24. Axel

At first, Tuft seemed as delighted as I was to welcome our baby kobolds into the world. Then, our gazes caught, and his sniff sounded suspiciously like a sob.

"What is it?"

"I wanted to give them the names I"d picked out for my first babies, but now that doesn"t seem fair to you."

We"d talked about the names, so it also wasn"t a surprise. I liked them. "Statler, Waldorf, and Aster are wonderful names."

"Astoria, if we have a girl."

I laughed. "Exactly."

"But …"

I didn"t wait for him to continue. I pulled him into my lap, carefully arranging our legs so neither of us lost feeling in our limbs while waiting for our babies to hatch.

"I can"t do it," he said. "I can"t reuse their names, unlike those freaks in the Middle Ages."

I had a plan in mind to honor Statler and Waldorf, but I couldn"t put it into action while we waited for our little ones to break free from their eggs. I hugged Tuft tight and kissed his temple. "We"ll find new names for these babies. A fresh start."

Except I had no fucking idea what to name our babies. I"d been happy to reuse the names he gave his previous children because I didn"t have a name picked out for my own. I"d come up with Aster, thanks to word association from my favorite movie growing up. You know, the one about a king who came to New York City and stayed at the Waldorf Astoria? I"d always wished my real father was an African king waiting to take me home, but the truth was so much better.

I opened my mouth to suggest we name the babies Akeem, Semmi, and … Clarence? Cleo? Definitely not Daryl …

Tuft"s gaze caught on the open closet door, and his smile lit the room once more. "I"ve got it."

Little did I know, his gaze had caught on his sparkling ties, bowties, and scarves marking where my side of the closet ended and his began, and just in time.

Our first little one broke through their shell, and Tuft carefully collected the tiny piece, placing it in a cardboard box that had once held vacuum-packed pillows.

"I want to make a collage from the pieces," he mumbled.

I should have known from the sheer number of colorful collectibles, wearables, and art Tuft had scattered around his tiny room in the omega wing, now displayed on the walls of our home, that he had an artistic soul. I hugged him even tighter and kissed his cheek. "Do whatever you want with them. We"ll hang it in the living room so everyone can enjoy it."

He glanced up at me with more tears hovering at the corners of his eyes. This time, I knew they were happy tears before he melded his mouth to mine and kissed me breathless.

Another crack returned our attention to the eggs. I could see a nostril through the tiny hole, and then they smacked through the shell again, making a hole the size of their snout.

As the pieces fell to the bed, Tuft scooped them up and added them to the box, but he did nothing to help our little one escape. Baby kobolds needed to find their own way out of their shells. Superstition dictated a kobold who didn"t find their way out of their shell would be forever lost in life, and that wasn"t the fate we wanted for our children.

Another egg shivered with its first crack as the shell of the first broke again, this time giving the little kobold room to try to wiggle free, knocking their egg over on its side. They had a bright shock of vibrant pink hair. "Alpha."

"I"m thinking … Windsor," Tuft said.

"Like the British royals?"

"Like the knot."

I laughed. "An alpha named after a knot?"

"Right …" Tuft"s cheeks tinged pink. "I did not think this through."

I kissed his forehead and the tip of his snout. "It"s adorable. I love it. Windsor, it is."

Windsor continued to shimmy out of his shell, and then he stared up at us with wide golden eyes.

"Hi, Windsor!" Tuft offered his hand. Windsor sniffed, tentatively tested his strength with his own tiny arm, and then scampered up to sit on Tuft"s shoulder. From there, he sniffed our faces, licked us both, and then settled in on my shoulder to watch his siblings break free.

I knew our children would be mobile from birth, but his speed astounded me. "Food," I said. "They"re going to need food."

"We have plenty." Tuft pulled a box of graham crackers from under the bed, and I laughed out loud. I didn"t know he"d stored them there.

"Cracker?" He held one up to Windsor, who took one sniff and reached for it with both arms, almost toppling from my shoulder until his tail gripped my neck.

"Here." I carefully unwrapped his tail, which was tighter than I cared to admit, and lowered him to my lap to eat his cracker. I"d expected a mess, at the very least, but he daintily ate at one corner until he could shove the whole thing in his mouth. How he knew to do that without watching us eat first was beyond me.

I frowned at Tuft. "He eats crackers the same way you do."

The skin above Tuft"s neck scales reddened, and he shrugged. "Osmosis?"

I kissed his cheek. "Whatever it is, it"s cute, sugar."

So was our second little one. A thick snout and a dark shock of hair met us next. "Omega," Tuft confirmed.

"A big one."

He rolled the shell over on its side and lost his grip on the opening, tumbling against the far side of the shell and bursting it open. He flopped out onto his back and looked up at us with a dazed grin.

"Big and clumsy," Tuft said. "Balthus."

I didn"t recognize that one.

"Another tie knot?"

"The biggest."

We both could tell from the size of the third egg, and its reluctance to open, that our third baby would be smaller than both Windsor and Balthus or might need another day or two before they were ready. We"d heard it could happen, but neither Punky nor Grindl had experienced it.

Tuft tried to feed the egg more slick, but it didn"t absorb.

"Do you think?—"

I didn"t like Tuft"s worried tone, so I interrupted before he finished his question. "They"ll come out when they"re ready," I reassured him. "Maybe they"re a little diva who wants all the attention."

I wiped the excess slick off the egg, and they answered with a resounding crack up the side.

"See?"

Tuft laughed. "We"re waiting to meet you, little diva."

There was another hard pound against the side of the shell, and it split down the middle, leaving our little beta with light brown hair and brown scales sitting in the middle. He had a pleased grin on his face.

Tuft patted him on the head. "Kelvin."

"The temperature measurement?"

"Another knot."

I should have known.

"I don"t think we should tell anyone they"re named after knots," Tuft whispered. "Right? Because they aren"t all alphas?"

"Tie knots are genderless," I said.

"Except Trinity. That"s our girl"s name, for our next batch." Tuft held up fingers as he continued to name tie knots. "And Eldredge, and Pratt, and Murrell, and … nope. Not Prince Albert."

"Almost as bad as four-in-hand," the only tie knot name I knew.

Tuft put the final two pieces of shell into the cardboard box and turned to face me. "You"re not mad?"

"At their names?" I thought we"d resolved that, but he still looked uncertain and vulnerable after watching our babies hatch. "They"re adorable names for our children."

He shook his head. "You"re … " he sighed. "Perfect."

I"d been called many things in my life, but perfect? Not even my adoptive parents thought that highly of me. Granted, it was their job to prepare me for the harsh world of Ignitas without letting me know what they were doing. With that added knowledge, I understood their high standards and hopes for me.

"We"re perfect together," I reminded him. "Let"s get these guys fed."

Our babies" first meals were messy. Windsor held back, cocking his head to either side as though waiting for crackers instead. When they didn"t materialize out of thin air, he helped himself to the chicken and vegetables I"d snagged from the cafeteria.

Once the salad was gone, I gave in and handed each of our boys half a graham cracker. All three ate them the same way, nibbling at a corner until they could shove the entire thing in their mouths. Then, they scampered off to explore the living room.

"It"s too soon for them to choose their rooms," Tuft whispered. "They can sleep with us, right?"

"Of course they can." I kissed his cheek. "Once they have their first molts, they can move to their own beds."

That would be in less than a week, according to Punky"s text when Tuft asked.

"Is that enough time?" I asked.

Tuft nodded. "They grow up so fast. I never wanted to have human children, but damn, they"re already walking on their own?—"

A loud crash interrupted him. Windsor had made it to the top of my bookshelf and shoved a plastic cup full of colored pencils onto the floor.

"How did he even know it was there?" Tuft asked.

We watched in awe as our firstborn picked up a colored pencil, arranged it in his hand, and aimed it at the floor. With a quick magic spell, I shimmied a piece of Tuft"s craft paper beneath him and the scattered pencils, and the other two took interest. Soon, all three were doodling geometric shapes on the paper-covered floor.

"I"ve seen this," Tuft whispered. He brought out the box of shells and showed me the insides, also covered with geometric shapes.

"I think we need the priestess." I only hoped we didn"t need an exorcism, if that was even an Ignitas ritual.

Priestess Alma arrived within the hour.

"Your babies are a delight," she said after watching them cover the poster-sized sheet of paper with diamonds and stars. "This is unusual behavior, but … " she looked embarrassed as her eyes darted around the room to all the childproof locks I"d put up as soon as Tuft laid our eggs. What can I say? I didn"t want to be surprised with babies the way we had been gobsmacked by early eggs.

"Who am I kidding?" she muttered. "We don"t know the usual behavior for eggs laid in the sun. We"re generations from the first kobold/human hybrids. We spent almost a hundred years below ground. Our children have surpassed what I remember from before the dragon attacks. I admit, I was young, but I was already in training to become a priestess. I saw my share of eggs and hatchlings." Priestess Alma shrugged. "I think we can all agree, you are blessed to have such happy, healthy children."

We were, but I could see the gears turning in Tuft"s head.

Windsor"s jaw cracked with a yawn. I picked him up and moved him to our bed, now with clean sheets. The best part would be sleeping without the rustle of the tarp, but I"d kept it on the bed for now, in case we had middle-of-the-night accidents before we moved the children to their own beds.

"Are you sure they"re all right?" Tuft asked as he placed Balthus and Kelvin beside Windsor. They snuggled together in a pile in the middle of our bed.

"Better than all right," the priestess said, patting his shoulder. "I already know the alpha and omega mates for Balthus and Windsor. And with their drawing skills and attention to design, you could have your own construction crew, Axel and sons."

I laughed at the thought of working with my children one day. I would have gotten on my adoptive father"s last nerve. "I won"t hold them to that. They can be whatever they want when they grow up."

She smiled and nodded. "Thank you for reminding me. Sometimes I forget there are other, more human uses for their skills. Art is its own calling, on Earth?"

"It is." Tuft slipped his arm around me and directed the priestess to follow us back to the living room. "When will you expect them in school?"

"Not until their second molt. That will give them time to learn about family and routine."

Routine. Tuft glanced up at me, and I resisted the urge to laugh at his terror.

"I"m sure we"ll have this place running like clockwork by then," I promised.

Tuft rounded on me after we"d said goodbye to the priestess and had the house to ourselves once more. "Clockwork? I haven"t woken before noon since?—"

"We should wake the children and take them outside until sundown." That would set the expectation that they could play in the evenings. "Then, we"ll get them ready for bed." I also hoped the evening exercise would prevent any nighttime accidents. "We"ll sleep when they sleep and see how long it lasts."

"How did fate decide I should end up with someone so smart?" Tuft stared at me in wonder, and I couldn"t help it. I leaned in and kissed him until I was dizzy with love.

"We"re both pretty amazing, sugar," I told him. "We"re going to be the best parents our little kobolds could want."