Page 19 of The Dragon's Emberlinked Mate
He laughed again, but then got serious. “I just don’t want to embarrass you.”
“You could never.”
“Yeah. It’s not as if I’m going to get the steps wrong to this dance that we’re doing.” I’d lost track of my feet more often than not. “No, that’s definitely you. When was the last time you had a dance lesson?”
He winced as I stepped on his foot for the second time. It wasn’t even intentional. I might’ve been older than the music we were dancing to, but I had never once in all my years been graceful enough to command the dance floor.
“I’m probably ruining all of the charm and the vision you might have had of me as some suave debonair older gentleman, but I can’t dance for shit.”
“No kidding.” He rubbed his cheek against mine. “I can’t wait to see you when they do a line dance.”
“It would amuse you. That much is true.” I’d attempted the ones where the song told you what to do before and not once did I resemble the instructions.
Thankfully, the song was over, and my mate had relaxed considerably during the time I had him in my arms.
I took his hand and led him toward our table. Before we could make it there, though, we were interrupted by Tyler and Banks, two dragons who worked under me and whom I’d known for over two centuries. I shook their hands.
“So nice to see you,” I said. “This is my mate, Rhythe.”
“Nice to meet you,” Tyler said.
“Emmen, we heard that you were mated. But goodness gracious, old man, you’re robbing the egg here. He’s still got goo on him.”
I straightened. “Banks.” If he made my mate uncomfortable, he was going to discover my hidden talent right here and now.
“What?”
“Don’t mind Banks,” Tyler interrupted me. “He’s just being an alphahole. He’s had too much to drink. We really came over to talk to you about next week’s meeting.”
“Of course,” I said, not wanting to let the comment slide, but I also didn’t want to dwell on it either. “Rhythe, why don’t you go ahead and sit down. I’ll chat with these two.”
“Oh, of course, it was nice to meet you,” he said, then walked away.
The conversation was boring and quick, not something he needed to concern himself with. I meant to go find my mate right away after I finished, but instead was interrupted by one person after another. It seemed that as soon as my mate left my side, everyone took the opportunity to pounce. At first, I got several questions about him, then it was more questions about schedules and events that I could come to.
“And wouldn’t it be great if we put our family name on some building with just an X dollar amount donation?” It was all politics, a part of the job that I hated. I cared about the education of our young dragons, not whose name appeared on the buildings.
Finally, a considerable amount of time later, I went in search of my mate. Thankfully, I was able to follow my bond. It was like an invisible tether that bound me to him, no matter the length we were apart.
I found my mate sitting in a library with another omega, the two of them laughing, looking at a book.
“I didn’t know this sordid history about the Emberstone clan. I’ll have to mention it to my mate,” the omega I recognized as Ollie, Lord Malric’s mate, said.
“It’s scandalous.”
“I know, I was shocked when I saw it too. Is history something you’re interested in?” Ollie asked.
“I never was before, but since meeting my mate, I kind of decided to learn a little bit more about how things were when he was younger.”
“You have quite the age gap.”
“Yes,” Rhythe said. “I do too.”
That was putting it mildly. There were centuries between our hatchings. I’d waited for him a long time. It was worth every minute.
Chapter 12
Rhythe
