Page 47 of The Dragon at the End of This Pregnancy

"If you hurt him, I will destroy all of you."

"Hurt him?" My paragon's teeth were suddenly at my neck, but they sniffed me instead of biting. "I mean it, child. I never thought these hybrid kobolds would amount to anything, but they alone survived the disease that decimated the other planes."

"You caused the disease," I said. "You made their females infertile."

"That was a curse." Paragon chuckled. "I sense you have found a way to defeat that, too. Where is your mate? I must meet him."

"You will not meet him as dragons. You will shift into kobolds."

"Fine." Lux was the first to shift into a true kobold form far smaller than Mac and the other human hybrids. They barely came up to my ankle in dragon form. Chance and Paragon dropped down to that size, too. My paragon took the female form, while both my siblings were betas.

"Thank you," I said. I transformed into my alpha kobold hybrid form. My siblings looked at me with interest, but my paragon still frowned in contempt.

"Mac?" I asked as we entered my cave. I sensed him in the kitchen area. He'd dug a pit to keep meat cold when we needed it, and that's where I found him. He'd flipped the prep table over on top of himself like a makeshift hatch.

"Are they gone?"

"No. They are in their kobold forms. They want to meet you."

"Is that safe?" Mac crawled from the hole.

"You smell like meat," I whispered. We hadn't stocked the cooler for months, but it didn't matter. The scent lingered. I wanted to lick Mac all over so my family knew he was mine, but I used my magic to pull him to the hot spring in the back. I shoved him in the pool with my magic. He was still spluttering and coughing when I dried him off with more magic.

"Much better."

"A little warning next time?" He asked. "I could have held my nose or taken a deep breath."

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Galen?"

I spun to face my paragon, who had followed us through the main room, into my private area. Mac tried to hide behind me, but I grabbed his hand and tucked him to my side. "This is Mac, my fated mate."

"Hello, young beta." My paragon grew before our eyes, taking a hybrid female form that still looked far more dragon than kobold. "You are also pregnant." She sniffed Mac's belly. "As I suspected."

Perhaps I should have left him smelling like meat.

"That's … impossible," Mac said as I crushed him to my chest in a hug.

"It's not," I whispered. "I smelled it before we left. That's why I wanted to talk to Priestess Alma."

Mac looked up at me in my kobold alpha form. "It's real? We're both pregnant?"

I nodded.

"Holy shit!" Mac gripped me around my middle. "That's wonderful!"

I still didn't know what was holy about shit, but he smelled happy.

"He's pregnant?" Chance asked.

"He'll break the curse." My paragon deflated, crossing their arms and rounding their shoulders in a sulk.

"What is the curse, exactly?" I asked. "I know you had something to do with making their females unable to bear children."

Mac turned to face my family, but I kept my hands at his waist, holding him against me, ready to transform around him and protect him with my wings if needed.

"I was angry with them for using human genes," my paragon said. "Have the alpha and omega bonds continued, or have they faded?"

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