Page 104 of Nine-Tenths

"This was good scared. I didn't know what was coming, but I knew that we'd do it together, and that made it worth it."

"I'm fine," I tell Dav.

"I thought—when you fainted… that I—"

"I'mnotafraid of you. Okay?" I crane my head up to meet his eyes.

He looks unconvinced. "Then what was it?"

I squeeze the hand in mine. "Don't worry about it." Dav makes a noise that I haven't heard in a while, the annoyed click-growl. "Can't we just…not do this? Please. Just for tonight."

"Very well," Dav says, but doesn't sound happy about it.

This room is nothing like the museum-quality drawing room downstairs. This one is filled with old leather furniture and worn-out pillows. There’s a jumble of remotes in a bucket on a glass coffee table. There's also a stack of romance novels—the exact same line of historical draconic romances that I'm not ashamed to say I have a delivery subscription to. I'd guess Dav got them specifically for me, except the spines are all cracked. Someone's been reading them.

At the top of the pile is the book form the hospital:The Azure Ariki's Royal Bride. Below that are books set during the failed American Revolution, the retaking of New Amsterdam by the Dutch, the Mexican conquest of California and Texas. All books set right around the same time Dav came to Canada to helm the Loyalist efforts against the fractured American forces.

"Shall I read to you?" Dav asks, when I pick upThe Scottish Duke's Reluctant Wife.

"Isn't this treasonous?" I waggle the book at him. "An English dragon reading a romance about a Scot?"

"I'm Canadian, remember," Dav says playfully. "Besides, Raibeart Rìgh and Elizabeth Regina are mostly friendly, at this point. They meet once a year for tea on the Wall, you know. He's getting on, for a dragon, and David Beithir is by all accountsquite smitten with Anne Coronam Reginae.. So that bodes well for continued good relations."

"And a union of the British Isle via their heirs?"

"Heavens, no—two draconic monarchs marrying? Never. Anne shall have her Wales and England, David shall have his Scotland, Mann, and Iceland. And nothing short of a bloody coup would unite them at this point. And never for a moment suggest that Domnhall Mór-rí the Third ever succeed Ireland to British rule to his face, or he will take his great-great grandfather’s sword off the wall to threaten you. I have witnessed it."

"Do they each have, um, an Own?" I ask, picking nervously at the book’s spine. I figure if all this royalty nonsense is going to be a part of my life now, I should get it figured out, right?

Dav blinks down at me, neck adorably scrunched. "I forget that what is common knowledge among my family is not amongst yours. Elizabeth Regina's most favored is, of course, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester."

"Oh, of course," I say, wracking my brains, but I'm coming up blank. It's not like Ireadthe royalty gossip magazines I've been splashed across.

"Anne has her Grey Brydges. There was Castlehaven, for a time, terrible fellow, and none of us were surprised when she bit his fool head off. David is rarely without his own Elizabeth, and Raibeart's is, ah… Isabelle? Isabella? I've forgotten. And I regret I have never been close enough to the Irish court to be introduced to their king’s Favorite."

Putting aside the part where the heir to the English thronebit someone's fucking head off, a sinking feeling grows in my stomach. "Are… iseveryonein the royal family straight?"

"Heirs must be got."

"But… it's okay, right? This isn't going to be athing?" I gesture at the invisible connection binding us together.

"It's different among dragons," Dav says softly. "It's less, oh, defined, shall we say?"

"But youaregay, right?" I ask, leveraging myself up on his chest so I can meet his gaze dead on.

"I'm in love withyou," he says, which isn't an answer at all.

"So pan, then? Or bi?"

Dav draws me in for a sweet kiss that I let him have. "I'm yours."

No,the grumpy thunder cloud in my head corrects.You're his.

"Shall we read, Mine Own?" he asks, reaching for the hospital novel.

Labels aren't for everyone, anyway.

I let myself be coddled because he so clearly wants to be coddling me. As he reads, I wonder if he’s going to dodge this question too or—

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