Fifth of Blood

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  She didn’t think so. Ladon and Dragon were a wonder she’d never get used to. Learning the meanings of all the beast’s patterns would, by itself, keep her occupied for decades.

  As would learning every hard line and cut of Ladon’s muscles. Or all the ways he moved. He was not a man meant to be still. Ladon should always run or jump, lift or flex. He was, as always, brilliance in motion.

  Rysa stopped at the edge of the pool, watching the water lap against the tile wall. She was the one always in motion. She faced life hyperactive. But Ladon was grace personified. His touch righted the world.

  Rysa looked down at her reflection. Still more disheveled than someone Ladon should call “beautiful,” she saw, though, her healer’s work. She glowed like Ladon. Like AnnaBelinda. As if she, too, carried some of Dragon’s lights.

  Maybe her motions no longer clashed with his.

  Stepping back, she glanced at her hands. No marks, no blemishes. No sunburn or even a tan on her left arm from driving in the sun for three days.

  How long could her healer keep this up? She glanced at her hands again. Just what, exactly, was happening to her?

  But she knew. She’d always had background healing ability, even as an unactivated child. It defaulted to always-on, and now, like her enthraller, it ran at maximum.

  At least her seers, though also always on, functioned like seers and only dropped information into her mind when she called them. Most of the time.

  Her body wasn’t going to waste away or catch on fire or do something just as weird. She had that. Her hyperactivity hadn’t gone away though, and she still wanted to run laps around the house. But at one in the morning, it wasn’t a good idea.

  Maybe a few laps in the pool would help.

  She didn’t have a suit.

  Frowning, she glanced around, wondering if a little skinny-dipping would be okay. The cool water on her skin might just be the tonic she needed to finally find sleep.

  The patio door opened. Startled, Rysa looked up. No surprises, she snapped at her seers. If they were going to be on all the time, then no one should sneak up on her ever again.

  The last time someone snuck up on her, she ended up in an SUV with that evil son of a bitch Vivicus.

  Derek stepped through carrying a big tray holding fruit, water, bread and what looked like a mason jar of peanut butter. He set it down on a table next to the pool, smiling as he tipped back his hat. “Bernard is a vegetarian.” He waved a finger at the jar. “It’s good. He purchases it from the organic co-op.”

  Rysa smiled too. “Dragon’s having himself a good feast inside, isn’t he?” The poor beast had eaten only convenience store oranges and bananas for the last three days.

  Derek chuckled. “I snuck out what I could. We will shop tomorrow.”

  “Is Ladon eating?” He didn’t like to eat when he felt a battle approaching. But he couldn’t starve himself.

  Derek frowned. “They will look in on you, I am sure.”

  He wasn’t telling her something.

  “Derek—”

  He waved as he walked back toward the house, refusing to answer. “Sleep.”

  “Tell me!” she called.

  Derek didn’t turn around. “They are fine. No more fretting.” He waved her off again as he closed the patio door.

  Alone, Rysa walked to the platter. They’d better be fine. She wasn’t picking up any extra weirdness coming from inside, only the constant level of irritation they all carried.

  Her stomach growled, reminding her she’d been hungry since leaving Santa Fe. Sweetness rose off the fruit, and the bread smelled freshly baked. Even the peanut butter smelled good.

  She spread it thick on a slice of bread as she munched on an apple. More tart than sweet, it made her mouth water, and she chewed carefully, savoring it. Flavor burst onto her tongue with each bite, crisp and clear and wonderful.

  Though she wouldn’t mind a big fat steak. A juicy one, prime rib, with a baked potato and a huge serving of greens. Deep green, tasty leafy vegetables sautéed by someone who knew how to cook them, which her mother never had mastered.

  She took another bite of the apple and slathered another layer of peanut butter onto the bread. She could eat an entire loaf, and she didn’t particularly like bread, even fresh, whole grain bread.

  In her hand, the open-faced sandwich looked like the best thing in the whole world. She’d been hungry since they’d left The Land. Quite hungry. And she’d dropped some weight. Her jeans felt loose.

  The sleeping deficit wasn’t her only issue.

  The peanut butter was good. It stuck to the roof of her mouth and her teeth and her cheeks, creamy and sticky at the same time. It tasted like peanuts, real peanuts, and not replaced fake oil and corn syrup. Best peanut butter she’d ever had.

  More went onto the next apple. She’d better stuff her face now when neither of the boys were around to ask why she was so famished.

  Two thick slices of bread, a significant quantity of peanut butter, a handful of almonds, and a peach later, Rysa set down the knife and finished the water. Maybe a full belly would make her sleepy, but she didn’t think so. More likely, she had another night of staring at the stars ahead of her. Staring and wishing she had a big, strong chest to snuggle against. A hard chest. As hard as his abdomen. And the rest of him.

  I’m going insane, she thought. All I think about is food and sex.

  A bounce escaped. Rysa rose onto her toes, dancing like a swimmer readying for a race. Bouncing and eating and wishing Ladon could take care of her hyperactivity problem with his brilliant touch and his equally brilliant tongue.

  She glanced at the patio door and the wide window next to it. Both were blocked by heavy curtains meant to keep out the desert sun. No inside light filtered out.

  Her present-seer blipped. Bernard and Ladon talked huddled over a computer. Ladon and Dragon fought electronics-caused headaches, and would retreat soon.

  Derek, she couldn’t see.

  Frowning, she walked toward the pool house on the back side of the property. Was Ladon’s blossoming headache blocking her seers? Best not to think about it right now. The thought of Derek slid out of her head like it’d been pushed down a slide. Off it went, into the deep end, whispered away by a ghost floating on the edges of her mind.

  The pool smelled clean and cool. Soft lapping echoed off the steps at the far end, next to the pool house. A wide, blue-and-white-striped awning extended from the wide open front of the little building far enough to cover a hot tub attached to the pool, and about six feet of the pool itself.

  The hot tub had a glass wall separating it from the main body of water, like so many of the new, expensive pools she’d seen photos of recently. The entire basin, hot tub included, was tiled with what looked like blue and green glass. It shimmered like Dragon, and waves of soft, slow color she hadn’t noticed before moved up and down the sides.

  It must have some sort of fiber optics behind the tiles. A thin, darker-blue snake-like shape drifted across the bottom. A swirl of ocean green across the opposite side.

  Wow, she thought, impressed. Bernard probably designed it himself.

  She knelt and dipped her fingers in the pool. The water felt comfortable and warm from the day’s sunshine. It glided off her hand, smooth like filtered drinking water. Liquids weren’t supposed to have texture, but they did, water included. Maybe her Shifter half made her more aware, or maybe all the swimming she’d done as a kid made her keenly sensitive to the differences between lakes and pools and clean and full of yuck.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she checked the curtains again. Ladon watching was one thing. Bernard, another. He might have taste, but he was still some eighteen-year-old kid she didn’t know.

  No curtain twitching. No present-seer buzzing. So Rysa yanked on Ladon’s t-shirt, the one wrapping her body, and folded it upward, over her head.

  Her arms stopped, the fabric covering her face. Maybe the shirt blocked her calling scents from escaping and she br
eathed her own heady mix of emotions. Or perhaps his scent of sunshine clinging to the fabric was too much. Or feeling it against her face reminded her too much of his touch.

  Tightness pulled on her chest. It bent her shoulders forward and made her stomach squirm. Rysa hiccupped.

  The first tear surprised her. The second did not. The third, and the gulp of air accompanying it, almost turned her into a puddle.

  She dropped to the concrete deck surrounding the pool, the shirt wrapped around her arms and her face buried in its fabric. Her present-seer outlined what happened inside the house—Ladon leaned against the kitchen counter, a glass of water in one hand, a couple of aspirin in the other. He’d at least eaten.

  In a different room, Bernard, a kid she didn’t know and to whom she couldn’t get close enough to even say hello, joked with Dragon as the beast sniffed at his head. Sniffed much like he had Rysa’s face not all that long ago, when the Burners attacked and Ladon and Dragon scooped her off the campus parking lot.

  Uncalled, unwanted jealousy squeezed the muscles of her neck. Her face scrunched up. Her gut tightened. All she sensed was her excruciating lack of Dragon.

  Forcing the kid away from the beast would be as easy as standing up. All she needed to do was walk the length of the pool and open the patio door. Her calling scents would do the rest. He’d gag and run out of the house and take his hand off her dragon’s neck.

  But she wasn’t like that. She didn’t get jealous. Or possessive. She got mad at Ladon when he did it, so why was she doing it now?

  Her seers chattered. You’re Dracae. You and Derek.

  Were the Dracae different? Was this how Ladon felt when he growled “Mine”?

  It wasn’t jealousy. Or possessiveness. Underneath, she realized what sat on her heart—a quiet sense of intimacy, a very deep feeling of shared bonding. And when someone else touched that bond, her body responded as if physically threatened.

  It didn’t feel human. The alien weirdness of her seers and her healer had primed her for recognizing new things… additions to how her brain operated. This was most definitely something new, though she recognized the shared energy flow and the need for her beloved’s touch. It washed from Ladon with every kiss.

  And with every rumble.

  She couldn’t be near them. She sat on the cool concrete, her behind aching from the hard drop, her arms twisted up in the one bit of Ladon she could hold against her skin.

  It’d only been three days. Her calling scents had only pushed them apart for seventy-two hours but her heart shredded into little pieces.

  If she felt this way, how bad was it for Ladon? For both Ladon and Dragon, love acted like an umbrella, but right now, rain still got through. The man and the beast danced with the droplets, collecting them all, to keep them off their beloved because what they felt was bigger than any human emotion.

  Rysa hiccupped again. She would never again admonish him for saying “Mine.”

  Looking up at the stars, she breathed in deeply, holding in all her air for as long as she could, before breathing out all the jagged bursts reverberating inside her soul. Why were these things coming out of nowhere and slapping her so hard? Why didn’t her healer heal all the little cuts and scars to her psyche, the way it did her body? Calmness would help her find her talisman faster. Not these gut-wrenching pulls on her mind and soul.

  She remembered something Andreas had told her once, while Derek drove and they chatted: Healing a mind is not the same as healing a body. If it was easy, all the Progenitors would be rational. Vivicus would not be the crazy nightmare fuel he was.

  Ladon would not be haunted.

  They needed to walk the path they walked, and drive the roads they drove. Her talisman needed finding, no matter how shitty everyone felt.

  Rysa unrolled Ladon’s shirt from her arms. She folded it gently, pressing away the wrinkles with her palm, and set it on a lounger next to the pool. Off went her jeans, and she left them in a pile next to the poolside furniture, along with her shoes and socks. Her bra and panties dropped onto the steps up to the deck under the awning.

  She flipped the switch on the hot tub and stepped in. She dropped naked into the shadows and bubbles and the warm water, hoping it would be enough to soothe both her body and her soul. The ledge felt too hard, but the bubbles nice. The New Mexico air smelled dry and hungry, sucking in the humidity rising off the pool.

  She looked up. Maybe she should have figured out how to retract the awning. Seeing the stars would help calm her mind.

  Rysa closed her eyes, though she knew sleep wouldn’t come. Neither would understanding. But she could, perhaps, find a little calm.

  She breathed, hoping.

  The patio door opened.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The curtains twitched, parting, but nothing visible moved through the patio door. The big glass door jiggled but Rysa heard only the jets of the hot tub roaring around her. But she knew what the soundlessness meant. Dragon corkscrewed between the door and the frame, twisting out first one arm then the other as he pushed through into the backyard.

  Energy curled around her ever-present seer tentacles, stroking with strong fingers. The bubbles pumping against her skin helped her body, but nothing beat the calming touch of her dragon.

  Except the soulful hands of her man.

  Rysa frowned as her belly clenched. Just thinking about Ladon made her want to touch herself.

  Don’t come too close, she pushed to the beast, though he couldn’t hear her. She only seemed to be able to push to him when they synced to their energy, which they weren’t right now, though Dragon could push to her when he concentrated. An image pinged from Dragon and into her mind, riding in along her present-seer—his view of her in the hot tub.

  Shadows made no difference to a dragon. In the image, the entire backyard gleamed in brilliant, though dark, colors. The plants looked, smelled, felt dry against his coat but very much alive. Little points of quartz glistened in the concrete. He knew the exact depth and density of the pool’s water.

  But mostly he saw her. Dragon, still invisible, stared at her with his intense dragon perception, mapping her skin’s surface tension. The changes in her temperature above and below the hot tub’s water line. The almost-visible waves of calling scents washing off her body. And the increases in her respirations and blood flow when she thought about Ladon’s hands on her skin.

  Dragon knew. A burst of energy flipped away from her, back into the house.

  Rysa narrowed her eyes. Lifting her hands, she signed, You aren’t helping, you know.

  A line of visibility ran from his snout, down his ridged back, and over his limbs and tail. He glimmered, still muted and dark like the night, but she saw him clearly. A small flame curled from his mouth as he released his pent-up heat.

  She pinched the bridge of her nose. Sometimes she wished she could breathe fire, too.

  You are naked, the beast signed.

  Of course I’m naked, she signed back. Naked except for the four insignias lashed to her body. She didn’t have a suit.

  Dragon’s big head twisted toward the door, then back to her. Ladon would rush out any second, all hot and bothered because she sat in the hot tub without anything covering her lady parts.

  And he’d get crabbier and crabbier because he couldn’t touch.

  Maybe she should get out and find a towel. Take a cold shower or something.

  The curtain rustled again. Ladon burst through, stopping only to slide the glass door closed. He didn’t turn around to look at it. His big arm reached behind his back and the door slammed against the frame with a thud loud enough that Rysa heard it over the gurgles of the hot tub.

  Even in the shadows, even behind Dragon and at the other end of the pool, she saw the tension his body carried. He moved like a spring, anything but loose. With long, fast strides he moved to the end of the pool, staring through the glass partition between the hot tub and the pool.

  You are naked, he signed.

&nb
sp; He wouldn’t talk right now, since he’d have to yell. Attracting the attention of the neighbors could cause problems, and from the expression on his face, interference would not be tolerated.

  You have a headache, she signed back. Her present-seer knew. You need rest.

  What did he think they could do? Touch themselves while the other watched? Maybe give them each a little moment of relief, but at least for her, it would only make her want him more.

  It wasn’t just about the orgasms. Feeling the texture of his skin soothed her nerves. Smelling his wonderful scent of sunshine made her happier than any spring day. His masculine taste burst open her euphoria.

  Go back inside, she signed. I can’t touch and seeing you is excruciating. But she couldn’t look away. Reflected light from the pool shimmered across his warm skin, adding glimmers not unlike the beast’s. Ladon stood there, chest square to her, all his godling power and beauty oozing from his body.

  No. He stripped his t-shirt up and over his head, his movements slow and controlled. The blue light of the pool touched the planes of his abdomen, but not the furrows, and each and every muscle of his torso stood out in high relief.

  How would his trimmed chest hair feel? Not that it was thick or coarse—or all that long. It grew naturally perfect—flat and soft and in the perfect sweep and shape to accent his chest.

  Rysa wiggled in the water.

  Come into the pool. He leaned down and loosened the ties on his boots. They popped off and he kicked them to the side. His socks followed. Seeing you will make my aches disappear.

  Ladon, you can’t get close. Neither of them could tolerate more frustration.

  He loosened his belt and unbuttoned the top of his jeans but stopped, his thumb hooked into a front belt loop, and all she could do was stare at the trail descending into his black boxer briefs.

  He was killing her.

  His face held more focus, more determination than she’d ever seen from him. He looked like a man deep in planning an intricate engineering project to fix a problem that had to be fixed. He’d tunnel through a mountain with his bare hands if it got him what he wanted.