Page 12 of Flight Risk

Chapter 8

Tavian

I awoke to an empty bed, which was not what I was expecting, considering I was a newly mated dragon. The space beside me was still warm, and I didn’t sense that Kier was too far away. My dragon would have woken me way earlier if our mate had wandered too far.

I got up, splashed some water on my face, and rinsed off in the shower. I didn’t want to take too long, just in case my mate needed me. His heat was over, or else he wouldn’t have been ableto leave my side. It had been several hours since I was buried inside him, and I missed him already.

The fact that his heat ended after just a few days meant that we likely had dragonets on the way. Whether or not Kier recognized that... I wasn’t sure.

Anxiety curdled in my gut. The prospect of fatherhood filled my mind with a tumult of emotions—joy, worry, fear, excitement. All of them jumbled together. The one that hit the highest was excitement. Kier and I were mates. It was official. We had claimed each other. He was mine and I was his, just as I had expected.

I followed the faint pull of our connection, trusting my dragon to lead the way to our mate.

Kier sat on the couch in the open living room, his arm resting on the back, and he stared out the window that faced the lake. His knees were curled up close to his chest.

“Hey,” I said.

He jumped when I spoke. “Sorry. I was lost in my own little world for a moment.”

I sat down next to him. He was fully dressed. He must have found his suitcase. I’d requested that it be delivered along with mine. I didn’t know who did it or when they’d arrived, but they were here.

Kier wore a pair of jeans and an oversized sweater that looked incredibly comfy. Meanwhile I’d grabbed a pair of too-small pajama bottoms that probably belonged to my younger brother.

“Is everything all right?” I asked.

He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah, just... where are we, and how did we get here?”

My heart thundered in my chest. Our trip here had been a whirlwind. I had focused solely on getting Kier as far away from other alphas as possible. He had asked me to share his heat with him. Had I made the wrong choice? Should I have waited for him to be of sounder mind? I forced my breathing to slow and swallowed the lump that clogged my throat. “Kier, do you... Is everything...? Are you...?” I took a deep breath, forcing all my racing thoughts aside. “Do you know what happened the past few days?”

His faced turned red. “Yes, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Yes. I remember going into heat. I asked you to help me through it. You’re my mate. I know that. I just don’t remember getting here. I don’t remember my heat that well. I mean... parts of it.”

I leaned closer, grinning at the way his cheeks turning a deep crimson. “Parts of it?”

Kier glanced away. His gaze drifted back to the lake that shimmered outside. “You were very... thorough.”

“Kier. I didn’t mean to take—”

Kier put a finger to my lips. “You didn’t take, Tav. I gave. Freely. Everything was amazing.”

I relaxed at his words. “Thank my lucky scales. I... I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if—”

“Shush. Enough of that. How did we get here?”

“I flew us.”

His eyes widened. “I flew with a dragon, and I don’t remember?”

I laughed. “I will take you on many more flights, mate, and soon, you’ll take your own flight.”

He cocked his head to the side.

“You know that when you mate with a dragon, you get wings, right? You’ll keep your human form. The wings grow from your shoulder blades.”

His eyes got comically large. “I mean, I guess I knew that. I just wasn’t sure if it would work since I’m a wolf shifter.”

“Of course. You’re not the first non-dragon shifter to be mated to a dragon. All dragon mates get wings.”

“What if they are already birds? Like an eagle shifter or raven?”

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