7. Tuft

Axel brought me takeout from Earth when he returned. I was surprised to get his text, and even more surprised when he suggested meeting me in my room. I was still stuffing clothes in my hamper when he arrived, not even five minutes after he texted.

I had always been a clothes horse. Now that I had all these gorgeous muscles, I spent even longer before the mirror each morning. The new yellow tint to my stripes also begged to be matched and complemented in ways I hadn"t tried yet. Needless to say, I had clothes scattered everywhere in my rooms, from the kitchen counter to my bed, which was still hopelessly covered when I ran to answer the knock on the door.

"Hi." I leaned against the door frame and brushed my hair off my forehead, trying to look casual while I caught my breath.

"I brought dinner." He handed me a bag of takeout from a place I"d never heard of. "May I?"

"Yes, come in." I tried to flutter my eyelids, but without eyelashes, I had zero chance of sexiness. "You"re not a vampire, are you?"

"I"m a kobold, same as you." He smirked, at least, I thought it was a smirk. Sometimes, I had trouble determining facial expressions. He didn"t smell confused. So far, so good.

"Nice place." He spotted a lone yellow sock on the floor by the couch. I scooped it up and tossed it through my bedroom door before closing it with magic.

"Thank you," I said to distract him. "This smells delicious." I dropped the bag on my coffee table and magicked plates from the cupboard and ketchup from the refrigerator. I smelled beef and fried potatoes, and I wanted extra ketchup on both.

"Have a seat." I motioned for him to share the couch with me. It had three cushions, and I took the farthest left. For a moment, he hesitated, and I wondered if he was going to take the middle, but then he sat on the right.

I couldn"t resist the delicious smells coming from the bag any longer. I opened it and placed a cardboard container of fries on each of our plates. I didn"t see any writing on the paper, so I assumed both burgers were the same. Once they were plated, I sat back. "Is this all right?"

"Yes, thanks." He nodded. "I"m sorry. You didn"t need to serve us like this. I"m a little out of it after the trip to Earth."

"Right." I tried to sound like I"d forgotten, even though it had been on my mind since Priestess Alma had told me about it. "How did it go?"

"Weird. It was so weird." He brought his plate to his lap, so I did the same. I continued to mirror his movements as he unwrapped his sandwich and then took a bite of a potato wedge.

Nope. I couldn"t do it. I couldn"t eat Earth food without ketchup. I opened the flip top lid and squeezed a liberal dose onto my plate.

"Holy shit you like ketchup." The way he emphasized "shit" made it sound like that was a bad thing.

"I love ketchup." I grinned. "I might even be tempted to use it to flavor your cock, if you ask nicely."

He choked on a potato wedge. I thought it was serious when he started banging his hand on his knee, but no, he was laughing at me. "Are you trying to kill me?" he finally asked.

"I"m glad I amuse you." I slathered another wedge with ketchup to get my point across, and then I licked it off. I watched him from the corner of my eye. Unlike all the times before, when he"d looked away from my covert attempts at flirting, Axel watched me with rapt attention.

Something must have changed while he was on Earth. I wanted the full story before I got too invested. I ate my fill of ketchup without being too lewd, and he thought over what he wanted to say to me. A few times, I thought he was going to speak while we were eating, but then he took another bite instead.

Weld liked to talk while he ate, which had driven me up a flipping wall. Axel had manners, at least. In all the meals we"d had together, he hadn"t spit food at me once. He balled his wrapper and cardboard up and tossed them back in the bag, and then he took both my plate and his to the sink for a quick rinse.

"Thank you," I said when he came back.

This time, he chose the middle couch cushion and angled his body toward me, so our knees touched. "Thanks for your patience with me," he said. "I"ve been a bit of a jerk to you, and I"m sorry."

"You haven"t been a jerk," I said. "You"ve been wonderful."

He stared down at his hands. "I haven"t. I thought I was going to return to Earth, no matter what Merritt, the priestess, or my own body said. I had a fiancée and a baby waiting for me." He sighed. "Except I don"t. The baby"s not mine, and my fiancée was probably marrying me for the insurance money."

"Insurance money?" I laughed. "What twenty-five-year-old has life insurance?"

"I do." He snorted yet another laugh. Before, when he"d laughed, I could tell it was fake, but tonight, he let go of all pretenses and gave me his genuine laugh. I loved the musical sound of it, and the way he leaned forward over his knees, putting him in kissing range, almost.

"She had me take out a bunch of life insurance policies. Lark thinks my parents must have mentioned something about me disappearing on my twenty-fifth birthday, and she assumed …"

I laughed with him this time. "What, she thought you had birthday cancer or something?"

"Birthday cancer!" He laughed so hard, his hair flopped loose over his forehead. He usually kept it styled around his ears. He lifted a hand to push it back, but I grabbed his wrist.

"Don"t."

"It"s messy."

"It looks good on you." I didn"t know how else to say it, so I turned the gaming console on and used its built-in camera and my television as a mirror.

"Oh." He studied himself for a moment, and then turned his attention to me, both in the mirror and sitting beside him. "I like it," he whispered. "I look more relaxed, like you."

Relaxed? Me? "You must be joking. I don"t know what relaxed even means."

"For someone who arrived on Ignitas less than a year before I did, you"ve got your shit together."

"I mated with an opportunistic alpha and produced two eggs that never hatched." I couldn"t bear to look at myself any longer, so I turned the equipment off again. "I do not have my shit together, as you say."

"I agreed to marry an opportunistic woman who wanted to use me for insurance money." Axel grinned. "I think we"re perfect for each other."

It took a moment for my brain to catch up to what he was saying. "You"re still straight, though … right?"

"I told my adoptive parents about you. They"d like to meet you." His smirk was back in full force. "My mom didn"t skip a beat when I told her you were a he instead of a she. In fact, they told me they thought it was weird I was straight, since the adoption paperwork had explained the alpha/omega relationship."

"You get along with your adoptive parents?" I asked.

"Yeah. Didn"t you?"

"I did." I sighed. He was my mate. It wasn"t like I could keep it a secret forever. They"d been the most influential people in my life. "They died in a car accident when I was nineteen."

"Oh, gawd, Tuft. I"m so sorry."

Even though I knew we were both speaking some form of common kobold language our brains translated into English, he still managed to sound like a southern boy to me.

"I missed them every day back on Earth. When I came here, I vowed to let them go. Their parenting skills got me here, but now it was my turn to take over." Fuck, why was my face wet? "And then I went and fucked it all up."

"You did not." Axel"s arm was warm around my shoulders, and he smelled so good, like fast food, but beneath that was the same alpha scent I"d fallen for. "I"m sure they"re proud of you."

"I hope so." I leaned into him and noticed smear marks on his shirt. "I take it I"m not the first person to cry on your shoulder, er, chest, today."

"My mom," he said.

"Not the fiancée?"

He laughed. "She was too busy fucking her best friend."

"Gods, I"m sorry." That must have been hard. He"d been ready to marry her. Unless … "Were you going to marry her because you loved her, or only because of the baby?"

"The baby," he admitted. "I liked her all right, but I don"t think I know what love is."

I turned into him, shoving my face against his chest again. "I"m glad you came back. At least now we have a chance to find out."

He patted my back. "Yeah. Me, too."

"We have a meeting with Mac tomorrow after your classes," I said, not wanting to let him go just yet. "We could walk the grounds afterward, if you want?"

"I"d like that." He dragged me into his lap and tucked my head beneath his chin. "I"d like to court you properly, if you"ll still have me."

"I thought you"d never ask." I cuddled against his chest and held him for a moment, reveling in his alpha scent.

I felt bad for comparing him to Weld, but he was more in every way. He smelled better. He held me without asking. I couldn"t wait to compare how they kissed. Weld had been good, but I bet Axel was even better.

I couldn"t keep thinking about Axel"s kiss, not if I wanted to stand up in these pants. "Tomorrow, then," I said. "We"ll make it a date."

"Tomorrow," he agreed. "That means I should be going, then."

I pulled back, searching his face for any sign he was rejecting me.

"If I stay here any longer, we might have to skip this courtship thing entirely," he said. "You smell good enough to eat." He leaned in and sniffed my neck. "I need some time to get used to you."

"Take all the time you need," I said. I"d been too eager to please before, too accommodating to Weld"s desires. This time, I wanted to focus on my own needs. I wanted our relationship to last beyond the hormones and the promise to continue our race.

It took every ounce of my willpower to climb out of Axel"s lap, help him off my couch, and walk him to the door.

Instead of walking away, he turned to face me.

"I"ll wait for you in the hall outside the alpha classrooms tomorrow," I said, still not wanting this night to end.

"See you then."

My hands instinctively went to his nape when he leaned in. His lips were softer than I"d imagined, and then they were gone, barely a ghost of a kiss. I rubbed the scales at his neck and then let him retreat down the hallway backward. He met my gaze and almost backed into an omega coming out of his room. I laughed and waved, and he finally turned around as he neared the hall door.

I spent the next half-hour cleaning my rooms. I didn"t stop until I had all my clothes picked up, the dishes clean, and every book back on its shelf instead of sitting on my bedside table, waiting for me to have enough free time to read.

Who was I kidding? I was a book dragon with my own hoard, but right now, my mind was too occupied by Axel to focus on anything else.