Page 6 of The Monster at the End of This Molt (The Monster at the End of His Pregnancy #4)

Chapter Six

Weld

Despite Robin's protests, I tucked him into bed.

"That's not as gross as I expected," he mumbled when I kissed his forehead.

"You made it weird," I said. "Or maybe I did."

I'd fantasized about this moment, the first time I would bring Robin to my bed, for years. Tucking him in like a child was fucking weird, now that he mentioned it.

"I'll never do it again, I promise."

He patted the bed beside him. "Shut up and get in here. You were right. It's cold."

Instead of obeying him, I hurried to the living room for the blankets and pillows he'd used on the couch. I didn't mind snuggling together under the blankets, but the temperature would drop overnight. I worried my body heat and skimpy comforter wouldn't keep him warm.

Finally, with all the blankets piled high, I turned off the lights and slid into bed. Before I was finished smoothing the blankets over us, Robin had rolled onto his side and backed up against me.

"I'm cold." Instead of shivers, he ground his ass against my cock. My semi-erection flared to full hardness at the touch.

My desire still came with an unhealthy level of self-loathing. I'd known him when he was a child. I'd taken his class on field trips to see Galen, and I'd worked closely with his alpha father in our high school classroom.

Then, Robin had been a sweet kid, always wanting cuddles. Now, he wanted more.

"Robin …"

"Sorry. I am cold, though, and you're so warm."

I kissed his nape and wrapped my arm around his torso, tucking him against me as tight as I dared. He was right. He was my perfect omega. I'd been so hell-bent on breeding with any omega for the good of our people that I hadn't stopped to wonder, "What if Alma's teachings about fated mates are true?"

I swallowed hard and nuzzled his neck. I wanted more, too. We were both consenting adults now. No one in our lives would think twice about the age gap. Even Alma had mated with a much younger beta.

Our ages were the least of my worries. I'd tried to steal Punky from Lark. If I'd succeeded, Robin wouldn't have been born, and who knows if I would have had a fated mate.

And Tuft. Poor Tuft. I'd done my alpha duty and given him two eggs, but they hadn't matured. I hadn't been there in time to help him lay the first one. Tuft had done it all himself.

My poor choices had alienated me from Robin's parents and ruined my chance at friendship with some of their closest friends. I'd even angered Mac when I'd started blowing off trips to Earth to retrieve the changelings on their twenty-fifth birthdays.

No one back at The Pavilion would be eager for my return. Sure, they wanted Robin to move home, but me?

I sighed.

"What are you thinking?" Robin stifled a yawn, and I gripped him tighter.

"I'm too selfish to let you go."

He chuckled. "Good."

We fell asleep like that. I usually tossed and turned around my magic heating rock, but tonight, I stayed right where I was, wrapped around Robin until my alarm sang in the morning.

"It's Sunday," Robin pouted when I reached over him to shut it off.

"It is." I kissed his cheek and crawled out of bed. "You can sleep in."

He sighed and buried his head in the blankets, ending our conversation. I wished I could stay with him, but I was running out of time to finish the wheel before my week was up.

I grabbed a meal to go from the big house's kitchen. Tim stopped me to ask after Robin. "The kid said he's your fated mate. You never told us about him."

I shrugged. "I didn't think his family would allow him to come to me, so it wasn't relevant."

"Wasn't relevant." He chuckled. "Well, it would've been nice to know you've been planning to run back to The Pavilion all this time."

I shook my head. "I'm not leaving until the tractor's up and running again."

He pointed a finger gun at me and nodded. "That's why. I figured there was some reason you were obsessing over that damned wheel."

"I'm not obsessing." Robin had said the same, though. "Am I?"

"Any of us could fix it for you," he reminded me. "All it would take is a little magical reworking of the metal."

"Well, good for you." I shook my head. "I need to do this on my own."

He nodded again, reminding me of the little bobblehead doll Mac would secure to the dashboard of our Earth vehicles when we went on extraction runs. "I'll leave you to it." He extended his hand, and I shook it. "It's been a pleasure having you as part of our community. We're thankful for everything you've taught us."

"Thanks for putting up with my shit for the last twenty-some years." I waved and ducked out the back door of the kitchen. I'd had enough socializing with the townsfolk for the morning.

That didn't stop me from thinking about my service to The Meadows over two decades and then some. I'd done everything they needed. I taught Tim in school, helped him build a dragonet barn when he discovered he had Mac's talent for bonding with a nest of hatchlings, and advocated for him to become the village leader when his grandpa passed away.

I lacked magic, so I offered information instead. Blueprint-like sketches of alpha cabins and lessons on care and feeding of dire weasels and dragonets, thanks to the countless hours I'd spent in the van with Mac. I wasn't the smartest kobold by any means, but I'd kept a daily journal since the first day I'd arrived on Ignitas, and I'd filled it with little tidbits gleaned along the way. I'd studied farming practices at The Drawbridge. I'd watched a dire weasel give birth at The Grid. I'd even shared my own horror story of losing my eggs to an alpha and omega pair who thought they were going to forego the whole "fuck the eggs out" routine here in The Meadows.

After twenty-seven years of living on Ignitas, I considered myself an expert, for an alpha, anyway. Betas like Tim and Mac had lived here their entire lives, but they didn't have the added benefit of growing up on Earth.

I'd been smarter on Earth, or maybe people said I was smarter simply because I was a white boy living in the United States. Either way, I'd let the praise go to my head. When I arrived on Ignitas, I believed, "Might is right," and the strongest alphas should mate with the strongest omegas to further our species.

I'd been all kinds of wrong. I wasn't even the strongest alpha, even though I won my wrestling contest with Lark. Kobolds strong in magic were far stronger in a fight than I was. Fate had handed me the physical strength I'd always craved as a human teenager, but in return, I'd gotten the shaft. I had no power that mattered.

After hammering on the wheel for an hour, I stared down at it, wondering where I would begin, if I had enough magic to fix it. The metal needed to be heated, reshaped, and then cooled to harden. Did magic users think about the mechanics behind their spells, or did they just will it into existence?

I'd lived on this magical planet for twenty-seven years, and I still didn't know a godsdamned thing about magic.

* * *

I took my first break at ten. I finished the water bottle that came with my breakfast and finished off the homemade granola bar Tim had added on top.

Through my bond with Robin, I could feel him still lying in my bed, awake. Before I thought too hard about what he might be doing, I nearly jumped out of my skin when someone wrapped their arms around me.

"What the fuck!"

I turned to find Lemon with his arms raised in supplication, his eyes round.

"Mister Weld, Sir! I only wanted to say hello."

"Never in my life has it been okay to hug someone from behind as a greeting. Especially not in kobold form. You could have gotten yourself jabbed in the heart with an elbow spike." I cleared my throat and rolled my shoulders back to begin the scene, the way Lark and I had done when performing our skits. "Hello." I gave him my best fake smile. "That's how it's done."

"Yes, Sir, I know, Sir, but I thought you needed a more appropriate gesture, as my boyfriend."

"Your … what?" How in the hell had this omega gotten the idea that we were anything? We'd only spoken one other time before the day I'd chased him off.

"Is this about the time I let you sit with me at breakfast when you were a teenager?" Some kids had been bullying him, and I empathized. He'd been a scrawny little thing then. Still was, and that had been years ago.

"Yes, Sir. You were so kind." He turned around and wiggled his backside. "Look. My tail fell off. I'm an adult now."

"Oh no." I clapped my hand to my forehead and shoved my sweat-soaked hair off my face. "One is bad enough. Now I have to worry about you, too?"

He blinked. "So that other omega isn't your fated mate?"

"What? Yes, of course he is. I didn't mean —"

"I still have a chance!" Before I could register his words, he closed the gap between us, raised up on his tiptoes, and bussed a quick kiss on my cheek. "I won't disappoint you, Sir. Pick me."

"What? No!" I yelled after him, but he had already disappeared around the side of the barn.

I sighed and continued around the tractor until I could see the corner Lemon had run past. Standing there, with his back and one foot planted against the building, hands on his hips, was my fated mate.

"What the fuck was that about?" he asked.

"Fucker hugged me instead of saying hello. Who does that?"

Robin laughed. "Clem. All the fucking time. I hate it."

While I didn't have siblings of my own, I would have expected that from a family member. I did not approve when it was a complete stranger. "I've talked to him twice in my life. Three times, now, counting today."

I didn't mention all the times I'd caught him staring at me. Sometimes, he hid behind the tractor and then ran away when I finished working. Other times, he stared longingly across the big house's dining area.

I probably deserved to have an omega objectify me after what I'd put Tuft through, but Robin was my fated mate, and he was here. Enough was enough.

"He's jealous," Robin said. "He's probably created a dream world where you two get together, and I ruined it."

I approached him and straddled his raised knee, rubbing my thumbs up the sides of his neck until his eyelids sank closed and he sighed. "You didn't ruin a thing." I leaned in, inhaling his musky scent. He smelled a lot like my shower all those times I'd had to use it after him. "Did you make a mess in my bed?"

His eyes flashed open, and then he squinted at me. "No. I'm a gentleman."

I laughed and scooted closer, enjoying the slide of my balls along his thigh through our clothes. "You smell like cum and slick." He tried to put his leg down, but I gripped his ass and held him in place. "You're tempting me again."

"Is it working?"

When I'd kissed him last night, I promised myself I would only kiss him goodnight, but here I was, breaking my new rule. I sealed my mouth over his and slid my tongue inside. He tried to squirm closer, but I held him in place, taking my fill while leaving him high and dry. He'd already come once. Now, it was my turn.

The thought doused my ardor like an ice bath. I inhaled sharply and took a step back, breaking the kiss. "I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry."

He groaned. "I want you to kiss me. I need your kisses like air. Whenever you stop, it feels like I'll die." He raised the back of his hand to his forehead like a fainting southern belle. I didn't have to think twice to know who had taught him those theatrics.

"Has Clementine found her mate yet?" I asked. "With moves like that, she'll have all the betas swooning."

Robin scoffed. "Excuse me? Those are my moves. I played Scarlet Ohara in my school's production of Gone with the Wind. "

"Did you go to an all-boys school?" I realized my mistake too late. He was a kobold-human hybrid. Before his sister was born, there hadn't been another girl in thirty years. "Godsdamnit. Of course you did. I'm sorry."

He laughed. "No, you were right. Clem played Scarlet. I was Melanie. And it wasn't for school. We got into our parents' vintage movie collection."

"Vintage." I laughed. "You mean the stuff they brought with them from Earth?" Once, it had been my dream to make our own movies here on Ignitas. I should have given Lark a video camera before I left. "Wait. Did they record the production?"

Robin clasped his hand to his chest as though I'd said something scandalous. "Never. Gods. They would have blackmailed us for years!"

He looked so cute like that. No, not cute. Robin was one-hundred percent adult omega, and he was sexy as hell. I pulled him to me for another quick kiss before letting him go.

"Two more hours, and then I'll break for a long lunch."

He nodded. "I'll have it on the table for you." His cheeks tinged with pink. "If that's all right? I can't cook, but I can magic vegetarian meals from the big house like a champ."

I caressed his cheek. "I'd like that."

My mate was a magic user. I had to get used to it sometime, so why not start today?