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retreat to the teaching area. If he didn’t calm his dragon down again, his beast wouldn’t care if children were present or not, it’d jump the female at the first whiff of her scent.
     
    ~~~
     
    Melanie made her way to today’s training area. This was her third day of working with the students, and she’d discovered that without all of the bias and hatred of the adults, she loved interacting with the young dragon-shifters. They were as curious about her as she was about them, which would be a welcome distraction in the coming months. Especially since she’d been told that human women who were pregnant with a dragon-shifter child usually developed morning sickness faster than if she were having a human baby. As it was, the smells of certain foods were already making her queasy.
    She placed a hand over her belly and smiled. After winning over Ava Moore-Llewellyn, whom she’d later learned was Bram’s niece, Melanie actually looked forward to being a mother. Even if her baby was stubborn when he or she got older, all of this time teaching had taught her how to not only handle difficult children, but also what to expect when it came time to deal with her child’s emerging dragon. Apparently, since the shifting gene was dominant, all human females who had a dragon-shifter’s baby would have a little child capable of one day shifting, too.
    That was something else she wished she’d found out during her research before coming here. Not that it mattered; she was determined to stay and raise her child. But it might help with other women who were on the fence about whether to sacrifice themselves or not.
    She just hoped her child would take after her and not Tristan. The asshole had yet to say anything to her since he’d scented her pregnancy a week ago.
    Don’t think about him. She had friends, a purpose, and an entire culture to study. If she could contact her family or let them visit, it would almost be perfect.
    Of course, she had weeks before she’d be granted communication privileges, and only then if Tristan said so. Maybe if she excelled at this teaching thing, then Bram would grant her the privileges regardless.
    Mel came up to the rock ridge sheltering the practice areas used for the young dragon-shifters. Since it was early summer, the teachers tried to bring the students outside as much as the northern English weather allowed, using the few months of sunshine for shifting practice.
    She had yet to see any of the children attempt to shift, but hopefully the longer she worked with the teachers, the more they’d open up to her and let her watch some of their lessons. After all, she was a child when it came to dragon-shifter ways and if she was going to spend the rest of her life here, she needed to start catching up.
    She came to the ten-foot-wide gap between the rock walls that formed an entrance to one of the “safe areas” used for the youngest children and stopped to wait for a natural break in the lesson to approach the teacher. But as she looked over at the far side of the clearing, she barely noticed the ten students. No, her eyes latched on to the tall figure of Tristan MacLeod.
    He was currently talking to his students. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but the frown and broody attitude was mostly gone. Instead, Tristan had a patient, yet firm look on his face as he motioned for one of the students to come up front.
    The little boy moved to stand next to Tristan. After listening to his teacher, the little boy closed his eyes. A few seconds later, his hand became something that wasn’t a hand—she was too far away to see clearly, but she guessed it was a dragon claw—and then opened his eyes to shout, “I did it!”
    The sound echoed down to her, and she smiled as Tristan gave the boy’s shoulder a squeeze. After saying something else, the boy’s hand returned to a pale human one. The other students cheered as the boy went to stand back with his classmates.
    Tristan was even smiling as