Switch of Fate 3

by Lisa Ladew

  Darby hauled her purse off the bar, shoving her phone inside. “I don’t know how y’all can stand it, anyway. It’s positively Machiavellian the way y’all sit around here plotting this shit.” She turned and made her way towards the stairs.

  As she approached Carick, the colossal man with the grumbled something strange at Darby. “Machiavelli was a good man. Leaders should not regret the choices they make to keep their people safe.”

  Darby threw her head back and fake-laughed. “Oh, right, ‘cause you were there.” She laughed again as she passed Carick, reaching out to tap his shoulder lightly with the back of her hand.

  Riot wasn’t sure what happened first. Carick shouted like he was in pain and jumped back from Darby, his legs nearly going out from under him as he stumbled to get away. But Darby, by contrast, had gone as still as a statue, her face frozen in a smile of such delighted innocence that Riot wasn’t sure what to make of it. She looked beyond happy. Blissed-out. Nirvana-bound. Not at all Darby-like.

  Then, as fast as it had happened, she came-to. By then Goldie was out of her seat and rushing to Darby’s side, saying her sister’s name. But Darby wasn’t even listening. She was staring at Carick.

  The Steward was holding the spot on his arm where Darby had touched him and staring at her with a dead look in his glittering black eyes, like a shark about to strike. He turned abruptly and stalked out through the same door he’d come in, not even bothering to close it.

  Darby was no happier, pulling away from Goldie, her steps echoing as she stormed up the stairs. Goldie turned around and aimed a look of dismay at Flint, then walked straight into his open arms. Riot looked at Gemma and saw her staring back at him with wide eyes. He shrugged. I don’t know what the fuck just happened, either.

  Jameson cleared his throat. “We’re done here.”

  Flint turned Goldie in his arms and started towards the stairs with her tucked by his side. “I’m going to make pancakes for Goldie.”

  Cora’s face lit up in a grin. “You’re cooking?” She turned to Gemma and grabbed her hand. “Come on. Flint’s pancakes are legendary, almost as good as his banana bread.”

  Riot followed Gemma with his eyes as she smiled and allowed herself to be pulled along. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder at Riot and the smile shifted to a smirk, as if she was sharing an inside joke with him. He laughed silently back, not even sure why but so sure that it felt right. Riot stood and headed for his room. Time for a shower.

  As he left the room, only Jameson and Shiloh still in it, he saw them speaking, almost whispering, and they both looked at him, then looked away.

  His business? He didn’t even know anymore.

  Chapter 12 - Riot Shield

  Later that day Riot and Shiloh were knocking around a junk shop he frequented, looking for a new knife for him plus whatever might help with cooking up his biggest-yet batch of CBD oil. Shiloh had offered to meet him there with her car, in case he needed the cargo room, but when she turned to Riot with a hesitant look he knew something else was up. “Spit it out, Shi.”

  Shiloh didn’t even flinch, she just spilled. “Jameson wants me to ask Ryder to scout the forest for more tracks like the ones we found yesterday. I think he’ll say yes if you agree to go along.”

  Riot breathed in the dust-and-grease smell of the place and was thrown, as had happened way more often in the last twenty-four hours than he liked, into a memory from his late teens and Duke’s Pawn & Junk shop. He’d worked for Duke from two weeks into his senior year of high school, right up until the moment he was arrested. Then the old guy had gone and died while Riot was in prison.

  Riot shook the memory off and focused on his friend. She wants me to what? He balked automatically. “Where am I supposed to find time for that?”

  Shiloh threw a bunch of bolts back into a container and gave him an exasperated look. “Like I’ve got so much free time? I’m the go-to guard for switches, and don’t even try to tell me you’re mad about that.” She gave Riot a pointed look. “You did move back in, right? You're part of The Cause again?”

  Riot ignored the questions and walked one aisle over to look at the selection of hunting knives the store carried. He picked out a sturdy one. It wasn’t as light as his old knife, or as heavy with history, but there wasn’t any use bitching about the loss. It’s Gemma’s now.

  He and Shiloh bought their items and walked out to the junk shop’s parking lot. Like so many businesses up here in the mountains the junk shop was a single building, set back from the road and surrounded by woods on all sides but the one that faced the two-lane country highway. Birds chirped in the shade of the trees, the branches so thick with leaves that even his puma’s eyes couldn’t spy a single feather. Riot appreciated that about Nantahala; you could always find a place to hide if you needed it.

  Shiloh popped her trunk and handed Riot the last of his stuff that he’d been storing at their apartment. Next stop: Resperanza. Riot still wasn’t sure he was making the right choice, moving back in. He only knew he couldn’t turn Gemma down.

  Late-afternoon heat rose up from the asphalt as Riot packed his stuff into his saddlebags. Shiloh braced her hands on her hips. “What should I tell Ryder?”

  The more Riot thought about it, the more he wanted to help his friends out, but he was also sure he shouldn’t commit more of himself to The Cause than he already had. He grimaced and fastened the buckles on his saddlebags.

  Shiloh’s eyes flashed. “Oh, so you’ll do Cause shit for your little green lollipop, but not for your best friend?” Riot knew Shiloh was lashing out at him, not Gemma, but he didn’t want her giving Gemma shit on his account. He issued a low, warning growl from deep in his throat.

  Shiloh didn’t even blink. “Cut that shit out. You don’t scare me. I don’t understand why you won’t go all-in already. We need you. She likes you. You like her. You gave her your knife, for Cat’s sake.”

  Riot shook his head. Gemma didn’t “like” him. That kiss, it had been switch business, that was all. Adult playground games. “It’s not like that. And I have to think of Faith and Baker first. They’ve got nobody else looking after them.” He couldn’t make The Cause his first priority. Faith was only a friend, but she had no one else to help her.

  “So you’d rather have Ryder patrol alone? You can’t do both?” Shiloh said, almost casually, turning her head to blow at a ladybug that landed on her shoulder.

  Riot blew out a breath. “Fine. You can tell Ryder I’ll go out with him every couple of days. Not every day.”

  One look at Shiloh’s triumphant smile and Riot knew he was in for even more pressure to help the Cause. He’d work it out with Ryder. His best friend would understand.

  Riot said his goodbyes, fired up his bike and started towards Resperanza. He took the most winding roads, the steepest switchbacks leading down into the gorge, because it was dusk and beautiful and just because he could. Walls of reddish-gray rock blurred past, bursts of green where weeds sprouted from the crevices giving way to unrelenting nature just a few yards beyond. It was cooler here, in the gorge. The road met up with a dried-out creek bed and ran alongside it for a mile before easing upward and out of the valley, into another set of tight switchback turns.

  He leaned deep into a one-eighty curve, opening the throttle as he came upright to speed along a short, straight stretch. The low-slung sun lit up the red rock wall beside him, illuminating every striation of color, casting shadows behind the ferns and weeds that lined its base.

  On the next switchback, full-on-leaning around the curve, a feeling struck him. One he had felt before. No glow in his face shield, this wasn’t Cause bullshit.

  Riot pulled his bike over at the next gravel shoulder and rolled it behind some bushes before shutting it off. Listening. Feeling a pull.

  (this way) (shift)

  What the-? Here? Now? No. Riot didn’t like being taken over by the Instinct like this, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to come running at every little twitch. But then
the zinging feeling started in his head again, that strange chord of awareness that seemed to link him to the forest in a way he didn’t understand and wasn’t sure he wanted to. Only this time it was stronger, the feeling of connection more pronounced, the pull more specific, almost painful to resist.

  Riot had felt this once before. It had been almost three weeks ago, the night of Cora’s first Undoing. Riot and the others had been called to a human’s house to offer protection from a limo of vampires, but in the middle of their rumble Riot and Jameson had each felt separately pulled to the fairgrounds where Cora had cornered a vampire.

  Halfway there, running through the forest as a puma because running as the crow flies would get him there before a car would, Riot had stepped on a patch of white flowers, and the whole world had flipped upside down. He'd beat everyone to the fairgrounds, without even knowing how. Ryder and Shiloh were the only ones he told.

  A flash of white in his peripheral vision shook loose the memory and brought him fully back to the present. Baby's breath flowers in a tiny patch in the middle of the forest, where they definitely didn't belong. White baby’s breath flowers surrounded Resperanza, and also did not belong there.

  Riot moved close to these flowers, so much like those flowers from three weeks ago. He moved in cautiously, keeping his eyes and ears open for traps. He toed at the flowers with his boot. He put a boot down right in the center of it. Hopped both feet in at the same time. He received nothing but a flush of embarrassment to show for it.

  The sun slipped behind the mountains on the other side of the gorge, taking the deepest shadows with it. Grumbling to himself, Riot stomped back to his motorcycle under a darkening sky and stripped off his clothes, stuffing them angrily into his bursting saddlebags. Fine. He would shift and see what his Instinct wanted, his own plans be damned.

  Naked, he shifted smoothly into his puma and loped back into the forest. The tan fur on his paws picked up red dusty dirt, the hairs along his belly catching burrs from seeding plants as he made his way through the thickening vegetation. His puma took over, tuning in to the environment. Riot returned to the cloud of baby’s breath and sniffed at it. It smelled like Resperanza.

  Riot pawed at the tiny white flowers, but nothing happened. Panting, he put a paw down right in the center of the clump.

  Whoosh. Riot was transported to Resperanza along one hell of a shortcut. But not the hacienda’s lush, cozy interior, no, Riot was stuck in the two narrow feet of ground beyond the wall that surrounded the courtyard outside of Flint and Goldie’s bedroom. And the whole reason the wall was there, was to keep that from happening to anyone. Fuck. This is bad. Riot dug his claws into the earth and tried to catch his breath as urgency pawed at him.

  Resperanza had appeared weeks ago on the Tsigule Cliffs, a spot that Riot had already known from his job was notoriously dangerous for the brutal winds that kicked up without warning. Even the name meant “evil wind”, or something like that. Other climbing instructors told stories of standing too close to the edge and seeing twisters of loose leaves form in the air beyond the cliff, feeling the winds try to pull them over before the funnel would sputter and die. Some nights, sleeping in the barracks, Riot had been able to hear the moan of the winds, and been grateful for the wall between him and them. No such luck now.

  The sun had fully set and night was falling fast, but the winds were relatively calm at the moment, just a heavy breeze ruffling Riot’s fur. Need to get to the other side of that wall before that changes, though. It could happen in a second. But once he was inside the walls of the courtyard it wouldn’t matter, Resperanza seemed to keep the winds at bay.

  Gnawing at Riot’s mind was the question of what he was doing here. Did a switch need him? Did Gemma need him? If any Breath switches were in danger his eyes should have lit up, though. Double fuck. He needed to know the situation before he revealed himself. So no taking the easy way out and just leaping the fucking wall, which Riot could totally do. Gotta get closer but not be seen.

  About thirty feet away, nearer to the kitchen end of the courtyard, Riot spotted a solution. An oak tree grew at the cliff’s edge, a long taproot wrapped around the rock as if determined to take the cliffs with it, if the tree fell. The trunk of the oak was half over land, half suspended, but its crown leaned right over the wall, sheltering that corner of the courtyard with wide branches. Riot started that way.

  The winds seemed to pick up the second his first paw left the ground, but Riot couldn’t stop now. He pressed his body low to the ground, picked up and put down one paw at a time, dug his claws in deep, and still every step was dicier than the last. The wind wrapped around his middle and pulled, snapped his tail like a whip. Even the tree had to be scaled slowly, not in the usual powerful push from the ground. Riot’s flanks ached as he climbed steadily vertical, setting his eyes on a sturdy branch that jutted over the courtyard. Almost there.

  As soon as Riot crept far enough along the branch that his muzzle breached the boundary of the courtyard wall, his whiskers stopped their crazy windblown motion. A little further and the pull around his middle disappeared. Another foot and his tail was his own again. Riot settled onto the branch, silent, and looked around for clues as to why he was here. ‘Specially since I’m only about fifty feet from where I was headed on my bike in the first place, he grumbled to himself.

  Noise, movement in the kitchen, and Riot perked up, twitched his ears to catch all he could. It was the switches, plus Darby, each carrying a wine glass or tea cup as they strolled through the kitchen on their way to the courtyard doors. They look fine to me. Riot watched Darby peel off from the group to head for the refrigerator, setting down her wine glass and saying something about dinner. The switches continued, opening the French doors and stepping outside.

  Gemma was first through the doors, her eyes wide as she gazed around and sipped her wine. Great Cat, I can scent her from here. Riot was quickly becoming addicted to that sweet-tart smell. It had swirled through his sinuses all day, even when he was miles from Gemma. And now that you’re coming back, great news: you can be tortured by it all the time.

  Riot suppressed a frustrated growl. What the fuck am I doing here, anyway? Riot scanned the rest of the house that he could see with his sharp eyes, looking for signs that something was wrong, that they needed him here. Last time it was pretty obvious: don’t let Cora kill humans. This time Riot could use a hint.

  Cora and Goldie followed Gemma outside, smiling as they made for a collection of black iron patio chairs, only thirty feet from where Riot hid in the oak tree. The women sat. Gemma turned to the other two, eyebrows raised. “And she just appeared? For real?”

  Cora laughed and nodded, taking a sip of tea as she pulled her feet onto the chair beside her. “Swear on the Keeper’s Book. As soon as Jameson and I were official.”

  Gemma broke in. “Official?”

  But Cora didn’t respond, just sighed, light and contented, like she always looked when she was talking about Jameson. “He gave up everything he thought the Keeper was supposed to be, just to be with me instead, only to find out he could do both.”

  Goldie sighed and Riot heard it plainly, a trick of his puma’s ears. “Flint, too. He had all these plans to go off and fight vampires on his own, become his own version of the Mountain Man. But once we met, all that changed. He’d never leave my side.” Goldie waited a beat before speaking again. “You don’t have to be with anyone, though.”

  Cora gave a short, teasing laugh. “Or any one, either.”

  Great. Tell her all about the stud farm. The thought of Gemma shacking up with random shifters was pissing him off. She deserves love. If she wants it…

  Cora turned to face Gemma. “Don’t think we haven’t noticed that knife strapped to your side, girly. If Riot gave you your Resonant, it could mean something.”

  Goldie spoke up. “We have a theory. It's your special weapon, right? Made with your particular material. Like Cora’s is iron, and mine is silver.” Riot swallowed. It's the
titanium. No doubt. Strong and light.

  Cora held up a finger. “But I was already nuts about Jameson when I found my Resonant. Same with Goldie, even if it took her longer to admit it.” Goldie started to speak but Cora wasn’t done, she kept talking. “I think the man who gives you your Resonant, he matters most to you. Or if he doesn't already, he will.”

  The words left Cora’s mouth and Riot couldn't breathe. He was so desperate not to hear what Gemma said about him, about the colossal fuck-up he had been, it was all he could do not to drop from the tree and reveal himself. And how the fuck would I explain that? She still might not know about shifters. He dug his claws into bark and squeezed his eyes shut, panting with the effort to stay still.

  Ah, fuck. Riot couldn’t help himself, gave in, looked at Gemma. And was startled to see a radiant smile on her face as she looked lovingly down at the weapon she wore so beautifully. She drew breath to speak…

  A crash sounded from the kitchen, and Riot’s head swiveled to find the source, his cat’s eyes sharpening as his muscles poised to respond to a threat at Resperanza, but only Darby stood at the kitchen island, arms held over her head as the pot rack above her swayed. Cora, Goldie, and Gemma rushed inside, whatever Gemma had been about to say forgotten.

  Without warning, or any reason Riot could see, three more pots slipped off their hooks. They crashed down on Darby, bouncing off various parts of her body and sending her screeching to the floor. Ouch. Bad luck.

  Riot backed up along his branch, back into the Tsigule Cliff winds, the seductive spell of the switches’ words broken. No way could Riot give Gemma what those other switches said their mates did. Jameson and Flint, they were good guys. Regardless of what beef Riot and Flint might have, that grizzly was a stand-up bear who could be trusted to do the right thing every damn time.