Page 59 of Nine-Tenths

Chapter Forty-Three

A nd here we are at the top of Act Three.

These events are generally the most important parts of the story, since the entire plot depends on them to set up that oh-so-important final confrontation.

Gotta seed all that stuff, gotta start bringing together the team, gotta start laying out the plan of action for the big confrontation, or revelation, or in the case of romances, love confession.

Lots to do. Not a lot of time to do it in.

Just like real life—it always seems like every essay is due on the same day, or a rush of customers all come in at the same time.

It can't just be in dribs and drabs, nooooo….

And after all that set up?

After that comes the crisis point, leading up to a climactic confrontation in which our protagonist faces a point of no return: they must either prevail or perish. Win the love interest, or be forever doomed to live as a thornback aunt, alone and bitterly unloved.

Or thornback uncle.

Whatever.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves, okay?

The problem with devastating revelations is that, unless you have proof, there's no way to confirm your assumptions are true.

The more Dav and I talk about it, the more it's clear Lt.

Gov. Envybritches has not been a fan of my man since Frankie-boy arrived from Spain all shot up, and too late to win the glory.

School friends though they may have been, this has created a rift of resentment Dav only now understands Simcoe is actively nurturing.

But who could we go to with this?

Nobody. Simcoe is the top of the pops in Upper Canada, and beyond that the matter would have to go all the way to England to the courts. And we have no proof .

So what do we do?

We plan . Dav is a tactician by training, and a cautious man by nature.

He rarely acts without considering all angles.

We haven't said much to each other since this morning.

Dav's processing. His brilliant soldier's mind is going back over conversations, piecing things together, and I let him have his space for it.

I try to give him his physical space too, but he's not letting me more than an arm's length away for the whole day, and I get it. I'm okay with it.

His draconic instincts need to know that I'm near, and safe, and be assured that he doesn't have to worry about me. That way he can tune his heightened senses to me, use me as his baseline. Calm himself with the sound of my heartbeat.

He is my air and my joy. I am his ground and his stability.

But.

Living with an old Loyalist soldier means that when he's morose, he breaks out the old Loyalist comfort foods. Which apparently means drinking something that's stirred with a red-hot poker.

Seriously.

Tall heavy-glass mug, egg, ale, rum, spices, stir with fire—it's like eggnog on speed. Dav calls it a Hot Ale Flip and says everyone used to drink them when he was my age.

"Has anyone died from the mug exploding?" I ask from the other side of the hideous leather sofa. I'm hiding in case of superheated shrapnel.

"There were some deaths," Dav says as he wipes down and replaces the poker in the stand by the hearth. "But no more than usual for a rowdy bar fight."

"Except there were hot pokers ."

"True."

He hands me my mug, and I stop hiding so we can curl up together.

The drink is… thick. But good? Ish? I tell myself it's like a boozy milkshake and decide to at least enjoy the warmth of the mug in my hands. Dav looks like he's genuinely relishing his, and yeah, okay, all power to you then, lover. Maybe if I sip slowly enough he'll finish my leftovers.

Eugh.

Later, in bed, I am side-swiped by the beauty of the man tangled in the sheets, awe-struck by the literal embodiment of everything I've finally chosen.

The curtains are open just enough that a sliver of late August moonlight has snuck its way in, slicing across the room and highlighting all the best parts of Dav.

He's wearing just the bottoms of his fussy old-fashioned pajamas, and they're incredibly low on his hips.

He looks warm, and boneless, and I want to kiss the relaxed, sleepy line of his mouth, bite along the dramatic curve of his hip bone, and count his lashes.

I take in the feast that is the planes of his chest and shoulders, the elegant lines of his stomach.

His hair is covering his face, drawing attention to his parted lips, to the uncompromising line of his jaw.

His ginger-pale skin is pearly, greedily soaking up the silvery glow.

Stretched out like this, I'm struck by how vulnerable he seems. Almost fragile.

A surge of my own possessive protectiveness fills me.

He's music become flesh—the metronome of breath, the pizzicato of his eyelids flickering as he dreams, the subtle movements of his fingers.

I have a sudden, urgent desire to shake Dav awake and demand he play me something schmaltzy on a spinet.

I don't even know what the fuck a spinet is, but I bet he does.

And yet, the persistent whisper of muscles beneath his skin and the suppleness of his sleeping body gives off the sense of tightly coiled power. Both threatening, and thrilling. I share a bed with something wonderfully, beautifully dangerous, and it would never hurt me, because it loves me.

Dav is a study in contrasts.

He always has been.

Soldier, but gentle. Master, but willing to be overruled by other's expertise.

Possessive, but generous and thoughtful.

A man from a dynasty of thieves of land, and culture, and resources, but trying to figure out how to give back, if it would even be welcome.

A man benefited by every system in existence, and yet willing to deconstruct them, because it would make other people's lives better.

And Francis Simcoe wants him dead. He'll probably back off for a while, but he'll never stop coveting Dav's territory… Onatah's territory, too, I bet.

I won't let that happen, I tell myself, laying down to rest my ear against his heartbeat, letting the waltz lull me into sleep. I know his world now, and I love him anyway. Rule Four: Relationships are work. I am staying, and I am protecting him, and that's all there is to it.

Dav wakes up with a plan.

A plan, he claims, that requires a dress rehearsal. As soon as the morning rush is over, Beanevolence is closed to customers, because the group of us—Hadi, Pedra, Min-soo, Mauli and Dikembe, Dav and me—sit in the harsh noon sunlight watching Onatah pace around the café, absolutely losing her shit.

She's currently losing her shit because Dav has just deliberately and utterly betrayed the Great Confidence.

"But what if the planet really can't sustain us?" Dikembe asks.

"What a load of pretentious colonialist horseshit!" Onatah snarls.

"Here here!" Hadi says, and around her, the humans raise our mugs. Min-soo is in the back crafting some sort of breakfast tray for the hungry rebels—her words, not mine—but she can clearly still hear us because she shouts "Huzzah!" as she emerges from the kitchen with nibbles.

"It can sustain us, though! Did you know that if you turned just a third of Canada's grass lawns into food gardens, we could provide free produce to every school in the country?"

Dav chuckles. "I did not know that, Mine Own, but I adore that you do."

"Not to mention the fact that the way Onatah stewards her territory can be replicated," Pedra says, jumping to her feet, energized now.

"I can only guess how many dragon societies work just like that!

What about all the traditional practices and knowledge the Europeans wiped out?

We could talk to… to the Aztecs! And the Māori! What if—"

"Slow down," Mauli says gently. They rub her shoulder soothingly. "You're getting ahead of yourself."

"Besides, the point is… this isn't news to them. They know," Dike mutters. "And instead of using The Gift to make humanity stronger and better, instead of using the evolutionary power they've developed specifically to do that helping , they… well, they hoard it."

"Greedy," Onatah sneers. "Selfish, and self-important, and self-righteous, and greedy ."

"Why can't they … come out and be honest?" Mauli asks. "Why not 'fess up?"

"That every fluid in our bodies has the ability to heal almost every disease suffered by humans? Including age?" Dav asks calmly. He slides his hand down to my leg, grounding himself in touch, and I cup my hand over his. "Can you imagine the horror show?"

"Riots," Onatah says. "Everywhere European Empires have touched—this will be news . Look at how upset you all are, and you're not the kind of people prone to grabbing a gun and shooting up a public place."

"Jesus Fucking Christ," Hadi breathes, as we all envision the outcome of a world full of angry humans deciding that they don't want to be ruled by dragons any more.

All at once.

En masse.

No discussions, or diplomatic talks.

Just… violence.

"And that's not to say what may happen if some humans get it into their heads that they're owed this Gift," Dav says. "All it would take is a few enterprising people with no morals, and dragons could start disappearing. The children—the eggs—"

"You don't know that," Dike says softly. "You don't know that's the choice humanity will make."

"But you can't promise otherwise," Dav says softly.

Pedra turns imploring eyes to Dav. "So what now?"

"The problem is, it's already out there," I explain. A frisson of urgent understanding ripples through the room. "Pedra's already shared it on her research boards. We can't take it back."

Onatah snarls, her throat clicking.

"Watch it!" Hadi says. "I can't afford to have another dragon burn down my place."

Dav chuckles with strained self-deprecation. Onatah snorts out a plume of blue-black smoke with a smirk.

"Unlikely," Dav says. "Onatah's Favorite would never stand for her being careless."

But all of this banter and joviality is strained. An act.