Page 20 of The Dragon at the End of This Pregnancy

"If you wake Galen before they're ready …" she threatened, and the boys were instantly quiet.

"Are they really afraid of me?" Galen whispered.

"They're children," I said. "Children often have irrational fears."

"I don't think they're irrational," they said. "I have tried to make friends with Clementine, since she might become a priestess someday. If she doesn't, that means I've scared her away."

Galen sounded so sad. I turned toward them and squeezed their shoulder. "If she chooses to become something other than a priestess, it's because she can." I'd watched many omegas fight against societal norms of what they were expected to do and be. It had to be even worse for females since there were so few. There were none my age. Clementine was the first female born in our village in three decades. In the past, she would have chosen between priestess and prostitute, but now that we didn't have to worry about keeping up appearances for Galen's sake, she had more choices.

Besides, "What do the priestesses do that I can't do?" I asked.

I watched as different emotions played across their expressive kobold face. They would think of something, open their mouth to say it, and then stop with a frown.

"Nothing."

"Exactly." I knew they would reach the same conclusion I'd reached years ago. "They lead our villages, but betas could worship and honor you just as well. You could have priests instead of priestesses."

Galen frowned. "My paragon used to threaten the priestesses. Said there would be no more females if they stopped worshiping us."

"Dragons didn't change our birthrates," I reminded them. "We did, by combining our genes with humans."

"What if that's not true?" they asked. "What if it's a magical curse?"

"It wasn't enough to destroy our village with fire so hot it burned underground for a century?" I asked. "You think your elders cursed us, too?"

They frowned. "I don't know. I wasn't included in their discussions. I was too young, they said."

I leaned toward them and kissed their cheek. "Don't worry about it. We've got a fun day ahead."

"We do?"

"Yes." I prodded their hip, where I'd learned they were ticklish. "Time for another shower, a quick one this time, and then we'll switch back into our human selves for another day as tourists."

"I don't think I like cold showers," they said.

"If we hurry, it won't be cold."

That got them moving. I had never seen anyone take a faster shower in my life. Back home, we still had one hot spring that fed into a pool in the grotto. The water moved so fast, if you stayed under the stream too long, you could suffocate.

The flow from the hotel's shower head wasn't nearly as strong, and the water heater was infinitely smaller than our hot spring. The water cooled before I finished rinsing shampoo from my hair, and it was completely cold by the time I'd rinsed the soap from my body and got out. I shivered in the room's air conditioning while I toweled off.

I pulled on my clothes before shrinking to my human form. The spell trimmed them so they still fit.

When I stepped into the main room, I found Galen sitting at the edge of the bed. They had once again taken the human form they'd used the day before. My childhood crush stared back at me with my mate's deep purple eyes.

I took their hands in mine and pulled them up. "Are you ready?"

They frowned, and I pressed a kiss to the wrinkles on their forehead.

"I would like to see our friends, so I can tell if they're joking," they said.

"What did they say?" I asked.

"More child's play. It's nothing."

It didn't look like nothing, to me. One of Galen's favorite pastimes was teaching the young kobolds about our history. If Lark and Punky's offspring had hurt their feelings, I was the one they should fear.

Lark waited for us in the hall. "Punky took the kids out to the van already. They want to go to The Machine Shed."

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