Page 24 of The Dragon's Flamebound Mate

To my surprise, Zayne reached out and grabbed it. “Sure. Let’s give it a shot.”

It was a tiny, white, plastic spoon—the disposable kind. We were supposed to pass that between us? It was tiny. Way too small for Zayne’s talons, yet he took it from Scott as if it was going to be easy as pie.

The more I thought about it, the worse the idea was. Plastic utensils tended to miss the garbage can, when students dumped their trays. They didn’t quite fall where you wanted them to thanks to their design. And they were fragile. More than once, I’d broken one stirring my yogurt and yogurt was hardly firm.

Zayne smirked.“You take the top.”

It was a challenge. He was challenging me. Suddenly I didn’t care how impossible the task was. I wanted to win, and I would. Game on.

“Sure thing, mate.”

We all went outside to our class space there. Inside had been great for watching the slides, but we needed a ton of room, and the building didn’t have it. The students and our trainers sat down while Zayne and I got ready. None of us were strangers to nudity, so we stripped off our clothes and shifted.

We took to the air. The nice thing about Zayne in his dragon form was that he could speak to me. It was something all dragons within the clan could do, and it was especially easy between mates. The first time he’d done it this weekend, I’d been shocked. I knew it was a thing. The dragons in my family used it all the time, but not me. Everything was silent… or had been.

We flew around for a while, getting warmed up.

“Are you ready, mate?”

I let out a short screech to let him know I’d heard him. I wasn’t able to talk back to him. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But he was great at understanding me, at least so far.

I had the spoon clasped in my talons. Such a silly thing to be passing between us, but if it worked, it would be epic. For the actual competition, we’d use something more aerodynamic, obviously.

“Two laps around. On the third, that’s when you drop, but wait for me. I’ll move up. That’s when you drop the spoon, and I’ll grab it. All right?”

Of course. Easy. So easy. Never mind that the two of us had only flown together a few times and we’d never practiced this. I wasn’t sure about him, but I’d never even attempted this—not with anyone. Yet, we were doing it with an audience and the expectation that we’d be able to master it quickly. More importantly than that, we needed to convince them they could do it, too.

If I had been in my human form, I’d have been sweating. Good thing I had my feathers on.

We lapped once.

Twice.

On the third time around, I prepared to dive.

“Now,”Zayne called out through my mind.

I flipped, careening downward, upside down. I let the spoon fall from my talons.

For a brief moment, I lost sight of Zayne. Then, as I righted myself, I saw him—his talons snapping around the spoon. He righted himself, and we were back in line.

Perfectly executed.

A round of applause, whistles, and cheers erupted from our students. We had done it. And if we could do it with this spoon, it was going to be achievable for the team.

We landed near the bleachers. The tiny spoon was absurdly small, clutched in Zayne’s massive talons. How he didn’t break it would forever be a mystery.

I let out a happy screech, thrilled that we’d done it.

“Thank goodness we got that on camera,” Hayden said. “That looked perfect.”

“Students, that’s exactly how we want it to be done,” Kellan said. The relief on his face spoke volumes. He hadn’t expected us to pull it off any more than I had.

“Are you all ready to give it a try?” I asked as soon as I shifted to my human form.

“Maybe?” Christa stood up and took it from me. “There’s only one way to know for sure.”

She and her co-captain went first. It took them half a dozen tries, but they did it. From there everyone took turns, and Kellan became the sixth dragon team member so that everyone could have a go.

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