Actually, I thought that in the first Temeraire book, at least, the relationship between Will Laurence and Temeraire seemed a lot more parent/childlike than romantic. That whole sequence where the jerks from the Dragon Corps were trying to get the hatchling Temeraire to abandon the unsuitable outsider Laurence and bond with one of their "properly trained" candidates instead by telling him that Laurence didn't really like dragons and was just pretending to be nice to him seemed really reminiscent of the kind of custody dispute where the interfering relatives/social workers/whatever try to get the kid to prefer the "right" guardian by telling him that daddy doesn't really care enough to want him to live with him, etc.