Nine-Tenths

Nine

"So what do I call you?" I ask when he gets back. I'm trying to offer an olive branch, or whatever it is when you've been an ass to the regular who has accompanied you to the hospital, even though he didn't have to.

Part of my question is because I don't know his name. But part of it is me realizing he's a dragon—I mean, I knew he was a dragon this whole time, the eyes give it away—which means he's probably got a fancy title. Duke McSootyClaws or something.

They're always dukes in books.

"Oh." He freezes. "Dav, I suppose."

"You suppose?" I slouch, trying to find a position where my arm doesn't throb. I'm not having any luck.

"Alva-draig Tudor." This is the first time I've heard him actually sound miffed.

He looks out of sorts for the first time, too. His pants are creased and smeared with ash, and his waistcoat is hanging open like a regency rake. His hair, normally straight out of an Errol Flynn flick, with a severe part and careful swoops on top, is a sort of frizzy orange flop across his forehead. He pushes it back irritably. He's rolled up the ragged ends of his sleeves so his shirt looks less like he stuck his hands in fire—which he absolutely did—and more like it's a sartorial choice. And wow, forearms. Trim, and muscley, and flecked with more of those intriguing gold-dust freckles and spun-copper hair and, yeah.

It makes something in my middle flippy. Or maybe that's the pain meds? One or the other. I'm too hot, and too cold, and sticky with pain-sweat, and kind of nauseous, and I want to close my eyes and lean against his shoulder and sleeeep. Ugh.

"Dav it is," I concede. "Middle name for a middle name, then. Colin Fergus Levesque."

I'm blinking dumbly, my eyelids heavy in a way that sucks because there's no way I a) could actually fall asleep here, and b) should fall asleep here, and c) will probably not be able to sleep later when the shock of being lightly-stabbed in the middle of my first (and hopefully last) industrial fire has worn off.

"A pleasure," Dav says as he sits. His whole face twists up when he realizes what he's said. "Well, not the part where I hurt you—and set fire to the—it's not actually been a pleasure—"

"No, I get what you mean," I say, cutting off his increasingly-desperate word-deluge.

I shimmy, looking for some moment of relief because this is awful. I just want to cry and I'm not going to, I'm not. The fingers of my right hand have started to tingle. Maybe something's wrong with my arm. I could be paralyzed, or disfigured for life.

Shit.

"Though, draig is not my middle name," he adds softly. His voice sounds like it's coming through a tunnel. "It simply means dragon. We often append that to our given names. Rather like saying, ah, Joe and Not-Human Joe."

"Huh?"

"Dear lord." His voice is now deep in the cave, his face suddenly blocking my eye-line to the scuffed linoleum floor. One slender hand cradles first the back of my neck, then my cheek, then is laid against my forehead, then is gone. Gosh, he's warm. A miserable full-body shiver crawls over me. I wish he'd put his hand back on my nape. "You've gone dead pale. Colin?"

I wiggle my fingers, to prove to myself that I can, and the pain it stirs up is excruciating.

Am I about to vomit?

I might be about to vomit.

That wouldn't be even remotely cool and sexy.

"Hold still," he says, and then he's gone.

Ha, like I have anywhere to go. Or the ability to get there.

The flip in my stomach is starting to feel more like a flop.

"He's coming out of shock," a new voice says over my head. A blanket whumps onto my lap. "Keep him warm. The painkillers have started to wear off."

"Then give him more," Dav says, and this is the first time I've heard him leader-ly. "He should be lying down."

I bet he's a duke. Maybe a baron. Do I address him as 'Lord' or...? Boy, he sounds authoritative. Why is he never bossy around me? It's sexy.

"There's no beds," the nurse (the voice must be a nurse) says. "We'll push him up the queue."

"I'll get you some water," Dav says, and the nurse tells him not to. No food, either. He tucks the blanket around me, aggravated, and I swat him away.

"Hurts," I tell him when he yanks. "Knock it off." He steps back, lets out a frustrated sort of hissing noise that I had no idea dragons made, and is absolutely not adorable. "Go for a walk or something."

"I don't—"

"There's a Timmie's in the lobby."

"Their coffee is wretched."

"It's hot."

"It's not yours."

At some point my eyes closed, because I need to pry them open to squint at Dav.

"Say what?"

"It's not..." he starts, but my head is swimming and I don't catch the rest. "...-lin? Colin?"

"Don't drink it then. It's just an excuse to get you to stop fussing."

"Do you want me to go away?"

His stupid wounded expression hooks into me, tugs at the squishy bit behind my breastbone where my heart is working overtime. A part of me wants to, so badly, say No, please stay, hold me. I'm actually scared. I want my Mum. Instead I say: "I'm fine on my own."

"I don't think you are," Dav says quietly. He crouches down in front of me again, slacks pulling tight across his thighs. "The nurse said no food or water. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

I open my mouth to say shush and let me sleep, but what comes out is: "My sister used to read to me."

Fuck.

I did not mean to say that.

Now he knows I have a sister, and maybe he thinks I'm some sort of lame pansy for reading romances, and I'm not ashamed, but what if he thinks it's something shameful, and how could I ever like someone who thinks having a nice relationship with his sister is shameful and—

I'm panicking, I realize belatedly.

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