Page 2 of The Monster at the End of This Molt

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.

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