Page 7 of The Dragon’s Emberlinked Mate (Dragon Flight Academy #3)

Rhythe

I grew up well off. There was no denying the privilege that was my upbringing. My house was grand by all accounts. But this place? It was in an entirely different league.

There were no doubt many other sitting rooms and countless other random rooms to see in this massive house.

There was probably a whole library or a billiards room or other random room that only existed in mansions.

Heck, there might even be multiple indoor pools.

I might even need to make a map when I got the grand tour.

I’d flown over it before, so its size wasn’t a surprise, but I had never given much thought to the layout inside. I’d assumed that I’d never see it from any other perspective than from above. Now it was my home. What a difference crashing into a cliff made.

“How many bedrooms are there?” I asked.

“Ten bedrooms. Just as many bathrooms—I think, maybe more… maybe twelve. A library. Several offices. A personal gym. A sauna. A hot tub.” He was listing them off like the were a check list he’d memorized and not the place he actually lived.

My eyes widened with each word. “Why? And how do you manage this all on your own?”

His cheeks reddened as he sat next to me. He pulled my feet into his lap, leaving me no choice but to lean back on the armrest. I groaned when his thumbs dug into the arch of my foot, massaging it just right. It was exactly what I needed.

“I don’t manage it on my own. My position as Commander of the school comes with this house. It doesn’t belong to me.” And that explained the way it was more of a listing than him speaking with knowledge or even pride.

“I’ve made it my own, as many of the Commanders have over the years. In the library, there’s a historical record of the changes that have been made to the house by different Commanders. As for its size… well, it’s rare that I’m here alone.”

My eyes shot open, and I let out a low growl.

“Not like that, dear Rhythe,” he said quickly. “I don’t bring anyone here like that. Visitors to the clan or to the academy often stay with me or Lord Malric. In fact, Lord Malric himself will be here in two weeks.”

“Oh.” I shifted, feeling a little embarrassed for jumping to conclusions the way I did. I knew it was normal for dragons to be extra on edge between the time they found their mates and the moment they mated them, but this bordered on ridiculous. Not that my human side had been any better.

“I should leave before then, right? Go back to my parents’?” Mating was mating, but work was work. If this place was basically a huge-ass office for my mate, that was how it was. We could easily build our own place elsewhere, if it became too much.

He did not like my answer, and it was his turn to growl.

He gripped my feet, firm but somehow still gentle.

“You will not—unless you want to. This is your home now, as my mate. Or, if you’d rather not live here, we can live anywhere else.

I own several properties across the continent and some overseas. ”

“But you’re the Commander. You have to live here.” That was the way of things.

He shrugged. “I don’t have to be the Commander.”

My jaw dropped. Had he really just offered to switch jobs for me, someone he just met? Not that I could let him do that. He’d earned the prestigious position.

“Okay, well, now this conversation is just getting silly. Of course you’re going to remain Commander.

I just—” I looked around the room. “I have a lot to learn about what it means to be mated to the Commander, I guess. Who would have thought you’d end up with an unemployed mate with no skills and no job prospects?

Hell, I’ve only lived a percentage of your life. ”

Saying it out loud had the reality of my words setting in.

I was nowhere near the person Emmen deserved.

Not yet, anyway. Maybe in a century I would be, after I’d accomplished something…

anything with my adult life. But fate was funny like that.

They didn’t care if I was ready or not. Emmen was my mate.

Done. It was up to me to be the best mate that I could.

“Hey.” He tucked a finger under my chin until I looked at him. “Nobody talks about my mate like that. My mate is brave, fierce, loyal, and amazing.”

I snorted. “Your mate is lost and confused, with no direction.” I bit the inside of my cheek.

These were not things I spoke about. Not even to my brother. Probably because my brother was actively helping the clan with a super-important project while being a parent. He was an all-around badass. Meanwhile, I was not.

“Do you think I’ve never been lost, confused, and with no direction at some point in my long life? I think I’ve spent more of my life unemployed than I have employed.”

“It’s different, Emmen.”

“It is not, Rhythe. This is an important conversation for us to have, but not today. Today, you need to rest. Let your body heal. Show yourself some grace. You just ran into a wall.”

I groaned and let my head fall back, eyes closed. “Am I ever going to live that one down?”

I didn’t even have the excuse that I was drunk or sick or even that there was bad weather. I was distracted by my own freaking thoughts. Embarrassing.

“Probably not,” he said, still massaging my feet.

I put a hand over my heart, and each time, a little electric shock ran through my palm. “Damn it, Emmen,” I muttered.

“Yes?” he teased.

“I died.” It was the first time I allowed myself to say it.

He jerked as if I had slapped him.

“I died, right? My body wasn’t healing fast enough. You brought me back, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Those paddles—the human-made things—weren’t working. The voltage didn’t go high enough.”

I knew what he was talking about from television. For some reason I’d never believed that they were real. In my mind it was simply something they invented for a plot point. But no, they were very real and they’d been used on me.

“Of course, any higher voltage wouldn’t have been good for a human body.

But you are not human, and your heart had stopped.

I’ll never forget what that felt like—like my own heart had been ripped out.

” His voice cracked as he spoke. “If I could’ve, I would’ve taken out my own heart and replaced it with yours so that you might live and I would die. ”

I swallowed thickly, my throat constricting. “How did you… There was lightning on your fingertips…” At least I thought there was. It was still confusing to me, which things had happened, which were dreams, and which were hallucinations from my medical treatment.

He lifted his palms and an arc of lightning trailed between his fingers, one spark after the other. “One of the clan’s best-kept secrets.”

“Why a secret?” I breathed.

“Strategy. I remember a time when we were at war—when clans fought one another over territory or other nonsense. You never want to show all your cards. Long ago, the clan leader and I decided to keep this and other abilities our clan may have a secret. So I did. Malric knows, of course.”

“That’s… wild.” I thought I knew everything about the clan wars. It was sounding like I knew very little.

“Yes. It’s something.” He shrugged it off like it wasn’t the huge deal that I saw it to be.

“You used that to bring me back. What if it hadn’t worked?”

Emmen sucked in a breath. “Then I would have followed you to the afterlife.”

“Don’t… Don’t say that,” I whispered. “I should never have dragged you there. I was not in my right mind. I don’t even think I realized I was so close to dying.

I just hurt so much and…” I shuddered as I thought of those moments in the hospital when the pain was all I felt and Emmen was all I wanted.

“The minute I realized who you were to me, I knew there was no letting you go. Ever. Had I not been able to save you…” He shivered. “I can’t even think about what that would be like. And so I refused.”

I put a hand to his cheek and caressed his face. Emmen leaned into my touch as if it soothed him, like how I was soothed when he touched me. “Thank you,” I said.

“Always. My mate. I will always save you.”

And I would always save him.