Page 135 of Nine-Tenths

"—I don't mean it likethat, I just mean…" WhatdoI mean? Maybe I should throw myself out of the window and save us both this agony. Ugh. Feelings suck.

"Do you fear that I’ll kill you next?" Dav asks, bristling. He clambers to his feet, so I do too. I stay on the opposite side of the bed, not because I'm afraid of him but because I don't know whatI'll do, howI'mfeeling, and I don't think I'm ready for him to touch me, not with my skin tingling like I'm licking a live wire.

"Of course not! But—"

"But what?"

"I love you, but I can't… I can'tleave,Dav. There’s all these secret rules I didn’t know about, and now I’m gonna live forcenturies, and I’m expected to maintain this fucking conspiracy, and I—don't you get how terrifying that is?"

"You put the pin on yourself—"

"You never told me what it meant!"

"And so easily, we're back to it being my fault."

"No!" I shout, and stomp my foot because he's notlistening.Because I can't find thewords. Because even I don't understand what I'm trying to say. "I just needtime, okay? Andspace, I need… I don't know what I need. I have to wrap my head around this. If I'm not your slave, I'm your, what, your trophy husband? Is that it? I don't… I don't know what I am to you, Dav, and I don't know what you are to me, and thatscares the ever-loving fuckoutta me, because all I want is to bewithyou."

"You are with me." Dav seizes on the opening, reaches across the bed, snags my pinkie finger with his.

"No, I'm hereforyou. Do you see the difference?"

"No."

"Dav." I wrap his whole hand in mine. "I'm struggling. I am really trying to be okay with this, but if I'm going to find a way to be happy about being… Your Own, or however it is that I'm supposed to refer to myself—donoteventhinkof interrupting me to tell me the right term right now, I will scream, I swear—then you can't do this flat refusal bullshit. You have all the powerhere and if you just… if you justuseit, then it's not like we talked about. It's notus, it'syou, and me under you."

"I don't think of you like that."

"But you’reactinglike it. Every human at that party wasbranded, don’t you see that? Rings, and embroidery, and… you might as well use a leash! How are the other dragons going to talk about me? Look at me? Treat me? You say 'Favorite' but what does thatmean? Howcan I…" My whole body is quaking like I'm coming down with hypothermia. My tongue feels heavy and numb. "When being with you means everything that I am is going tochange, right down to the DNA?"

Dav crawls over the bed, and then it’s his turn to wrap me in his arms. It feels good.Nice. Warm. We’re trading off, tonight. And I want it. I want itso bad. I want everything that this is, andnothingabout what it means to everyone who isn't us.

"Howm'I supposed to love you when I don't have the choice?" I mumble.

"I don't know," Dav says gently, pets down the back of my head. It's soothing and nothing at all like what you'd do to a dog, and yet it's stillpetting. Just like Simcoe said. I tuck his hand between us, hold it against my heart. "I don't know how to help you with this."

"What," I ask, chuckling, but snottily, drowning in my worry and fear. "No etiquette book to follow? 'How to Collar A Human in Ten Easy Steps'."

Dav uses his other hand to tip my chin up so I can meet his eyes. He's as miserable about this as I am.

That makes me feel a bit better.

But just a bit.

"Usually it's not so abrupt," Dav says. "We've only known each othermonths, Colin. It's normallyyears. Decades, sometimes."

"Fucked everything up again, did I?"

"No," Dav assures me, and places a long, chaste kiss in the center of my forehead. "I hoped for this very thing. But you are impetuous, Mine Own. We've barely had time to learn how we work together. Now you've thrown us into something else entirely."

"You came into the café and youpicked me. Why?"

"It wasn't so calculated. I didn't come in for a coffee one day and thought, 'ah, yes, there's the one. I shall make him mine and lock him in my nest forever.' "

"You could lock me in?" I yelp, leaning back to meet his eyes, knowing my own must be bugging.

"Of course not," Dav rushes to reassure. "You can leave."

"I just can'tleave."