Bonds Broken & Silent

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  She breathed in what the wind carried to her nose, and she smelled three scents she’d never picked up before: The layered brilliance of the clean sweat of hard work, the metallic undertones of freshly cleaned tools, and the earth as turned by the hands of strong people. But also the wonderful freshness of the sun on happy summer grass, the warmth given off by a clean stream at midday, and the scent of oranges.

  Civilization and sunshine.

  Chapter Two

  A man dressed head to toe in black jumped out of the biggest black van she’d ever seen and walked toward her totaled car. The scents of civilization and sunshine seemed to precede him even though the storm washed everything else out of the atmosphere. But this guy had an air about him.

  Maybe she’d gotten lucky. Maybe he’d help.

  Daisy yanked on her door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. She reached around Dawn and yanked on the passenger door, but it, too, wouldn’t open. And the back two doors were smashed.

  The guy slid down the ditch’s bank and leaned against her window. “Can you get out?” The hood of his black rain slicker hid his face, but Daisy saw the black-rimmed goggles over his eyes.

  “No.” She pointed at Dawn. “My dog’s hurt.”

  A gloved hand appeared and yanked his goggles down so they hung around his neck. The man peered at her through the rain-slicked window of what used to be her car, his hand shielding his eyes. “How bad?”

  “She’s bleeding.”

  The man backed away and looked over his shoulder as if he was talking to someone else. But no one was there. Just this big guy in a black rain slicker.

  The man leaned against the window again. “The funnel is six miles west and it’s moving away from us.” He glanced over his shoulder at the tornado. “But it’s a big one. We need to get you and your dog into a shelter.”

  “Okay.” Next to Daisy, Dawn whimpered. “How? Both doors are—”

  The passenger side door groaned, then shrieked. It flew open, and slammed against the outside of the car before snapping back toward the frame.

  And stopping. Completely wide open and clear, like someone huge and invisible had just pried it apart and now waited patiently for Daisy to evacuate herself and her wounded dog.

  She looked back at the man in black as he made his way around the car and toward the open door. Dawn sniffed, and her head tipped as if she heard—and smelled—someone Daisy did not. But she didn’t bark or growl. She waited.

  Daisy looked up at the road and the giant, barely visible, black delivery-style van. Then back at the big guy. Then at the door yanked open by an invisible force.

  A new bolt of lightning blistered the sky, followed by a deafening crack of thunder. Dawn whimpered again.

  Daisy stared out at the trees and the mud beyond the car, hoping to see what she knew was out there. What had to be out there. Hoping that whatever skill or power or ability the beast had that let him hide in plain sight wouldn’t be able to mimic the storm and she’d see.

  Another flash. The rain let up but still no invisible creature revealed itself.

  But she saw something just as revealing: Clearly visible, huge, weird footprints in the mud.

  “Oh my God you’re one of them, aren’t you?” she shrieked. There were two Dracae—Ladon and AnnaBelinda. Two humans bonded to two dragons, one of whom must have just ripped the door off her car.

  The big guy who had to be Ladon bent into the now open side door and looked at her from under the hood of his slicker.

  She gasped. He wasn’t extra handsome, not like a model, but he did have a nicely squared jaw and well-defined, high cheekbones. Dark stubble covered his chin. His skin seemed to carry a little bit of the lightning with it, like he was brighter than everyone else, though his skin was olive-toned, much like her own. And he stared at her with almost-uncanny eyes.

  Light brown, gold-flecked eyes that she was pretty damned sure glinted like they had real metal in them. Eyes that said he’d seen a reaction like her screeching more times than he could count.

  But the gasp hadn’t been because she wanted to stare at him. She gasped because her stomach tightened up when his focus landed squarely on her person.

  This man who had to be the human half of the Dracos was probably the most terrifying human being Daisy had ever seen in her entire life. More terrifying even than a Burner.

  Not “I’m going to pluck out your eyeballs and roll them on my tongue before I swallow them whole” kind of scary. An aura pulsed off him. The black clothes, the gigantic vehicle, his military body posture, the slight glow to his skin all blended into a sense of untouchable. Of danger you better hope was aimed away from you.

  But mostly, Daisy guessed, the aura came from his dragon.

  He didn’t respond. Instead, he picked up Dawn as easily as she would have picked up a jacket, or a paper bag, and carried the dog into the rain and up the side of the ditch, toward his van.

  Daisy grabbed her satchel off the passenger side floor, crawled over the car’s console, and out the open door. The footprints were gone, washed out by the rain and, she suspected, the dragon himself.

  She hopped out. Gripping the car’s bumper and fender, she wound her way around and toward the side of the ditch. Ladon had already deposited Dawn into the back of his van and now returned to help her up the embankment.

  He wasn’t all that much taller than her five feet eleven inches—not Shifter tall, like Dr. Torres had been—but he was tall enough she had to tilt her head up slightly to look at his face. He was broad too, with big arms, but again, not Shifter broad. More like he could easily carry a couple hundred pounds on his shoulders, kind of broad.

  His hands wrapped around her waist and he lifted her into the air. He set her on the pavement before pointing at the van. “Get in.”

  When her feet landed, her body responded in a way she hadn’t willed. She slid her foot backward, away from this man who seemed to know the exact locations of everyone’s bodies, and the vehicles, and the trees. Who, she suspected, had a militarily-precise understanding of what to do to get out of any variation of a situation that might occur, and who to kill to do it.

  A reverent sense of awe—and a renewed gut-flicking sense of terror—wiggled in her gut.

  The body posture of a man who she didn’t believe meant to frighten her changed. His shoulders visibly tightened, even under his slicker and shrouded by the rain. His eyes narrowed. A small twitch moved from one cheek, across his nose, to his other cheek. And he looked like he wanted to sigh.

  As if he was thinking, Here we go again. Or, I scared a girl. Must be a day ending in ‘y.’

  “I’m sorry I startled you,” he said, and backed away.

  His voice was as broad and commanding as his presence. Daisy stared at his warm hands as they lifted off her waist. At his strong thumbs that had curled around her body.

  “Um,” she heard herself saying. Um, like some terrified school girl meeting a pop idol. Like she’d met the president or something. Like the damned tornado behind them meant nothing. Daisy said Um and the next thing she knew, Ladon gripped her elbow and pulled her toward his van.

  The first time she met a Dracae in the flesh, and she’d acted like a fool.

  The back door of his van swung shut on its own and Daisy was sure she saw a flash from the interior reflect off the side mirrors. “Did…” She didn’t know what to say. After dealing with Shifters and Burners she shouldn’t be this stunned in the presence of another extraordinary creature, but there was a dragon inside that van. A real, living, breathing dragon in there.

  With her dog.

  “He’s not going to eat Dawn, is he?”

  Ladon closed his eyes. Once again, he looked like he wanted to sigh. A hardness she didn’t expect appeared when he opened his eyes again and pointed over his shoulder. “Get in or stay here. I don’t care. But there’s a tornado on the ground and your dog is bleeding and I’m taking her in no matter what you do.”

  He yanked the slicker hood d
own over his face and walked away, around the van, toward the driver’s door.

  Chapter Three

  The St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota, now….

  Gavin Bower walked along holding the leash of a giant guard dog named Radar. “So you fangirled at Rysa’s fiancé, huh?” He breathed in the sweet late summer air and tried hard not to smirk at his friend Daisy.

  The woman next to him met his stride pace for pace. They were the same height, or too close to tell the difference, so he never had to slow down when they walked together. She held her back straight and her chin up, and never took shit from anyone. Plus, the poise with which she carried herself made it hard to believe she’d be flabbergasted by anyone’s presence, even one of the dragons.

  Daisy grinned and tugged on the leash of her other huge guard dog. The boys loped along, Radar held by Gavin and Ragnar by Daisy. They were a remarkable pair of German shepherds, both silver with beautiful black saddles, both tall with massive paws, both as cuddly as they were fierce-looking. It had taken Gavin a couple weeks before he’d finally figured out how to tell them apart. Radar, it seemed, cocked his head more to the left when he listened. He’d also taken a stronger liking to Gavin than his brother, Ragnar.

  They were both the sons of Dawnstar, the dog Daisy had inherited from a dead drug dealer. Dawn now enjoyed her retirement years in the warmer climate of Branson, Missouri.

  Daisy leaned toward Gavin and his high-tech hearing aid. “I didn’t fangirl.” The wistful look on her face said otherwise.

  A stupid question crawled into Gavin’s mind. One he had no right to think, much less ask. But it butted in anyway.

  Part of him wondered if Daisy had slept with Rysa’s new fiancé. If this guy who had effectively stolen away Gavin’s best friend would come sweeping in tomorrow and steal away Daisy, as well.

  Because how could Gavin, a normal guy who needed hearing aids to make it through the day, possibly compete with an immortal killing machine and his sparkly dragon?

  Radar rubbed up against Gavin’s thigh and he patted the dog’s head. At least the dogs liked him.

  Not that he’d met either Dracae yet, or their dragons. Maybe this Ladon guy would turn out to be a pretty-boy wuss and Gavin had nothing to worry about. But he doubted it.

  The beautiful woman walking next to him grinned again when they stopped at the street corner to wait for a light change. She had the most luscious dark curls Gavin had ever seen on a woman and he’d long wanted to wrap his fingers in them. Beautiful shiny hair and beautiful glimmering amber eyes. An athletic swimmer’s build, much like his own. And perfectly shaped and sized breasts.

  But like Rysa, Daisy preferred friendship instead of dating. Rysa had a full swarm of attention deficit and anxiety issues occupying her mind, body, and soul. Issues that, when Gavin was honest with himself, he knew he probably couldn’t have handled long-term anyway.

  But even without issues like Rysa’s, Daisy seemed to have a set of rules. Tests he hadn’t yet passed. And a terror-inducing father who could literally boil Gavin’s blood if he did anything to Daisy that the man didn’t like.

  “When the tornado hit, did you still think Derek was your daddy?” Anyone other than the snarling Dmitri Pavlovich would be an improvement.

  Though Gavin had yet to meet Derek Nicholson. But from what Rysa told him, this Derek guy lived up to his “Tsar” title.

  The stoplight changed and Daisy signaled the dogs to cross the street. They padded into the crosswalk, their tongues lolling out the sides of their canine jaws, and pulled Gavin and Daisy with them.

  “At the time, I was more concerned about my bleeding dog.”

  Chapter Four

  Branson, Missouri, eight years, ten months, and three weeks ago….

  The wind howled and the rain pelted. Ladon backed his huge van through the wide doors of what Daisy thought was probably the biggest barn she’d ever seen in her entire life. The red-painted, wood-sided structure stretched far enough into the storm’s gloom she couldn’t see its end. As far as she knew, it went on forever.

  He didn’t say anything while he drove other than a stern, “Do not turn around. Do not look into the back of my van.”

  Weather reports fizzled and spurted over the radio from announcers speaking just as sternly as Ladon. They were to find shelter now, and if they did not have access to a cellar, they were to enter a bathtub and pull a mattress over their heads.

  For his part, Ladon peered out the side window, watching the dark where the spinning cone of death lurked, and kept driving.

  She hadn’t argued—and she’d kept quiet—even though her panting dog lay somewhere in the back of the van with a dragon.

  A real, you-can’t-see-me dragon.

  Ladon turned off the van’s engine and hopped out, leaving his door wide open and the van’s lights blazing. Quickly, he yanked the doors closed.

  “Get out,” he called as he stripped the black slicker over his head. Underneath, he wore an old but sturdy-looking black t-shirt. The black goggles, he tossed onto the driver’s seat when he reached in to pull out his keys.

  Even in the shadows, the definition of the man’s arms stood out. His not-quite uncanny eyes flashed when he frowned at Daisy.

  He was terrifying because he moved like a man in charge. A cop maybe, or a general. A guy you didn’t want to disappoint, or get on his bad side.

  Which she already had. At least his disappointed side.

  She hopped out and followed him around to the back of the van. His dragon must have already exited. The door hung open and Daisy looked around, hoping to get a view of the beast. But it seemed the building had lost power and all she saw was shadowed corners and the dim red glow of emergency lights coming from deeper inside the barn.

  The walls of the building groaned as if something climbed up their insides and Daisy wondered if the wind outside wasn’t the only stress they were experiencing.

  “We need to go to the office.” Ladon lifted Dawn out of the back of the van and turned toward Daisy. He flicked his chin at the wide hall leading deeper into the building. “Third door on the left. It’s concrete reinforced in case the tornado changes course and comes this way.”

  A bloody bandage covered Dawn’s haunch and she whimpered, but let Ladon carry her.

  Daisy rubbed Dawn’s head. “How…?” She pointed at her dog’s leg. “Is she okay?” What would she do without her dog? “I didn’t check the weather reports before we left the hotel in Oklahoma this morning. I should have stopped when I realized the storm was bad. Will Dawn be okay?”

  Ladon ignored her first question and walked by, her dog in his arms. “She needs stitches.”

  “But she’ll be okay?” They were inside a big, concrete building. Off the road and out of the way of the tornado. All at once, Daisy’s brain let go of the dangers outside—and the dangers right here, right now, embedded in the skin of her best friend, gleamed like a hot poker rammed into the what-is.

  She couldn’t lose Dawn. Why hadn’t she checked? She knew about storms. But this one wasn’t like any storm she’d ever seen before. Not in San Diego or in Perth, before she and her mom left Australia. Who expects tornadoes?

  Ladon carried Dawn down the hall. “She will be okay.”

  He really did have a slight glow. In the shadows, it looked like his skin gave off just a tad bit more light than he should be reflecting.

  The building groaned again, this time creaking like the wind strained its joints to the edge of their tolerance. Ladon’s face took on a strange, distant look, as if he concentrated on seeing something on the horizon, even though they were in a confined space, between bales of hay and a tool storage area. “The wind just took a section of shingles off the south side of the barn,” he said.

  The barn looked more like a storage shed than a place housing animals. Buggies, horse tack, a rake or two leaned against the walls.

  “Where are we?” They’d driven by a large complex of buildings, but Daisy could
n’t make out anything through the rain. The power had looked to be off there, too.

  “If you know who I am, I suspect you know where we are.” Ladon shook off the weird look he had when he spoke about the shingles, and ushered her deeper into the building. “This way.”

  Daisy walked behind him, sniffing the barn’s air. Frightened pig smell mixed with frightened chicken, which then mixed with terrified cat.

  Outside, the wind slammed against the building. The walls shook. From somewhere in the gloom, a goat bleated. Daisy shook the rain off her jacket and her satchel, tasting the electricity still clinging to the water. Electricity and the organics-filled air of the barn.

  Something brushed by her.

  “Why can’t I see you?” she called even though she knew it was rude. But a tornado rampaged outside and she was in a barn she figured was somehow part of The Land of Milk and Honey, with a scary but hot guy and his dragon, and her dog was bleeding, and damn it she might die tonight. When that tree fell on her car, she almost did.

  Ladon did not turn around or glance over his shoulder. He continued walking down the dim, red-lit hallway toward a room where, hopefully, they’d deal with Dawn’s injuries.

  “Open the door, please.” He stopped in front of what looked like a thick metal door.

  Daisy immediately twisted the handle and stepped through first, to hold it open. Ladon paused outside the room, his face doing the same distant look it did before.

  Daisy glanced around. The inside of the room was totally black. She couldn’t see anything at all. “How are we going to—”

  Again, something brushed by her.

  Light filled the room. Bright, warm, lovely light that made Daisy sigh and want to dance with faeries. Unearthly light blazing with every color imaginable and twinkling with shapes and patterns. Triangles flitted across the walls. Squiggly lines across the ceiling.