Page 17 of The Dragon's Flamebound Mate

“Oh, this is going to be weird.” Kellan smirked. “In a good way. It’s just… I’ve never seen you look like that, Zayne.”

I planned to make it my mission to have him smile like this every day. Heck, every hour.

“I have a feeling we are in for a whole new ballgame.” His hand dipped down, settling on my lower back.

“We’re not here for a ballgame.” Hayden stood up and walked to the whiteboard. “We’re here for the Flight Games, and I had an idea yesterday.” He grabbed a marker and suddenly we were back at work.

Things were different now. Zayne and I were no longer at each other’s necks, neither of us attempting some shitty pissing match to prove our worth. But that didn’t mean that we agreed on everything. We didn’t.

What we did do, was work with our team, tweaking Hayden’s plan into what I thought might be the strategy that could take it all the way to the finals and walking away with the championship.

But at the back of my mind, not very far away, was that nagging feeling that I might be missing a good chunk of the practices, that the two of us were going to be parents. What had started as shock, and then nerves, had morphed into excitement and anticipation. There was the very real possibility that my mate and I were about to grow our family, and I couldn’t wait.

Some things were more important than a job, and mates and family topped that list.

Chapter 9

Zayne

Ittookmealong moment to pinpoint the exact feeling that had come over me in the past few days. Finally, I realized—it was optimism mixed with hopeful anticipation. It was a new feeling for me, and I was quite enjoying it.

Optimism for the future, for the flight team, for everything. With Ash by my side, it seemed as if I could do anything, like I was on top of the world.

Hopeful anticipation for whatever came next for Ash and me personally. We could be starting a family—we actually might have already begun. And even if we weren’t, we were starting our lives together, and it was new, different, exciting. At four hundred years old, I wasn’t used to the feeling. It had been a long time since I’d truly been looking forward to something. Being with Ash made me realize just how low I’d sunk into my funk.

Of course, we had our flight team to consider, and we needed to communicate the recent changes with them. Today was our first practice outside, and it was as good a time as any to broach the subject. They probably had already heard the rumors. It wasn’t as if we were being secretive, but this would be their first time officially hearing it.

When we held our classes outside, we generally worked at the lakeshore, where there were a set of bleachers for the students to sit on and a platform where the teachers could instruct from. A small table was available for note-taking, and we also had a tripod set up in case we wanted to film any of the practices. Sometimes, we liked to record the students flying so they could look back and learn from what they saw. All the footage had to be on an incredibly secure server to ensure it didn’t get into the wrong—human—hands.

One thing the academy was great at was making sure the teachers had what they needed to do their jobs, and that included classroom spaces that were unconventional.

Today would be more about getting a feel for how the team worked together and also introducing the subject of Ash and me being mates than any real strategy formation. It was pretty likely that the students had already heard through the grapevine about the two of us. The school operated much like a small town where news traveled fast, especially when we weren’t hiding it.

Once I stood up, the students went quiet. Scott and Christa sat at the front, as they usually did, setting a good example for the other three. Or at least that was the theory. There were times when they giggled or gazed into the distance—they were students, after all.

“Welcome, team. Today, we’ll do a couple of outdoor exercises, and you’ll have the opportunity to see me and your other instructors perform some maneuvers as well. But first, we need to talk about something.”

The students all scooted closer, perched on the edge of their seats as if I was about to deliver juicy gossip. Yeah, they for sure knew what we were going to say. They never paid this much attention to actual lessons. It would be fabulous if they did.

“After our class the other day, I spoke with Flight Leader Ash privately. The two of us discovered a few things.” A lot of things, and it wasn’t exactly talking as much as mating, but that wasn’t something we needed to be discussing. Being that all of my students were dragons—and the result of fated mates—I knew where their minds would go as soon as I revealed that Ash was my mate. I didn’t like them thinking about him in that way, but there wasn’t much I could do about that.

“Oh my goodness, you’re mates!” Scott didn’t even pretend to let us deliver the news. “I thought you scented different, but I wasn’t sure!” He clamped a hand over his mouth. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to—”

I held up a hand. “That’s quite all right. You are correct—Flight Leader Ash and I are, in fact, mates. This doesn’t change anything about the leadership structure. He and I will still be leading this flight together.” Ash stood next to me, always my equal, as we faced the group of students.

We were met with wide smiles and curious stares.

“Won’t he have eggs now?” Jay asked.

Jay had a filter problem, or more accurately, a lack-of-filter problem. At first, I thought maybe he was going to be a problem, but now I saw it as it was—he was young and in need of guidance. This team was going to be good for him.

“Hecan speak for himself,” Ash said, his tone calm. “And yes, it’s quite possible that we will be expecting a clutch of eggs. We won’t know for a few days.”

I wanted to lace my fingers into his and offer him my touch, but I refrained. Ash and I discussed it, and we decided to try to keep our PDA to a minimum around the students. We knew better than to say it would be completely non-existent. That wasn’t how shifters were, and had we gone to that extreme, not only would the students think it weird, but out beasts would revolt. Nobody needed that.

And the reality was, when we were in class, we needed to be a Flight Leader team first. I didn’t love that arrangement, but it was important to Ash so the students saw him as a Flight Leader first and my mate second.

“But, like… if you’re expecting, shouldn’t you, like, take time off? I mean, stress isn’t good for the eggs, is it?” Jay asked. He seemed ever hopeful that he wouldn’t have to deal with Ash as a Flight Leader, and once again, I was beginning to think that his lack of filter was more truth serum than being young. Gods, he was tiring.

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