Fifth of Blood

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  She didn’t bleed. The heat and acid of his teeth sealed the wound. But the pain blanked out all the white noise of her abilities. All the echoes and the internal screams and all the panic.

  Rysa vomited as she staggered backward into the arms of the lunging Dragon.

  “Get out of my way.” Ladon growled that deep, animalistic growl only the Dracae made.

  Derek held him firm against the side of the van. “Listen to me, Brother. You need to trust your soon-to-be wife.”

  Derek held him. Ladon could not move. And Dragon blocked his view of Rysa and that damned Burner.

  Traitor, Ladon pushed to the beast.

  Do not call me names, Human. A mental slap pulsed through their energy.

  Derek flinched.

  I do what our Draki Prime requires.

  “You will take your hands off me, Tsar, and you will do so now.” Violent thoughts swirled in Ladon’s head. Rough thoughts of breaking bones and causing agony equivalent in force to his internal pressure.

  You will not harm Derek.

  The thoughts dimmed, but did not cease. The beast held Ladon in check.

  “Rysa!” Derek yelled. “He will not leave and he is too close! You need to come out from behind Brother-Dragon and you need to do it right—”

  Rysa’s calling scents ramped fast. Derek let go, but Ladon fought the need to run. He inhaled, held his breath, and ran into the warehouse.

  Dragon appeared, his hide brighter than the sun outside. A long, hot flame burst from his mouth as he swung his head around, scorching the floor. But the beast had Rysa, his great dragon hand cupping her back.

  Take her, Derek. The beast’s head whipped again, the dragon equivalent of nausea making him need to flame.

  Ladon’s brother-in-law scooped her up. “He bit you?”

  Billy stood between the pallets staring at his hands. He still smelled but the stench had changed—was changing. It didn’t eat away at Ladon’s nose anymore.

  The Burner was about to lose not only his nose, but his entire face. The punch sent him spiraling into the stacks.

  Billy dropped to his knees, gasping. “Why do you keep hitting me?”

  “You bit Rysa!” Ladon roared. He’d rip the Burner’s head off even if it blew up all of Portland. No one touched his woman. No one.

  The ghoul clicked his jaw back into place before pointing at Ladon’s head. “You going to get your machete? Take a swing at me with your big manly knife? Huh, wanker? Fuck you.”

  Human!

  What? Ladon did not turn around. He didn’t look. The Burner might attack.

  “She told me to. She said she didn’t want me to die. Me. Not you. Me.” Billy flipped Ladon several annoying gestures. “I do say I think it worked!”

  Ladon swung again but the Burner dodged.

  “Oh, got a good mad on now, don’t we?” Billy pantomimed jerking off.

  “No more, you damned gh—”

  Rysa is not healing.

  Ladon stopped, his arm in mid-swing. “What did you do to her?”

  Billy sniffed. “You smell that? Her scents changed.”

  Ladon bolted for the loading dock.

  Chapter Forty

  Derek ripped the sleeve off Rysa’s shirt. Carefully, he pulled the main fabric of the shirt over her head, maneuvering over the wound. The hem caught on the insignia tied around her neck and she grimaced as the fabric dragged across her upper arm. Slowly, she pulled her good arm through the other sleeve.

  He peered at the wound. The Burner took a good-sized chunk. A big, wide chunk. And left ugly teeth marks around the edges of her now open-to-the-air bicep.

  But it did not bleed. He did not need to apply pressure. “Rysa, why is it not healing?”

  She glanced at her arm. “God damn my arm is hamburger.” Rocking back and forth, she slapped the concrete floor with her other hand. “I hate Burners! You hear that, you two-bit Adam Ant wannabe! I told you not to take too much!”

  Derek snickered.

  Is Rysa okay? Brother-Dragon pranced behind Derek as he attempted to see Rysa, then pranced to the other side, looking over his shoulder. Tell me if she is okay.

  Derek did not think. His mind focused on helping Rysa. He did not turn around and ask Brother-Dragon to sign his question. “The wound is not healing, but I think she will be okay.”

  Rysa’s eyes changed from the closed-up squint of pain to a wide-eyed stare of disbelief, and her seers erupted as a mass of gyrating energy. Derek could not tell which whipping stream was which seer, but he felt them claw and bite at the surface of his mind as they used the insignias tied to her body.

  And they used her pain. They felt sharp, as if the pain gave them a razor’s edge.

  He gripped her good shoulder. “Use the pain. Do your best to concentrate. I know it’s hard, but—”

  “Shut. Up.” Her teeth clenched and her jaw tightened. “I can concentrate. I just had sex with Ladon.”

  Derek’s mouth opened and closed. “Time inside the energy flow helps you as well?” And here he thought it was just because his wife made him feel good.

  Rysa snorted. “I guess we need to compare more notes, huh?”

  Is Rysa better? Human is upset. Brother-Dragon leaped close to look, before jumping outside the range of Rysa’s calling scents.

  “Thank you—both of you—for keeping him back. For making sure he didn’t see.” She leaned forward, looking at the wound.

  Her seers snapped and hissed again. She closed her eyes, agony crawling across her face as if bugs danced on her cheeks, and she wrapped her good hand around the insignia tied to her damaged arm’s wrist. “Derek, Anna put my talisman in the blade locker in Ladon’s van. I want you to get those midnight swords and my talisman right now.”

  “Why?” He tied the ripped-off sleeve around the wound. “You need medical attention.” She needed this healed or she might lose function in her arm.

  “I have an edge from the pain and the adrenaline. But it’s not going to last.” She gulped and looked at the ceiling. “Ladon is going to take me to Praesagio and you need to be the backup plan.”

  He sat back. “Me?”

  “God damn it, Derek, just do it, okay? Before Billy stops distracting Ladon.” She rocked where she sat on the concrete floor.

  “And you, Dragon, no tattling this time!” Her seers burst outward, then pulled back in. “The flow of information needs to be controlled.”

  “Rysa, you are not making sense.” The pain was making her more and more a Fate. Derek did not like it. How Ladon and Brother-Dragon would respond, he did not want to think about.

  “Praesagio is fuzzy but I know they have what I need and I know they will want to handle my talisman again and I can’t read you so I’m praying they can’t either.” She inhaled sharply. “I thought it was just fatigue but I know you hear the dragons and I think I somehow edited you out of the what-was-is-will-be when I made you impervious to enthrallers.”

  Rysa slapped the floor again. “Damn it, the bite hurts!”

  Behind them, Ladon bellowed threats at Billy.

  Rysa gripped her elbow and nodded toward the other side of the open area, where Ladon argued with the Burner. “He’s not dealing with this well. I think….shit!” She sucked in her breath again as she gripped her arm.

  Her seers crackled against Derek’s mind and he winced.

  Rysa’s eyes widened again. “I had to do it! It’s what my seers told me to do but I think it might have pushed Ladon too far.”

  Derek knew her Shifter half destroyed her body, but the events unfolding right now yanked her Fate’s fatalism to the surface. She was bound to this path and they were all going to charge headfirst right alongside her into the what-will-be.

  “When we go, you and Billy follow, okay? No phone calls.” She pushed him away, toward the van. “Don’t show Billy what you have. And make sure you have another quick weapon in case he… goes bad. I can’t read him, either.”

  She grabbed his hand as he
stood. “I’m putting you in a lot of danger. Sending you with Billy.”

  Her gaze shifted to the still prancing Brother-Dragon. The beast fired information to Ladon, who did not appear to be listening.

  “I will handle the Burner.” Derek squeezed her fingers before turning toward the other loading docks and the other vehicles. “Good luck.”

  Thirty-five feet from Rysa, Ladon stopped running. The Burner was right; her calling scents had changed. The pain made them more focused, clearer and less random, but the ‘agony’ and the ‘anger’ coming off her were still too strong.

  The Burner touched the tip of his thumb to his nose and stuck out his tongue as he jogged by. “You can’t get near her, mate.”

  Dragon knocked the bastard into the metal frame of the oversized roller. He bounced off, dancing to the left, but ran for Rysa anyway.

  Ladon whipped a box at the Burner’s head. “Stay away from her!” Keep him away from her!

  I cannot stop him any more than you can. Dragon climbed up to the ceiling and flashed bright bursts at the ghoul.

  Billy dodged the box and waved a two-handed flip-off at Dragon.

  Will he still explode if I rip off his head? The beast scurried toward Rysa, directly over Billy as the Burner ran toward the van.

  A hammer hung on a hook attached to the closest shelf stack. Ladon picked it up and twirled it around his wrist.

  Ladon didn’t use words. He flicked Dragon his intention as a picture: The claw of the hammer stuck in the back of Billy’s head.

  “Don’t hurt him!” Rysa screamed. “We need him!”

  Ladon heard her words, but he felt her ‘anger’ more. And her ‘pain.’ His woman hurt.

  “Ladon!”

  The hammer was behind his head, held in the perfect grip to throw for the perfect hit. He felt its weight tug his wrist, heard the shuffling of his boots on the concrete as his body positioned itself for the throw. He watched himself do these things, understood the actions of his muscles, but it didn’t feel like him.

  It felt like the reason dragons had become terrifying beasts in European mythology. It felt like the dance he had done with that one Fate, so long ago. The one for whose death Rysa offered him forgiveness.

  It felt like a rampage.

  The hammer dropped out of his hand. It bounced, clinking, and skidded under a pallet. Ladon held himself this time. Stopped it from starting, if just barely.

  In front of Rysa, the Burner bowed deeply, rolling his shoulders and throwing one arm up and back. “Princess. I am at your service.”

  Rysa gripped the fender of the van and pulled herself standing. She wasn’t watching the ghoul. She watched Ladon. “Billy, give me one of your markers.” She extended her uninjured arm.

  Billy dutifully pulled a marker from his back pocket.

  She poked it upward. “Dragon is directly above us. I am within his reach. Correct?”

  He will not touch her, Human. The beast vanished.

  “If you touch her, Burner, he will snap your neck before you realize he has lifted you off the concrete.” Ladon’s tendons strained his bones. As before, it felt as if he watched the pulling and the tightening—and somewhere his other body, the one watching, mimicked his real body so it could understand what he felt.

  But he watched through a screen of dragon-perceiving that made Billy’s edges and lines too precise, almost the way Ladon would expect the ghoul to look if he’d been drawn by a machine. His color had cooled also, as had his eyes.

  Rysa’s seers pulsed. “Ladon, look at me. Concentrate on me. Okay?”

  Billy stared at her, then at Ladon. “I told you he’s a bad boyfriend.”

  She waved the marker at the ghoul’s face, but kept her eyes on Ladon. “Arm.”

  Dutifully, Billy pulled up his sleeve and presented his forearm.

  Rysa glanced away from Ladon only to write on the ghoul’s skin. “Go with Derek. Do as he says. And if he tells you to burn it to the ground, you burn it to the ground.”

  The Burner tapped his heels together. “I will do as my princess commands.”

  She tucked the marker into her pocket. “This one is mine now, Billy. I take it as retribution for you taking too much from my arm.”

  What is she doing? Ladon glanced around. Where is Derek?

  A horn honked. An engine grumbled—someone pulled the sedan around.

  Derek waits for Billy. The still-invisible beast dropped his front end down from the ceiling and pushed Billy toward the loading dock door.

  “Hey!” The Burner stumbled away.

  “Billy!”

  He turned back toward Rysa.

  “Look at your arm.”

  The Burner stopped briefly as he read whatever she’d written. Laughing, he ran for the waiting car.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Andreas walked through the wide commercial concourse of the Portland International Airport, his senses primed for threats and his hand on the elbow of one Sandro Torres. If he could put a leash on the man, he would. He still might. Enthralling normals to ignore a leash might be easier than gripping Sandro’s arm like his own life depended on it.

  Or Sandro’s life. The other Shifter simmered in a slowly heating pot of Parcae entanglements and by the time the man figured out the water was too hot, he’d be dead.

  The fear that the pot would spill over onto Andreas pushed him to tug Sandro through the airport faster than he would normally move. Triads could show up anywhere, at any time, and at this point, Andreas doubted he would be lucky enough for them to be friendly.

  Sandro hitched up his backpack. He’d refused to leave it in Branson. Said he had something for his daughter inside. Wouldn’t unpack it either and switch over to a less obvious bag. “Why didn’t my wife come?”

  Sandro’s non-stop questions usually circled back to Mira’s lack of presence after about twenty minutes of randomness about food or television or the internet.

  Andreas was beginning to think it might be some sort of mental trick to decrease Sandro’s visibility to Fates. He would ask when this was over and the trick safe to reveal, though he made a note to work with Rysa on perfecting its application.

  “I told you, she’s busy.” At least Andreas assumed she was busy. Caring for a Burnerized triad mate would take all of anyone’s time.

  Sandro nodded. “Isn’t Portland where that coffee company started?” He pointed at yet another of the many Starbucks in the airport.

  “I think that’s Seattle.” Andreas pumped out ‘ignore’ but the wide open spaces of the airport allowed normals outside his range to pay attention. And no matter what part of the world to which he traveled, normals always paid attention to the six-and-a-half-foot-tall dark-skinned man. One who now walked quickly through an airport with an almost equally large Hispanic man.

  Several stared. Several others registered obvious fear.

  He blew Sandro another dose of targeted ‘ignore’ meant to counter the ‘ignore I’m making for the normals,’ doing his best to get them through the crowd as fast as possible.

  Sandro’s brow crinkled and he sniffed. “How did you do that? You will need to teach me.”

  “I don’t know if I can. You’re not a strong enthraller. Neither is your daughter, except right now.” Andreas wondered just what the overstimulated enthralling was doing to her body. He knew she was eating too much, but producing excessive scents tended to make him physically numb. So she might be in pain and not notice.

  Or the other extreme he had experienced—noticing it all too much.

  Andreas pulled out his phone. “Walk just in front of me. Watch for Fates.”

  Sandro nodded and stepped forward as Andreas pulled up Anna’s phone number. She better be close enough to meet them quickly.

  “No Fates. No other Shifters.” Sandro did a good job of paying attention, surprising Andreas even though he had doused the man with ‘clearheaded’ just before they got off the plane.

  Andreas sent a text. Door 12.

 
Down at the end and as close to out-of-the-way as he could get her van. The Dracae were just as obvious as he and Sandro were.

  His phone chimed: Be there in 10.

  “Looks like she hit good traffic.” Andreas tucked his phone back into his pocket.

  Sandro slowed enough to fall into step with him again. Most people couldn’t match his stride, but Sandro didn’t seem uncomfortable. No wonder Rysa never appeared frightened of Andreas. She’d grown up with Sandro.

  “My daughter will arrive?” The other man’s face lit up for a second, the way it always did when he spoke of Rysa.

  “No. Our ride.” Andreas ushered Sandro down a set of long escalators.

  “Oh.” Sandro tapped his fingers on the black rubber of the sliding handrail. “Rysa had a stuffed toy when she was a child. A little dragon. When she cut off its wings and asked me to sew up the holes, I knew her fate would be intertwined with the Dracae.”

  He hitched up the pack again. “She honestly thinks marrying the Dracos is wise?”

  They stepped off the escalator. “She’s a Fate, Sandro, and a powerful one at that. How long did Mira take to realize she wanted to be with you?”

  Sandro laughed. “Exactly thirty-eight hours. Though I knew the moment I saw her.”

  Andreas pointed at the far door. “And here you blame her Fate heritage for her impulsiveness.”

  Sandro chuckled again. “I prefer to think of it as quick thinking.”

  Something else Rysa seemed to have inherited from her father.

  They walked through the first set of sliding doors between them and the curb at Door 12. No normals waited with them in the wide vestibule space, but passing cars outside could be a problem, so Andreas kept them inside. “When she pulls up, we go out. Walk toward her van, head up, looking to make eye contact. If she rolls down the window, immediately tell her who you are. Don’t do what you did when you found me.”

  Sandro rolled his eyes. “I am not new to the world, First Enthraller.”

  “But you are new to the Dracas.” And to the current level of Dracae stress.