Page 48 of Nine-Tenths

Chapter Thirty-Six

O ne of the advantages that film has over books is the 'smash cut'.

This is a kind of editing technique used by the filmmaker to deliberately juxtapose the tone or information of the previous scene with the next.

Sometimes it happens mid-sentence for a character, or comes accompanied by a record scratch sound effect, or some sort of audible music sting to really make sure the audience is jarred by the harsh, quick transition.

You can't 'smash cut' in a book. But if I could, this is where it would happen.

Imagine the obnoxiously over-decorated, stiff and stuffily-crowded, loud party of Castle Frank and then, bam , Dav and I, in our PJs.

Dav is buttoned all the way to the neck, and we're staring at one another over the expanse of the bed, in the tense and miserable quiet of his bedroom.

" Did you kill her?" I ask.

Dav shudders, stricken. "It was my fault."

"That’s not what I asked. Was it homicide? Was it premeditated?"

Dav gasps in horror. "Of course not!"

"Then why have you never talked about her before?"

Dav scrubs the heels of his hands into his eyes. "How could I? I never wanted you to feel as if you were second best, and she—" He shudders again, curling in on himself, back heaving.

"Okay, hey." I scramble over the mattress to wrap him in my arms. "I don’t feel second-best. I’m just sad that you felt that you had to hide her from me. You loved her. She matters to you. That means she matters to me, too."

"Oh, Mine Own," Dav sobs, and I navigate us down into the blankets.

I pet through his hair, loosening the ridiculous gel he’d put in it to slick it back for his mask, as he hides his face in my neck and mourns. When he’s cried himself out, I say: "Can I ask, if you want to talk about it… if it’s not like they say it was… then how did she...?"

"We met…" his voice crackles. "In France. During, uh, the war."

Which one? I wonder. Simcoe sent you to all of them.

"She was English, a front-line nurse. In the trenches. She was…" the hand wrapped around my middle squeezes. "Brilliant. No-nonsense. Caring. Thoughtful. Beautiful." He cranes his head around and brushes his nose against mine. "Rather like you."

"Onatah said you had a type," I joke, trying to lighten the mood, instead of telling him he's utterly wrong—I'm not beautiful or brilliant, and I'm a selfish little prick some days.

"She agreed to return to Canada with me, to become my Favorite, and we… I loved her very much," he says, like a protest. Like a confession.

"I know. That’s good."

He's quiet for a moment, chewing on his thoughts. "I would never have met you, never have wanted you, if she hadn't died. I regret her death, and yet I take joy in loving you. All the same, I wish she was here to—she'd like you."

"Yeah?"

"Charlotte was interested in all the ways we can improve the world."

"See? A type."

Dav chuckles. "She formed a strong friendship with Onatah."

Okay, maybe I'm a little envious of a dead woman. "Wait, hold up. Did Charlotte get to meet Onatah's Favorite?"

"Colin," Dav scolds.

"Right, fine, whatever. Continue, please."

"We developed something of a habit of visiting Onatah on Sundays.

" He pauses to wipe his nose on his cuff, which is the least gentlemanly thing I’ve ever seen him do.

It makes me love him just that little bit more.

"We'd go to church, the cook would pack us a picnic, and Onatah would show us all the lovely little lakes she safeguards.

She was teaching Charlotte the traditional medicines and—" Dav trails off into a wet whimper.

"There was an outcropping, over one of the rivers, high up, had a good view. It became our preferred picnic spot."

My heart seizes . How awful.

"The rock was perfectly solid the week before, but that Sunday it just… Maybe our continued presence dislodged something, wore away at… or perhaps there had been a storm and the run-off…" He takes a deep, stuttering breath. "I went down first. Charlotte tried to catch my hand and…"

Beneath my hand, the waltz of his heart jackhammers.

"Breathe, babe."

He takes a deep breath. Lets it go. Takes another. "She didn't survive."

"I'm sorry." I kiss his shoulder again. "I'm so sorry."

"It was my fault."

"It wasn't."

"I pulled her over."

"You didn't mean to."

"I took her there, I put her in that danger. I made the wrong choice, I took her into another dragon's territory, and she paid for it. How could I have been so reckless? And then I did it again, with you, with the coffee, when I knew it was wrong…"

"I don’t think that’s fair," I point out.

"I regret, Mine Own, that the others don’t care what your opinion is."

"See, that’s the part that I can’t pretend isn’t fucking weird ." I try not to tense up or lash out. "That they all treat me like I'm not…" Go on, you coward. You can't bottle it up forever. "Like I lost all ability to think or reason or speak for myself now that I’ve basically become your slave ."

"Colin, it's not—" Dav gasps, sitting up.

"I know it's not, I know that," I say, hands out, stop . Dav stops, sits back against the headboard, small.

"You regret putting on the pin," Dav says.

Even his voice is tiny, and this isn't what I— fuck .

"No," I insist. "But I… you have to see this from my point of view, okay, like, I didn't grow up with any of the dragon shit, I didn't—"

"Shit?" Dav interrupts, eyebrows pulling down.

"—I don't mean it like that , I just mean…" What do I 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 what I'll do , how I'm feeling, 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't leave, Dav. There’s all these secret rules I didn’t know about, and now I’m gonna live for centuries , 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 not listening.

Because I can't find the words . Because even I don't understand what I'm trying to say.

"I just need time , okay? And space , 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 that scares the ever-loving fuck outta me, because all I want is to be with you. "

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

"No, I'm here for you. 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—do not even think of 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 power here and if you just…

if you just use it, then it's not like we talked about.

It's not us , it's you , and me under you. "

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

"But you’re acting like it. Every human at that party was branded , 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 that mean ?

How can 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 to change , 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 it so bad . I want everything that this is, and nothing about 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 still petting . 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 other months , Colin. It's normally years . 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 you picked 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't leave ."

Dav hesitates.