Page 15 of The Dragon at the End of This Pregnancy

I approached the young human behind the counter and asked, "Do you have any rooms available with two beds?"

"Sorry," they said. "We're booked for Pridefest this weekend."

I grabbed Galen's arm and whisked them away toward the nearest elevator so the clerk wouldn't hear them ask, "What is a pride fest? Is it like an infestation of lions, or what the Christians call a sin?"

A pair of teenagers sitting on a couch in the lobby burst out laughing, and my cheeks burned even hotter.

"No," I said. "It's a celebration. Fest, like festival."

"Pride is one of the seven deadly sins," they said.

They'd been paying attention to the documentaries I'd watched before bed for the last three years. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. I thought they fell asleep almost immediately after curling around me.

"Pride can become arrogance," I said, "but that's not how they mean it here. It means self-worth."

"I don't understand," Galen said. "They should have self-worth all the time, not only during this festival."

"I agree." Thankfully, we were the only ones waiting by the bank of elevators. Our room was on the third floor, and the lurch of elevator cars always made my stomach queasy.

Galen didn't seem to mind. They were familiar with the sensation of taking off and landing, I supposed.

When the doors closed, Galen pulled me close and sniffed my neck. "You wanted to get rid of me," they said. "That's why you asked for another room."

"Never. I only want you to be comfortable."

"You're my mate," they said. "I'm only comfortable with you."

Galen rested their forehead against my chest, and I was struck by our size difference. In his human form, the top of Galen's head fit snugly beneath my chin. I felt strangely protective of them as I wrapped my arms around their waist. Galen could have burned down the world, if they chose, yet here they were, cuddling against me because I didn't want to send them away.

I hoped I could protect Galen from the harsh realities of the human world, including how they treated anyone LGBTQ+. To Galen, being nonbinary was simply who they were. There were still some, okay, too many, humans who would assume Galen had a choice, that they had been assigned a specific gender at birth.

That was the coolest thing about dragons. They were all nonbinary at birth. They had only one intersex gender. In some cases, they could fertilize their own eggs. The practice would allow continuation of their species, if it came to that.

Like the other kobolds, I always assumed dragons mated with each other.

"Am I the first beta kobold to mate with a dragon?" I asked.

"Of course not," they said. "Most dragons came from kobold and dragon unions."

I stepped sideways for enough distance to tip their chin up and meet their gaze. "Did you?"

They nodded, and I nearly passed out from the shock. No wonder the dragons hated us so much. We hadn't involved them in a decision that would ultimately affect both of our species. Galen's previous non-answer, that betas no longer served dragons, now made more sense. It wasn't hard to deduce. Our genetic meddling must have caused the adult dragons to set fire to our kobold settlements. The village priestesses had different guesses for the dragons' reasons for wanting us dead, but none had suggested that we'd put their reproduction at risk.

Galen pressed themself to my chest again. "I much prefer a mate your size. I can't imagine trying to shrink even smaller. This is uncomfortable enough."

That was what he worried about? I tried to cover a laugh, but he felt my chest moving against his cheek and glared up at me.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Stop laughing."

I couldn't help it. The thought of Galen shrinking down to a tiny goblinesque creature who could fit in the chairs he'd first offered me in his cave … that was too much for my frazzled vacation brain to handle.

I patted their head, which made them even more angry.

"You'd be adorable."

"I could still burn every inch of skin from your body," they reminded me. "How 'adorable' would you think me then?"

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