8. Axel

Tuft met me outside class, as promised, wearing a shiny green shirt with a white tie and white pants. The tie"s elaborate knot was almost lost in the color until I got closer, and then I couldn"t stop staring as I tried to figure out how anyone had enough patience to stand in front of a mirror long enough to twist knot after knot into one larger knot.

While my mind boggled, Tuft handed me a small box and a single wildflower I didn"t recognize. "For our date," he said. "I hope you don"t mind."

"Thank you." The box rattled with the chocolate-covered caramels inside. I sniffed the star-shaped flower. It smelled like the daisies that grew along our roadways back home. "What would I mind?"

He visibly relaxed and took my arm. He leaned against my shoulder as we walked toward the main doors. The more he touched me, the more I wanted, but this wasn"t a date, not exactly. First, we needed to meet with Mac, the beta with direct contact to the dragon.

"Some alphas are strange about gender roles," Tuft said once we were alone in the large entryway. "My adoptive parents raised me to be a provider. I like giving gifts."

"I"m sorry I didn"t bring you anything," I said. "I"m a little clueless about dating, to be honest. I asked Rosanna on one date, and she took care of the rest."

He laughed. "Including getting pregnant with someone else"s child and rigging a marriage?"

"Yep." I felt terrible for screwing up a routine dating requirement, though. "If there"s anything you want from me today, just let me know."

"Just your knot." Tuft swiveled his head in my direction, and I almost tripped over my own feet.

My knot. He wasn"t talking about his tie. "That"s a little too fast for a first date," I said.

He leaned his head against my arm again and snorted. "No shit." He patted my bicep and glanced up at me again. "Sorry for being so crass. Part of me can"t believe this is real. You were so sure …"

"It"s real," I said. "I"m not going back to Earth. I want to make the most of what we have."

It was all new to me, but I couldn"t deny my attraction. My cock had perked up when I"d laid eyes on Tuft outside the classroom. It chafed uncomfortably against my underwear as we walked, but I knew just enough magic to make it less noticeable through my corduroy pants.

We met Mac outside the giant barn to the southeast of the fortress. He was a brown-scaled beta with curly sandy brown hair between his pointed ears. He grinned and nodded as we shared our proposal for kobold recreation leagues. Before Tuft even asked, he agreed to carry our message about the sand quarry to the dragon who lived high up the mountain to the southwest.

"The priestesses used to meet them at the temple to the south of the old changeling circle, but they would rather visit with us in their cave now," Mac said. "They want me to spend so much time there, I"ve asked some other betas to help with my dragonets."

"Dragonets?" I asked. Since meeting Odessa, I was fascinated with bonded animals. I wanted my own, and I had seen dragonets from afar. They didn"t look much bigger than dire weasels, and I"d never been much of a daredevil, so I didn"t know how I"d feel about flying at breakneck speed without a harness or saddle to keep me from crashing to the ground.

"I run the dragonet farm." Mac beamed with pride and pointed to the barn behind him. "We have a clutch of babies and some first years who are almost to their final molt." He looked me over. "Good to see you"ve lost your tail. Are you interested in bonding an animal once you"ve learned magic?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"Want to meet them?" he asked. "I know, dragonets aren"t for everyone," he glanced apologetically at Tuft, "but they"re fun."

"They are gorgeous," Tuft said when we walked up to the main room"s central attraction, a nest of hatchlings inside a wooden corral. They were much tinier than I"d expected after seeing the adults. It didn"t seem possible that something the size of a house cat could grow to the length of a bus in a year.

"Kobold babies are bigger than they are," Tuft said, voicing my concern aloud. "How do they get so big?"

"This is already their second molt." Mac grinned and patted the nearest one with purple scales. "They grow fast. Once they start catching rodents on their own, they molt quickly."

"That"s what they eat?" I asked. "Rodents?"

Mac looked embarrassed for a moment, but then he recovered. "I wish I could say they stop at rats and rabbits. They tend to eat each other, or young dire weasels, when they get a little older than this. An unbonded dragonet or dire weasel won"t last very long, even with our breeding practices. If they live to adulthood on their own, they either become a menace, or the dragon eats them."

"Wow," Tuft said. "I never knew that. If they don"t bond with a kobold, they get eaten?"

Mac nodded. "We"re very particular about breeding only when we have a group of alphas who want animals. This clutch of hatchlings was an accident. A wild dragonet mated with Smoke, and we didn"t catch her pregnancy until she"d gone to roost."

"Wait," Tuft said. "Why only alphas?"

Mac blinked. "Before the deal with the dragon, they protected the fortress. These are working animals. They"re not just pets."

Tuft sighed. "I guess that means we won"t need them anymore, then."

Mac frowned. "Well, now that you mention it, dire weasels and dragonets could be trained to carry the children up the mountain to see the dragon." He leaned toward Tuft. "I don"t suppose you"d want to bond with one who could carry your hatchlings to their lessons, would you?"

Tuft"s smile rivaled the two suns in the sky. "Would I!" He latched onto Mac"s arm and walked him over to the double doors that led to the back paddock. Outside, the older dragonets were being put through their paces by a handful of betas.

I watched Tuft while he watched them work. He was gorgeous, animated, and present. Rosanna had always acted like she"d wished she was somewhere else whenever she was with me. Tuft did his best to include me in the conversation, but I was happy to stand by and watch him in action.

He didn"t see himself as charismatic, but everywhere we went, he made new friends and encouraged everyone to do his bidding. I had yet to meet his first alpha, Weld, but I wondered if Weld had encouraged Tuft to mate, or if he"d been overcome by Tuft"s eternal optimism and quick thinking. One well-placed question from Tuft, "Why can"t we mate if we"re not fated," and any kobold with a knot would ask the same question.

Still, Tuft was my omega. I resisted the overwhelming urge to growl at every alpha, or even beta, who approached him. He only had eyes for the dragonets, though. He especially liked the orange-scaled female named Sunset. She ate a piece of jerky from his outstretched palm, and he was in love.

By the time we left the barn, I was in awe of him. I"d never seen anyone not only talk to strangers without a second thought, but also know what questions to ask about the animals and their work to put them at ease.

"How do you do that?" I asked on our way back to the fortress to pick up our evening meals.

"Do what?" Tuft asked.

"You always know what to say to make people feel comfortable around you."

He shrugged. "I guess I just put myself in their shoes. If I worked in a dragonet barn, I"d want everyone to know about dragonets, and I"d want them to think what I do is valuable." He cleared his throat. "I failed to do that with Mac. He pissed me off when he said only alphas could have animals, so I reminded him his job might be in danger."

I laughed. "That was pure genius. He immediately changed his tune."

Tuft frowned. "You think so?"

"He showed you the dragonets, didn"t he? He also shook our hands and invited us back after their final molt."

"Yeah, I guess he did." Tuft sounded as awed as I felt. "He"s got a lot on his shoulders right now. I shouldn"t have been so hard on him."

"Oh?" Mac had seemed a little rushed for time when he ushered us out of the barn, but I hadn"t thought anything of it.

"The dragon"s imprinting on him."

"Imprint?" I asked.

"Mac"s color is starting to change," Tuft said. "His scales used to be the same brown as the other betas, but now, it"s darker."

"How is that the dragon"s fault?"

"The dragon wanted to take a beta for their own, and Mac volunteered. That"s how he"s become their spokesperson." Tuft shrugged. "I think the dragon wants more than that. Mac"s scent is different from other betas, too."

The dragon was the color of the obsidian fortress, from what I could remember after the smoke cleared on Reemergence Day. "That dragon is huge," I said. "How could they be remotely compatible?"

"I"m too polite to ask." Tuft smirked. He opened the door into the fortress for me. We got strange looks from an older kobold couple with deep blue scales near the cathedral entrance.

Tuft waved as we approached them. "Good to see you guys!"

"Oh, that"s just Tuft," the omega said to the alpha as we passed. "He"s like that."

"I"m not the first omega to challenge gender roles," Tuft whispered conspiratorially as we turned the corner toward the kitchens. The hallway sloped downward, since the kitchens were the last stop before the entrance into the grotto tunnels beneath the fortress. "My classmate Punky hates anyone doing anything for him because he"s an omega. His alpha, Lark, doesn"t fight him on it." He glared at me as though expecting me to declare war over gender roles.

"Lark"s a great guy," I said. "He took me to Earth."

Tuft nodded and his shoulders relaxed a smidge. "Their children are the first to be laid above ground since the dragons burned the village," he said wistfully. "They"re heroes."

"I"m not the best at following gender roles myself," I reminded him. "I screwed up the number one rule of a first date. I didn"t bring you anything."

"Speaking of, where are the candies?" he asked. "Did you leave my gift back at the barn?"

"They"re on the end table beside my couch at home." I wiggled my fingers. "Magic." The flower he"d given me was also in a glass, since I didn"t have anything resembling a vase.

Tuft stuck out his bottom lip in a pout. "I was hoping we could eat them for dessert."

"We can," I said. "Would you like to come back to my place for dinner?"

Tuft gave me one of those slow blinks he used when he was teasing me. "I thought you"d never ask."

"For the candy, of course."

"Oh, I know what kind of candy I want."

With our takeout containers in hand, we dashed outside the fortress and followed the path to my cabin through the long grass. It looked more like a wheel spoke now that I"d been here a few weeks. Before I arrived, my cabin had been vacant for years.

Tuft turned and stared up at the fortress spire as I unlocked the door with a spell, something I couldn"t have done even two days ago. Now that I"d decided to stay, I was moving through my lessons much faster than before. I hoped I could find the right speed with my omega.