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Chapter Twenty-Six

D av has a cook, and apparently she leaves lots of little easy-to-reheat dishes stacked in the freezer.

Dav chooses a roast meal for himself. I pick the lasagna.

Once they’ve heated through, we sit at the table by the window, watching the moon rise over the vineyard while we both struggle to find something to say.

"I was placed on house arrest," Dav ventures at last, the first thing he’s said since we cleaned up that wasn’t about food. "I asked Onatah to watch you."

"Lt. Gov. Asshole had a stooge, too."

Dav cuts me a sardonic smirk over his potatoes. "Please don't ever let him hear you call him that."

"It's not like I'll ever spend any time around him," I say around a mouthful of what is, honestly, the best pasta I've ever had in my life.

Dav's ears flush.

"No." I set down my fork. "I refuse."

"You cannot refuse," Dav says patiently. "You are legally my Favorite. You may be commanded by any dragon above me in rank, or in family."

"Okay, so, one." I hold up a single finger. "I'm not forgetting about the house arrest thing, so don't think you've changed the subject, and two," I hold up a second finger. "Could the queen snap her talons and I'd have to hop-to?"

Dav sets down his own fork. "One, there is nothing to discuss.

Part of my punishment was to remain within the walls of my nesting grounds for a decade.

Donning my token—voluntarily and without my interference—has invalidated that.

Whether I leave the property or not, you may now be here, as you are mine, with every freedom and obligation that entails.

Including the demands of my protection, my shelter, my coffers, my table, and, should we both desire it, my bed.

Two, in exchange for those demands, you are a vassal of her majesty, so yes. "

"One, that's cruel. And me just a ten-minute drive away? Cruel ." I reach out and link our pinkies. "And two, a what?"

"One, that was the point. It was a punishment, after all. And two, as I am gifted with land in return for military service, you are likewise now promised."

"Service," I say flatly.

" Not sexual," Dav says quickly, blushing again. "Not always sexual."

"Could Simcoe—"

"Never!" Dav gasps, horrified. "It is quite one thing to be a vassal to a dragon. It's another entirely to be Favorite of a titled peer. No one would dare. "

"Yeah, let's talk about that title thing." I twist my wrist to pinch the back of his hand playfully. " Marquess Niagara ."

"Would it have impressed you?" Dav asks.

"Probably the opposite."

"And so you see why I did not mention it." His eyes drift to the pin, and his expression gets soppy. "For which I am immensely thankful."

"What if I forget to wear it?" I ask, knowing what a disaster I am. "What if I lose it?"

"Many wear the emblem stitched into their clothing.

Others, as a motif or cameo in a piece of jewelry.

In some cultures, tattoos are given to honored Favorites.

Though that has never quite caught on amid the courts of my cousins.

I could, ah, have a signet ring commissioned for you, should you like? "

"A ring," I echo, the connotations of the other symbolic meaning of a ring clanging in my brain. "Or a tattoo? Man, I don't know if I'm ready to be that permanent."

Dav looks at me with slowly dawning worry. "Colin. It is permanent. You do understand that, don't you?"

I shove a giant piece of pasta in my face.

Dav uses his napkin to wipe sauce off my chin, and takes both of my hands in his. "Look at me, Mine Own."

I look at him, chewing morosely. I've done it again. I've gone and ruined everything by being impulsive and…

"Best you swallow before you have the panic attack," Dav says, effectively cutting off my growing anxiety with annoyance.

I swallow. "So what is this, then? Like… marriage?"

"No," Dav says, far too quickly for my liking. "A spouse is not the same as a Favorite. You may marry elsewhere. Should you choose it. Though I would not prefer that. I do love you." He says it simply, like it's a fact of the universe.

"So, Sarah. Is she, like, an Own?"

"Oh no, only of my hoard. Her whole family has been, since her great-grandfather was Collected into my service as a batman during the Great War."

"So they're… yours ." I sit back. I'm not sure what my expression is doing, but I can't imagine it's reassuring.

"Yes."

"I… sorry." I spring up from my chair, filled with more frenetic energy than I know what to do with. "Let me get this straight. Once a human enters your… your vassal-dom, or whatever, they can't leave. Ever?"

"Why would any want to?" He shrugs.

"You own the kids, too?" I ask, mouth twisted in distaste.

"Obviously."

"Explain to me how this is any different from slavery!" I shout, and we're both startled by the way my voice bounces around the kitchen.

"My hoard are not slaves." Dav stands. "They're not mistreated, they're not abused, and they are never forced to do that which they would find distasteful. I pay them, and very handsomely, for their expertise!"

"And will you pay me, too?" I ask. "For my 'expertise'?"

"Colin!"

"Answer me!"

He squirms. "You will live on my largesse. The estate is comfortable. I can keep you in whatever—"

" Keep me," I spit.

"You can still work, if you want! Only, you don't have to."

"And what would I do all day?"

"Whatever you like!" Dav says, reaching for me desperately, but I duck out of the way.

"And what if I want to leave?"

Dav stops, arms dropping. "That, you may not do.

You donned my token, Colin. In full view of Simcoe's enforcers.

There were telephoto lenses across the street.

The media have photos of it. This is not like a human engagement you can call off.

" Right, that fucking hits like a wrecking ball.

Asshole. "There's no, no… takesie-backsies! "

"But I didn't know that when I did it."

"That doesn't make it any less binding," Dav says, in the pedantic, soothing tone that's starting to piss me off.

I gesture between us with a sharp finger. "And what if we, I don't know, we don't work out? What if we break up? What then?"

"Then I will…" Dav swallows audibly. "I will provide you with all you need to live as independent a life as my instincts and our laws allow. A separate residence, an allowance, permission to marry if you so desire. Though I would be… terribly heartbroken."

And he's back to being small and crushed-in on himself again.

Fuck .

"I'm not breaking up with you right now, okay? To be clear." I abandon dinner and burrow my way into his arms as he curls over me, clinging.

Red wings suddenly close us off from the world. Peering up at them, the kitchen light through the membrane of the wing-leather highlights a delta of blue veins. I trace one fingertip along one, amazed.

"Tickles," Dav complains.

It's as easy as that to be kissing him, again.

"Today has been shit," I say when the kiss drifts to a natural stop. I squeeze him hard before he can tense up. "Not because I finally got to see you again, but because there's lots of complicated bullshit that neither of us want, and we're both frustrated, and hurt."

"I owe Dr. Chen a case of wine," Dav says softly.

"Har-fucking-har. Look, all I'm saying is there's lots to talk about.

We're gonna get upset and shout. But that doesn't mean I don't love you, okay?

I'm really fucking happy you're back, and I don't regret tokening myself or whatever, because it means I get to be with you again. And the rest of it, we'll figure out."

"You are?" Dav asks. "You mean it? Happy?"

"Right now, yeah, I am."

We lose a few more minutes to another sweet kiss. His wings loosen around us, letting in fresh air.

"Will you stay the night?" Dav asks sweetly.

"Are you kidding me? I finally got to see your place. Of course I'm spending the night."

Watching Dav undress is like watching an endangered species of wildflower bloom. I'm sure my face is filled with stupefied wonder, each inch of precious skin setting my heart juddering.

He's stripping less because we're totally about to have amazing reunion sex, and more because his wings tore up his clothes. (But also, yes, reunion sex please.) Even though they're probably beyond repair, he folds them up anyway, as if some valet is going to come and put them away in the morning.

Each inch of precious skin has my heart juddering.

My fingers itch to help, but Dav has asked me to sit in the big wingback chair by the fireplace in his bedroom—the fireplace in his bedroom , I need to stress that—and wait.

The fire is banked, in deference to the warm August evening, and the crackling is the only sound as Dav disrobes.

It's not a show. It's methodical, the actions of a man used to wearing much more complicated clothing in a bygone era.

Clothing that needed to be cared for in a certain way.

It's beautiful and frustrating all at once.

I want to touch, but he's just out of range, the smug bastard.

So instead I squeeze my own knees tightly.

No underwear , I realize, when he's finally backlit by the glow of the fireplace, nude and comfortable in his human skin. Which, duh, of course not. He couldn't have done the tail thing if he'd had any gitch on .

With the world dark outside of his window, the ember-red firelight gilds the edges of him. He's incandescent. I want desperately to kiss him, and then it hits me again that he's right here. He's back. He's real.

I can do just that.

"Please." I lean forward, and Dav obligingly drops to his knees close enough for me to drape my arms over his shoulders, and open my mouth to him. I'm perfectly happy to be plundered, held close and treasured.

"I want you," Dav says, with all the heat and honesty of a confession.

"You can have me," I promise.

It's true. Whatever Dav wants, he can have.

We'll work out the details later.