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"Nuh-uh, answer the question. Do you like it?"

He flinches again. "Not particularly, no. I had a governess who pinched."

"Ugh, governesses," I say theatrically, so it’s clear that I'm making fun of the pretentiousness, not him. "Alright. No more pinching. If there's anything else you don't like, you'll tell me, right?"

He nods, and turns his head to press a kiss into my palm.

My sweet dozy boy. Sex always tuckers him out.

"Don't let your parents hire that same governess for your… eggling? Clutchmate?"

Dav snickers. "Sibling will do. And there's no worry on that score. That governess was human and long dead."

"Good. Serves her right." Fuck not speaking ill of the dead. Assholes are assholes, no matter their state of being.

We're quiet for a moment, and then Dav lifts my wrist to his mouth for a kiss, giving away exactly what he's thinking about.

"Why would he do it? Touch me like that?" I ask. "After what happened with Charlotte?"

Dav stiffens under me, and I don't mean in a sexy way.

Yeah, I think this conversation requires underwear. I slide off his lap to go in search of mine. His is folded neatly on the desk, of course. Mine are hanging from a lamp.

When we're decent-ish, I scoot the second chair around so we're face to face, and put my hands on his knees, comforting and serious. "Despite what's probably running through your squirrelly head right now," I tell him. "I still think it was an accident. You were trying to protect her."

"No. I wouldn't let anyone help and she died as a result."

"Be honest with me. How bad was it? The hit she took?"

"… very bad."

"Would she have survived it otherwise? In nineteen twenty-whatever it was, if you'd gotten her to a hospital in time, would she have lived?"

He stares a hole into the carpet, clenches his jaw. "Not likely."

"And if Onatah hadn't caught her, and she fell into the river, would she have lived?"

"… no."

"So she would have died either way." I feel like the most callous bitch alive, watching the agony play out on his face.

"… yes."

I cup his jaw, lift his eyes to mine.

"Then how is it your fault?"

"I took her into another dragon's territory, it wasn't safe—"

"That's Simcoe talking. You don't really think that or you wouldn't have gone there to start with. Are you going to let me go through someone else's territory to go back to Orillia to see the fam?"

"Of course."

"No different, then." Something about all of this is still not sitting right for me, but I can't put my finger on it. "Next question: why would Simcoe touch me ? What reason could he have?"

"None whatsoever," Dav says. "Trifling with someone else's Favorite is a very serious offense. There's a court."

"So he threw you into this frenzy on purpose. "

"He can't have meant to," Dav says with a shudder. "It was my fault, somehow. It always is. But I promise, I've been working on my temper. I contacted your Dr. Chen when you wouldn't come out of your room. She's been helping me with anger management."

"I see."

Nothing about Dav makes me think that he needs anger management.

"I will never hurt you, Colin. I won't ever do that to anyone again. I'm dangerous," he insists, talking over me when I try to interrupt. "I'm so dangerous that I'm only allowed to ever go to war. My temper—"

"Which, hey, reminder, you've never taken out on me—"

"I laid you flat on the floor!"

"After I took a swing at you, and only to end the fight."

"The only thing I'm good at is killing."

"Bullshit."

"I—"

" Bullshit. " I gesture grandly at everything around us. "Exhibit A." Then I point at the people and farm framed in the window behind him. "Exhibit B." I hold up our linked hands. "Exhibit C."

Dav shudders out a breath. "It's so much, love. It was easier with Charlotte."

"It was also before social media and entertainment news. Can you honestly tell me that if it wasn't for the paparazzi anyone would give a flying whatever about us being together?"

"Likely not. Simcoe wouldn't have known until I filed the paperwork, and by then it would have been too late."

"And yet the person I am wouldn't be different. I'm still too outspoken, too opinionated, too ugly for Lt. Gov. Longnose. I am still the person who encouraged you to break a massive dragon taboo for shits and giggles."

"And I still would have been the dragon who did it, because I wanted to make you laugh. And then kept going because it made people happy."

"Your kink is showing."

"Hush."

I’m relieved that both of us seem to have calmed down enough to tease. "So, the only difference is he wouldn't have seen me coming. Am I wrong?"

"No. Simcoe—"

"Is a controlling jackass. Do you know what Onatah asked me, after she told me about Charlotte? She asked if I knew what happened to dragons who lock themselves away. Apparently, they wither."

"Yes," Dav says. "Like Rome. They weren't connected to the people they stole. It's uncomfortable to be on someone else's territory. Itches."

"Is that what happened in Aotearoa?" I ask, letting him sidetrack me for the moment. "The Dutch got itchy?"

Dav chuckles. "It's so far away from Europe. I can't imagine what it must have felt like. Certainly the land wouldn't call to Dutch dragons there the way it does to a Māori one. It wouldn't feel like it was worth fighting for. And without William Koning there to command his armies…"

"They withered. They lost, and died."

Dav kisses me again, desperate and clinging. I let him take anything he wants. Everything. I want him to live. I want him to thrive .

Onatah , I think, all of a sudden. The broken treaties. Her people lost so much—and Simcoe, man, if his father hadn't died when he did, Frank wouldn't have territory either. They would have nothing to cling into, nowhere to dig in their roots, no way to flourish in new soil.

"Next question, then," I say, when Dav is soothed. "Why would Lt. Gov Asshat make that your punishment? A century of house arrest, no Favorite, no contact with humans except those in your nest, no way to serve your people. Was it a death sentence on purpose?"

"No." He frowns. "No, surely not."

"One last question," I say softly, heart sinking, because I already know the answer to this one, and I don't like it one bit. "What does Simcoe stand to gain if you die?"

"That’s easy. I have no heirs at present. The marquessate would revert to him." Dav sits back and, gently, puts one hand over his mouth. " Oh. "

Man, do I love a great Romance Novel Revelatory 'Oh'?.