Page 192 of Nine-Tenths

Eventually our conversation tapers away. Dav dozes, and I must too, because I'm groggy when we stop for dinner. Dav, regrettably, changes back into humanshape and dons clothes so we can stop at a road-side restaurant.

It's almost midnight, and we're nearly back to St. Ffagan’s, when I break the silence to ask: "Will you look like that?"

Dav is quiet, formulating an answer. It's snowing again. I loved driving with my Dad at night through the snow, because it looked like you were going warp speed through a sky full of whizzing stars. He would make starship noises, blooping all the buttons on the dash.

"Yes," Dav finally says. "But it will come on slowly."

"Okay," I say, because I can't change it, even if I hate the idea of having to watch Dav turn into a statue. "Does it hurt?"

"No, Mine Own." He leans over to kiss me softly. "I won't feel any pain."

"Okay," I say again, but this time I mean it.

Only the butler is awake when we arrive, and we tell him not to bother anyone else. It's nearly dawn by the time we've schlepped our bags upstairs, showered away the aches of a long car ride, and I've convinced Dav to return to his dragonshape for bed.

Not in a kinky way. I'm not up for anything like that.

Not tonight, at least. (But definitely another time, oh yes, I am more than open to playing.) For tonight, I just want to feel the warmth and the weight of him, the physical promise that I'm his. That he's mine.

"So now what?" I ask as Dav lays his arrow-shaped head on my sternum. He yawns once, flashing wickedly sharp fangs, split tongue curling, then flopping out the front of his mouth in a draconic mlem. I tap it, and he grumbles and retracts it.

"Now?" he rumbles. "Now, we wait."

"Well, that's not going to be agonizing atall."

Chapter Forty-Nine

Dav's sister seems to hate waiting as much as we do. We're woken mid-morning by the sound of feet pounding up and down the stairs at the end of the hall, underscored by insistent knocking on our door.

"Get up!" Owain shouts through the wood.

"What's going on?" Dav asks. I didn't think dragons could get bedhead, but the scales on the side of his face are adorably askew. His ear has fabric creases on it. My heart clenches as I'm struck, all over again, with how much I adore him. I get to have this, this right here, for the rest of my life. "What’s the fuss?"

"Nothing!" Owain says. "Unless you don't want to watch your sister hatch."

"She's hatching!" Dav exclaims joyfully, popping into his flesh so quickly I miss it between one blink and the next.

"Hey, hold on. Clothes!" I shout as he scrambles toward the door. He dives for the pajamas he'd left on the foot of the bed.

Hopping on one foot as he slides into the pants, he pulls the door open.

"How long?" he asks breathlessly.

"Your mother says you better come in the next ten minutes."

"Of course, yes," Dav says and smacks a kiss off his father's forehead. "Thank you!"

Owain looks past Dav, grinning, to where I'm still struggling to untangle myself. "Morning, Colin."

Oh god, I'm only wearing boxers under these sheets.

"Uh, yes, morning…" I mumble. "See you up there?"

He laughs. "Of course."

He closes the door, and Dav rushes around, fetching slippers, throwing on a robe, tossing mine at me, running into the bathroom to swish some mouthwash. I do the same, take a piss, and wash my hands thoroughly in case someone has the stupid idea to put a baby in them. Then we're joining the rest of the crowd of people upstairs, waiting breathlessly by the open nursery door.

Apparently a hatching is a whole-hoard affair.