Page 69 of Nine-Tenths

"You grow up with twin older siblings, then tell me how sick of being bossed around you'd be.

" I cup my mug and tap the band of the ring against the ceramic.

It's a soothing sound. "So it's… it's kind of nice.

The revelations themselves aren't nice—actually, sometimes they are, but what I mean is…

I'm not explaining it well." I take a breath to recalibrate.

"Dav's first Favorite, Charlotte, he tells me she was the kind of person who loved to learn from books, right?

I'm the kind of person who learns from doing—walking through the field, touching the vines, seeing the relationships between the environmental factors for myself. "

"And Dav knows this about you?"

"He must have figured it out. Because if he had sat me down with a whole book of rules, and expectations, and an exact explanation about how we're both going to die in five hundred years, I’da run screaming."

"But he didn't," Auntie Pattie says. "And so you didn't."

"Which is lucky," I chuckle.

Auntie Pattie reaches over the table and pinches my ear.

"Ow!"

"Silly bugger. You think luck has anything to do with it?"

"Doesn't it?" I ask, rubbing my sore flesh.

"Your Dav is a military man, you said? Studied soldiery his whole life?"

"Yes."

"Being a commanding officer, the leader of a combat unit, being in charge of not only battles, but the logistics of getting everyone there in one piece, healthy and well-fed, and then getting what's left of them home again… you understand how much planning that takes?"

"Oh."

"Dragons who don't think don't keep their territories, and it's not all about battle prowess. Even if you outsource it by claiming the most talented humans you can in a field—" She gestures to herself, justifiably proud. "—you still need to find those people, first."

"So you mean like, Dav had a farm and a vineyard to run, so he chose a Favorite who could do it for him?

" The thought curdles my good mood. I don't like the idea of being a conscious acquisition, even if it did result in us falling in love.

I don't want to have started my relationship with Dav as a convenient and cultivated opening move in a chess-match to keep his territory intact and healthy.

I say as much.

"Ya ninny wee nugget," Auntie Pattie laughs. "I see the way he stares at you. It started with lust, pure and simple."

"Oh, well." I throw her a saucy wink. "It does make me feel better, knowing that he wanted to dick me down before he wanted me to oversee his production yields."

Auntie Pattie makes an undignified sound, shaking as she tries to hold in what I'm sure would otherwise be howling laughter.

"I'm just saying, it's almost like he gave you what you needed, how you needed it.

It's almost like he paid attention and figured out how to approach the first time in the best way possible. "

"Oh no, that was a complete clusterfuck," I tell her, settling in to recount the full story. "Five seconds after we had our first real conversation, he stabbed me."

By mid-afternoon, the snow has slowed enough that I don't mind waiting beside the car parked at the front of the castle for Dav. Well, I mind because I'm still sore about being kept out of the meeting, but I’m not getting buried in a snowbank, at least.

"Fuck," I whisper, and beside me, Auntie Pattie gave me the stink-eye.

"I forgot to ask Lady Isobel what Favorites are supposed to call our dragons."

"Still picking at that?"

"Boyfriend sounds childish, and fiancé isn't right because we're not waiting for anything, but he's not technically my husband because we're not married and dragons can have spouses that aren't Favorites so like, what do I call him?"

Before she can answer me, everyone at the front door leaps into motion, cranking open the massive carven door.

"I think it's literally the least of your worries right now, kiddo.

" She drops a big kiss on my cheek. "Text me when you're back to Wales safe, and keep me in the loop, aye?

" Then Auntie Pattie is off around the side, so she's not in the way of any formal grandstanding that might need to happen as Dav and I leave.

Which sucks.

I wish she could be here. She’s my family.

But like everything else in my life now, apparently, there are freaking optics . And speaking of optics, Lady Isobel is the first one out the door, which surprises me. She's wearing a massive old-fashioned fur wrap, and carrying another.

"Marquess Niagara tells me neither of you brought coats with you," she scolds as she descends the steps and, another surprise, completely invades my personal space and wraps it around me. "November in Scotland? What were you thinking?"

I smile at her fussing, pleased by this other side of her. In front of the other humans downstairs, she'd been aloof and politely amused by my showy barista antics. Now she's clucking at me like a particularly ruffled mother hen.

"I'm Canadian," I remind her. "This is barely out of shorts-and-tee-shirts weather. The snow’s already melting."

Lady Isobel chuckles. "You aren't half-frozen, and that's all that matters. You'll be keeping the fur, lad."

"Oh no, I—"

"A gift," she says, with a sort of eyebrow wiggle that makes it clear that it's not only in bad taste to decline, but that it would mean something in the way that things among dragons always do. "From one Favorite to another, ye ken?"

"I'm beginning to." I fuss with the ends of the wrap—soft, smelling of cedar, absolutely older than I am, and, dear god, made of real dead animals—and giving her one of those little head nods that I'd seen humans offering each other on Halloween.

"Good fellow," Lady Isobel says. "Turn toward me, now smile wider, and there we are. That will make the press happy."

I heroically don't turn and scan the bushes that rim the grand entryway to the castle. "So this was a photo op?"

"As well as a chance to let you know that I think you're both daft. I can keep you warm and provide some handy symbolism to hammer the message home to Cousin Lizzie."

"And what are we, uh, hammering home?"

Lady Isobel smiles indulgently. "Marquess Niagara and his Favorite are protected by Raibert Rìgh.

Quite literally." She pats the heavily jeweled clasp that could probably pay off the student debts of everyone in my cohort.

"No matter what happens in the coming days, you will find succor and support at Cardross. "

"Thank you." I swallow hard against a knot of fear and anxiety that her assurance shoves into my windpipe. Because you don't say shit like that unless you think someone's going to need it. "We are honored, Your Ladyship."

She cuts me a wink. Whatever little pageant we've just put on, I've performed admirably.

There's no goddamned way I'm going to ask her about what I'm supposed to call Dav now , not when I know there might be high-powered mics or lip-readers in the bushes. And then the doors open again, and there are dragons walking towards us. Three of them.

David Beithir looks like his father, only his scales are rich dark copper, his glossy mane shining in the sunlight. Next to him, Raibert Rìgh looks even smaller, and grayer, and dustier than he had in the throne room.

But between them, it’s the third dragon who holds all my attention.

I've never seen Dav’s dragonshape outside. I let myself stare openly, taking in the features I miss when he transforms in close quarters to sit on me for cuddles in the hideous orange lounge.

He's taller in the shoulder than the other dragons, I realize, more on the scale of an Irish Wolfhound to their St. Bernards.

And longer by a lot, too. His tail curls and whips behind him, held up off the stone floor, undulating.

He's not just red, he's every red. In the sunlight, his scales are brilliant carmine, glittering ruby, bright vermilion.

His underbelly shines like new pennies, and as the cold air hits him, he stretches his wings up in a draconic yawn.

The light through the delicate membrane turns them a glowing terracotta.

The first time I’d seen this, I’d been scared.

Not by the dragon himself, but by what getting to see his dragonform had meant.

Seeing him now, unashamed and comfortable, I’m proud.

Proud that this beautiful creature is mine.

That I can look at him like this any time I like.

That I'll have years, decades, to study every scale, examine every claw, kiss every little pokey spike down his back.

"Handsome," Lady Isobel says, catching my expression.

"Damn straight," I agree.

When Dav reaches the bottom of the stairs, he turns to offer the other two dragons some sort of elaborate wing-and-leg dip that I take to be a bow when they offer him a shallower version in return.

When all eyes turn to me, I give an equally low, fist-over-heart bow of my own, and then the driver is opening the door for us.

We’d driven ourselves to Scotland in a rental, but Lady Isobel had insisted on loaning us a chauffeur and a roomy compact limo for the ride back to Wales.

"Do you want me to change back?" Dav asks as I clamber in. "My clothes are with our luggage in the trunk, I can step into the vestibule—"

The thought of being in the secluded rear of the car with this scaly, fascinating, beautiful version of my dragon sends an intrigued, pervy shiver up my spine.

"The poor lad is freezing," Lady Isobel says with a knowing grin. "You'd best be on your way now, and you can warm him better like this."

We're bundled into the back of the car—me in my seat, Dav sprawling on the spacious floor, tail curled around my waist and head in my lap—and then we're off. Straight back to St. Ffagan’s, because optics .

Can't hang around the Scottish throne looking like panting beggars, is how Auntie Pattie had put it.

It needs to look like it was a social visit, quickly done and quickly over.

For the first few hours, we fill each other in on what our days have been like.

I pet over his head, cataloging the difference in texture between the soft scales on the tip of his nose, the armored ones that surround his eyes, and the silkiness of his ears.

Lady Isobel was right, and I'm shedding the fur before long, the heat from Dav's internal furnace more than enough to chase away the Scottish winter.

Eventually our conversation tapers away. Dav dozes, and I must too, because I'm groggy when we stop for dinner. Dav, regrettably, changes back into humanshape and dons clothes so we can stop at a road-side restaurant.

It's almost midnight, and we're nearly back to St. Ffagan’s, when I break the silence to ask: "Will you look like that?"

Dav is quiet, formulating an answer. It's snowing again. I loved driving with my Dad at night through the snow, because it looked like you were going warp speed through a sky full of whizzing stars. He would make starship noises, blooping all the buttons on the dash.

"Yes," Dav finally says. "But it will come on slowly."

"Okay," I say, because I can't change it, even if I hate the idea of having to watch Dav turn into a statue. "Does it hurt?"

"No, Mine Own." He leans over to kiss me softly. "I won't feel any pain."

"Okay," I say again, but this time I mean it.

Only the butler is awake when we arrive, and we tell him not to bother anyone else. It's nearly dawn by the time we've schlepped our bags upstairs, showered away the aches of a long car ride, and I've convinced Dav to return to his dragonshape for bed.

Not in a kinky way. I'm not up for anything like that.

Not tonight, at least. (But definitely another time, oh yes, I am more than open to playing.) For tonight, I just want to feel the warmth and the weight of him, the physical promise that I'm his. That he's mine.

"So now what?" I ask as Dav lays his arrow-shaped head on my sternum. He yawns once, flashing wickedly sharp fangs, split tongue curling, then flopping out the front of his mouth in a draconic mlem. I tap it, and he grumbles and retracts it.

"Now?" he rumbles. "Now, we wait."

"Well, that's not going to be agonizing at all ."