Page 23 of The Monster at the End of This Molt (The Monster at the End of His Pregnancy #4)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Robin

Two days later, a solid crack woke us. Outside our window, stars still hung in the sky.

"I would call you an early bird," Weld whispered, "But you're late."

They'd been two long days, and while we both called our littlest egg our daughter, we hadn't yet given her a name. For me, it was superstition. I didn't want to give the dragon goddess a reason to curse us again.

As silly as Weld thought I was, he hadn't called her by the name he'd picked out, either. We'd talked about names the first night after I'd laid them, and I had blanked. When I offered Weld the job of naming our kids, he'd taken it and run with it. If it had been up to me, I would have fretted over them and possibly generated less slick because of it. I didn't want that kind of responsibility.

I was grateful for Weld’s thoughtfulness. Our boys' names were delightfully strange, as all kobold names should be.

My siblings and I had unusually human-sounding names. I'd always been envious of the Aragorns and Rosencrantzes of Ignitas. Our boys wouldn't have to worry about that. Nobody would forget a Boober, Wembley, or Gobo.

Thanks to her two-day delay, no one would forget our little girl, either, no matter her name. I had a feeling Weld would tack "The Late" to whatever name he gave her.

With the delay, we'd kept the nest in the middle of our bed. The boys snuggled around the base. Only Wembley had stirred from the loud crack, but the other two had perked up when Weld spoke. They must have sensed their sister needed space. Wembley and Boober crawled into my lap, and Gobo climbed up Weld's bare chest to sit on his shoulder, leaving scratch marks that Weld healed over with a brush of his hand, his focus solely on our remaining egg.

Nothing happened. Fifteen minutes went by. The stars vanished from the horizon and the sky outside turned lighter and lighter blue until the sun had fully risen. Still, no movement from our egg.

"Is she okay?" I asked

Darkness fell over our window again, and a loud bang echoed through the room.

Weld frowned at his dragonet through the glass. "Is she waiting for him?"

Kermit was smaller than Slate, but his wings wouldn't collapse close enough to his body to allow him to fit through the door. He could stick his long neck in through the window, though. I handed the babies off to Weld and hopped up to inspect.

The window didn't open, and there was no easy way to remove it from its casing. Sensing the magic Axel had used to hold it in place, I traced my index finger along the inside edge. Carefully, I peeled back the spell, and Kermit nudged the glass, tipping it into my grasp. I shuffled it over to lean it against our closet door.

Kermit didn't wait for me. He snaked his head inside and rested it upon our bed, his snout inches from the egg. Another heavy crack sounded, and a thick vertical line appeared. With another crack, a chunk of the eggshell fell away, and Kermit scooped it up, depositing it in his inter-dimensional space.

"He wants to carry a piece of her with him, always." Weld placed both of his hands over the center of his chest, where his connections with me and the dragonet both nestled beside his heart.

I settled back on the bed beside him. He reached for my hand and held it to his chest, too, but he never lifted his gaze from the egg.

The egg shivered and shook, all while Kermit watched from his side of the nest and we watched from ours. Another crack split down the side closest to me, and that section of the egg fell away. Our little girl looked a lot like an omega, with dark hair and greenish-brown stripes, but so had Clementine when she was born. Weld tipped her over to confirm, and whispered, "Hi, Mokey."

I grinned at the name. Mokey had been my favorite Fraggle. She was so laid back and cool.

Mokey rubbed her snout along Weld's fingers, and then she turned to Kermit. It awed me how quickly our babies took to their legs and balanced with their tails, and she was no different. She walked up to the dragonet and poked his snout with her own.

"They're bonding," Weld said.

When we had first texted Mac to ask him about our dragonet's strange behavior, he said this might happen. Weld had been upset, thinking he would lose his connection to Kermit, but, "He's bonded to both of us."

"That's wonderful news." I leaned against his shoulder and looked around at our happy family. Satisfied that Mokey was here to stay, the boys had scurried to greet her, and now they were balancing along Kermit's long neck, headed for outside.

Instead of putting the window back, Weld and I hopped over the low sill and into the grass beside Kermit. The kids took turns using his tail for a slide and then climbing back up his wings to do it again.

"They're all here," I whispered to Weld as he leaned his head against mine. "What do we do now?"

I loved our little family so much my heart could burst, but reality was starting to overwhelm me. I’d read more parenting books than most to complete my schooling, and yet, here I was, at a loss.

Weld, ever the pragmatist, responded, "Keep them alive until we can send them to school." He whistled for everyone’s attention. "Mokey!"

She turned to squint at us from her spot on Kermit's back.

"Are you hungry?"

Kermit cocked his head at her, and then at us. He pulled a small piece of jerky out of his inter-dimensional space.

"Oh, no you don't." I took the dried meat from him, shaking my head. "She's a baby before her first molt. Her stomach can't handle this yet."

He snorted smoke at me. I handed the jerky back to him as a peace offering, and he gulped it down.

"What do you say?" I asked Mokey. "Do you want to come inside for your first breakfast?"

She turned her back on me and slid down Kermit's tail. I was about to call my papa to let him know we had another Clementine on our hands, but she was already crawling up the leg of my pajama pants. Wembley followed, while Boober and Gobo raced into Weld's outstretched arms where he crouched next to the window.

Kermit swung his neck up to my shoulder to tap Mokey with his snout. With a two-step running start, he launched into the air. The down force from his wings pushed me back toward the window, where Weld helped me inside.

"They can eat pancakes, right?" he asked.

A quick text to Alma confirmed yes, they could. With the help of our friends and family, the odds of keeping them alive increased exponentially.

I released a sigh as I watched Mokey eat almost twice as much as her brothers. She would catch up with them in size before long. My heart ached to see our beautiful family thriving.

"Is it everything you wanted?" Weld slid his arms around me and kissed my temple.

"It's so much more." I grinned up at him. "Thank you for making all my dreams come true."

He hugged me tighter. "Dreams like this are worth the wait, right?"

I snorted. "I wouldn't go that far …" Still, I would have waited forever for him, for this. He'd surprised me in the best way when he said he wanted this, too.