Page 44 of The Monster at the End of This Courtship

This time, it took longer for his knot to go down after his orgasm. When I complained, he gently bit down on the tip of my ear. "I'm holding all my seed inside you, letting it find your eggs and fertilize them."

"Not the time for a kobold sexuality lesson." My face was on fire from embarrassment. He kissed me, and it melted away, leaving me breathless and full of love for my alpha.

"We're going to be great parents," he said. "I can't wait."

Gods, I hoped that was true.

In our Monday afternoon meeting, Priestess Alma commended me and my beta assistants on a job well done. She suggested updates to two teams based on history between teammates that I didn't know, and then she approved the final email.

"You're a natural leader," she said. "The betas enjoy working with you. Do you need additional help when you're on paternity leave, or can they handle your duties?"

"I'll still be able to work from my phone and tablet," I offered.

"Tuft." Priestess Alma had a firm voice, but this was the first time I'd heard her take her sternest schoolteacher tone with me.

"Yes?" I hated when my voice squeaked.

"You can work through your pregnancy, but you will do no work in the months between laying and hatching." She paused. "I say months, but we're still uncertain how quickly the eggs develop in the sunlight. I will check on you daily. If I catch you with a tablet in hand?—"

"All right, I get it." I sighed. "Kolge and Benz can handle the weekly admin duties. We should have our first season under our belts before I lay any eggs. I'll send a follow-up survey and see if anyone wants to change teams."

She grinned at me. "You're doing it again, always planning ahead. I'm so glad you found your mate. You need someone to take care of your body while your mind is running a thousand miles ahead."

"I take care of my body," I mumbled.

"You've been eating better since you met Axel, not skipping meals. You hated the gym, but now you're starting a sports league. Don't even try to pretend. He's good for you."

"I know." My face burned from the truth in her statements. "I never said he wasn't."

She stood and ushered me toward her classroom door, and we walked together to the cathedral. Her personal rooms were somewhere beyond the raised dais.

"I'll be at the open house on Thursday," she said. "Who knows. I might join a team next time." She shook her head. "I didn't mean to be hard on you, Tuft. We all need to spend more time in the sun, me included. I'm proud of all you've accomplished. It's certainly not something I would have assigned to you. From now on, I'm going to let my omega students determine their own career paths the way you did."

"It was terrifying," I admitted.

"All the best things usually are." She patted my shoulder and entered the cathedral. I followed her inside, turning toward the giant dragon statue at the back above the array of unlit candles. This time, I lit only one. After my usual prayers for Statler and Waldorf, I whispered a little prayer for our first season. I wished for everyone to have a good time and for no one to get hurt.

Chapter 18

Axel

Ifinished the line I was marking and wiped sweat from my face and neck. We'd waited until after the rain to put the lines on the field, which meant we were still drawing the boundaries with environmentally safe chalk an hour before the open house. Tuft questioned if it needed to be done at all because we were only playing for fun tonight, but I wanted the fields to sparkle before we started scuffing them up. A pitcher's mound already had a good stripe of dirt and a deep claw mark marring the white rubber pad after one of my coworkers had tested it.

"Lesson learned," I said as I scooped it off the mound. "Protect the mound and bases with magic."

Tuft laughed at me when I entered his office. It was just off the gym where we used to meet for lunch and stank like basketball rubber from the giant rolling cart of basketballs that had occupied the space. Priestess Alma had moved it into the corner of the gym to make room for Tuft's desk.

Every time I met with Tuft in his office, it reminded me of our first few lunches together. We'd grown together so much since then. I loved how I could see our similarities on his skin. Instead of a vaguely green tinge to his scales, his yellow now fully matched mine, though he still had the darker brown accents ofan omega. I didn't mind being the bright and colorful one, if it kept danger away from my mate.

Right now, the only danger I sensed was the mound of paperwork teetering on the corner of his desk.

"Let me guess." His gaze bored into me, and he pointed to the plate in my hand. "You're going to use magic on all bases to keep them clean for next week."

"Clean? If that's all they needed … " I showed him the deep claw marks down the middle of the brand-new pitcher's plate. "We'll need kobold fabricators to find new materials."

"Stone," Tuft suggested. "Lightweight, indestructible stone. Notch, the beta from the quarry, is already working on it."

"Why didn't we start there?" I grumbled.

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