Games of Fate (Fate Fire Shifter Dragon Book 1)

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Ladon glanced down at her boots. Laced leather, reinforced toe, obviously custom-made. And the two-and-a-half-inch blunt heel she preferred.

  It hurt like hell when kicked into a nose.

  She’d aged at the rate Ladon expected. Like most enthrallers born around the time of the Civil War, she looked to be about sixty. Maybe a little older. The severely short hair didn’t help. Yet she still moved like an athlete.

  A piece of sunbaked bone stuck out of the gravel and she pinched it with precision before lifting it to her nose. “Raccoon.”

  Some enthrallers like Penny—not many—could take as well as they could give. Fates might not be able to read Burners, and the bastards were poison to all Shifters, but a good enthraller could track them fifty miles out.

  If they were fast and strong enough, enthrallers tended to get caught by “the calling”—the Shifters who patrolled and protected their kind, no matter their own desires.

  Or their own proclivities. Last year, Ladon met a sixteen-year-old enthraller boy who’d been activated young so his family could shape his body-altering abilities to suit Burner hunting. He’d run away. Now he worked for Dmitri, crunching numbers and fiddling with the whining electronics in the back rooms of The Land of Milk and Honey.

  Ladon suspected the young man was the true source of the Burner tracking app on his phone.

  In front of him, Penny stood. Her blouse glowed in the evening light, well-tailored and formfitting, as was also her preference. Styles might change, but the basics of Penelope McFarlane Sisto did not.

  She glowered. Her lips thinned to a line. “A Fate, now, Ladon-Human?” She shook her head. “Never expected a surprise out of you.”

  Why do you care? he thought, but held his tongue when he felt a blip from Rysa’s seers. Irritating Penny helped no one.

  Penny glared at the van. “When is she coming out? Let’s get this over with.”

  Rysa asks for a moment, Dragon pushed. Rysa sat hiccupping with her back against the passenger seat. Dragon placed his head on her lap and cycled through every calming light and pattern he knew.

  Ladon wanted to open the door and jump into the back. To keep his promise that they’d always be there for her, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he’d only make things worse. “When she’s ready,” he said.

  Penny sniffed. Her eyes narrowed. “Clean your van. It smells of Burners, vodka, and sad little Fates.”

  He stepped toward her. A fast movement, and not too close, and he did it without thinking.

  Penny held her ground. “There’s a triad in Wisconsin Dells. They emigrated from somewhere in Eastern Europe about five years ago. The pawn shop on the edge of town is theirs.”

  Ladon crossed his arms. He knew of the Fates in question. He also knew the Shifters of The Dells had no problem with the Fate family in their midst.

  “They’re breeders,” Penny continued. She obviously did not understand that Ladon didn’t care about her ramblings. “Not very powerful. No one knows what their talisman is.” Penny shrugged.

  “So this makes your behavior okay, Penny? Because some of your friends are Fates?”

  Her voice took on the magical tones of a practiced enthraller. One who knew, all too well, which resonances to soften and which to calm both Ladon and Dragon. “Darling, I do this for you. You know that, right?”

  Her saccharine grin looked a little too Burnerish for Ladon’s tastes.

  “It would be wise, Penelope, for you to remember with whom you speak.” Practiced or not, only a few enthrallers could control Ladon or his sister. Penny was not one of them.

  She sighed a grand exhalation of her many decades of pent-up annoyance. “I can’t give her something she doesn’t already have. You know that.”

  Healers changed. Enthrallers coaxed. If Rysa didn’t have the capacity to control her abilities, no matter how Penny modulated her voice or what calling scents she breathed from her lungs, it wasn’t happening.

  But Ladon wouldn’t mention this to Rysa. She needed to believe. And so did he. The thought that she might be caught forever in this cycle of misery was something he could not accept.

  If Penny’s enthralling didn’t work, he’d take her to Dmitri. They’d stay in Branson as long as it took for the Russian to figure out how to heal her out-of-control abilities.

  If something like this could be healed.

  “She’s not royalty.” Penny rolled her eyes. “You tell her to come out. I won’t waste my time waiting for a Fate, no matter her lineage.”

  In the van, Dragon raised his head.

  “What do you know?” Ladon moved again, this time placing himself between the van’s door and Penny.

  “Only a Jani Prime would be arrogant enough to buy a house in Minneapolis using her real name, though ‘Torres’ was a bit of a surprise.”

  Ladon shrugged, not taking the bait. “It’s a common name.”

  Penny held her face flat and unreadable. “Are the War Babies in the States?”

  The Jani triads had caused plenty of havoc for Shifters over the centuries, but the War Babies had made it sport. Ladon wondered how many times other than the Texas attack they’d snuck in and out of the States without him knowing. “Probably.”

  Penny sighed again, but this time she sounded tired—and old. “Rumors are that the War Babies were responsible for Abilene.”

  Ladon didn’t answer. Best to let her talk it out of her system. He’d learned how to handle this bit of her personality a long time ago.

  “They killed a lot of healers. We didn’t have many to begin with, you know.” She walked back toward the Impala. “Enthrallers, too. They set medicine back a hundred years.” She paused. “And they’re after your new pet?”

  “She’s not my pet, Penny. No more than you were.”

  She snatched a rock from the ground and threw it at his head. It hit the van, just above the taillight, and bounced into the field. Ladon stared at the new dent.

  Penny pointed her finger accusingly at his nose. “What’s the best way to stand against the War Babies? Recruit a Dracae.” She looked him up and down. “And God knows your sister will have nothing to do with your little Fate.”

  He’d talk sense into his sister, no matter what Penny insinuated.

  “So the poor little Fate bats her eyelashes and acts all scared and here you are, saving the damsel in distress.”

  It wasn’t like that. Rysa needed their help.

  The back door of the van opened. Dragon rolled out, his big head first looping toward Ladon as he jumped onto the gravel. He shook as he landed and a low growl rolled from his chest.

  Rysa stood on the bumper of the van with her hands on each side of the door frame. She’d changed into the jeans he’d picked out and a lighter-colored t-shirt.

  She didn’t look at Penny. She looked at him. And he saw only pain in her eyes.

  Pain he felt. Pain that had pushed through the ice of his life. Before America, a wife bled to death, a baby boy never breathed, and the Draki Prime were murdered. He and Dragon lumbered away, their guts in their hands, across an ocean and into the arms of his sister and her pretty Irish Shifter companion.

  He wasn’t sure how much of that century and a half they’d spent with Penny. Or what they’d done any of the other moments. He’d have to force the recall. Because when the world is flat and colorless there’s no value to making a life worth remembering.

  On the bumper, Rysa looked down at his hands. The strap of one of her rainbow underthings peeked out where her shoulder met her neck. He wanted to brush aside her hair and kiss the little hollow where the strap lay, and to feel her cheek against his when she smiled.

  That would be worth remembering.

  “So you’re the Fate who’s got the Dracos tied in knots.” Behind him, Penny snorted. “He’s not worth it.”

  Rysa’s gaze left Ladon. She stared over his shoulder at the other woman and the pain turned hard.

  “How much vodka are you drinking now, Ladon-Human? Two,
three bottles a day? He says it doesn’t affect him, but that’s one of the lies he tells himself to get through the day. Isn’t that right, lover boy?”

  Ladon turned toward Penny. The sneer on her lips said more than any of her insults.

  He knew exactly what she was about to say, but he couldn’t stop her from saying it.

  The sun’s last rays bounced off a lonely bank of clouds and spread reds and purples across the western horizon. Rysa breathed in the humid Iowa air. Both the van and the Shifter’s turquoise muscle car sat on some farmer’s gravel road, noses pointed toward the crappy two-lane county road.

  They were, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere.

  Dragon, stretching like a giant cat, rolled out first, and stood between Ladon and Rysa and Ladon’s ex-girlfriend. He shimmered softly and cast just enough light to temper the long evening shadows.

  Penny looked old, like she was about to retire, or just had, and dressed like a cop from a detective show—tailored blouse so white it glowed in the light of the sunset, tailored mid-rise boot-cut jeans accentuating her still-thin waist, and black leather boots with a bit of heel, but not too much. Rysa suspected she had a blazer on the back seat of her car.

  The Shifter spit insults at Ladon. Rysa smelled the bile. It sat in her nose and tongue like some sort of phantom memory. It tasted like ‘hate’—like a command to hate.

  Penny leaned against the hood of her car watching Rysa with eyes that spit just as much anger as the scents wafting from her.

  She said something about Ladon not being worth it.

  Someone as old as Penny should have a better sense of “worth it.” Even if Rysa had ruined any chance with him, he and Dragon were “worth” more than anyone she’d ever met.

  Penny said something about vodka.

  Rysa jumped down and stood next to Ladon. She touched his elbow to say thank you. To let him know she appreciated what he did, even if Penny didn’t. He looked down at her hand.

  Penny’s sapphire gaze darted between Ladon’s face and Rysa’s fingers. Each time her eyes dropped, she sighed. Not a loud sigh, or a defeated one, more of an inaudible groan. Her body made the motions of a sigh—the contraction of the stomach, the drop of the shoulders and the tightening of the neck—but Rysa didn’t hear it.

  Penny sneered and ‘spite’ hit Rysa’s tongue. Too sweet and too salty, it made her gag.

  Penny raised her hand and a crooked finger pointed first at Rysa, then Ladon. “He used to kill your kind, Fate. Slaughtered them in the streets. Cut them down like the rats you are.”

  Penny’s sneer said it all—Rysa was supposed to gasp and cover her mouth, maybe faint, too, for good measure. Put on a grand show to justify Penny’s ill-will.

  Rysa had already driven a wedge between herself and Ladon. She wasn’t someone he might care for, so Penny could say anything, exaggerate everything, and it wouldn’t change what-will-be.

  But the inevitability of sex still confounded Rysa. Would it be pity sex? A one-night stand decades from now when this was over? She hoped it wouldn’t be hate sex, like what she glimpsed with Penny.

  She wouldn’t be able to handle hate sex.

  If she became the weird random thing fate wanted her to be—the Ambusti Prime, her mom called her—the Burner Fate incapable of controlling herself and who burned cities, he’d hate her.

  “Are you going to help me or not, Shifter?” The ‘spite’ she tasted coated her own words.

  “Rysa?” Ladon touched her elbow, her wrist, her fingers. He tried to learn from her skin again, to listen to what her body told him. “Beautiful, are you okay? You’re acting dazed.” He sniffed the air. “Penny!”

  “I’m not doing it! She’s the freak, not me, you fool.” Penny’s voice carried much more information than simple words. Her voice carried ‘fear.’ “I’m not doing anything to her!” She stepped toward her muscle car’s door. “Fucking Fates. You’re worse than Burners.” She reached for the handle.

  Dragon placed a hand on the door. He didn’t growl, or flash, but he put enough pressure on the car that it rocked upward. A loud creak erupted from the underside.

  Penny’s voice modulated. “Dearest heart, it’s okay. I brought oranges. I have a whole bag. Just for the one I love.”

  Dragon swung his head between Penny and Rysa, then back to Penny. He lifted his hand off the car to sign. Are they Cara Caras?

  A brief wave of ‘puzzlement’ rolled from Penny. “What are those?”

  My favorite.

  An almost inaudible Heh came from Ladon. “Do what’s been asked of you, Penny.”

  The whipping in Rysa’s head started again. For a split second, Penny’s car looked as if someone had poured gasoline on the hood and set it ablaze. Rysa heard the crackle, smelled the acid. Felt the heat.

  Her entire front screamed like someone had pressed her against a hot stove. She looked at her hands. No blisters, no fire. But it crawled, the burning. It crawled over the car and she felt it as if it crawled on her.

  Rysa screamed.

  Ladon swung her into his arms. “Penny!”

  Rysa heard Dragon growl. She saw a flash, and Penny appeared in her field of vision.

  “I won’t help a Fate! I won’t—”

  The metal of Penny’s car shrieked. Dragon dragged his talons down its side, gouging deeply, and curls of turquoise paint dropped onto the dirt.

  “Not my baby!” Penny shook her fist at Dragon. “May the old gods eat your soul, you foul beast!”

  The fire in the vision—and Rysa’s skin—sputtered.

  “You want to keep the roof, you help her right now!” Ladon yelled like a general.

  “I hate this,” Rysa whispered. Was she really on fire? Was that stupid car on fire? Did that bitch really shake her fist at Dragon? Who did that?

  Another gouge. More car curls hit the gravel.

  “Stop! Stop!” Penny’s hands wrapped around Rysa’s face. She leaned close as her voice took on the same magical information density it had before. “You are clearheaded and in control.”

  ‘Calm’ and ‘clear’ wafted into Rysa’s nose.

  I’m clearheaded. Rysa inhaled deeply. Stop whipping! she yelled at her nasty. I’m in control. Not you. No more burning!

  Ladon dropped her legs. “We felt that.” But he kept his arm around her waist. “Are you okay?”

  The tentacles folded away. She still felt them, but they listened. Stay. Weird as it seemed, she pointed an imaginary finger at the imaginary nasty thing in her head. It seemed the best way to deal with it.

  For the first time, it heeled.

  Penny backed away but Rysa’s nasty yipped. Rysa grabbed the Shifter’s collar. “Say ‘You will always be clearheaded and in control.’”

  Penny clamped her mouth shut.

  Behind them, Dragon leaned onto the muscle car’s hood. It groaned.

  “Okay! You will always be clearheaded and in control!” Penny slapped away Rysa’s hand.

  Dragon lifted his talons.

  The bitch, swearing loudly at both Ladon and Dragon, ran for her car.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  As soon as Penny pulled away, Rysa’s seers popped a vision of one very perplexed farmer standing in the cornfield wondering if he’d been visited by aliens. She didn’t know if it had happened, or would, but the prudent thing to do was to not be around if he came looking.

  Ladon helped her into the van and they pulled off the gravel road onto the county highway. She should feel better. When the vision of the farmer came to her, she controlled it, and even though she smelled his aftershave, it didn’t overwhelm her, and she stopped it when she’d gleaned what she needed.

  “You’re okay now?” Ladon looked her up and down. “You look okay.”

  She nodded instead of answering, knowing she’d say something stupid if she opened her mouth. Something like “I want to kiss you.”

  “Do you want to rest? You should rest. Then practice. Your seers shouldn’t come uncalled. Your ta
lisman might be chaos but it’s the filter, not the camera.” He nodded, obviously more for himself than for her. “You may be Ambusti but you’re still a Prime and with practice and dedication, it won’t feel nasty anymore. It won’t control you.”

  Did she infect him again through their connection? He talked fast and a lot more than usual, like her.

  “You’ll be okay. Nothing’s going to hurt you. Nothing.”

  She wasn’t so sure about “practice and dedication.” But Ladon and Dragon seemed willing to help. Maybe she hadn’t completely scared them off.

  Maybe they could be friends. But if she did something stupid, she’d ruin it. So she tried very hard to smile and hold still. “I can’t believe Penny shook her fist at Dragon.”

  After a long moment of staring at the road, Ladon chuckled.

  I have had many fists shaken at me. Dragon dropped his head onto her lap again.

  She couldn’t bounce in her seat while he held her in place. She scratched his eye ridge.

  “Fists, sabers, an entire coliseum’s worth of swords, a couple of trebuchets, pistols, machine guns, and oh—” Ladon glanced at Dragon. “—do you remember when that Shifter shook an entire tree at us? A whole tree. Strongest Shifter we’ve ever met. That’s rare.” He smiled at Rysa.

  She’d melt if he kept it up. Right here, in the passenger seat of his van. She’d turn into a puddle of Rysa and that’d be the end of it, so she hugged Dragon to distract herself. “I can’t believe she called you a foul beast. Who calls you that?”

  Dragon pulled back so she could see his hands. I have also been called a foul beast many times.

  “You are not a foul beast. You’re beautiful and wonderful and you’re special.”

  The pulse of light from Dragon might blind the oncoming traffic, if there’d been any.

  She was talking too much again. She bit hard on her lip and slapped her hand over her mouth. What did she just do? She’d tried to be careful, but no, she had to babble. Her mouth just ran and ran and Ladon would start sighing any minute now.

  But he didn’t. He gripped the steering wheel while pulsing information to Dragon. The beast put his head on her lap again and they drove in silence toward a glow on the horizon.