Fifth of Blood

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  When she looked at him, she saw all his good. All his caring. And she knew that he saw what he could be again reflected in her eyes.

  Rysa showed him a what-will-be he didn’t think he deserved.

  Somewhere in Ladon’s head, he still did not believe the future she offered. He believed that someday she would realize what he’d known all along, and she’d leave. But he would rather die than allow her to end up as broken as him when it happened.

  He would take on the burden of what he thought needed doing.

  So he’d breathed in her death’s brew. His dragon’s hide sparked with death’s spirit.

  Ladon was about to kill the remainder of his soul by burying a pipe in the brain of an Emperor.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  “AnnaBelinda!” Rysa screamed. “Sister-Dragon! You can’t let them do this!” She had to get out. “Please!”

  The metallic thud of a door hitting a wall bounced through the cavernous room. Rysa’s attention snapped to the staircase the Emperor had dragged her through minutes before, just as a new man burst into the hangar.

  Except he wasn’t new. And he wasn’t alone.

  Hadrian dragged in one of the Burners—the timid girl whose anarchy seemed to be limited to following orders and walking in random patterns.

  Hadrian wore massive rubber gloves, similar to the ones she’d seen in the lab. And had a hand around the Burner’s neck. “Did you think I wouldn’t wake up after you stole my suit?”

  Trajan unzipped the hood. He pushed it with his gloved hands and it fell back, over his head. A chunk of the broken faceplate dropped off and bounced across the concrete floor, adding a crystal tinkling to the fiery breathing of the dragons.

  Underneath, Trajan wore a mask. He had one of the packs. A working one. Even if Rysa had gotten through his suit, it wouldn’t have mattered.

  The full tentacled power of Trajan’s ability shot outward. Three ropes of energy whipped through the space. Three. He didn’t have triad mates. He was his own triad.

  Anna threw a canister at his head. “You are like our Prime? A singular?”

  Trajan was a singular, just like her. But unlike her, he had full control of his abilities. And he used his seers to punch.

  His future-seer snapped AnnaBelinda hard enough that the dragon woman leaned back. She coughed and her hands dropped to her belly. Gagging, she staggered back. Next to Dragon, Sister-Dragon whipped her head.

  Rysa sensed something change in the connection Anna and Sister-Dragon shared. Something grew precious but bloody. The what-will-be shot into their minds like a bullet.

  Trajan’s past-seer snapped Ladon. Her love bellowed. His body reddened, but whatever Trajan slammed into his mind did not have the effect the Emperor wanted. Ladon did not stop. He did not buckle. Both dragons stepped around Ladon in mirror movements, both gouging the floor as they slid to his sides.

  Ladon connected to both dragons.

  “This is what you have always wanted, isn’t it, Trajan?” Hadrian pushed the Burner girl forward. “You rebuilt the Empire in America but you didn’t have the Dragons’ Legion. So you manipulate, and here they are, pulled into your orbit once again.”

  Trajan yanked his past-seer from Ladon and snapped onto AnnaBelinda. She yelped, still holding her lower belly. Still caught in whatever future-vision he forced into her mind. But now, he forced in the past, as well.

  “I wanted them to come to me of their own free will. You cannot compel soldiers in this new modern world! You know that.”

  Trajan’s present-seer snapped at Ladon. “If you come one step closer, Dracos-Human.” His finger moved to point at each dragon in turn. “Or you, Dracas-Dragon, or you, Dracos-Dragon, I will spike the Dracas-Human’s mind. I will make the visions permanent.”

  He could do that? He could spike a Dracae? Rysa had to get out of the copter.

  Sister-Dragon vanished. Brother-Dragon, his hide still a seething sea of demon-fire, lowered his body to the concrete floor. Her beautiful beast, her wonderful Dragon, lay down on the concrete next to Ladon’s side like an obedient puppy.

  Or someone who had just given up. Rysa felt nothing from him. Saw no images. He’d stopped communicating.

  Trajan ignored the beasts. He stepped forward, pointing at the copter, and snapped his present-seer at Rysa. It latched onto her mind like a restraint. Like the burndust-filled shackles locked around her wrists and ankles in Minneapolis, when this started.

  Rysa fell backward and her butt hit the controls between the copter’s front seats. She flailed, grabbing, but her last nutrition bar fell from her pocket into a gap between machinery and the seat.

  Trajan injected Ladon’s pain. She felt the seething. On the inside, Ladon’s mind looked like Dragon’s hide.

  The Emperor yanked the needle of his present-seer out of her mind and flung it at Ladon, taking a taste of Rysa’s panic with it. “She’s frantic, Dracos-Human. Is that what you want? To be responsible for driving another Draki Prime to a horrible death?”

  Ladon charged. Trajan danced out of the way, laughing. “Tell her to activate me. I will heal her. She will take her place among the Ulpi and you will return to my legions. Your life will have purpose again. All the hell the other Parcae put you through will stop. You will have the Empire at your back and the world will know order, not chaos.”

  Hadrian pushed the Burner he held by the neck closer and closer to the copter. “This girl’s friends took down your building, Trajan! If I snap her neck, her explosion will take down the rest of this hangar’s ceiling. You will die. They will die. You will control nothing, you son of a bitch.”

  Trajan paced to the side, then back. “Is this about Philip? Losing another one too much for you? Did you crack, like my favorite lug, here?” He pointed at Ladon.

  This far from Ladon and Dragon, Rysa felt only a little of their energy, even though she felt all of Trajan’s. His present-seer flung outward the disconnect inside Ladon like a spinning Fourth of July firework. The flashbacks, the quickness to anger, they sparked inside the system of his mind. His memories acted like his own personal set of Burners.

  “You could have helped Philip!” Hadrian yelled. The pain in his voice made Rysa stop tugging on the door. “You found a healer, didn’t you? But you knew Philip dying would lead us here. You murdering son of a bitch. How many cogs are in this machine of yours?”

  “I did find a healer. But he needed to be late, not early.” Trajan flicked his hand dismissively. “An easy fix. Turns out he’s easily distracted.” He threw his arms wide. “I told you to bring Philip in! We could have kept him alive until Dr. de la Turris arrived. Three months is nothing for my people. But you refused. You caused his death, not me.”

  Trajan manipulated her father? So he’d be late?

  “All this is your fault, Hadrian! You brought Burners into the mix. I could have talked sense into the Dracae but you had to blow up my building. Now here we are, with the Dracas-Human caught in an unpleasant future and the Dracos-Human subvocalizing like a damned ape.”

  Trajan picked up a piece of concrete and whipped it at Hadrian. “Do you know how long it’s going to take me to fix the mess you’ve caused? To get them back into fighting shape? My job is to protect my empire and I will have the best weapons. If you ruined them for me, I will have your head, son.”

  Rysa flopped against the pilot’s seat, unable to pound on the door handle anymore, her wooziness returning. Her nutrition bar vanished between the console and the seat and she was out of luck. But maybe, if she rested, she’d regain some strength.

  Hadrian did not move. The Burner girl whimpered. And both Ladon and AnnaBelinda stared at Trajan, both so still he continued to ignore them.

  Because they were not the focus of his ire at this moment.

  The space in front of Rysa’s eyes wavered, and a picture entered her mind—Sister-Dragon standing in front of the copter. She didn’t know what directly attacking Trajan would do to her human, so she did the next best thing. S
he called for help.

  A particularly strong smell hit Rysa’s nose. Vinegar.

  Tapping on the side door caught her attention. Outside the copter, Billy grinned. “Hello, princess.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  In front of Andreas Sisto, Alessandro Roberto de la Turris, arguably the strongest of the remaining healers, stopped in his tracks, his backpack slung over his shoulder. Power rolled off the other Shifter, over the rubble, and to Andreas. Overhead, red emergency lights blinked. The dust thrown by the broken concrete smelled of the Burners responsible for the destruction around them. The remaining walls creaked. This place would fall, and soon.

  But the man who called himself Sandro Torres would not move.

  “Tell me you feel them.” Sandro oriented to the interior of the building, his head cocked as if listening. “The dragons. Tell me you see Sister-Dragon’s call.”

  “They talk to you now?” Could they be lucky enough for one of the dragons to call to Sandro? “What are you seeing?”

  Sandro closed his eyes and continued to listen. Then he ran down the corridor, deeper into the building, and stopped at a blocked door. A large chunk of concrete leaned against the broken door and inside a bare wire sparked, but Sandro ducked under anyway. “We need to go through here.”

  “Wait!” Andreas hauled him back. “You will be no good to your daughter electrocuted.”

  Sandro grumbled but waited. Andreas dug around, finding a broken plastic chair back, one upholstered with an ugly gray scratchy nylon fabric. “This will do.” It shouldn’t conduct.

  He pushed at the door with the chair. It fell into the stairway, clattering against a metal handrail. A huge spark blasted out of the wall and Andreas dropped the chair as he jumped away. “Not that way.”

  “They are directly in front of us.” Sandro hitched up his pack as he ducked under the concrete.

  “Sandro, don’t.”

  But the other Shifter ignored Andreas. Instead, Sandro carefully moved through the doorway. His feet only touched the concrete of the stairs, avoiding the metal framing or the handrails.

  Sandro disappeared around a corner and into the emergency-light gloom.

  “If you get electrocuted, I can’t enthrall you back to health.” Andreas squeezed through the blockage and carefully stepped out onto the concrete deck.

  “If you keep nagging me, I will lose my concentration and it will be a moot point,” Sandro called from around the wall.

  “Don’t touch the metal.” He sounded like a parent, but Andreas didn’t care. His job was to keep this healer safe.

  They ran down the stairs when they heard the first dragon roar.

  “The beasts have much violence in their heads.” Sandro winced.

  In front of them, a metal rod crossed from a handrail to a metal door, both pinning them on one side and completing the electrical circuit they attempted to avoid. The rod was too high to jump over and both men were too big to move under it.

  Sandro’s shoulders slumped, but Andreas did not think he’d given up. He only needed a moment to process. So Andreas waited, silent, for what seemed like an eternity.

  “We used to call it shell shock,” the healer whispered. He took his pack off his back and unzipped the main pouch, careful to hold his balance.

  “What?” How would shell shock move the rod?

  “You asked me what I see. I told you.” Sandro pulled a stuffed animal out of the pack. “Hold this.”

  Andreas took the little dragon. Someone had cut off its wings and sewn up the holes to look like squiggly patterns. “This is Rysa’s, isn’t it?”

  Sandro handed him the pack, too. “Yes.” He pulled off the jacket Andreas loaned him in Branson and wrapped it around his hand and his arm. “Give me the little beast.” He wiggled his fingers.

  Through the fabric of his jacket, Sandro gripped the stuffed animal. Too quickly for Andreas to stop him, his hand shot out. The dragon hit the rod. It clanked to the concrete floor, now out of their way and no longer in contact with the door.

  “That’s no guarantee the door’s safe.” Andreas stepped down the final step.

  Sandro nodded. “Be ready.” He grabbed the handle with the dragon and yanked. The door flew open.

  Andreas dashed through, Sandro twisting after. The door hissed shut, but they both made it through.

  The little dragon smoked. A burn from the door handle marked its side. Sandro blew on it, hitting it with his jacket-covered arm, until it stopped. The little toy went back into his pack.

  The two men stood in an alcove off a huge room with a high ceiling. Next to them, a now-dead bank of elevators waited. The alcove opened into the main space through a wide arch.

  Sandro pulled on his jacket as Andreas peered around the corner. He saw only a brightly painted helicopter and a fleet of flattened cars.

  “Her brother isn’t responding.” Sandro pinched his forehead. “The dragons are on the other side of the copter. Sister-Dragon is pushing out pictures but not to Rysa because Trajan’s got a tentacle in my daughter and the dragon is afraid he will hear her calls for help.”

  Sandro inhaled sharply. “She pushes out concepts. I feel like she is echo-locating at me.”

  “I need to know who is here and what we need to do. Can Sister-Dragon hear you?”

  Sandro shook his head. “No. The dragons push to us, but we can’t push to them, except Rysa. When she’s… I don’t understand.”

  Andreas gripped his friend’s shoulder. “Rysa syncs to them. She believes it’s a side effect of being a hybrid.”

  Sandro nodded. “Sister-Dragon thinks only Rysa will stop this.”

  Yells echoed through the chamber. “I will fix them, but you need to activate me, Ms. Torres!”

  Andreas’s mouth opened and closed. “That’s Trajan. What does he mean by activate?”

  “I don’t know.” Sandro stood up. “But the dragon is about to take Rysa to him.”

  Billy melted through the jammed door lock and the copter filled with acrid smoke. Rysa coughed, waving her hand in front of her face. As quietly as possible, Billy opened the door and held out his hand. “I think the Great Lady wants you to run for the dick monologuing over there.” He tossed his head back, indicating the pacing Fate behind them. “You better sit on his chest and breathe into his mouth, luv.”

  “Billy, I don’t know if I can run right now.” Rysa felt the same way she had in the clean room.

  “Well, then, we’ll walk you straight away.” His nostrils flared. “If you want, princess, I’ll eat him. Could use a snack.”

  Rysa shook her head. She was in no shape to tell if he was serious or not. “No killing, Billy. Not even Trajan. You’re better than that. I made you king for a reason, so you better live up to your potential.”

  Billy’s razor teeth clicked.

  Rysa scooted forward anyway. Quickly, Billy grasped her thighs and tugged. She slid out the door and Billy lifted one of his hands to her spine as he pulled. The next thing she knew, she was pressed chest to chest with the Burner, her legs around his waist and their faces nose to nose.

  Billy laid a big, and thankfully dry, vinegar-tasting kiss right on her lips.

  “Billy!” Rysa coughed, doing her best not to gag. “What if Ladon saw that? What do you think he’ll do?”

  “It doesn’t matter what Boyfriend thinks.” Billy rolled his eyes. “You let him control you that much? You come with me and we’ll make sure you grow a backbone.” He winked.

  “Put me down.” Why was he doing this now?

  “You be ready to run. It looks like the beastie’s about to move. Or lean on me and I’ll walk with you, luv. Because I’m your king. And I’m here for you.”

  Maybe what she’d done earlier hadn’t been a good idea. She’d wanted him to find his soul. And his confidence. Maybe he found something else, too. Something aimed at her.

  “Stop distracting me, Billy.”

  Next to the tool case, Trajan droned on about his big plans for the
future. Hadrian held the poor Burner girl.

  As soon as Billy dropped her feet to the concrete floor, Rysa knew she wouldn’t be able to run for Trajan. He’d get away. So she had to do something else. “Whatever happens, you play along, okay, Billy? Ham it up.”

  “You unfaithful beast!” Trajan yelled. His seer tentacles immediately whipped for Sister-Dragon and for Rysa. The beast vanished completely again, moving away in an unknown direction, and Rysa felt Trajan’s seers wiggling, looking for her.

  His past-seer latched on.

  And she knew. “You’re half Shifter?” she yelled. “You want your Shifter half activated?” Was he suicidal? Or just so arrogant he thought he could live through it?

  Trajan’s gaze moved from Hadrian to Ladon, then back. “Not all hybrids are singulars, but all singulars are hybrids.”

  Slowly, Ladon crossed his legs and sat on the floor next to Dragon. Once his backside landed, he spread the fingers of both his hands wide over the concrete.

  Trajan pointed at Ladon. “If you activate me, Ms. Torres, I will heal him. I will make him whole again. You can’t. You have no idea what you need to do.”

  Rysa leaned against Billy. She didn’t want to, but she had no other choice. “You’re lying. You can’t be a healer. You are centuries older than my grandfather.” He couldn’t be descended from Severo, like her. Trajan was just another manipulative Parcae prick.

  Trajan picked up a chunk of concrete and threw it at Rysa, his anger suddenly rising to the point that it broke free. “Does Ladon-Human like you because you’re an idiot? I could have been the First Healer, but she refused to activate me.”

  He swiped at air as if to throttle it. “I figured out that damned morphing bitch is my father. My father! You’d think that alone would prove my worth. But she still refuses! She tells me that I am ‘the back-up plan.’ So you are going to do it. I am no one’s back-up plan.”