Page 11 of The Dragon at the End of This Pregnancy

I turned my head to hide the heat in my face. I glanced out at the land flying past us and grabbed for the belt still over my shoulder. I returned to my place and buckled in. "We're going too fast, and too low to the ground!"

"We're on a road," Mac said, pointing out the front window.

I'd heard of roads, but we didn't use them on Ignitas. Why have a road when one could fly or bounce around the countryside on a dire weasel? "Humans don't have a means to fly?"

"They do," Mac reassured me. "They fly in large metal tubes designed to carry many at once. The rest of the time, they use land vehicles."

A vehicle shimmering with kobold magic passed us.

"Lark must have bribed Odessa with a burger or two," Mac said.

I watched as the half-dire-weasel, half-van sped to an intersection, slowed to a crawl, and then turned right after a non-magical vehicle crossed in front of them. Then they followed the other vehicle to a shorter road that curved into a strange alcove.

"See? They're going through the drive-thru to grab her a snack. Do you want a snack, Rapture?"

Our vehicle growled and followed.

Mac talked the entire time we were in line, but I wasn't paying attention. I tried to make sense of the shifting symbols on the board before us. Mac had walked me through preparing my own language spell like the one the kobolds used to understand humans, but this language was unlike any I'd read before. It changed into words I didn't recognize. Burgers. French Fries. Sweet potato fries. Onion rings. Jalapeño poppers.

"What is this?"

"It's a menu," Mac said.

"For food?"

"Yes."

"Why have I never heard of these foods?"

"You've had a burger," Mac said. "You didn't like the bread."

"Right. But what are fries?"

"We have our own tuber chips on Ignitas. You like them better."

I loved tuber chips, but, "I want to try them. I want to try everything."

Mac tapped on his phone and laughed when it chimed with an answer. "Lark says to get you whatever you want. There's a park nearby. We can share whatever you can't eat with their kids."

I didn't want to share, but it made sense. This body was far smaller than my usual size. The mass of paper bags covered in grease stains was smaller than an appetizer back home. Still, I needed to be on my best behavior on Earth. I thanked the human who handed the bags to Mac. My mate pulled away before I could ask any questions about Earth, their employment, or what a straw was, since I thought it was a type of hay.

"Straws are hollow," Mac said when I asked. "We stick them through the tops of the cups and drink through them."

I watched as he pulled two paper-wrapped tubes of plastic from the last bag the human had given him. He unwrapped them and stuck them through the crosscut squares in the middle of the plastic lids.

"Strange," I said.

Trying to suck through the straw was even stranger. Once Mac and I were seated across from each other at an outdoor picnic table large enough for all of us, I tried to mimic how the children drank from theirs. I ended up choking on the sweet liquid before I swallowed. After several attempts, I finally had it down.

"I understand now," I said after a second successful sip. "It's like sucking marrow from bones."

Punky and Lark stared at me like I was a horror movie villain.

"Mac, do you feel safe in your relationship with Galen?" Lark asked.

"Blink twice if we need to rescue you." Punky blinked his eyelids shut in an exaggerated fashion.

"Don't worry." Mac handed me a burger and a sampling of each of the sides we'd ordered. "They're a fast learner."

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