Page 53 of Nine-Tenths

Chapter Forty

O natah splashes another tot of whiskey into everyone’s cups but Hadi’s.

Okay.

This is going to be that kind of story.

"Charlotte was Dav's first Favorite," Onatah starts gently. Hadi shoots a startled look at me. I slump lower. "She's the one who gave him that nickname. She gave him front gates. She loved to dance as much as him. Can you imagine Alva-draig Tudor doing the Charleston? It was hilarious."

"How did they meet?" Pedra asks.

I’m glad she does, because my tongue has shriveled.

"Ypres, 1915. She was a nurse. She was kind, but angry at the pain the war inflicted. He was the Lieutenant Colonel in charge of a battalion."

I may find real-life history class boring AF, but even I knew that Ypres was both a Canadian triumph, and a slaughter. It's where John McCrae wrote In Flander's Fields : poppies, black birds wheeling across a gun-smoke sky, and crosses, row on row on row.

"Dav wouldn't allow the doctors to treat him until his men were seen to.

To hear Charlie tell it, he was the most stubborn cuss to bleed all over her tent.

Dav says he was helping the nurses with first aid.

Charlie said he was fluttering around like a moth, leaving slipping hazards in his wake.

She stuck him with an anesthetic and apparently he went down like a sack of potatoes," Onatah chuckles.

Charlie . Of course Dav would fall for a strong-willed, devious woman, who served people through healing, and called herself Charlie.

Still not jealous.

"When he came to, she was dressing his shoulder. He said she was glowing. Charlie said it was the light hanging above her head. But Dav spun it out that it was like she was a twyleth twyg , come to snatch him into the fairy realm."

Okay, maybe a bit jealous.

Has Dav ever talked with Onatah about the first time he saw me? Did he compare me to a bog witch?

"Charlie was an incomparable goddess, okay? I get it," I grump. Onatah kicks me under the chair. "Ow!"

"Don't be like that," she tuts.

"I'm not," I protest.

Hadi snorts.

"By the time the Great War was over, Dav had won Charlie over, too.

She agreed to move to Canada, to become Dav's Favorite.

But the life was… restrictive." Onatah shakes her head.

"Dav… he doesn't pick humans that acquiesce or kowtow.

He never has, not even for his casual lovers.

You're so much like her, Colin. You're both bold, and blunt, and clever as fuck.

And you give a shit about people, you know?

Parties, and diamonds, and whatever else royal Favorites get themselves all worked up about, that doesn't matter to you.

You're pretty in the same way, too—big eyes and stupid hair. "

"Hey!"

"Charlie scandalized the county when she arrived with a bob."

"I feel like I should protest more." But the compliments, however backhanded they are, fill the hollow place today’s other revelations carved out in my chest.

"You’re also good for each other in the same way. He smiles more, he's grounded, he's focused. And you, kid, you're calmer, too."

"How do you know that?"

"Do you think I'd let my BFF moon over a human and not scope you out?"

"You were here before?" Hadi asks.

"Multiple times."

"Shit," I say. "I never noticed." I point to her horns.

"I wear a hat, dumbass. And it's not like you ever paid attention to anyone but Dav, anyway. The way you stared at him when you thought nobody was looking…"

I groan and cover my rising blush with my hand. "Don't."

"You know he added the chapter about PDAs to the book just for you?" She laughs. "He noticed that you're handsy."

"What book?"

It takes Onatah a second to realize I have no idea what she's talking about. "Fuck's sake. He had a book made for Charlie, with all the rules and stuff. He didn’t give it to you?"

"That sounds horrific," I snort. "'Here's a textbook listing everything you're allowed to do for the rest of your life. Study up!' No thanks."

Onatah wipes at her face. "So not exactly like Charlie. She didn't resent having staff, like you seem to. Living the high life, she liked that. But she wanted something meaningful. Useful."

"But Favorites aren't useful," I say softly, as Hadi scowls. "They're ornamental."

"Becoming a Favorite is a reward for a victory well-earned, or a talent well-honed, or a blood-line well established. You have to have been born right, or you distinguished yourself," Onatah agrees.

(I had done none of those things.)

"At least in the British court?" Hadi asks, perceptive as always.

Onatah smirks.

"I don't want to rest." Despite my full-ass post-graduation year of spinning my wheels, I'm too hungry to rest. I want to do stuff. I just don't know what that looks like yet.

"Neither did Charlie. She gave a shit about Dav's hoard. Charlie was the one who set up the communal breakfast, so no one went into the field or to our offices hungry. She established charities. She was on local committees for schools, and veteran housing. She was determined to make a difference."

"She sounds amazing." I take another petulant sip of my coffeeish whiskey.

"She was," Onatah agrees.

I try not to take it personally. Just because Dav's first Favorite was incredible doesn't mean that he's traded down. Even though it feels like it.

Does Dav only love me because I'm the male version of Charlie? I could spin myself in circles second guessing him, but Dr. Chen would call that fawning behavior, and put a stop to it.

Let what he shows you be what you believe , she'd say . Don't look for hidden meanings or subtext or tricks. People will tell you who they are—pay attention and accept it for what it is unless they prove otherwise.

Dav loves me.

Dav loves me.

Loves me so much he… I press the heel of my hand against the hickey sharply. The pain brings me back into my body, into the present.

"So. How?" I don't need to elaborate.

Onatah knows what I mean.

"Dav and I, our lives, our cultures, our way of managing our hoards is…

Charlie wanted to learn everything about how I do it, see what they could improve.

They'd visit a lot. Sunday picnics, on this outcropping, above a river.

" Onatah's shoulders roll inwards in misery.

I know this next part, but it doesn't make it any easier to hear.

"Dav was… so young, and so cavalier, and…

" She gestures helplessly, rumbling to clear away the wet thickness in her words.

"He went down. Charlie reached out too far for him and… Dav caught himself. And I caught her."

Onatah looks at me, meaningfully. Hadi sucks in a hissing breath of horror, understanding right away what it means.

"Charlie swung back against the rock and, and there was so much blood—" Onatah's voice crackles. "I couldn't get past him. He was crouched over her, snarling, and she was bleeding and… he thought he was protecting her, you see?"

"Oh my god," Pedra whispers. She reaches over, offers Onatah the comfort I can't, lays a hand on her knee. Onatah clutches it. "That must have been awful."

Onatah takes a few, sucking breaths. "He was out of his fucking head.

By the time N?cimos came back with help—" she bites off the confession with a hard grunt, teeth clenched.

"It was no one's fault. But they blame Dav.

His Favorite died in the territory of a 'heathen savage'.

" A prickle of foreboding crawls up my spine. "Because I touched her. And he let me."

"But you couldn't let her fall!" Hadi protests.

"According to them, I should have," Onatah snarls. "Better a dead Favorite, than a violated one."

That word— violated— slams into my chest like a baseball bat. What little calm I'd managed to cultivate shatters. The shrapnel stabs at my lungs. I half expect to cough up blood.

I must make a wounded noise, because everyone's eyes swing to me.

"He did it on purpose," I manage to shake out. "Dav's history, his past, Simcoe knew and he touched me anyway."

"That sadistic motherfucker," Hadi hisses. Suddenly she's on her knees in front of me, arms wrapped around my shoulders, my face in the tail of her hijab, clinging.

"But Dav stopped." I lay my forehead hard against her shoulder, grounding myself. "Dav stood in the bushes and let me cry, he didn't crowd me, didn't—"

My hands start clenching into fists of their own volition, and I press them against my heart in an effort to control both.

"Colin! Hey… breathe!"

"I am! I am breathing. I… oh god!"

Hands on the side of my face, fingers on my temple.

Five…. Five… five things I can see… I can't… I can't see… anything.

Anything.

"Colin!"

"I'm here."

"No, you're not, come on, look at me… Deep breaths."

That's something I can do.

In. Hold. Out.

The black spots at the edge of my vision recede.

When I look up, Hadi's eyes widen, and I can tell it's bad.

"Fuck . Fuck . I knew he hadn't told me everything," I hiss. The coffee threatens to make a reappearance. I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek to keep that from happening.

Hadi looks desperate and lost. "What can I do to help?"

"I can't… I don't think I can go back there." My insides cramp up, my breath clogging in my throat. The tears are already rolling down my face, my vision sliding. I grab Hadi's arms, fingernails digging in.

"Favorites don't get to change their minds," Onatah says softly.

"You can't seriously think we're going to let him go back there if Dav is going to maul him!" Hadi snarls.

"Hey, I don't make their rules!" Onatah protests. "But I can tell you this—if you run away, if you leave, they will find you and they will bring you back."

"Fuuuuuck," I whine.

"If it's any help, I do genuinely believe Dav will never hurt you."

"The thing on Colin's wrist begs to fucking differ!" Hadi says.

"That was my idea," I tell her. "I thought if he could mark me a different way—"

"Next time use soap," Onatah says.

"Well I know that now ," I snark back.