Page 1 of The Dragon at the End of This Pregnancy

ChapterOne

Galen

Once,dragons ruled Ignitas, and kobolds worshipped us.

I hatched in the northeastern mountains on the largest continent. My dragon parent, or paragon (a combination of parent and dragon, but the word also meant a person viewed as a model of excellence, which all dragons believed they were) loved me and my siblings and raised us to respect kobolds. I couldn't remember my kobold father, my paragon's fated, but I knew he was born and raised in the village at the base of the mountains.

We called it The Pavilion once. It had been spacious enough for all dragons to meet every five years for a family reunion.

At one of those gatherings, the other dragons noticed a shift in our kobold population. They'd been getting bigger. They were still so small! I didn't know how anyone could tell the difference, or why they would care. Larger kobolds meant larger dire weasels, dragonets, and bovinji to feed us. They tended the animals for us, after all.

On rare occasions, they would give me seasoned meat from somewhere called Earth, which made my paragon angrier than I'd ever seen them.

"Don't taint our baby with food from that polluted world! You don't know what it will do to them!"

"It's perfectly safe," the kobold priestess said. "This is laboratory-grown beef from Ignitas. It's not contaminated. It's meat, plain and simple. It's so much simpler to grow without all the grain and water resources."

I didn't understand how it was possible. As interesting as it was to hear her stories about experiments and theories, I was stuck in my dragon form until my final molt. No lab coats and tiny test tubes for me, but beef was delicious. Especially when they covered it with fancy herbs and spices that made my mouth water just thinking about them.

I didn't know what had changed. Over the decades, our relationship with the kobolds of increasing size grew frostier. Then one day, without consulting my siblings and me, my paragon burned their village to the ground. They left a crater of obsidian where our dragon pavilion once stood and tumbled our old temple into a pile of rubble reaching for the sky.

Dragon magic was stronger than kobold magic, but there were more of them than us. Their coordinated clean-up resulted in a well-designed obsidian fortress with a spike pointing toward the sky. I didn't need to ask my paragon what the spike was for. It was a weapon they could easily aim toward incoming dragons.

Paragon referenced the design as proof the kobolds intended to fight back, and they left me alone at what we dragons now called The Spike. I was their youngest child, far from my final molt. They and my siblings left me to watch over the village.

"We will burn every kobold village from here to the sea," my paragon said. "Then we'll travel to planes where kobolds didn't combine their genes with those of humans. We will find one of those places and make it our own. Then, we'll come back for you and bring you a traditional kobold mate."

Dragons could mate with other dragons starting with our fourth molt. Sometimes, food was scarce, or we warred with other dragons. During those lean times, young dragons mated with each other to ensure the continuation of our species.

After their final molt, adult dragons mated with kobolds: specifically, beta kobolds. My final molt was approaching fast, and already I felt the desire to seek my mate. I didn't want to wait for my family to bring me someone, but I thought I had no choice. I'd been left alone with the orders to observe, not interfere.

That's how the kobold priestess who had angered my paragon had built the horrid magical contraption called the changeling circle under my nose without any pushback. Well, that, and they drugged me with a giant bovinji, a blue-furred grass-eating creature of the plains west of the mountain range. The kobolds' dire weasels and dragonets kept the animals out of The Spike's valley, so I should have been leery of such a delicious treat prepared for me. It was the last time I'd trusted kobolds to cook my meat.

While I was incapacitated, dozens of kobold mages sacrificed themselves to build the changeling circle, the place where all kobold parents across Ignitas transported their alpha and omega children. There, the priestesses wrapped the hatchlings in their changeling spells and transported them to Earth as humans.

I'd posed no threat to their alpha and omega children since my paragon left. My family, all dragons, would see such a brazen move as an act of war, and I was sad. I missed the betas coming to my cave to sweep away the uneaten bones.

Afterward, only the new priestess came, and with her, a child apprentice, Alma. They claimed sweeping away my refuse was beneath them, so I left it there. They also said I must go to the temple to meet with them instead. "We wouldn't want you to create more dragons, now would we?"

I'd been so furious. I almost incinerated her on the spot, but Alma stepped in front of her and bowed. "I'm so sorry, little dragon."

I was not little. By that time, I was already five times her size, maybe more.

The small priestess patted my lip with her tiny hand. "Please come visit us. It is a beautiful place for us to worship you."

Afterward, I visited the temple to the east of their main building, but there was nothing for me there but sadness. The betas feared me.

Then came the day Priestess Alma called Reemergence Day. That day, and the events that led up to it, changed my lonely life forever.

A month earlier, I'd scented my beta mate on pregnant omega Punky of the purple stripes and his purple-haired alpha Lark. Even the dragonet they rode to my cave smelled of my mate, but I had to focus on the matter before me. The alpha and omega pair wanted the freedom to roam in the daylight again. The breeding kobolds had been hunkered underground in the steaming caves left behind by Paragon's fire. The fire couldn't live forever underground, and neither could kobolds.

Thankfully, my mate had survived the poor conditions. I longed for him in an unfamiliar and almost overwhelming way.

I was ready to grant Punky and Lark anything, if only I could meet with the beta who belonged to that scent. On Reemergence Day, I got my wish.

I breathed his glorious aroma while I talked with the alpha with red hair and matching stripes, Coz, and his omega, Grindl. Coz and Grindl were older than Punky and Lark by a few seasons and had already lost two clutches of eggs. Their luck had changed when they'd moved into one of the nearby cabins they'd built to watch for me. Three beta hatchlings ran across their shoulders as evidence.

"Three betas. What a boon for your family," I said. I wondered if they would have dragon mates. "Will you agree to worship us at our cave, to bring your young to listen to the old stories and learn to be our dragon servants again?"

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