Page 40 of The Dragon at the End of This Pregnancy

"I would never lie to a child," Galen said. "He and Weld have a dragon bond between them. I've never seen it between kobolds before, but you and I have the same type of bond. I always know where you are when you're at work, even when you're flying around the countryside on a dragonet."

I frowned. "That's news to me. Why am I just now learning about this?"

Galen laughed. "You didn't know we were fated, and I didn't want to scare you away."

"I can feel it, too," I said, touching my breastbone above my heart. Somewhere alongside the beating organ lay my connection to Galen.

"It has grown stronger since we've been here together," Galen whispered. "It will be hard to let you go back to work with the dragonets."

I chuckled and pulled them tighter against my chest. I both desired and dreaded the trip home. Our connection had grown stronger. I hoped our dragon bond wouldn't impact my ability to bond with the dragonet hatchlings.

While we'd traveled to the other kobold villages, Coz and Grindl's son Sunny had bonded two wild dragonets. When we returned, I needed to train him to manage their bonds. Once their training was complete, I would prepare him to pass those bonds to their chosen kobold caretakers. He would take my place as head dragonet trainer one day.

I slipped into sweet dreams about dragonet training. When my alarm went off, it took me another moment to remember where I was. The dream wouldn't let me forget the most important part of our trip. I needed to feed Rapture and Odessa before we left for the amusement park, and again tomorrow morning before we returned home.

After a quick shower, I drove to the local butcher's shop. I'd asked them to quarter a cow. Both Odessa and Rapture would get a quarter of beef a day to ensure they had enough energy to transfer us back to Ignitas.

Asking rapture to carry the frozen cow back to the hotel was almost more than the little dragonet could handle. He wanted to gorge himself, but I talked him into saving half for tomorrow. Each quarter was packed separately in ice, making it easy to divide. To any human passersby, I looked like I was checking under the vehicle's hoods while I fed them.

After I fed Odessa, she let me tuck her remaining quarter into her storage for safe keeping. Thankfully, the spaces were part of the vehicle spell. They couldn't break into it and eat the rest until we removed the meat and fed them.

I hadn't bought a cow for my mate, but they craved the scent of the meat chilling in the back.

"You had a whole plate of scrambled eggs," I reminded them.

"Beef smells so good, though!" They sighed. "But I remember what happened the last time I had a huge chunk of it."

Real beef in large quantities didn't sit well with my sweet dragon. They'd been sick after I'd given them a quarter for a Christmas present. Lark had looked at me like I was crazy when I asked him to bring it back for me, and then he'd given me a look that said, "I told you so," when Galen couldn't handle it.

"You should probably stick to a hamburger at lunch today," I said while we waited for Lark and Punky in the parking lot.

"And onion rings. And fries. And fried pickles and mushrooms."

Punky had been filling their head with tales of the state fair, but the amusement park had some of the same fried foods on a stick.

Finally, the family of six piled out of the hotel dressed in blue jean shorts and orange t-shirts. It would be hard to miss them in the crowd. I supposed that was smart, so they could find each other. I wore beige shorts and a white t-shirt, but Galen had copied a pair of orange and navy floral print shorts they’d seen on Tuft and topped it with a baby blue t-shirt. The kids loved the bright colors as much as they did.

We piled into our separate vehicles and got back on the interstate that ran through the heart of the city. Our destination was near the casino, and the parking lot was already almost full. I parked beside Odessa at the back of the lot, and then we got ready for the long walk toward the main gates.

A man in a red hat drove up to us in a motorized cart while the kids were still piling out of their van. "Do you need a ride to the front gate?" He tapped a glass jar filled with large bills on the dashboard.

"No, thank you," Punky said. "We'll walk."

"Suit yourselves." The man waved and drove off.

"We might want a ride back out here," Lark said. "We'll be tired."

"We can have Odessa pick us up at the gate," Punky countered. "The walk will teach us all that we need to stay in our rooms at night, even if we have a nightmare."

"Don't punish Robin on my account," Galen said.

"Oh, it's not just Robin." Punky glared at Clementine, who blushed and hung her head down to her crossed arms.

"I wanted a bucket of ice."

"I told you, no more experiments until we're home."

"But they don't have these kinds of insects at home and I want to study them."

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