Page 35 of The Dragon's Emberlinked Mate
“Can’t you stay and have snacks?” his niece asked.
“Why don’t I go get the paperwork and we can do it here over secret snacks?”
“That sounds perfect.”
I went back to the office and grabbed a folder filled with the admittance papers. And when I got back to the conference room, Gilbert was on the floor with his niece and nephew, making animal crackers covered with peanut butter and hazelnut spread dance around the air and then popping them straight into their mouths. He might not have signed up to be a dad, but he was filling that role so beautifully.
Seeing that, I was now more determined than ever to make sure that his oldest nephew had not only a full scholarship to provide for all of his classes, books, dorms fees, tuition, and the activities that he wanted to participate in, but that we would provide him with the best of tutors. It had become my mission to give him all the opportunities we could to help him come out of this trauma on the other side having reached all of his goals and dreams.
The school had the money, our fundraiser had been successful, but if they didn’t choose to spend it here, I had the money. Gilbert wouldn’t have to know where it came from, but it would be there waiting for him. I’d need to run it by my mate, of course, but the way he took the younger kids under his wing, I doubted there would be any argument from him.
“I brought the fun stuff.” No one thought of paperwork as fun, or if they did, I had yet to meet them.
“Thanks.” He took it from me and started filling it out, his niece and nephew now peppering my mate with questions about what he did for the school.
“For the school, I suppose, mostly I'm just here and talk to people. That’s my mate.” He pointed to me.
The twins giggled.
“I’m working on a super-secret project that’s not really that secret at all.”
Both kids begged him to tell them what it was.
“There’s no need for begging. I’ll gladly share, but it’s gonna be boring.” Neither child looked like they believed him. They were smart.
“I’m helping make an app, one that will help mommies and daddies find people to help take care of their kids when they work or if they have to go to school or anything like that.”
“You—” Gilbert put his pen down. “Can you tell me more about that?”
As animated as my mate was feeding the kids animal crackers and chatting about what kinds of animals needed to be created next, it was nothing compared to watching my mate talk about the app.
He was in his element.
And if Gilbert’s enthusiasm was any indication, the app was going to be successful.
Chapter 20
Emmen
Rhythe was already home when I arrived. As usual, I flew in through the balcony window, shifted immediately to my human form, threw on my clothes that waited there, and went in search of my mate. There were days I skipped the clothing step, but I could hear a vacuum in the distance, and the staff didn’t need to witness how happy I was to see my mate. They were paidwell, but not that well.
I found Rhythe resting in the nest room, which was attached to the main bedroom. It always struck me as odd that these hugemansions included nest rooms. I’d been around long enough to know that just because a location was where someone thought would be the perfect location for a nest, that didn’t mean that was where an expecting omega would want their nest to be. Hormones and instinct determined that far more than architectural trends did.
But so far, Rhythe was feeling comfortable with the space, so maybe this particular designer got it right.
I smiled when I saw him. I hadn’t been gone long, but I’d missed him. He teased me that I missed him even when I only went to grab a pregnancy craving food from the closest store. And I did. My dragon and I longed to be by his side at all times. I readily admitted it.
When I was single for all those years, I was fine coming home to an empty house. Sure, there were days when company would’ve been nice, but I didn’t have this longing to share the same space as another. But now that I was mated, I felt like part of me was missing when he wasn’t by my side. How different all aspects of my life now were. I couldn’t be happier.
Rhythe and I already picked out several of the pieces from our hoard which would adorn our nest.Ourhoard. I loved the sound of that. When he brought me his small wooden box that day… I still got emotional just thinking about it.
Rhythe had the corner of the room cleared out so that our nest could fit. I left the design up to him. He was the one carrying our clutch, and he would have the instincts needed to make the nestexactly what he and our clutch needed. My role in this was to help make sure his vision became reality.
Next to the nest was a rocking chair we found at a second-hand store. He’d spent hours looking online for one and nothing felt right. Then we went to the local furniture store and still… nothing caught his eye. It was when we spontaneously went into the second-hand store to check out their jewelry section, looking to see if they had anything hoardworthy come in, that we saw the handcarved masterpiece.
It was the perfect height for my mate, and he loved the animals carved onto the armrests. We both suspected they were meant to be some sort of dragons, but it didn’t matter that they weren’t identifiable. They made my mate smile, and that was all that mattered.
We did pick up a bookshelf at the furniture store and had ordered a bunch of children’s books to fill it. When the dragonets moved to their own rooms, the bookshelves would be much larger. Both Rhythe and I loved books and wanted to pass that love down to our children.
