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“I’m going to learn! I already know!”

“When Instructor Wraith says you can, then we can consider it,” I say.

She is excited enough to accept her educational fate, and that is a good thing.

I lead her back to Wraith, who is waiting. Nox has gone back upstairs, something I am grateful for.

“Melissa has agreed to be a better and more willing student, Instructor Wraith,” I say, feeling as though I am engaged in high level negotiations. It has been some time since this level of diplomacy was required inside the keep.

“She’s undisciplined,” Wraith asserts. “And she has not been brought to justice for the absolute chaos she just caused. Even now, the class is paused until my return because I had to chase her chained self through the halls like attempting to catch a wild beast. She has been absolutely uncontrollable in my class.”

“Oh I didn’t even do anything in your class. I was trying. What do you want? Perfection?”

“Obedience. Progress. Success. For you to not rip the safety equipment out by the root and run away with it.”

“Melissa will not do anything like that again, because if she does, you will call me, and I will come into class, and she will be turned over my knee in front of everybody and spanked until she cries and makes a full apology for you.”

My mate’s eyes go wide at that comment, and the instructor looks very satisfied at it. Melissa needs to know there will be consequences for her behavior. She needs to respect Wraith, even if he annoys her.

Melissa

“I bet you’re happy now that you got him to threaten me,” I say, somewhat bitter as I follow Wraith back to the classroom, dragging my chain as I go. It makes an unpleasant clanking sound as it is pulled over sacred stones. I wonder if it will leave a mark. I kind of hope it does. I have been pushed into this situation in so many ways, and I do resent it, even if there’s the potential of dinner with Tempest to come if I just behave myself long enough.

“I’d be happier if I’d talked him into removing those wings of yours and sending you back where you came from, you monstrous little wretch,” Wraith hisses back.

Oh. So he’s not happy either. Both of us are pissed at having to put up with one another.

I have to fight back the urge to laugh, but I can’t help it, I spit out a short gasp of amusement. I know that dragons don’t care about rank if you don’t actually hold it, and they’re all about earning their place and whatnot, but there’s got to be some limits.

“You can’t talk to me like that. I’m the king’s mate. It might not mean much to you, but he’s not going to actually punish me. You know that, don’t you? He worships me. The future of the kingdom lies between my thighs.”

Wraith’s brows disappear toward his hairline. He turns toward me, stopping me in my tracks.

“Excuse me?”

In hindsight, later on, I’ll realize that question is a trap. For the moment, I just bluster through my thoughts, as if his rude comments were a key unlocking my absolute unhinged side.

“That’s right. If we’re speaking plainly, I could already be carrying the next heir. Ornix might have threatened me with discipline, but he’d never actually do it. Maybe you should start thinking about the enemies you’re making. Because one of these days, I won’t just know how to fly. I’ll be wielding power you can’t even imagine. I… oop!”

I am snatched up from behind, roughly, by the back of my neck. Ornix pulls me back against his chest, wraps an arm around my waist, and growls in my ear:

“Excuse me, little one, what was that?”

“I didn’t know you were there!”

“That’s not what I was asking about,” he says, shifting me in his arms. “I heard that you don’t think I’ll spank you publicly. I also heard you threatening your instructor not minutes after I ordered you to respect him. Let’s address all of that at once, shall we?”

“No! Ornix! No!”

“Yes,” he says firmly. “After hearing what you had to say, absolutely yes.”

I kick and squirm as Ornix carries me back to class, but none of it does me any good. The others are still there, chatting amongst themselves quite animatedly in the aftermath of my scandalous behavior. They fall dead silent as Ornix walks in, and I feel the incredible power he has over his subjects in this moment.

“Nobody is above discipline in this keep,” he says, putting his foot up on the chair Wraith likes to retreat to when he’s yelling at us about our wing positioning. He proceeds to sling me over his thigh, leaving me to swing over the fulcrum of his leg.

I am never going to be able to come back to this class ever again. It hasn’t even started and I know I am never, ever, ever going to come back here. I am never going to look at a single one of these people. He did get me moved into the class with older dragons, those closer to my age looking to further refine their flying, but all it’s done is make me deeply aware of how very behind I am.

I’ve already decided that I can’t handle this. The second I can, I am running straight to Nox and begging him to open a portal back to the human world for me.