Chapter 36 Stabs And Scars
STABS AND SCARS
ALICE
“Are you a voyeur?” I whisper-yell, untangling myself from Harley’s sleeping form. “Because I’m starting to think that you are.”
“I am not a voyeur,” Ori whisper-yells back, face contorting into a sneer. He holds up my phone. “It’s not my fault you keep leaving your phone downstairs. The alarm wakes everyone up but you.”
I pointedly look at the sleeping form of Harley at my side, and Jessa on the other side of him. Jessa’s breath hitches, but she doesn’t stir.
Uhuh, everyone is totally awake right now, I say by tossing a quirked brow at the dragon taking up the threshold.
He kicks off the molding and leaves with a miffed scoff. I scramble off the bed, following Ori to the kitchen to start our strange new routine.
He’s already got two bagels set on the kitchen island for us when we enter.
I still don’t know if our shared breakfasts are meant to be consolatory because I keep failing; I haven’t managed to cut him once while he’s in dragon form.
Or if it’s meant to negate my claims that his dragon seems hangrier than normal…
How could he be hangry if he’s just eaten breakfast, right?
The third option, which is becoming increasingly more likely, is that he’s just being nice.
Between this, the way he thoughtfully planned the picnic for Harley’s birthday, and the memories that have resurfaced of the dragon shifter, I’m starting to wonder if his constant crotchety attitude is a mask he clutches to.
What is he hiding behind it?
I swipe my bagel off the counter, the yellow-orange tint of the egg-everything showing through the waxy paper. Ori gets a plain. With butter. Like a fucking psycho.
“I’m not a voyeur,” Ori grumbles, dropping my phone on the island before grabbing the shaker cup next to his bagel and taking a sip of a grossly thick protein shake. “I don’t watch you guys sleep.”
“Well, I keep waking up to you staring at me in bed with my boyfriend and girlfriend. It’s starting to get weird.” I rip open the bagel and take a large bite, sighing at the toasted notes of the seeds and the creamy veggie spread.
“If you stopped sleeping over, then it would be less weird,” he says, meticulously unwrapping his bagel and sitting down on one of the two stools. “I would come knock on your door, like a normal person. No bedroom wake-up calls.”
“Uhuh,” I say, licking cream cheese spilling out between the halves of the bagel. His gaze snags on the action before quickly turning away. “Or you could text me, like a normal person.”
“You’re not this combative with them, are you?”
“Of course not, I’m an angel for Harley and I’m only slightly bratty for Jessa, but she loves it.” I round the island and grab a cup from the cabinet—because I know where things are here now—and fill it with water from the sink. I gulp down the cool liquid.
Ori stares at me as if I’ve grown three heads.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.” He shakes his head and refocuses on pulling bite-sized pieces off his bagel and shoving them in his mouth. For such a gigantic man, he’s awfully delicate with his fingers.
I narrow my eyes at him.
“What?” I repeat.
“You smell like them, okay?” Ori says, shoulders rising to his ears. “You’re all over them, and they’re all over you. And all of you are all over the house. It reeks of sex. Did you and Harley fuck on the couch last night?”
“Maybe,” I mumble around a bite of doughy goodness. “What’s it to you?”
“It’s. Nothing.” Ori says the words like they’re each their own sentence. Clear. Pointed. Avoidant. “It just… it sets my beast off.”
“I said this at Harley’s birthday, but if it wasn’t clear, you know you can have him too, right?
” I ask. “One of the first things Harley told me after I found out about Arcadia is how he hopes you’d recognize and return his feelings.
Jessa’s okay with it. I’m okay with it.” It’s strange to admit, but it’s the truth.
“We’re chill. Just don’t give him a dragon STD, I don’t think my OBGYN will know how to treat it if I catch it from him. ”
Ori’s head drops into his hands with a murmured curse. His strong fingers, thicker than Harleys, rake through his black hair, messing up the perfectly styled locks as he stares at the counter. “You’re not understanding.”
“Then explain it to me.” When he doesn’t immediately answer, I slide onto the stool next to him and continue, “I give you a lot of flak, Ori, but you’re not a bad guy.
I don’t know that part of your past, so I don’t know if you did something wrong or if you just weren’t ready to accept his love back then. But stop torturing yourself.”
He lifts his head—but instead of the distant, dulled navy hue that I’m used to, they’re vibrant with grief.
I’ve seen these eyes before, but on me, in the mirror. It’s guilt. It’s loneliness. It’s paralysis—the cage of one’s own mind barring you from doing anything, no matter how much you want to move.
There’s a single beat where we breath in each other’s air. It’s charged with shared knowing. My lungs burn with my intake of breath, and each exhale is accompanied by gooseflesh rising on my arms. It’s like we’re on the edge of a cliff, waiting for him to push us off it.
We’re more alike than I ever realized.
“Our birthday is in two weeks. If you don’t break through my scales today, I’m calling the tourney off.” Ori’s potent gaze retreats, pulling us back from the cliffside. “Get changed into your leathers and meet me outside in ten.”
Ori doesn’t talk to me after that. Not when he slams the front door and I tease him that he’s going to rip it from its hinges if he continues to manhandle it.
Not when we go to Arcadia and wind through the pine-scented woods.
And certainly not when he shifts into his dragon form and charges at me with no preamble.
The fight… isn’t good.
I’m sloppy. My blade doesn’t hit my marks, though that isn’t exactly new. My leathers feel heavier, tighter, and my feet drag along the grass as I dodge the swing of Ori’s barbed tail.
Frustration fills the clearing, emanating off both of us in hot waves that distort the air; he’s pushing me harder than ever and I’m failing.
I hate failing.
“You know, I thought we were friends now!” I shout my aggravation at the iridescent dragon as he regroups across the field. “This isn’t very friendly behavior!”
His wings bristle as he chuffs. A puff of fire escapes his nose, and I instinctively step away. Slitted eyes lock on me, and his wings spread wide.
“What are you doing?” I mutter.
Ori launches into the air. He’s only ever scuttled around the field on all fours during our sessions. The serpentine body is nimbler than I thought it would be.
“Fuck!” I yelp, running towards the cover of trees. “What the fuck, Ori!”
His rumble sounds overhead, and my curses slur together as his shadow passes over me. Talons grip my shoulder, wrapping under my arm and around my torso, and pull me into the air.
I scream. An embarrassing, high-pitched squeal.
“Put me down right now or so help me, Beast, I will—” I cut myself off with a frustrated snarl when his deep chuff vibrates through me. I look down and realize he’s fucking around with me. We’re barely six feet off the ground, and he’s circling the field. “You want me to stab you that bad? Fine.”
From this angle, I’m able to access the softer patch of his underbelly, where the scales part into iridescent hide. When fighting on foot I have a hard time reaching these joints, so I’ve been aiming for his head or the thinner leather of his wings.
I jab, with all my strength, right into the dragon’s armpit.
Ori roars in pain, and my heart stops at the terrifying sound. I rip the blade out with a panic, and it splatters a red line over the flesh of his inner leg.
Then the asshole drops me.
I fall, six feet to the clearing, casting my sword away so I don’t impale myself, and manage to land in a way that doesn’t break any bones. It’s as if some warrior instinct takes over my body and urges it to roll on impact, saving my ankles and wrists from devastation.
Groaning on my back, I blink away the spinning dark splotches as the dragon’s shadow passes over me—but then the shadow turns into a bearded face, and I’m hoisted upright.
“Are you okay?”
I stagger, the world spinning from being tossed about; Ori tries to steady me, but I slap his hands away.
His shirt is tattered—strange, how it shifts back all cut up from where my sword hit. As if all my whacking at him in the lead up to our brief flight had shredded the fabric instead of his skin.
His gruff voice hits my ears, but I can’t focus on the words, because a giant slash pours rivulets of red down the valley of his bicep.
“Shit. Fuck. Fucking hell,” I say, rushing forward. “I stabbed you! Oh my god.”
“Alice, I’m fine. Are you okay?”
Curses spit from my mouth as I search for something to stop the bleeding.
There was a time when Ryan cut the tip of his finger off in the kitchen, and blood was everywhere.
We didn’t have any bandages, so I had to use paper towels; took the whole roll with me to the ER so we didn’t make a mess in the waiting room.
We don’t have paper towels here. We also don’t have any bandages.
That’s stupid. Why have we never brought a first aid kit to these sessions?
Did Ori expect me to never land a blow?
I catch the edge of his tattered shirt and rip it from his waist, frantically wrapping it around the wound on his arm.
“Alice, stop. I’m fine,” Ori says, shaking my shoulders to snap me out of my panic.
“You’re not fine, I stabbed you,” I say, hands trembling as I mess up a knot.
“And I dropped you six feet out of the air,” he seethes. A strong hand weaves into my hair, pulling my head back. I freeze, blinking up at his angry expression. “It’s fine.”
His other arm circles around the back of my head, and his finger tugs at the white—turning red—fabric. My grip goes white to match, refusing to release the pressure around the wound.
“Stop saying it’s fine,” I grit out.
“It’ll heal,” Ori says.
“But—”
“It’ll heal,” he repeats. “Look.”
I stare, in wonder, as the wound stops bleeding and the flesh slowly knits together to form a puckered pink line. It’s not quite scabbed over, but it isn’t in need of stitches anymore.
“You didn’t tell me dragons had supernatural healing abilities,” I say.
“You didn’t ask.”
“I didn’t know to ask.”
Another moment passes of still observation.
Suddenly, I’m far too aware of the way he’s wrapped around me, infusing me with the remnants of his dragon’s heat.
His chest, which has a manly thatch of black hair spreading out from his sternum, presses against my breastplate.
It’s a strong embrace, and I feel so tiny compared to his thick body.
Not in a oh-I’m-a-dainty-princess way, but in a I-didn’t-realize-muscles-could-have-muscles way.
“I’m sorry I dropped you,” Ori says, his deep voice vibrating between our chests.
“You should be apologizing for picking me up in the first place,” I mutter, peering at his harsh expression through my lashes.
“I’m sorry.”
I never get this close to him, so it’s the first time I notice the faint worry-lines forming on his forehead and around his eyes.
“I’m sorry I stabbed you,” I counter.
“I dared you too, remember?”
“Yeah, but I did it because I was mad.”
“Are you not mad anymore?”
“I’m still a little mad, but not in that way.
” I snicker at myself, noting the double meaning hidden in my words.
Hadn’t I said something similar to Jessa the first time we met?
I shift in Ori’s fierce hold. He tightens his embrace, thick fingers curling at the back of my neck, and I suck in a gasp.
“Um, do you need to be holding me so tight for whatever magic to work or…”
Panic flashes in Ori’s widened eyes. He lets go, practically throwing me across the field, and paces away.
“No,” he rasps. He clears his throat, clearly uncomfortable. The sparkling magic of his pending shift skitters across his skin. “Let’s try again, but this time do it while we’re on the ground.”
I manage to stab him three more times during our session, and I only freak out after the first two; whatever mental block I had has cleared.
Afterwards, Ori walks me home in silence, with four puckering wounds spread across his bare arms and chest. I stare at the marks of me on his skin, red and ugly, as we trudge through Meadowbrook Park.
The familiar urge to paint twitches my fingers, and I resign myself to my fate.
I paint well past sunset.