded me of their namesakes because they were so small. "Let's see how easily they learn this latrine business."

"You go ahead," he said. "I'll see if our little girl is still taking on slick, and then I'll join you."

I set the boys on the floor, and they immediately went to the front door. I could already tell Boober's personality was more snarky than scared. He looked up at me like he knew exactly where the door led, and it was my job to open it for him.

He was right. I would be their humble and adoring servant if they let me. I opened the door. They raced across the dark porch and leaped into the sunlight. The drop-off was only two feet or so, but no one hesitated.

"If your brother jumped off a bridge, you'd follow him. Got it." I laughed and followed, too. The moment I stepped into the sunlight and saw where they were running, my heart stopped in my chest. A small dragon leaned toward them, snout down to the ground in front of their wings.

Not a dragon. A dragonet. I recognized the surge of pride and happiness through my bond with Kermit. I put my hand up to shield the sunlight from my eyes, and the green of his scales was much easier to see. He dropped down on all fours and spread out in the long grass, letting our boys walk all over him.

"Missing. Where?"

At a poker party, Mac had told me the story of Rapture the dragonet's infatuation with Opal before she was even born. Kobold and dragonet were still great friends, though Opal had a much closer bond with her dragon sibling.

"You sly devil," I said to Kermit. "Are you leaving me for our daughter?"

"Missing, " he insisted, nosing each boy in turn. "Where?"

"She hasn't hatched yet. You'll see her soon enough."

That satisfied him. He rolled onto his back and raised his wings to form a makeshift playpen for our curious boys.

"Kermit!" Robin caught on faster than I did. "What are you doing?"

"Family. Play. Fun."

"Are they playing?" Robin figured it out before I tried to translate Kermit's strange snippets of feelings and images into words. I didn't know if any of my guesses were right. I figured if none of the mental images looked like food or fight, our boys were safe with him.

"They'll sleep well, I hope. How is she?"

"Still absorbing slick." He shrugged. "Alma says it happens. It could be tomorrow, or it could be a week from tomorrow." Robin pointed at Kermit, who rolled over and deposited our boys in the grass. They landed on their feet and started running toward us, but Kermit squeaked and pointed their wing to the makeshift latrine I'd dug earlier in the week. The boys understood him and dashed toward the latrine, instead.

With a surge of satisfaction through our bond, Kermit leaped into the air. Once he had enough height to clear the houses, he turned toward the dragonet barn.

"Dragonets are smarter than we give them credit," I said. Kermit had been interested in my work around the house to get it ready for our hatchlings. Through our bond, he must have been tagging along more often than I knew, and he was better at reading my mind than I was at reading his.

"Mac's been trying to tell us that for years," Robin said. "Is it just me, or is this too easy?"

I laughed and pulled him closer to me. "Kobolds are easier than humans in some ways," I reminded him, "and harder in others."

"Ugh. Magic. I swear to the gods, if our little girl takes after Clementine with her haphazard spell casting?—"

"She won't. She has me." He glanced up at me, and I couldn't resist a smug grin. "Clementine would be a better spell caster, too, if she took a class or two with me."

"I bet you twenty U.S. dollars Clem will refuse to take a class with you."

"You're on." I'd never been a gambler, but the silly bets Robin and his family placed on everything had made an impression. Besides, I had already taught Clementine a magic suppression spell while she waited for her dad to finish grading papers one afternoon. Convincing her to spend an hour learning more spells would be easy-peasy, unless someone else bribed her first.

While Robin tucked our little ones into bed around the remaining egg, I pulled up their group chat on my phone. I didn't have a text history with Clem, or Robin's brothers, for that matter, but I had labeled each with their names. I started a new private message to her while Robin blew up the group chat with pictures.

"The next time you stop by, I need a little magic refresher. How soon before they can light the house on fire?"

"Ha ha," she responded. "I think I set my first fire after my third molt."

"Sounds dangerous."

"I know this is for a bet. I'm feeling sorry for you because you bet against Robin. Just so you know, he always wins."

I didn't doubt that in the least. "I don't mind losing to him, as long as I get to keep him."

Clementine didn't have a comeback for that, only a "See you when I see you. If I don't learn something new in the first five minutes, I'll bail."

"Deal."

If she stayed longer than five minutes, I would consider myself a pretty damn good teacher.

In the meantime, I needed to learn what it meant to be a father, beyond the deep love coursing through my body. I’d never felt anything so pure and absolute, except maybe the first time I’d seen Robin. I’d been afraid to love my first clutch, and we’d lost them. Now, I already loved them too damn much, even our little girl who had yet to show her face.