Games of Fate (Fate Fire Shifter Dragon Book 1)

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  “Someone needs a salt scrub.”

  I need to sleep.

  “We’ll get you home.” And Sister would act like an adult. She’d help protect Rysa so they could rest.

  Dragon snorted. Sister and Sister-Human are stubborn.

  Yes, they were. Thank the gods for Derek. Ladon hoped his brother-in-law could talk some sense into Sister.

  Rysa watched through the screen door. The mesh pixelated Dragon’s hide as Ladon sprayed water over the beast. Her eyes attempted to compensate but his colors looked as if they’d been visually autotuned and threatened to trigger a new headache.

  Or maybe she had a drumbeat against her temples because of what had happened upstairs. In the shower, phantoms of the dream had played across her skin as the warm water ran down her thighs. She’d caught herself moaning once. If she went outside right now, she’d fall over dead from embarrassment before her foot hit the porch steps.

  Outside, Ladon scrubbed soot off Dragon’s flank. They bickered. She couldn’t hear it, but she felt it through their connection and saw it in Ladon’s body language. Rysa watched as Ladon rubbed, then stopped. His shoulders stiffened before he sprayed more water.

  Her confusion latched onto her proto-headache and hardened the muscles at the base of her skull. Her seers knew they’d get physical, and soon, too. It didn’t matter if involvement in her issues complicated his life. And Dragon’s, too.

  It wasn’t like she had impulse control. Running away and talking too much telegraphed her problems. And that stupid bounce she did when she felt enthusiastic made everyone around her sigh. How long before Ladon got sick of watching her do that? Last semester, a guy she liked and who seemed to like her started pinching his lips when she became excited. Two dates, the relationship lasted. Less than a week.

  But that was her life. No control.

  And her mother had abandoned her with a nasty thing in her head—and a very nasty accusation.

  She wasn’t going to think about it now. It couldn’t be true. She’d never—never—do anything to hurt anyone. She’d never hurt Ladon and Dragon.

  Outside, Ladon walked around Dragon’s side. He fluctuated between finding her attractive and stomping around because she was a Fate. Navigating his mood swings was as confusing as navigating her own.

  Someone cleared his throat behind her. Rysa spun around. Harold stood in the hallway to the kitchen holding a prescription bottle and a coffee mug. “He may look your age—and honest to God he’s acting like a kid right now—but he’s not.” He shrugged. “He doesn’t always read people well and honestly, I wonder if he’s gruff so he doesn’t have to.”

  She blinked. Harold commented about Ladon but Ladon was outside. She couldn’t stop looking out the door. Ladon moved like he knew where everything was—his own body, Dragon, the ground, the van, trees, handholds. Everything. She could watch him run, jump, and climb all day long.

  “Rysa.” Harold had moved next to her while she wasn’t paying attention. “Did you hear me?”

  “Sorry.” She didn’t feel hyper, but she did feel overwhelmed and paying attention to anyone other than Ladon was difficult.

  “It’s okay. With all that’s happened, I’d have a hard time focusing, too.” He held out a bottle. “Ladon-Dragon brought these in this morning before running light therapy with Marcus.” He glanced at the ceiling. “When you and Ladon-Human were still sleeping.”

  They’d grabbed her meds from her kitchen counter? A flash of a memory burst into her vision, then vanished just as fast—her seers had known at the house that Ladon had tucked them into his pocket.

  She stared at the bottle. How was she supposed to get a handle on using her abilities? She didn’t know if what she knew was something she should know. “They rescued my meds?”

  Harold shrugged and the pills inside the bottle rattled. “Looks that way.”

  The damned cuff smacked his wrist when she took her meds. “Sorry!”

  He patted the back of her hand and handed over the mug. “Water. He’ll be done with the Great Sir soon.” He nodded toward Ladon and Dragon. “Marcus is meditating. He’s looking for who’s behind all this.” He frowned when he glanced at the hallway. “I wish he wouldn’t.”

  Rysa opened her meds and downed a pill. Maybe they’d help calm her seers. They helped her attention, even if they did make her nauseated. She figured it was a trade-off she’d have to live with, if she was going to function in the modern world.

  She pointed with the mug toward Marcus’s study/bedroom down the hallway. “He doesn’t have to look.” But all she saw was fire. If they were going to get answers, Marcus needed to find them, not her.

  Harold didn’t respond. He took the mug and stood for a moment, watching Ladon and Dragon. “Go out and give him a hand. He’s been sulking since he came downstairs. Having you nearby will make him feel better.” Harold raised the mug and winked before vanishing into the kitchen.

  She set down her meds. Outside, Ladon swaggered around Dragon.

  He jumped against the corner of the van. One of his bare feet hit the bumper and the other about halfway up the vehicle. A twist and he landed gently—how, Rysa could not fathom—with one foot on Dragon’s shoulder and a knee on the base of his neck.

  When he lovingly scrubbed the beast’s back ridges, the sun hit the water clinging to his shoulders.

  Rysa moaned. She couldn’t stop it before it passed her tongue and she wasn’t sure she wanted to, anyway. Every inch of her skin tingled. Her breasts wanted to be touched. Her thighs pressed together. Her lips parted.

  The dream flitted through her senses once again.

  She pinched her eyes closed. How the hell was she supposed to handle this? Did all new Fates go through the future and past physically interfering with the present? Or was this just because she was singular? Hopefully, Marcus could help.

  “It’s no colder than it was ten minutes ago!” Ladon yelled as he dropped off the beast’s back.

  Dragon grabbed the shammy. He wiped his head and his chest, and his big tail flicked across the gravel.

  “Fine!” Ladon stalked away and stopped next to his t-shirt and boots. “Don’t waste the water.”

  They’d started bickering again.

  Dragon flicked one arm over the top of his head and his six fingers formed the American Sign Language ‘V’ hand-shape with his palm toward his head. Then he flicked his wrist over, rotating the ‘V’ upward.

  The door banged shut behind Rysa. The loud clap echoed off the van and the garage as she skidded across the porch to the top step. “He called you an idiot!” she yelled. “Dragon signed idiot at you!” She ran-bounced to the gravel holding the waist of Harold’s too-big sweats so they wouldn’t slide down her hips.

  She let go of her waistband and signed at the same time she spoke. “What other signs do you know?”

  Could Dragon sign? She hitched up the sweats as she ran barefoot across the gravel. “Ouch!” A stone poked her heel and she winced and grabbed her foot.

  You can sign? the beast signed. Vivid, wonderful colors and reflections and emotions washed into her perception.

  Her entire body responded. Her back arched. A moan ripping from her throat.

  Rysa dropped to her knees on the gravel. “Whoa,” she whispered.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Rysa teetered against Ladon when he helped her to her feet. She glanced up—all the depth and excitement moving across the beast’s hide also filled Ladon’s expression. Dragon’s lights danced on his human’s skin.

  Do you know many signs? Dragon ducked to the other side of Ladon. I will teach you more. I know most signs. He ducked back. Derek signs with me. Marcus remembers some, but Harold does not.

  Ladon grinned. “He’s excited.”

  You are Rysa. Dragon combined the ‘R’ hand-shape with the sign for ‘laughter.’

  “Is that my new name sign?”

  Yes.

  Joy shot from the beast and a tactile sense of a color flashed in
to Rysa’s mind—wine, roses, the warmth of a fireplace, moved across her skin like smooth, tightly-woven velvet.

  It merged into Ladon’s fingers as they danced over her hips.

  Her body responded again, parts heating and limbs wanting to entangle with both the man and the beast. If Ladon started massaging like he had when he’d found her, she’d have an orgasm right here on the gravel. A full-on, blinding orgasm like Tom never gave her, fully clothed with this man she’d just met.

  She shuffled backward. A blush rose up her neck. She stopped about three feet away and did her best not to bounce or wiggle, but her hands smoothed over her thighs on their own anyway.

  Ladon’s gaze dropped to her hips.

  “Don’t do that!” He’d stare at her body and distract her from everything but all her future-thoughts of intimacy.

  His gaze traveled up and stopped at her breasts.

  But he didn’t ogle. He looked at her as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world and by God he wasn’t going to miss that.

  He stood holding his t-shirt, bare-chested and mouth-watering, wearing an expression that said all he wanted to do was to pick her up and kiss her and touch her body and say how sorry he was for running out mad.

  She couldn’t be angry with him. His reactions were her fault. She’d brought the inevitability of sex to the forefront this morning, not him.

  Rysa closed her eyes and turned around. “Quit distracting me!” How was she supposed to pay attention to what needed to be done? “Put on your stupid shirt.”

  Ladon’s chuckle mixed with the sounds of him pulling the shirt over his head. Then his arms enclosed her waist, and his chest and shoulders pressed against her back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was distracting. And here I thought Dragon was—”

  She pulled away and held up her hands. They couldn’t do this. No more of him stroking her waist with his gentle-but-firm touch. She’d melt. She’d lick the spot below his diamond of chest hair and the inevitability of sex would become a reality.

  They needed to cut off the cuffs and find her mom and figure out what to do about the Burners and—

  Hurt played through Ladon’s eyes and his neck tensed. But he caught it and his expression turned stony. Then he caught that look, too.

  She shuffled her bare feet on the gravel. “We don’t know each other,” she whispered. They didn’t, no matter how entwined they felt.

  His neck tensed again. “You’re right. We don’t know each other.” He jammed his hands into his pockets. “I should think before being so forward. I have no right to touch you as if our time’s been decided.”

  He stepped back. Only a couple of inches, but it felt as if he’d moved into a different time zone. “I apologize. Again.”

  Rysa wrapped her arms around her chest. She felt cold, like the sun had gone under storm clouds. Rain fell on her life at the same time that she rejected the only umbrella available.

  Human is sorry, Dragon signed.

  “Dragon!” She’d been so distracted by Ladon’s closeness that she’d forgotten the beast’s questions. “I’m fluent. I took the translator’s exam last year. I was going to work for Disability Services but my attention issues got in the way.”

  Rysa can sign with me. The beast knocked Ladon’s shoulder. She is fluent. He knocked Ladon’s shoulder again.

  He shrugged and pointed at her wrists. “Burndust makes metal brittle so Dragon’s been testing the chains. He thinks he can heat a link and make you a bracelet.”

  Dragon signed yes.

  “But we cut you a length you can carry just in case.” He pointed at the sweats, then over his shoulder. “It’s in the van.”

  She looked down. No pockets.

  “I’ll find a pouch. Or we’ll make one.”

  He’d stuck his hands in his pockets again. And he watched her wide-eyed, like a puppy.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He nodded, a quick grin appearing then vanishing off his lips. “Let’s get those off.” He motioned to the side of the van. “I found the hacksaw. Don’t use it much. It was under the theodolite, of all places.” He shrugged again as Dragon nuzzled her hair. “Next to the duct tape.”

  “Wait.” She stared at the back of the van. Tripods, a theodolite, a compass, and other surveying instruments she couldn’t identify littered Dragon’s blankets. Distracted again, she stepped forward, peering around the beast’s bulk. “Why do you have a theodolite?”

  An old-school brass and steel instrument rested next to the door. Theodolites looked like the love children of a microscopes and a pirate’s spyglass, with their lenses and gyroscopic wheels. Sunlight hit the level bars and green glinted off the glass tubes.

  Ladon walked backward toward the van. “There’s more to life than killing Burners. Sometimes we need to measure elevations. Those cabins in Jackson Hole don’t pick their own views.”

  The theodolite, the tripods, the licensing number on the back corner of the van—Ladon and Dragon worked a job. “You survey?” She bounced a little. “In Wyoming? In the mountains? I’m studying natural resources management. Fragile ecosystems. Caves mostly. I want to go to the Caverna de las Brujas in Argentina. My dad’s from Cordoba. Are there caves where you live? My parents took me to Carlsbad when I was a kid and—”

  She stopped midsentence when he smiled. It wasn’t some “aren’t you cute” or “that’s nice” smile. His entire face smiled. His mouth, his cheeks, his eyes all drew upward. Every guy she’d gone out with grinned and looked at her breasts, running through their mental calculations, weighing horniness versus uneasiness. Not Ladon. He smiled because of her.

  When she was a kid, she’d walk off grids in the backyard and pretend they were different ecosystems with different plants and animals for her to explore. She’d asked her dad for a theodolite to help her mark elevations, but he said he’d have to look up what it was first. Then he left and she never saw him again.

  Ladon had a real theodolite in the back of his van. He wasn’t just some god sent to earth to kill Burners. He was a real man with a real job and real skills beyond fighting and he could teach her how to measure the angles of the land.

  “Will you show me how to use the theodolite?”

  The smile turned into something deeper. Dragon flashed behind him and Ladon laid his fingers on the beast’s neck. A complex wave blazed across Dragon’s hide.

  They all stood on the gravel, Dragon nuzzling Ladon, then her, then Ladon again.

  “Yes.” He didn’t say anything else. Didn’t repeat the word. He offered a simple yes that filled the space between them. Yes, beautiful. Yes, for you.

  Yes.

  “Let’s cut off those cuffs.” Ladon extended his hand and nodded toward the plank suspended between the sawhorses.

  She sat on the back bumper of the van while Ladon held the shackle. His gaze never left the line he sawed through the resin binding the cuff together.

  Dragon lounged on top of the van with the talons of one of his claw-hands dangling over the edge and his big head resting on the other. He looked quite clean and comfortable with the sun bouncing off his shimmering hide.

  “Not many people know what a theodolite is.” The saw ground into the joint, and filings scattered across the plank. “Maybe you can work with us when you’re done with your schooling. My contracts are always asking about environmental management and water features.” He stopped and blew on the cuff.

  “I’d like that.” A job, in this economy, and one in the mountains. A smile bubbled up and it took all her effort not to bounce. Which she shouldn’t do, anyway. The med was giving her a stomachache.

  A bad one, too, probably because she’d missed her dose yesterday. She rubbed her midsection with her free hand.

  Ladon yanked the cuff apart and she lifted out her wrist. The burns weren’t bad. Her skin looked sunburned. When she’d unwrapped the bandages before her shower, and the bites had healed to scrapes, too.

  “You heal faster than any Fate we
’ve ever met.” Ladon worked at the other cuff until it popped off, too.

  “I’ve always healed fast. I don’t get sick, either, though I do get side effects sometimes.” She rubbed her stomach. “My mom said it was because of my hyperactivity. My body’s speedy.”

  “You okay? You look pale.” Ladon lifted her leg to the plank.

  She sat up straight. “It’ll pass. I took one of my meds.”

  Ladon positioned her leg, careful of her knee, and rotated the cuff so the resin line was up.

  “Thank you, by the way. For helping me. And finding my meds.”

  Ladon nodded toward Dragon. “He found them.”

  The beast’s hand dropped down and he signed Yes.

  Ladon chuckled as he worked on an ankle cuff. “We’ve been watching for Burner activity. They’ve been quiet.” He dusted the filings off her foot.

  She nodded toward the house. “Marcus is meditating. Maybe he’ll give us some direction.”

  The cuff popped off and he switched to her other ankle. “Your safety comes first.” He nodded for emphasis. “We’ll get the visions under control. He’ll help.”

  “The world’s going to burn.” It dropped off her tongue and slapped aside the brief moments of happiness she’d felt earlier.

  Ladon set the saw next to her ankle. “You don’t know that. It could mean anything.” He glanced up at Dragon’s perch as he returned to sawing the cuff. “We don’t believe it anyway. You’re one of the best people we’ve ever met.”

  He didn’t know that, either. He couldn’t.

  Dragon’s head and hands swung over the side of the van. We know. We are connected.

  Ladon cut through the last cuff, but didn’t pull it apart. He glanced up at Dragon and a pulse moved between them.

  A wave of nausea pulsed through her gut.

  “He’s going to get the piece he cut earlier. So you’re not without your talisman.” Ladon looked sad, like he’d just told a child she’d never be an astronaut. Or a firefighter. Or a decent human being.

  The beast hopped off the side of the van and disappeared around the front.

  Ladon pulled the final cuff apart.