Page 55 of Nine-Tenths

Chapter Forty-One

" Y ou're back," Dav says cautiously as I enter his—our— his bedroom. He's seated by the fire, a half-drunk bottle of wine already beside his elbow. I assume the rest is inside him. He stands. Fidgets. Takes a step toward me. "I'm so sorry—"

"Don't," I hiss.

He stops.

It's one thing to know it's not the dog's fault it bit you. It's something else entirely to let it get close enough to do it again.

The nothingness I'd been stewing in since I left Beanevolence dissipates in the wake of... some emotion. Big. Choking.

"Are you alright?"

"Of course not."

"When you said Onatah told you about touching, I assumed—"

I'm humiliated, exhausted, frightened, worried for my safety, and he thinks he can tell me it's my fault for not understanding? As if nothing had happened, still didn't have bruises on my wrist from his mouth, as if I hadn't been this close to being another Charlotte?

Like the song about the merry murderesses says, Dav has it coming. I throw a punch straight at his nose.

The thing with dragons, though, is that they're fast. Especially the ones with military training.

Before my fist can connect, I'm on my back.

Dav has one hand balled up in my shirt, holding me flat against the carpet.

The air woofs out of my lungs as my internal organs catch up with the rest of me.

My head doesn't hurt. It never hit the ground.

He's got the back of my skull cradled in his hand.

He put me down as easily as manhandling a sleepy toddler.

And he'd done it so gently.

I don't want his gentleness.

"I hate you so much right now," I snarl, pushing his shoulders. "Get off."

Dav stays where he is, oblong pupils blown wide, knees braced on either side of my ribs, hand in my hair like a lover. His fist flattens slowly over my heart, as if he could reach through my flesh and calm its frantic jumping.

Icy terror splashes over me.

Shit.

Fuck.

Did Onatah accidentally touch my skin when we hugged? Is Dav going to…?

He lifts my mangled wrist to his mouth to…

to kiss it better? Ha! Too little, too late.

Then he buries his face against my neck.

He takes a long, slow inhale, his stomach expanding against mine, and drops his weight onto me by degrees.

He's hard, but he doesn't grind down, for which I'm grateful.

And then I'm mad all over again, because I shouldn't be grateful when I've already told him to let me go.

"Fuck off!"

"Please, stay still," Dav says. "I need to—"

"Off!" I kick at his calves.

Dav manages to overcome his bullshit draconic instincts, and scrambles back to sit on his heels. "Colin?"

"Don't you ever do that again!" I pant, my voice coming out high and thin, reedy with fear.

"You tried to punch me—"

I crabwalk back until I'm out of grabbing range. I use one of the posts of the bed to lever myself to my feet. "Don't you ever fucking hold me down again, do you hear me?"

"Colin, please—" He stands.

" Do you hear me ?"

"I hear you!" He backs into the dresser, hands up in surrender.

"Fucking right you do!" I scream, and I jab my finger through the air like a sword. I'm sweating, panting. "You don't touch me again until I invite you to, got it?"

Dav's eyes grow wide in horrified understanding. "Of course. No question."

I want Dav to be the safe option again.

I want my agency back.

He waits for me to say something. Do something. He's always been so polite. Waiting for me to notice his regard. Waiting for me to make the first move. Waiting for me to hold his hand, tell him we're in it together, waiting for me to be the one to kiss him. Waiting for me to invite him in.

The only thing he never let me do first was to use the 'L' word.

"Are you really well? Your wrist?" he finally asks, when I’m calmer.

He gestures at the bruise, and it elicits a small kick of fear.

I don't want to be scared of Dav!

And I absolutely don't want to resent him.

This isn’t fair.

How dare Simcoe do this to us? My heart is so broken right now. But I don't need to break his, too.

"Nothing permanent," I finally admit.

"I'm relieved to hear it."

More waiting.

"Will that happen every time?"

He huffs smoke out his nose. "It will never happen again, because he will never touch you again."

"That's not what I mean, and you know it."

"You must think me so ill-tempered—"

"I really don't," I protest. "I understand that it's a biological urge or whatever. I mean, I don't understand why it has to be like this at all , but I understand… it's not fine , but… it's fine."

"Then why do you reek of fear?" he asks, in a small voice.

I don't know what to say to that, so I don't say anything.

"It frightened me," Dav confesses. "I don't blame you if it frightened you, too."

"Babe, it scared the ever-loving fuck outta me. But not because—"

"We can work on it. Maybe I can—"

This isn't fair, making him contort himself like this, like I don't already know what scares him most. "Onatah told me about Charlie."

He makes a sharp noise. "You must hate me—"

"Don't put words in my mouth." He stops short, startled. "I'm angry about it, yeah, but not with you. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have taken that swing at you."

"There's no need to apologize, Mine Own, I—"

"Please let me finish." And then I take a deep breath, screw my eyes closed, and blurt out the rest of what I've been rehearsing in my own head since Janet picked me up.

"I am terrified. But not of you. Not of the dragony bits of you.

What scares me is how… how wrong this could all go.

How easily. Do you understand? Accidents happen, so fast…

and someone you love can be gone like th-that. "

My chest burns, my chin wobbles and fuck , memories of Dad have slammed down so hard on the 'grief button' in my heart that I can barely breathe.

"Oh, Colin…" Dav says slowly.

"I can't lose someone I love again, not like that. I couldn't bear it if they did something to you, because of me. Or if something happened and I… I know it doesn't make any sense, I know it's stupid , but I love you too much to… to do this. Do you get me?"

Without moving at all, Dav crumples .

The next thing costs me a lot to say. It hurts. I feel like I should be spitting up blood as I tell him: "I love you. And I want you to be safe so I'm staying. But I… I'm not ready to do this. And I don't know… I don't know if I ever will be."

"I'm so sorry—"

"It's not your fault! It’s not you. Okay? It's not you … it's just everything around you."

Dav makes that awful keening noise again.

The rest of what I was going to say turns to ash on my tongue.

And then I leave the room, because what else can I do?

Nothing.

Are you paying attention? We are now in the transition between Acts Two and Three, and that means it's time for what writers call The Dark Night of the Soul. Tension thickens, and the final conflict looms on the horizon. We need to shake things up by pushing the protagonist to their breaking point.

You see, throughout the story, the protagonist has harbored a core flaw or fear, which causes them to believe or react a specific way to either a truth of the world around them, or a lie that they perceive as a truth.

It's what made them—me—hesitate to jump feet-first into the action back in Act One.

Like refusing to meekly acquiesce to becoming a thing , a pet, a kept man. Valued and loved, sure, but under the control of someone bigger and stronger than me, simply because they are bigger and stronger.

No.

Not Dav.

But also.

Yes, also Dav.

So, despite the positive strides your protagonist has made post-midpoint of the story, they've yet to address this core flaw or fear when Act Three begins.

Their greatest weakness. And they do have to face it. They can't ignore it anymore. Because ignoring it in the first place is what caused the problem.

Dav is thoughtful, and romantic, and so acquiescent. He makes it so easy to pretend that all of this is sweet rom-com nonsense and not at all about the effective, if accidental, enslavement of the meet-cute love interest.

But we have been pretending, I can’t ignore that any more.

The Dark Night of the Soul blindsides your protagonist, pushing them to their breaking point. They must confront the weakness inside them, or give up everything they've worked so hard to achieve.

Turns out, giving up is easier than I thought it would be.

Opposite the hideous orange lounge is what Dav called the Consort's Room, when he'd first given me the tour. I had grabbed his ass and told him I fully intended to sleep next to him every night, no need for a whole separate suite for me.

(For Charlotte?)

I'm glad of it now.

I shower, draw the heavy velvet curtains, crawl into the bed and just… lay there. Hadi texts, asks if I'm okay. I tell her I am. Don't know if I'm lying. The blip of rage has faded away again, become that same white-noise nothingness .

I can't leave—both Dav and Onatah have made that clear. And if I did, god knows what Simcoe would do.

But I don't know if I can stay.

I want Dav. That I'm sure of. But I don't want any of this. Something I'm also sure of. I don't know what to feel , and so I'm so overwhelmed with feeling all of it that I’m feeling none of it.

I roll over and stare at the low bookshelf and a desk under the window. Someone has lovingly shelved all of my books, and the sentimental knickknacks I'd accumulated in my time at the estate, as if they expect this room to be photographed for a magazine spread.

Fuck, maybe it will be.