Page 16 of The Dragon's Flamebound Mate
“No,” Zayne said, his hand gripping mine tighter. “I think we’ll be fine—I know we will. Ash’s ideas are great for the team, and they already like him. He stays.”
That was a surprise to me. He had the opportunity to have his team back on his own, yet he wanted me to remain. Sure, I was willing to give up everything for him, but I wasn’t expecting him to feel as strongly about me.
We hadn’t talked about what things would look like going forward. I had been too afraid to bring up the subject. In hindsight, we should’ve, but we were too busy communicating in other, more physical ways.
“Ash and I can manage this. As long as Kellan, Hayden, and the team feel comfortable, we want to stay as Co-Leaders,” Zayne continued.
“Of course. Heck, we’ve been able to manage with the two of you not getting along. This should be amazing. If the two of you are mated, mates are immune to fights, right?” Hayden’s support meant a lot to me.
I chuckled. “Not sure that’s quite the case. I’m sure there will be plenty that Zayne and I will disagree on when it comes to the team, but we’ll listen to each other.” At least that was the plan. Being mated didn’t make the two of us less stubborn than we were before.
Zayne nodded. “Agreed. Commander, if you are not opposed to it, I think we should give it a try.”
The Commander’s eyes widened, and he held up his hands in surrender. “It’s your team. I’m not going to dictate how you do things. Definitely put together some rules and make sure that everyone is on the same page. You’ll have to speak with your students as well.”
That was going to be awkward. It was one thing to tell your coworkers you were mated, another to tell your students.
“Of course. That’s our next thing to do.” Zayne tightened his grip on me.
“I assume you’ll no longer be needing your cabin, Ash?” Emmon asked.
“No, I’ve moved in with Zayne. It was out of commission for a while thanks to an electrical issue, so the timing is perfect.” I winked at my mate.
“Is that how it is?” the Commander chuckled.
“Yeah, that’s how it is,” Zayne bantered back.
I didn’t know a lot about their relationship, but it was nice to see how well they got along. There was so much about my mate’s life before me, but it filled me with joy that he had people around him who cared about him, and everyone in this room fit that description.
“Perfect.” Emmon clapped his hands once. “Now, if it happens that the two of you end up expecting, as is typical with newly mated couples, we can go over our leave policy.”
My eyes widened. I had not thought of that. I mean, I had asked him to breed me but hadn’t really put any thought to what being a parent and working would look like. It had been more dirty talk than anything. Or maybe it was my eagle asking for a family.
Being mated to a dragon meant that I’d be laying eggs in a few weeks’ time most likely. Their bodies had a different timeline than golden eagles, but being half dragon, I’d most likely have a dragon pregnancy.
My nesting instinct would kick in soon enough, and then I’d lay our eggs. Three months from now, we would have hatchlings. Oh, goodness. That thought was terrifying. How was I going to be a good enough father to dragons? It was only yesterday that I nearly burned my own cabin down.
Zayne let go of my hand and instead put his arm around the back of my chair, pulling me close. “We’ll deal with that as it arises, Commander. For now, we’re going to focus on the team.”
“Of course,” he said. “Like I said at the beginning, congratulations to the both of you. We’ll be putting out a school-wide communication, and perhaps, if we can finagle it, we can have a staff outing to celebrate.”
I liked the sound of that. It was very human, but humans had some great ideas. They had some shitty ones, too. But wedding celebrations, which was as close as they came to matings, I put up there with some of the best—they always included cake. You couldn’t go wrong with cake.
“Thanks, Commander. We appreciate it.” Zayne gave him a nod.
The Commander stood up and left the room, and then it was just the leadership team here. Hayden was still grinning like a fool as he looked at us.
“I can’t believe this. Just days ago, the two of you seemed ready to go to blows, and then instead, you went a completely different direction.” He was clearly amused.
“We were never that at odds,” I said.
“I suspected my attraction to Ash was more than just a physical thing pretty early on,” Zayne said. “Regrettably, I didn’t handle myself well at first. I thought by remaining quiet and processing in my own time, I was doing the right thing. Instead, I came off looking like a jackass.”
“You really did,” I teased.
“Thankfully, Ash has forgiven me.” Zayne kissed the top of my head.
I was still not used to the sight of his gorgeous smile. He’d spent so much time scowling when we first met, I was beginning to suspect he was one of those people unable to smile. Apparently, Kellan wasn’t used to the sight either, because he looked at Zayne like he had grown two heads.
