Page 12

Chapter 12

Ash

T he weekend was amazing. We worked, flew together, and spent a whole lot of time naked. I was pretty sure that I’d never get enough of my mate, and I was fine with that. The only downside of the weekend was that we did need to venture into town for groceries, but we bought a cake, so it wasn’t that much of a downside.

As much as I loved my new job, Sunday night was hard for me because it meant the end of our alone time together. At least we were lucky and shared a job. We might not spend the entire day together, but we never spent them completely apart either.

But as much as I wished it weren’t so, Monday was back to reality, and things were ramping up. While we had come a long way in a short period of time, there was still so much to cover. Zayne and I had written up a ton of notes from the videos we watched over and over again over the weekend. From a distance, the team was perfection. But the judges weren’t looking at it from a distance.

That morning, we had presented our ideas to our flight trainers and gotten feedback from some of the other flight leaders at the school. Everyone was on board with the new the maneuvers Zayne and I had put together. It was a new direction for the team, but given how the last few years had gone, that was needed.

Zayne and I had done some flying together, testing them out. It was incredible to be in the air with him—his dragon form soaring alongside my eagle. We played too, but work had been our focal point.

How different would it be when my wings sprouted and I could fly with him in my human half-form? I was excited to find out.

“Any questions?” I asked the students after presenting the formation we were going to try this afternoon. “Or suggestions, even. This isn’t a dictatorship. You need to be on board with this if it’s going to work.”

All I got were blank stares. A moment of panic hit me. Was confusion normal? Did I explain it wrong? I glanced at Zayne, but he had the same confused expression I did.

“Was there something you all didn’t understand?” I asked.

“I can’t picture it,” Scott said. His forehead was scrunched in concentration. “Maybe if you show us?”

It was a fair ask, but also… he was looking directly at me—not Zayne, not Kellen, not Hayden.

“Mr. Halloway, you haven’t shown us your flying. Not since last week,” Christa chimed in.

I rolled my eyes. As if last week was so long ago.

“It’s going to be different with me in my eagle form than with you guys in your dragon forms. You know that, right?” They had to. It wasn’t a surprise.

“Yeah, but you said yourself last week that your bone structure isn’t all that different from ours. And any maneuvers you’re capable of, even in your smaller form, we should be capable of as dragons,” Christa was quick to point out.

Oh, goodness. Of course they were paying attention to that. There was no way out of this one. If I had known I was going to be on display for this particular maneuver, I would have practiced it more. A whole lot more. Unlike our initial demonstration, these moves were pretty new to me, combinations that were unique—at least I hoped they were. None of us had seen them, so that was a good sign.

Never one to back down from a challenge, I simply nodded. “Of course.”

The maneuver that Zayne and I had choreographed for them was a tricky one. I didn’t blame them for wanting to see it. To do the maneuver, I would fly high in the air, and I’d make a sudden banking turn in which I tilted sharply to the side and dropped down in altitude as quickly as possibly before flipping back to move forward again. In theory, it sounded simple, but it could become disorienting if you weren’t used to it. It was meant to look as if I dropped straight down mid-flight.

And it was created for dragons. Their bodies worked differently than my eagle’s did, something I’d been reminded of frequently since my first shift. Growing up in a dragon family, it was hardly a secret. Would my body be able to handle the same disorientation that dragons did with swooping back up? Looked like I was about to find out.

“It’s going to look quite different with just me up there. When you’re all working together as a group, the plan will be for two of you to drop down, while the two below you move up.”

If they could pull it off, it was going to win the crowds over.

“Why doesn’t Flight Leader Zayne show us as well?” Christa suggested. “We can see it run in a two-person formation rather than a four, right?”

Of course, they wanted us to demonstrate a move we had just come up with over the weekend—one we pretty much had no time to practice—one that relied on having similar body types to complete the intended illusion. I didn’t think the two of them were trying for a gotcha, not the way the same comment by Jay might mean. This was them wanting to understand what we were asking of them, and the least we could do was to try.

“You know what would be really cool?” That was Jay speaking up. He tended to stay quiet while I was speaking, and on multiple occasions, I’d wondered if he tuned me out completely. I got the vibe that he didn’t appreciate being taught by a non-dragon, but something in his voice sounded intrigued. At least I hoped it was intrigued and not that he was going to come out with another rude comment.

“What if we dropped something and caught it? Or passed an item between each other. That was something that the dragon legions used as a battle tactic way back when they were fighting demons.”

I knew quite a bit about dragon history, but that was something I hadn’t pieced together before.

Zayne’s eyes lit up. “That’s an excellent idea. I recall Commander Shane telling us about that when he visited last year. Good memory, Jay.”

I could picture it then—a four-person team flying in formation, passing something between them. It would be incredible, something that hadn’t been seen in competition in a long while, at least as long as I’d been aware of them. It would take a lot of practice to pull it off perfectly, though. Not that this routine wasn’t already going to take a ton of practice.

“Right now, we don’t have anything they could drop between them,” Hayden said, scratching his chin.

“I’ve got a spoon from my lunch.” Scott lifted it up.

To my surprise, Zayne reached out and grabbed it. “Sure. Let’s give it a shot.”

It was a tiny, white, plastic spoon—the disposable kind. We were supposed to pass that between us? It was tiny. Way too small for Zayne’s talons, yet he took it from Scott as if it was going to be easy as pie.

The more I thought about it, the worse the idea was. Plastic utensils tended to miss the garbage can, when students dumped their trays. They didn’t quite fall where you wanted them to thanks to their design. And they were fragile. More than once, I’d broken one stirring my yogurt and yogurt was hardly firm.

Zayne smirked . “You take the top.”

It was a challenge. He was challenging me. Suddenly I didn’t care how impossible the task was. I wanted to win, and I would. Game on.

“Sure thing, mate.”

We all went outside to our class space there. Inside had been great for watching the slides, but we needed a ton of room, and the building didn’t have it. The students and our trainers sat down while Zayne and I got ready. None of us were strangers to nudity, so we stripped off our clothes and shifted.

We took to the air. The nice thing about Zayne in his dragon form was that he could speak to me. It was something all dragons within the clan could do, and it was especially easy between mates. The first time he’d done it this weekend, I’d been shocked. I knew it was a thing. The dragons in my family used it all the time, but not me. Everything was silent… or had been.

We flew around for a while, getting warmed up.

“Are you ready, mate?”

I let out a short screech to let him know I’d heard him. I wasn’t able to talk back to him. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But he was great at understanding me, at least so far.

I had the spoon clasped in my talons. Such a silly thing to be passing between us, but if it worked, it would be epic. For the actual competition, we’d use something more aerodynamic, obviously.

“Two laps around. On the third, that’s when you drop, but wait for me. I’ll move up. That’s when you drop the spoon, and I’ll grab it. All right?”

Of course. Easy. So easy. Never mind that the two of us had only flown together a few times and we’d never practiced this. I wasn’t sure about him, but I’d never even attempted this—not with anyone. Yet, we were doing it with an audience and the expectation that we’d be able to master it quickly. More importantly than that, we needed to convince them they could do it, too.

If I had been in my human form, I’d have been sweating. Good thing I had my feathers on.

We lapped once.

Twice.

On the third time around, I prepared to dive.

“Now,” Zayne called out through my mind.

I flipped, careening downward, upside down. I let the spoon fall from my talons.

For a brief moment, I lost sight of Zayne. Then, as I righted myself, I saw him—his talons snapping around the spoon. He righted himself, and we were back in line.

Perfectly executed.

A round of applause, whistles, and cheers erupted from our students. We had done it. And if we could do it with this spoon, it was going to be achievable for the team.

We landed near the bleachers. The tiny spoon was absurdly small, clutched in Zayne’s massive talons. How he didn’t break it would forever be a mystery.

I let out a happy screech, thrilled that we’d done it.

“Thank goodness we got that on camera,” Hayden said. “That looked perfect.”

“Students, that’s exactly how we want it to be done,” Kellan said. The relief on his face spoke volumes. He hadn’t expected us to pull it off any more than I had.

“Are you all ready to give it a try?” I asked as soon as I shifted to my human form.

“Maybe?” Christa stood up and took it from me. “There’s only one way to know for sure.”

She and her co-captain went first. It took them half a dozen tries, but they did it. From there everyone took turns, and Kellan became the sixth dragon team member so that everyone could have a go.

It was going to take a lot of practice and finding the perfect item, but they could do this. I was more confident of that than ever. The only thing left was finding the perfect item for them to use. It had to be visible for those watching, predictable when dropped, and strong enough to handle a dragon’s talons. We’d figure it out, soon enough. But for now, the plastic spoon would do.

“You did great up there, mate.” Zayne wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me closer to his side as we watched them practice. “Honestly, I’m not sure either of the trainers would’ve been able to do that.” He leaned in close to my ear and whispered, “I wasn’t sure I could either.”

“Same, mate. Very much same.” But we had, and now it was full throttle forward.