12. Axel

Kissing Tuft was unlike anything I"d done before. Our mouths fit together perfectly, and our bodies lined up as we closed the gap between us on the bed. I didn"t know how his sharp teeth would fit around my cock, but I already trusted him with my sensitive tongue.

When Tuft started to move down my body, I rolled onto my back to give him room and nudged him playfully, hoping he would let me eat him out at the same time. He turned his perfectly peach-shaped ass toward me, and I ogled the yellow scales across his thighs, the same color as mine, and his gorgeous globes. Between his legs, the shine of his slick invited me to taste. I licked up his thigh, along the back of his balls, and down the other side. He tasted like sunflowers and meadow grass, but the closer I got to his rim, the more he tasted like musk.

He startled me with his sharp claws extended at my hips, holding me in place. I jolted when he lapped at my tip with his raspy tongue. It felt so good, and I wanted more.

I wanted to give him, more, too. I focused on licking and sucking his tight ring of muscle open. Soon, my face was dripping with slick, and he was making the most glorious noises I"d ever heard around my cock.

I inserted two fingers alongside my tongue, and Tuft froze above me, his cock spurting hot white stripes of cum on my chest. He was so gorgeous like that, his mouth still around my cock, his whole body shaking above me. I rolled us onto our sides again so I could better reach his cock while he continued to suck mine. I didn"t notice anything different from mine, beyond it being a little shorter and wider, with no telltale signs my mate had delivered two eggs before I arrived.

Mate. My jaw ached with the desire to claim him. Instead, I licked him clean as my pleasure continued to build with each slide of his mouth on my cock.

His cock had rebounded, too, so I took him as far into my mouth as I could, swallowing around the head. Tuft took that as a challenge and did the same. His throat constricted around my cock so tight, I saw stars as I came.

Tuft followed behind me, his spunk hot and bitter on my tongue. I couldn"t get enough.

"You never answered the question," I reminded him. "What"s something you want to experience again?"

"More blowjobs." He grinned. "Thank you. I … we said no firsts tonight, but that"s my first sixty-nine."

"I was here, wasn"t I?" We were still lying with our faces in each other"s groins, and I leaned to give him another quick peck to his tip. "I"ve never been happier to be a kobold."

He flipped around to face me. "Why is that?"

I tried to wipe the sticky mess off my chest, and he licked it up with two swipes of his tongue.

"Everything about you is perfect. How you sound, how you taste, the way you shake when you come." I sighed. "I don"t mean to compare, but you"re nothing like the women I"ve fucked. They always made me feel like they were doing me a favor by fucking me, but you?—"

"Doing you a favor?" he asked. "They didn"t enjoy it?"

"More like I was good enough to fuck once, but they were still looking for someone better to come along. Now I know Rosanna was cheating on me with her best friend, but I think I wondered subconsciously."

"I"m the one receiving all the favors," Tuft said. "You kiss like a god, you gave me two orgasms to your one, and you want me to be your first … my first …"

"I want you to feel comfortable around me," I said. "If fucking me would make you uncomfortable, we won"t do it."

"No!" Tuft shook his head and pointed to his cock, which was already perking up for round three. "I want to fuck you, but not tonight. We"re still taking things slow."

I laughed. "Sure we are, sugar."

"Just for that, I"m going to introduce you to my slick."

I was about to remind him I was quite familiar with the taste and feel of it on my tongue when all words left my brain. It short-circuited when he reached behind himself and shoved his fingers inside with a thick squelching sound.

"Gods, I"m so wet for you. We must be fated."

"You weren"t …" I didn"t want to speak Weld"s name and ruin the moment, "before?"

"No. That"s part of the reason our eggs didn"t make it. I didn"t have enough slick."

"I"m sorry."

He shook his head as he lined up our cocks together side-by-side and coated them. "It wasn"t meant to be. This is. We are."

I"d played with myself plenty, and I"d had handjobs before, but his slick and the feel of his cock against mine as he gripped us both was unlike anything I"d ever experienced. I latched onto the side of his neck, kissing and licking the scales there, just above where I would leave my mating mark.

He sent me soaring again. I almost bit down when I came, but we were taking it slow. The mating mark could wait until we were ready to mate. I had to fight hard to convince my body now was not the time.

Tuft"s hand on our cocks started to stutter, so I pushed his hand away and took him in both of mine, scooping more slick from the backs of his balls before cupping them and rubbing all that hot slick over his silky cock. He moaned into my neck when he came, and I felt the hint of his teeth scrape against my scales, too.

"Gods, I want to mate you," he growled.

I didn"t see a mating mark on either side of his neck, but I wanted to be sure. "You and Weld never marked each other?"

"He didn"t believe in fated mates." Tuft sighed. "I didn"t, either, but I"m glad they"re real." He snuggled against my chest for a moment, and then scampered out of bed with a shriek. "Too much slick. Need to get cleaned up and put my shorts back on."

I wanted to argue I could clean him up with my tongue, but I helped by running to the bathroom for a warm washrag.

After we scrubbed ourselves down, we ended the night on the couch watching a romantic comedy I"d bookmarked for Rosanna. It was weird to watch humans dancing around each other the way Tuft and I had been for the last few weeks.

"Maybe sports are only the beginning of what we can do here on Ignitas," I said. "Wouldn"t it be fun to have romantic comedies about kobold fated mates? Or two betas?"

"Or a beta and a dragon?" Tuft winked. "It would be fun for us to have our own shows, but it might be hard to get the priestesses and betas to agree, since they"ve never been to Earth."

"We have televisions in our classrooms." It had been one of the first things I"d noticed, though I was grateful Merritt preferred to teach us himself.

"We do." He thought about it for a moment, and then shook his head. "I should get home."

I walked Tuft home to the omega wing, pausing outside his door to kiss him and confirm he still wanted to visit the dragon with Weld and me the following day.

"I had a wonderful time tonight," he said after we kissed.

"Would you be willing to meet me for dinner every night?" I asked. "Not dates, just dinner."

He grinned. "I"d like that. We can meet in the cafeteria, and go from there?"

"Perfect." And it was. We were still taking it slow, but my inner mating drive calmed once I knew I would see him at least once a day for the foreseeable future.

Tuft met me at my classroom door the following afternoon. Together, we walked to Weld"s classroom further in the labyrinth of fortress hallways. I"d never been down that way. We walked past the nursery rooms filled with alphas, betas, and omegas all around the same age, and then into shared classrooms with omegas and betas.

"They always separate the alphas from the rest?" I asked.

"The priestesses say it"s to prevent aggression," Tuft whispered as we passed an open doorway where an alpha teacher explained the history of the fortress.

We reached a classroom of twenty or so alphas between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, and Tuft nodded to the closed door. "It"s this one."

The room stank of sweat. "What have they been doing?"

"It"s Friday, gym day."

We could hear Weld and Lark talking to each other in a way that sounded like they were reading lines from a script. The other classes let out around us, but Weld"s door stayed shut for another fifteen minutes. Finally, Lark burst through the door and held it open for the youngsters to stream out.

"Hi," he said. "Sorry we took so long. Weld"s script took longer to read than we expected."

"His script?" I had to tamp down my jealousy. Tuft and I had spoken of kobold movies only the day before, and already Weld was writing scripts.

Weld followed the last alpha teen out of the classroom and shut the door behind him. "I"m trying to make amends for being a dick," Weld said after sending the teen on his way. "Lark was a saint for putting up with my spelling mistakes."

"It was a good script," Lark said. "All about handling conflict with our words, not our teeth and claws." Lark tapped Weld"s shoulder with a mock punch. "Stop beating yourself up. I think it made a difference, too."

Weld shoved his hands into his jean pockets and studied the floor. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

"Any time." Lark patted his shoulder. "Good luck with the dragon."

Weld nodded toward Lark"s back as he walked away from us. "I told him, so someone knows where we went if we don"t return."

We turned the opposite direction, toward the fortress"s southern exit. Weld looked even more embarrassed than he had when Lark complimented him.

"Dragons are scary." I tried to put him at ease, but it didn"t work. He sank in on himself more with each step.

"What if I"m doing the wrong thing?" Weld"s words were almost too soft for me to catch them in the drafty hallway. "Lark"s a good guy, and he and Punky are great parents. They keep Robin in line."

"It"s all right to want space," Tuft said. "Robin will understand when he"s older."

"What if something terrible happens, and he blames me for not being here when he needs me?"

"Nothing terrible is going to happen." Tuft rested his hand on Weld"s shoulder. My jealous streak had already retreated, thankfully. My mate was being a good friend. I was proud of him for wanting to help.

Outside, the suns were overcast by high white clouds, and the grass was still wet from a day of rain. I liked the feel of it on my taloned feet, but it made it difficult to walk where there was no established path.

Weld stopped walking and turned to me. "You can bind your feet with magic for more traction." He let his own spell drop so I could watch him rebuild it. "Body magic is all I can manage with the little power I have," he said with a grin. "If I can do it, you can do it."

"Thanks." I crafted the spell with my own magic, and we were off again toward the edge of the tree line above us. The path switched back two or three times, but it was easy enough to walk.

When we reached the tree line below the cave entrance, what I had thought was a giant black wall moved, and a heap of bones tumbled off the ledge. The wall continued to bend and twist until two golden eyes stared out at us above giant nostrils puffing smoke in our direction.

"Mac said to expect you, so I cleaned the entrance to my cave," they called.

"Thank you." Tuft and Weld bowed, so I did the same and mumbled, "Well met, friend dragon," as an echo to their more joyful greeting.

It took us another fifteen minutes to reach the cave entrance. Once there, the dragon sniffed each of us, letting their hot breath soak into our clothes before moving on. "A pair not yet mated and a … third? No. Former mating." The dragon bared their teeth at Weld. "I should eat you for being too much like your ancestors."

"You should, but my future mate would be sad."

"You"ve scented your mate?"

"Yes, but he"s a child. I"ve come to?—"

"I remember now." The dragon cut him off with an impatient huff of smoke. "Your problem is a tricky one and needs much discussion. It can wait until after this sports business."

The way the dragon said "sports business," reminded me of the way my mom talked about professional wrestling. My dad loved it, but my mom wouldn"t sit in the same room while we watched.

"I"ll wait down the trail." Weld wandered off toward a rock formation large enough for the dragon to sun themself.

"We would like to?—"

"You are the ones who want to turn my sand bath into a place to toss balls over nets." The dragon huffed more smoke. "Ridiculous."

"We want to harvest some sand from your quarry," I corrected. "We"ll leave the majority there for your bath. We"ll only take enough for a few volleyball courts."

"You also want concrete pads for other sports?"

"We don"t have to use concrete." Tuft sensed the dragon"s growing irritation as much as I did, and he shared our second plan, to have grass courts for tennis and badminton instead. "And baseball fields would be dirt," he said. "No concrete."

"Good." The dragon nodded. "Much better. I like this plan. Of course, I would want to watch."

"Watch?" Tuft squeaked.

"We have always watched the games of kobolds. You used to build us pavilions to be worshiped and hold feast days to honor us. Then, you would play sports."

Goodness, that would be a ton of feast days, since we were planning on having games every Thursday. I would have to run that past the betas in the kitchens.

"What type of pavilion do you want?" I asked. I had been working with the alpha crew building cabins on weekends. That would be my permanent job once I finished my magic training. I was still learning construction fundamentals, but my crew could help me build something magnificent enough for a dragon.

"I like you." The dragon puffed another warm breath of air into my clothes as they bumped my chest with their snout. "Yes, this will do nicely."