Page 144 of Nine-Tenths

What?

What?

And then it slams home—Onatah refusing skin-to-skin contact, Laura's dancing gloves, the way Lt. Gov. Fuckface offered his hand at the door, held on too long. The way his finger had brushed along the underside of my wrist. My brain lights uplike a Tesla coil, arc lighting jumping from vertebrae to vertebrae up my spine until it tingles out the top of my head:revelation.

I’d thought the handshake was weird.

I hadn’t realized it wasdeliberate.

"That's right," I say hastily. "He touched me."

"Youlethim," he accuses, wounded, and now he pulls back. He lifts my arm, sneers at it as if he could see the stain Simcoe imprinted on my flesh.

Now I can see him, too. Somehow his eyes have gotten too big for his face, red scales gathering around their tender rims.

"It was a handshake. To mend fences." I’m careful to keep my body language open, accessible, all his. "He wants to break us apart, but I won’t let him. It was just a handshake, because it's good manners. Because he cares about manners. I did it to keep us safe."

Dav growls, a rolling, menacing sound that shakes my bones. "Ikeep you safe."

"But you weren't there, and I—ah! Dav!" I whine and wriggle. "You're hurting me!"

He stops moving, eyes flickering down to where his claws have punctured flesh. They're just a small constellation of blood spots, no worse than a prick with a pin.

"Fy Nhrysor," he says in that language I don’t know but I am starting to suspect is Welsh. He sounds wounded and terrified. He hasn't snapped out of whatever this is, he's still holding me down, but his eyes are his again, fearful and wet. "I'm sorry,… I don't know how to…"

"Mark me," I say suddenly, before my sense can catch up with my mouth. "Give me a hickey. On my wrist, right here. Bite it."

I push the arm he's holding up in front of his face.

"Colin—"

"Go ahead." I try to infuse more confidence into it than I'm feeling. "You won't hurt me."

"I might."

"Youwon't."

He runs his tongue first over each of the pinpricks, lapping away the blood and soothing the little stings. His mouth is wet and wide on my arm, his saliva washing away whatever trace of Simcoe might be left. By the time he's sucked a livid purple mark into the skin, he's shuddering and heaving like he's just run a marathon.

"Hey," I say softly, when he's sprinkling little kisses around the hickey. I reach up, brushing his lank, damp hair back from his forehead. "Hey. Look at me."

I’m still fucking terrified. But Dav is clearly more scared than me.

"I'm sorry," he sniffles, raw. "It's been so long since I've had a Favorite, and I—no, it's not an excuse, I'msosorry—"

He retreats to huddle against the footboard.

"If I leave, will you jump me?" I ask, feet tingling with the itch to run, lungs tight. I take deliberate, slow breath after deliberate, slow breath, keeping up the illusion of calm surrender.

"No," Dav grinds out, curling in on himself. His knuckles are white as he grips his own bare ankles. I want to kiss them. I want to scream. "Just… move slow."

I sit up as slowly as I can, abdomen trembling with the effort.

"Don't look me in the eye." His whole body shudders. The tendons of his neck stand out, ropes under his flesh. "Don't challenge me. But don't turn your back."

I slide as slowly as possible to the side of the bed, eyes firmly on his feet. I've never studied them before. The vulnerable sweep of the arch. The knobbly way his pinkie toe sticks out. I back toward the door, slip my phone off the table. His big toe has sparse ginger-gold hair on the knuckle. His toenails are as fussily manicured as his fingernails.

Yesterday's jeans and shirt are still laying on the floor by the door, and I scoop them up. I bump into the door frame, shuffle to the side, and back into the hall. One step to the left, and his head shoots up, pupils slit again as he struggles to restrain himself.