Page 79 of Nine-Tenths

My phone rings as I’m opening my front door. I drop it in my eagerness, cursing and hoping they don’t hang up.

"You seriously don't know when to quit, do you?" the voice from earlier asks, when I finally fumble my phone up to my ear.

"Is he really okay?" I ask, instead of answering. Besides, what would I say?That's what my therapist says? Yeah, not exactly the first impression I want to make. "Is heokay?"

"He's fine."

"Where has he been?" I stalk into the kitchen, find a bottle of whiskey, and pull the cork with my teeth like a TV villain. I don't give a fuck that it's still early afternoon. "Did they hurt him?"

She snorts. "They don't have to beat the shit out of him to hurt him. That's something you should know. If you're serious."

"Of course I'm serious!" I take a swig. "Uh… what am I serious about?"

"Well shit. There's two of you," she groans. "Thepin,you dipshit."

I set down the whiskey long enough to fumble the pin into my palm. "What about it?"

There's a groan, loud and long, from the other side of the phone. It carries some of the rough growl that onlyhomo draconiscan make.

"Wait," I say. "Are you… uh… are you…" I rifle through my brain for the name of the only friend that Dav has ever mentioned. "Onatah?"

"Aren't you the clever boy."

"You're the awesome sock lady."

"You know, I'm gonna accept that," Onatah says. "But only because you called me awesome."

"Dav hasn't told me much else about you. Except that your territories touch. Sorry, is that rude to say?"

"Nah, it's fine for a Dragon's Own."

I choke on whiskey. "Sorry?"

"Yeah, you just might be when this is all over. Listen, he's back, and he's sleeping right now. I'm gonna let him keep sleeping because fuck knows he needs it." I try not to think of torture chambers and deprivation pods. "So that gives you some time to sober up."

"Fuck you," I say, but in that heartfelt breathless way that means the opposite. "How did you know?" I set the whiskey back on the counter top, head starting to get light and shame prickling at the back of my neck.

"I know the sound of a cork coming out of a bottle."

"Uh. Okay. I can do that."

"I'll be there at four," Onatah says. "And this is significant, so wear something nice."

"Nice," I repeat. That blazer Rebekah picked out has seen the light more in the last two months than it ever did when we were together. But I don't have anything else. "See you soon," I try to tell Onatah, but she's already hung up.

I save her in my phone as Snap-Dragon.

Onatah shows up on a motherfuckingmotorcycle.

If I wasn't already in love with one dragon, I might have fallen head over heels for this one on the spot. It's all I can do not to swoon when she swings one muscle-thick, denim-clad thigh over the saddle. She pulls off her helmet, and a dark shining braid uncoils down her back. Bone-bead earrings flash gold and cream in the streetlight. The back of her leather jacket has been embroidered with a swirling, interconnected mass of animal motifs, picked out in beads that wink as she moves. I've never seen a dragon who isn't beautiful in their own magnetic, not-quite-human way, and Onatah’s eyes are an arresting onyx, pools of deep space and starlight, striking against her bronze skin.

I had no idea that any Indigenous dragons still held Territory, and here's one who is not only Dav's neighbor, but enough of a friend to give him stupid novelty socks.

"Uh," I say. "I don't have a helmet."

She tosses me hers. I catch it on the first bounce.

"I don't need it." She brushes a hand over the top of her head, and what I took for rows of intricate braids turns out to be four thin, twisting horns that wrap from her forehead back across her skull.