Jac Conway has always dreamed of working with dragons. Having joined the Academy, he is eager to work with them directly but novice students are not allowed near dragons. But when a prank by older students lands him smack in a dragon's cave, he gets much more involved with them than he planned.

This is a pretty simple set up with the conflict centered around Jack being tricked into his initial encounter with his dragon mate rather than it happening by chance. That was a bit offputting but everything is consensual so no triggers here if you're looking to avoid non-con.

It's short with not much staying power but it's cute enough. The best parts are the baby dragons. 3 out of 5.

I received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review. This is a short story about a dragon trainer, Jac who is curious about how dragon's reproduce. Third year students take him to the dragon's cave during mating season and Jac learns first hand how dragon's mate. Very short and very vanilla.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Since a ceasefire was called on the Dragon Wars, dragons and humans have lived in an uneasy partnership. To help humans understand dragons and prepare future dragon trainers, the Academy was created. Jac Conway is an eager student, long enthralled with all things dragon. But even he, with all his hopes and ambitions, never dreamed of just how close to them one night would bring him …

For a short story I found myself totally sunk into this world in a short amount of time.  The author throws us and Jae down a scary tunnel on mating night and the rest of the story just carries us away.  Yes, I wish to know more about the past history, how the dragons decided it was worth it to come together with humans.  The tantalizing elements here raise so many questions that a mere 50 odd pages can't begin to answer.

But the promise, the characters, small and large, the glimpses I saw of something bigger...well, if this is the start of a series I can't wait to see what the author brings next.  I hope to see these characters again as well.  What a way to shake up an  academy!

Cover art by Kirby Crow is pretty, but the blue is distracting.

All Jac wants is to study dragons, so he enters the academy in order to learn everything he can. In his first year he visits the dragon caves and actually meets one, except he never could have imagined what would happen to his future because of it.

This story was all squandered potential. It is almost an outline or a few short snippets from what sounds like a very interesting story. There's the introduction of Jac at the academy and his meeting Bryn, then a painful time skip that leaves out every single moment of Jac's time actually learning anything at said academy. All of that much-needed world building was skipped and then subsequently told to the reader in a later chapter. Had Sullivan taken the time to flesh out Jac's time at the academy, including the glossed over world of dragons and humans cohabiting, this story might have achieved the missed potential.

I was also missing a firm plot. The romance itself was the plot, but Jac spends all of ten minutes with Bryn and never sees him again during the awkward three year time skip. There was zero build up of emotion between them, so their eventual connection never felt believable. Had Sullivan written those missing three years--and not left out the other time skips as well--their relationship might have had the opportunity to gain that necessary depth.