Games of Fate (Fate Fire Shifter Dragon Book 1)

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Ladon stopped running. She shouldn’t be bleeding. He’d kept the Burners away from her, yet a tongue-shaped streak colored the sleeve of her shirt.

  “Did one of them bite you?” Ladon asked. But none had gotten close enough.

  He pulled up the fabric and peered at the shallow, raw, Burner-licked swath between her wrist and the shackle. He lifted Rysa’s other arm and peered at the another bloody spot under her sleeve, but higher up.

  The wounds were under her clothes. Was she manifesting the Burner’s attacks on her mother?

  How can this be? Ladon pushed to Dragon. They’d never seen anything like it. Even members of a triad were not connected with such strength.

  A porch light flicked on. Ladon lifted Rysa again and darted toward the van.

  “Everything burns.” Her voice all but vanished into the fire’s roar. Her seers’ siphoning had stopped, but he still felt the defeat pushing from deep inside her mind.

  Over the course of his long life, he’d seen death and terror and anguish. He’d caused his fair share. He’d seen Fates and Shifters cause more. Sometimes, every few centuries, it got to him. He’d wake in a cold sweat and buried under an overwhelming dread that he’d lost Dragon.

  When it happened, his limbs turned to ice, as Rysa’s did in his arms.

  He’d been cruel and gruff when she first activated. He’d shut out her concerns with his anger. The hurt had washed across her face before she opened the van’s door. He’d seen it magnified in her eyes when he followed her into the house. She’d run from him.

  A new resolve took hold. He’d never be heartless with her again.

  Rysa clutched the bracelet and the ring. The shackles scraped his neck, and her tears dampened his hair below his ear. She breathed in shallow, tight, constricted inhales.

  “When I hurt you, please forgive me.” Her lips grazed the collar of his jacket. “Please come for me.”

  Forgive her? What was she seeing? “Rysa?” he asked.

  Her eyes didn’t focus. She saw only a new vision, yet her face showed openness again, like it had in the lot when she activated. Open and happy, wide-eyed and calm, for him.

  Even though the Burners dragged Mira away. Though he’d been callous. Though she bled from wounds that were not her own.

  Her face held no edge of fear. No undercurrent of sharp tension because deep in her gut she thought him a threat. She offered only a future he didn’t deserve.

  “Beautiful.” How could she give him such trust? If she knew him, she’d think better of it.

  He carried her around another house and to the van. Dragon took her and set her on the blankets as Ladon pulled the door closed.

  We must dress her wounds. Dragon dabbed at the blood.

  Her chest heaved. She pulled herself into a tight ball and was obviously still not aware of where she was.

  Mira’s ramblings about a burning world meant nothing—Fates, as a breed, constantly issued dire warnings about one apocalypse or another, mostly to scare the normals into submission.

  No person as good as Rysa would set fire to the world.

  Dragon stroked her forehead. Her fever has returned.

  Ladon touched her cheek. “Maybe it’s from the house.” But a new fear crept into his mind—the present-seer of the Jani Prime had uttered one truth.

  Rysa’s talisman might do as Mira prophesied; as the layers of ash solidified, she’d solidify with them.

  She’d die.

  Marcus will know what to do.

  Daniel, Timothy, and Marcus, the only Fates Ladon had ever called ally. Now only one brother remained.

  “That is not a good idea.” Marcus would not be happy if Ladon appeared on the past-seer’s doorstep with Rysa in his arms. Not happy at all. Ladon had ceased to be a true friend a century and a half ago.

  She should not have uncalled visions, Human.

  “I know.” Her skin did feel hot to the touch.

  On the edges of his mind, her three seers twined into an indistinguishable knot. It disguised their resonance, which was why he hadn’t noticed before and why he’d thought she had only one that slipped and darted. They overlaid each other and he couldn’t tease apart which one played and when. She probably couldn’t, either.

  Damned Burners had hobbled a very rare Fate.

  “Ladon.” She caressed his arm to his palm and settled her fingers into his.

  Agony still contorted her face and body. Ladon looked up at Dragon.

  The beast settled next to her and splayed his big hand over her hip. We must hurry, Dragon pushed.

  Ladon looked down at their entwined fingers. Hopefully, Marcus would not send them away.

  Yes, he pushed to Dragon, and made his way to the front of the van.

  Chapter Ten

  Ladon’s memory, long distant with time…

  Ladon swung his hammer. Metal met metal and he listened to the clang—after hours in the forge, the iron now glowed with the perfect temperature and the exact brilliance and malleability he needed. Each clang and clack echoed correctly. Heat pulsed. Ladon flipped the blade over and dropped his hammer to the iron once again.

  He listened for the changes that would bring superior balance and strength to this new sword, and fell into the perfect rhythm to make a perfect blade.

  He and Dragon had lived in this part of Gaul for more than four decades—long enough for the offspring of his Legio Draconis men to produce their own offspring. Stones had been placed and walls erected. Their encampment had grown into a settlement and now Legio grandchildren overran everything, climbing on wagons, stockades—and dragon haunches.

  Outside the smithy, Dragon attended to the playing children. Inside, Ladon worked blades and implements for his people. This life, away from the dying carcass of The Roman Empire, had finally brought calm to him and his sister.

  Alarms sounded. Outside the smithy entrance, Dragon reared up. Parcae! he pushed.

  Sister-Dragon sprinted by outside, Sister following as she buckled into her armor. They’d be through the gate and into the forest before Ladon pulled his protective leathers over his head.

  He dropped the new blade into the quench, threw his gauntlets at the wall, and he pushed through the door and into the courtyard. “Armor! Now!”

  Dragon pranced as he listened to his sister. More than one triad approaches.

  What could they want? Fates came near at their own peril. All the families knew to stay away from Ladon and his sister.

  His Second appeared with armor draped over his elbow and Ladon’s stallion saddled and in tow. Ladon threaded his arms through the breastplate as he swung up to the saddle. “Pull everyone in.”

  The big man glowered and his gaze darted to the others yelling and arming themselves throughout their fortification. They were fighters unparalleled by any Roman military unit, but they were normals and Shifters.

  Fates would shred them.

  “Do as I say.” Ladon’s agitated stallion lurched. “I will not have our people engage Fates.”

  His Second listened, thank the gods, and would keep their people safe.

  Dragon undulated through the gate and Ladon’s stretching connection to the beast raked hot coals over his nerves. The beast stopped outside and swung his head back and forth as he waited for Ladon’s stallion to catch up.

  Fates’ seers flowed like blood between the trees, but Ladon’s connection to Sister-Dragon quieted—they had already moved too deep into the timbers for him to hear the other dragon. He peered into the undergrowth. Why were they attacking now?

  A bush moved.

  A lad burst from the underbrush. “Our mother!” the boy yelled.

  A second young man, his build and face identical to the first’s, stumbled out of the trees carrying a limp woman in his arms. He dropped to his knees in front of Ladon’s stallion. His chest heaved and he panted, as did the woman.

  Both lads looked over their shoulders at the trees. “We…” the second said. “Our…” He looked up at Ladon, bu
t did not finish his words.

  The woman was a Fate. Her present-seer sputtered, as if she’d lost control. It rasped like a saw into wood—a broken saw.

  She’d lost a triad mate. Nothing else explained the crackling of her seer.

  The first lad swung his arms at the trees. “They killed our father, but our papa holds them off. Father told him to. Father said—”

  The woman screamed and the lad holding her dropped her with a thud. The boy fell over her body and shook as violently as his mother.

  A wave of power not unlike what followed a catapult’s heave of Greek Fire flared through the trees. Ladon and Dragon cringed, but the lads cried out.

  Somewhere far into the forest, the woman’s other triad mate must have died. Her back arched and she screamed, and now she drowned in her own, lone present.

  Ladon dropped from his saddle. Maybe she could survive this. He might be able to give her boys a few more years. Sister might seethe, but Ladon would give this family shelter. He straightened her neck.

  Fate or not, no lad deserved to see his parents murdered.

  “Mama!” The second lad shoved Ladon aside. His ear dropped to his mother’s chest. Only a single hiccup left his throat when he sat up.

  “They came for us,” he croaked. “They claimed we are part of their family. That we are to be a tribute.”

  The other lad closed his mother’s eyes. “For the new Emperor. But our fathers spit into our mouths this morning. Both in turn, in each of ours.”

  “They said to run.”

  “So we ran,” they said in unison.

  These lads’ parents sacrificed their lives to protect their boys from yet another insane Emperor. They gave their children something Fates never extended to each other—a chance.

  The lads’ eyes glazed. They both blinked and their mouths slacked, synchronized and in the same way.

  Human!

  The beast saw the new motion first, but Ladon felt the power of the third lad flare as he darted out of the trees. His brothers, in front of Ladon, moved mirror-opposite each other and extended their arms.

  The new lad leaped, pushed high by his brothers’ added momentum.

  Ladon countered but the young man’s abilities compensated.

  He fell onto his back with the lad’s knee in his throat.

  Ladon roared. He offered these children help and this is how they responded? He punched but the lad dodged and ripped Ladon’s Legio Draconis insignia from his armor’s straps, then leaped away as quickly as he had charged.

  The three lads fell to the ground together. They gripped the entwined dragons of the insignia as one, and did not acknowledge Ladon, nor did they pay heed to Dragon. They stared at the metal they held. Power pulsed off the three—real power on a level Ladon had only encountered with a handful of Fates. Power so strong that it almost broke through his sense of Fates and Shifters and into his actual, physical vision.

  The boys were becoming a Prime triad.

  Seven hundred years walking this earth and neither he nor his sister had witnessed a triad activate. Now a new Prime triad activated in front of him—and holding a Legio emblem.

  Brush rustled. Sister emerged from the trees. She slapped at a branch and stepped into the clearing. “I told you they’d come for us! The Emperor still believes us part of the—” She stopped, her sword half-sheathed and her gaze darting from one lad to the next.

  She pointed at the closest lad. “You are Fates.”

  He nodded.

  “And the source of the flare of power that just occured.”

  He nodded again.

  The internal growl from Sister-Dragon set Ladon’s teeth rattling.

  Sister snatched the insignia from the still-kneeling lads but yelled at Ladon. “You let Fates activate holding our insignia?”

  What should he have done? Killed them where they stood? He stepped between her and the lads. He’d had enough of killing. “I will not cut down children.”

  Especially the killing of Fates.

  Sister’s sword clinked against her scabbard. She did not care if they were children or not. Fates were Fates, and Fates brought only pain. “They are men! And active.”

  They were slight, and their hands and feet were still large for their frames. They hadn’t yet reached their full height. They were men only because they were now parentless.

  The lad who had stolen the insignia sat up. “We mean you no harm, Dracas. Of this we swear.” His eyes were a different color than his brothers’, and his face rounder, and his body thicker. “I am Timothy,” he said.

  The lad who had burst from the trees first pushed himself up. “I am Marcus.”

  The lad who had carried their mother bowed his head. “I am Daniel.”

  “Not all of our kind is in league with the Devil.” Marcus stood. “Not every Fate dances with the Sins.”

  Timothy held out his hand. “Please return our talisman.”

  They did not falter, nor did they cower. They faced the dragons as tall and strong young men, even if they all shook down to their bones.

  Sister could destroy them now, if she wanted. She could take from them what they needed to use their abilities—their talisman. But potential flowed from the young men.

  So Ladon pried the insignia from his sister’s hand.

  Daniel laid it on his palm, then closed his fingers over the two metal dragons. He glanced over his shoulder at the trees, and his seer sputtered to life for the first time. “They will return with reinforcements in two weeks’ time. Their leader wants a fight.” He handed the pin to his brother.

  “You have always won,” Marcus intoned.

  Timothy took the pin as he watched Sister. “Our fate may yet be death.”

  He walked forward and stopped within striking range, but he did not cower. He bowed his head and dropped to one knee. He held his core erect. “We serve only the Dracae, benevolent Dracas.”

  Ladon grinned.

  “We serve you. We serve your brother. We serve the beasts who circle us now, with their hides as clear as the waters of the river.” Timothy’s gaze, strong and true, turned to Ladon.

  “We are now and forever the Draki Prime.”

  Chapter Eleven

  For sixteen centuries the Draki Prime lived among Ladon’s men. Sister never completely accepted them, though many times over the years she took Timothy as her confidant.

  Sixteen centuries through losses so horrible they overpowered Daniel’s unmatched ability to see what-will-be. Through gains so brilliant Ladon and his sister still lived off the riches acquired. Through wars and deaths and births and the inception of a Fate family who wove themselves through much of Europe’s technological innovations.

  Until the night Daniel and Timothy bled to death on the shores of the North Sea. Ladon and Dragon purchased a steam ship and crossed the Atlantic the next day. The entire trip they vomited because Dragon was unable to sleep on the waves of the ocean. They retched for months afterward.

  It was a light penance for the failures that drove them from their home and destroyed the only Fates who had ever treated Ladon and Dragon as anything other than a blight on the world.

  Marcus crossed the ocean as well, chasing after Shifter healers. Ladon visited twice, the first time to help build the house in the then-bustling town on the Minnesota River. They’d sawed wood and nailed the boards, but barely spoke. He and Dragon left shortly after they set the roof.

  Seeing Marcus without his brothers pained them both. The memory of Daniel’s and Timothy’s deaths had been—and still was—a cloud that never dissipated.

  Staying away was the least Ladon could do.

  Yet here he was, inching his van down the driveway of the little house outside of St. Peter.

  The gravel spread into a large parking area between the house and two outbuildings. The detached garage must have been added in the fifties or sixties. Ladon didn’t recognize it as he peered through the deep gloom. It looked solid but old, the peeling paint popping
in high relief in the van’s headlights.

  The house also needed painting. Cracks riddled the ornate gingerbread. But the structure stood true, as it had in 1884, when Marcus set the foundation with his own hands.

  At the time, the Parcae sickness had already started to cripple his joints. Not that Marcus complained about the pain.

  In the back of the van, Dragon lifted his head. He’d curled around Rysa the entire drive, cycling calming patterns over the area of his hide near her face. The beast hoped to use his lights to bring her out of her stupor. She didn’t wake, but she didn’t drop deeper into her visions, either.

  “Are you sensing him?” Ladon had sped to St. Peter and it was now shortly after midnight. He backed the van toward the front porch and turned off the ignition.

  He sleeps. Dragon nuzzled Rysa’s cheek.

  The beast’s agitation tensed Ladon’s neck and jaw. His fingers strained. He’d gripped the steering wheel too tightly the entire drive from Rysa’s home.

  Ladon’s new phone sat on the passenger seat, silent except for the whine all electronics produced. The app mining cell phone calls for words such as “fire” and “chemical spill” and “smell” showed no hits. It had led him to the theme park in Wisconsin, but nothing appeared now.

  Ladon suspected that the beast was correct—the Jani family would inflict a swift vengeance and pull their Prime present-seer from the Burners. The ghouls were unlikely to attack anyone else, Fate or Shifter, once the Jani took their revenge.

  Ladon had put out a call anyway. Every Shifter within four hundred miles was on high alert, but nothing. No indication of Fate activity, either.

  He’d called Sister and asked her to drive east to take over hunting the Burners, just in case. She’d agreed, until he told her about Mira and Rysa.

  She hung up on him.

  The beast raised his head. The front porch light is on.

  Ladon checked the mirror. Harold, who had long been Marcus’s companion, pushed through the screen door.

  Ladon’s boots hit the gravel. He slammed the driver’s door.