Page 54 of The Dragon at the End of This Pregnancy

"We named her Ana," Olaf said.

"She didn't make it." The way they spoke at the same time made it hard to hear the exact words, but their sadness after so many years was still palpable enough to convey the meaning.

"I'm so sorry," Mac said.

"Was it the curse?" I asked.

Bale's wings rose and fell in the dragon form of a shrug. "Only your paragon and the goddess know for sure."

"How, though?" Mac asked. "Priestess Alma didn't believe me when I told her betas could get pregnant."

"My family's only suggestion was 'magic,'" I said.

"It is magic." Bale blinked slowly. "The child will let you know when she's ready to be free of Mac's body. She'll draw magic from both of you to create her shell, and she'll continue drawing magic from you until she's ready to hatch, same as your dragon baby."

"But Ana …" I didn't want to push, but I had to know what happened to their little girl.

"She hatched, alive." Olaf shared a sad smile with Bale and then cast his rueful gaze at me. "She ate her first meal, played with Sve, and we put them down in their separate cribs to sleep."

"She never woke up." Bale sniffed.

"We are both so very sorry for your loss," Mac said again, and I echoed him. He always reminded me of my manners when my thoughts raced ahead without considering others' feelings.

"They should be kept together in the nest and raised together," Bale said. "Sve never forgave us. They said she died of a broken heart because we separated them." Their dragon offspring now lived in a remote area to the north, days from any kobold village.

"That's awful," Mac said.

"That's the curse." I nodded, finally understanding what my paragon's strange riddle meant after all these years. "If dragons and kobolds grow apart, they will cease to exist. Kobold females will suffer the loss worst."

"If that makes it easier for you, thinking it's a curse that can be lifted, so be it." Bale raised their head toward the sky and breathed a gout of flame. "I curse your paragon's name."

"They've returned," I said, my voice barely louder than a whisper, lest Paragon could hear me at such a distance. Our hearing wasn't that advanced, but I wasn't taking any chances.

"What did they find?" Olaf asked. "Did they bring you another mate?"

I shook my head. "No. They found the original kobold species wiped out by disease on the other planes. Kobold/human hybrids are our future."

"It's up to you to remove your paragon's curse on our kind," Olaf said. "Betas and females are just as important to kobold society as the alphas and omegas."

"They say my pregnancy is proof the curse can be lifted, if our baby survives to its first molt," Mac said. "Yours?—"

"We didn't know to keep them together," Olaf said. "If we had, Ana would have lived."

The conversation turned to other topics then. Olaf told Mac of a dragonet shortage in the west. There were few betas who could bond full nests of them the way Mac and his young apprentice Sunny could.

"Dragons could stop eating the wild dragonets," Mac said with a shrug.

"They're too wild," Olaf said. "I have an affinity with some of them, but if they've reached their final molt, they can't be tamed."

Mac let the subject drop. I studied him in the afternoon sun, remembering our passionate night. He snuggled against my scales, dozing off while Bale and I talked.

When Olaf offered me the rest of my bovinji, I declined. "We should get home. Enjoy it tomorrow."

"Keep us posted on your paragon," Bale said.

"And the babies!" Olaf added.

Mac hopped to his feet, and Olaf gave him a quick hug. Bale leaned over the fire and wrapped their neck around mine, the way we hugged in dragon form. With that, I bent down to let Mac onto my back, secured him with a spell, and flew home.

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