Page 17

Chapter 17

Zayne

“I t’s nice that we don’t have to travel for these meetings now,” I said as Ash and I settled into the conference room. Soon, we’d have a call with all the other Flight Leaders who would be at the initial district competition. At our level, the dragon flight games season consisted of three core competitions—though other teams could chose to attend as well.

“Yeah, I can’t imagine what this was like back in the day when technology wasn’t as advanced as it is now.” My mate stuck out his tongue playfully.

I shot my mate a side glare. “Easy with that ‘back in the day’ talk.”

Ash laced his fingers with mine. “Sorry, mate, but you’re considerably older than me. Best just to accept it.”

I huffed. He wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t a few years or even a few decades older than him. It really didn’t impact our relationship at all on a day-to-day level, but once in a while, it would hit us.

“Do you know many of the other Flight Leaders?” Ash asked.

“Yeah, just about everyone,” I said, flipping open the folder I had with the information about the other teams. As always, I’d familiarized myself with most of them before the season began, but for the most part, I’d met them all a time or two over the years.

Ash opened his laptop, no doubt pulling up digital copies of the exact same information I had. I hadn’t moved into a fully digital setting. I liked the way paper felt and the ease of being able to lay everything out before me to take them all in at once. Ash insisted I could do the same thing on my screen or by setting up a multi-monitor workstation, and he was probably right. But I had no plans on changing any time soon.

“The only team I’m not familiar with is Galeclaw Academy. Their Flight Leader recently moved up from Flight Trainer.” We’d met but very much in passing. Not all teams treated their Flight Trainers as equals. It always showed in their long-term results, which was probably how there was a Flight Leader position open up for this dragon in the first place.

Ash stiffened, his back straightening. The tension in the room ratcheted up a notch.

“Is everything all right?” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Is it the eggs?”

He was only two weeks into the pregnancy, and it was possible the eggs could be laid anytime, though it would likely be a few more weeks. Dragon pregnancies didn’t last an exact amount of time. Dragonets came when they were ready. It was miraculous and wonderful, while at the same time being horrible for planning.

Ash cleared his throat. “I’m fine. Eggs are fine.”

“Then what is it?” I asked.

He let out an awkward laugh. “I interviewed with Galeclaw Academy, and, well… this is a bit weird.”

“What is it? Have they broken the rules? Or do you know something about them?”

He winced. “A little. I talked quite a bit with them about their program. Nothing that I’m not allowed to know and nothing that would give us any sort of an edge.”

“But?” He wasn’t telling me everything, and from the discomfort rolling off of him, there was something pretty big left to say.

“But you should know—”

Just then, the meeting started, showing me yet another reason to hate virtual meetings. At least with an in-person meeting, they’d have knocked, giving me a few seconds to listen to the rest of my mate’s thought.

Flight Leader Seymour—the current head of the division, which was a role that rotated to the different academy Flight Leaders—called everyone to attention. It was one of those roles that looked great on paper but rotated specifically because it was anything but. Besides the paperwork and dealing with many strong personalities, it was a time suck. I was not looking forward to my next turn, that was for sure.

“Thank you all for joining so quickly. I’m hoping to make this meeting as brief as possible.”

Yes, please.

“First, welcome, Flight Leaders, to the Elite League. As you know, we have just a few weeks before we’ll all be meeting at the Drakonspire clan territory. I trust you all have the information you need about that.”

I flipped through my folder and pulled the paper to the top. There was so much to do before the clutch was here, and the more I thought we were ahead, the more I realized we were behind.

“And I want to give a welcome to Ash Halloway with the Emberstone Clan. He’s the newest Flight Leader to join the ranks.”

There was awkward applause and waves from the other Flight Leaders, many of whom I recognized from my time as a Flight Leader. I wasn’t the longest-running Leader, but it was close. Ash waved back, a smile slapped on his face. He didn’t love being the center of attention, and for this moment, he very much was.

Flight Leader Carson from Galeclaw Academy gave me—or rather, the camera—a satisfied smile. “Ash, good to see you again.” He winked suggestively.

Now it was my turn to stiffen. Thankfully, we were muted. I fought the urge to turn to my mate and demand an explanation. Clearly Carson, the smarmy bastard, knew Ash. But how? And why did he think it was okay to act like that at all, but much less with my mate.

“I’ll explain after the call,” Ash said behind his hand so no one on the camera would see.

Gods, this meeting needed to be over now. Concentrating while knowing there actually was something that needed to be shared was near impossible.

“All right, let’s begin,” Commander Seymour said, and he began going over the details, not leaving a single one out. At the rate he was going, this meeting was going to last forever. Of course, it felt exponentially longer thanks to my anxiety over the stupid wink.

Ash took notes furiously, and by notes, I meant he pretty much treated it like dictation. Anything I missed was sure to be on his paper somewhere. This was his first time being behind the scenes for the event, so it made sense.

When he’d worked as a journalist, he’d covered the other tiers of the dragon flight games, but never the Elite level. There was a lot to learn. Most of this would be second nature to me. A few things changed year to year, but we mostly kept it the same.

Once the call was finally over, Ash and I pushed aside our notes. He looked at me. His eyes were cautious, and when he reached for me, his touch was tentative.

“What was that about?” I asked.

He blew out a breath. “I interviewed with that clan for the Flight Trainer position,” he said. “I didn’t know that Carson was the Flight Leader they hired. That information wasn’t public yet. I ran into him at a bar the night before my interview.”

My gut twisted. I already knew where this discussion was going.

“It was over a year ago, Zayne.” Guilt flooded his eyes, and instantly, my brain connected the dots.

“You slept with him?” I didn’t really want to know the answer, but I also didn’t want my mate to have it hanging over his head.

“Yes.” His eyes fell to the table.

“Did you have a relationship beyond that?” I couldn’t envision him with such an asshat, but I didn’t want to envision him with anyone, so there was that.

He shook his head. “Once I showed up at the interview and met him, I realized just how much of a dick he was.” Ash let out a long sigh. “He knew the whole time who I was, and yet he still took me home. I wouldn’t have accepted the position there even if they had offered it to me. And they did offer it to me. He tried calling me a few times after that, and I just ignored him.”

I scrubbed a hand down my face. “This is an annoyance,” I said, holding back my rage at the way he had treated Ash. As much as I didn’t like the idea of them together in any way, hearing that he had been awful to the man I loved was worse. “And to give you a heads-up, he’s going to be a dick this season. And not because of you, but because he always is. He’s made more than one comment about me in the past few years once my record started sliding.”

My phone buzzed on the table. Carson’s contact flashed across the screen. Just what we fucking needed.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I hit decline and shoved the phone across the table. “Great.”

“Zayne, I’m sorry.” The sorrow in Ash’s voice gutted me. “If I had known then… I wish… I… sorry…”

I held up a hand. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Ash. We didn’t know each other yet and neither of us were saints before we met. It’s just… I need to be alone.”

It wasn’t the way to handle this situation. I knew that. But also, I knew that my dragon was pushing at me, my emotions were high, and that if I stayed here any longer, I was going to say something I wished I didn’t.

Why did my mate need to meet Carson back then? He didn’t deserve to be treated like meat, to be offered a job with the intention of being able to treat him that way again, and to have the asshole pretty much announce to the entire league that he’d once gotten down and dirty with his opponent.

If I could go back in time and fix it, I one thousand percent would. But I couldn’t. Instead, I needed to figure out exactly how to make my mate feel better, for Carson to keep his creepy ways to himself, and to get my dragon to simmer down. Walking out on him wasn’t the way to do that. And yet, there I was doing exactly that.

I didn’t deserve my mate, and he sure as shit deserved better than me. And still, fate decided otherwise, which meant there was only one option: I needed to become worthy of my mate. If only I knew how to do that.