“Do you want to stop? I think we should stop.” Ladon pointed up the road.
The outskirts of Council Bluffs manifested up ahead. Random suburban streets jutted out of the cornfields like the ground had a rash. A shopping center loomed just off the road.
“Are you hungry? I’m hungry. There’s an app to find places to eat.” Ladon pointed at his phone where it rested in the cup holder.
Happy for a distraction, she picked it up. The screen came to life. “It’s on? I thought it gave you a headache.”
“It does.” He shrugged.
“You don’t need a headache, you know.” Not because of her.
An app window popped up. She tapped at the screen. “Is this thing tracking local cell phone calls?” He had spyware on his phone. “This is seriously illegal. You know that, right?”
A cocky grin appeared on Ladon’s face. “So is having three assault rifles and a barbed whip under the floor. And two handguns, three swords, and seven daggers.”
Dragon’s hand appeared between the seats. Eight.
“Eight daggers.” He shrugged again.
“Does it pick up state trooper calls?” She tapped again and the “key terms” search box appeared.
“Yes. It’s monitoring everything within six hundred miles.”
Sword popped into her head along with train and unauthorized vehicle. She tapped in the words without realizing what she was doing.
“There’s a grocery store.” Ladon pointed at a sign. “We can get Dragon dinner.”
She returned the phone to the cup holder. “You’re okay with it on?”
“It’s fine. We should let it be, in case.” He pulled off the highway and turned toward the mall. “We can tolerate some whining, right?”
Dragon grunted.
“There’s one of those big electronics stores.” He pointed through the windshield. “You need a new phone. For emergencies. We’ll put you on our data plan.” He nodded toward the store. “Or Derek will. It’s not a problem.” He pulled the van into an open space near the rear of the parking lot and shut off the ignition.
Share a data plan? Heat blazed across her cheeks and she squirmed yet again.
Ladon inhaled sharply and glanced at Dragon. “We have something for you.” He dug in his pocket.
Her heart skipped. What if he had a key to another car? Was he telling her to go on her way?
“We thought you might want to wear your mother’s talisman. It should help you see her, when the dust is out of her system.” Her mother’s bracelet draped off his fingers. “Now that your seers are calm, you can start feeling for her.”
A black leather strap wove through the chain.
“As soon as you sense anything—anything at all, no matter what or when—you tell us. We’ll go straight away.”
Tied into the leather were two entwined dragons of silver and gold.
“We stopped the chaos of your talisman from completely randomizing your seers and we will stop the War Babies from taking your mother. I promise.”
He said something about her mom, but she didn’t really hear. The emblem drew all her attention. “What is it? It’s gorgeous.” She peered at the detail worked into each beast. Braided ridges rose along their backs. Six talons graced their hands. “They look like the dragons Marcus wears.”
“It’s a Legio Draconis insignia.” His fingers danced over the edges of the insignia. “We thought you might like one. As a balance to the burndust.” His fingers touched the link around her wrist. He paused and touched the metal.
The little dragons were more exquisite than any piece of jewelry she’d seen, much less owned. “Who makes them for you?”
Very gently, Ladon touched her skin. “I smith them. When we’re home. The dragons always touch the metal as it cools, to bless the emblem.” Below the link, he clasped the chain. Working quickly, he tied the thong. “There.”
Ladon fashioned the insignia with his own hands. She should be happy to have her mom’s charm, but this—the little dragons warmed her soul as much as the beast himself. “It’s for me?”
“Yes.”
“This is why you wanted to stop?” He wasn’t going to kick her out of his van.
He looked puzzled. “Yes.”
He wasn’t mad about her out-of-control behavior.
Ladon stroked the back of her hand before nodding toward the store. “That, plus Dragon’s hungry.”
A seer-tentacle responded to his touch, but it didn’t whip in the gross way her seers had before. It mimicked Ladon’s touch and stroked the river of energy between Ladon and Dragon.
What if she started siphoning again? Her nasty might have calmed down, but she didn’t understand how her abilities worked, or what separated them, or if the siphoning was something else. She yelled at it in her head. Stop!
But Dragon reached out to her.
Her whole body tingled as vivid globes with a distinct citrus scent appeared in her mind. Brilliantly colored like the sun, and with a perfect, ripe texture she felt with six fingers. They fit in her hand—his hand—the way a grape fit in hers, but he flipped more than one in his palm, checking their rinds for variations. A swipe of a talon and Cara Cara juice sprayed into the air.
“Oranges!” Actual oranges, like she held them herself. “I saw oranges!”
Ladon’s eyes gleamed as bright as the beast’s images. “He’s been trying.”
Dragon nuzzled her side and flashed more oranges into her mind. Rysa can hear me now that her seers have calmed. He knocked Ladon’s shoulder as he signed, as if to say Told you so.
Another flash with Cara Caras, and also kale. “You’re amazing! And hungry.”
Ladon scratched at his messy hair. “Phone first. Then dinner. You can practice while we eat. Do you feel up to shopping?”
“I think so.” She kissed Dragon’s eye ridge and laughed when he sparkled. From outside, the van must have looked like someone inside was setting off flares.
She popped the latch on her door. “Why do you always wear black? I’m buying you something plaid.”
Ladon hopped out and rounded the back corner of the van to open the door for Dragon. “Why would you do that?”
The invisible beast rubbed against Rysa’s side as they waited for a couple of teenagers to walk by. She leaned toward him to keep her footing and was sure she looked bizarre to anyone watching. “Because the monochrome is, well, monotonous.” Though the ominous overtones suited him. It balanced the messy hair.
“I don’t like plaid.” Ladon frowned. “Highlanders wear plaid.”
“What’s wrong with Highlanders?” She poked at his shoulder.
His lips bunched up.
“You’re embarrassed.” She smirked. “What did you do?”
Dragon pushed an image into her head—Ladon, drunk, holding two mugs of beer or mead or whatever Highlanders drank in one fist and swinging his arm as he bellowed like a fool. He slapped Dragon to goad the big beast into compliance. Dragon, annoyed, covered himself with a complicated plaid pattern as much to shut up his human as to prove his mimicking skill.
Rysa doubled over laughing.
“Dragon pushed it to you, didn’t he?”
An outline of a dragon hand flicked Ladon’s shoulder. He staggered to the side, and frowned at the air next to him.
“I saw it!” Rysa snorted. “He’s still irritated.” Tears clung to her lashes. “Okay, no plaid.”
Ladon pointed toward the store, smiling like a little kid. “Let’s go.”
“Were you wearing a kilt?” More laughter erupted.
“No.”
“Yes, you were!” She’d seen it in what Dragon pushed to her. “How did you get a black kilt? Aren’t they all plaid?” She followed Ladon through the lot, skipping over a pothole. “Is it true what they say about kilts and—”
“I will not talk about Highlanders.” He marched off toward the building.
“Do you still have it?”
He turned toward her again. �
�What?”
“The kilt.”
He walked backward toward the door. “No. But I do have my claymore.”
“What’s that?” Dragon nudged her forward and she moved toward the entrance.
“My really big sword.”
Laughter burst out again and she bent over in front of the entrance, right in the middle of traffic. “Well, I would hope so.” It felt good to laugh. She snorted again, and shook her head. “Really big, huh?”
He stood in front of the store smiling his brilliant smile, handsome and wonderful and happy.
“You know…” More laughter bubbled up. “… there can be only one.”
He pulled her toward the doors. “Only one what?”
“Oh, we need to get you some movies.”
Ladon had managed to lift some of her gloom. She accepted the insignia and now she laughed. He made her happy.
Dragon hung from the wall inside the main door. It is noisy in here.
Ladon tugged Rysa toward the inner door. “We need to hurry. Dragon says it’s loud in the store.”
They stopped next to the carts. The layered bouquet of her scent curled around him and her skin glowed like a vision of the jasmine and mist-under-the-moon he pulled in with each inhale.
She looked toward Dragon’s spot on the wall, her hand still in his. The perfect line of her jaw accented the tilt of her head. She didn’t move away.
She likes us.
Ladon glanced at the wall. Happiness flowed from the beast.
But Penny’s words still echoed in his mind. He’d fixed this moment, given Rysa this small joy, but she’d ask sooner or later. Her brow would crinkle and she’d say “Wait…” and his past would register. She’d want him to explain. And all the promise he’d seen in her eyes would vanish forever, only to be replaced by disappointment and anger.
Now, next to him, she peered down the aisle. “The cell phones are behind the cameras.”
A step moved her inches away. He pulled her back, wanting this moment to last. Wanting not to think about when she’d drop her gaze and mutter that he wasn’t someone she could be with.
Rysa looked up, her beautiful face in the present, in the right now, happy for the first time since they’d met. The world brightened. She wasn’t in a vision. She wasn’t seeing a future that might not come to pass or a past he couldn’t escape. She saw him, and she smiled.
It took all his effort not to pick her up. Not to kiss her neck and her cheeks and her lips and do his best, in the present, to make sure her smile never faded.
An electronic whine hit his skull like someone threw a rock at his temple—a customer on a call walked by. The pain yanked his mind back to the glaring harshness of the damned store.
“Are you okay?” Rysa glanced around. “All the cell phones?”
He nodded and dropped his head to her shoulder as he sought the comfort of her closeness. Her fingers moved up his arms and cupped his biceps.
“Give me your credit card. I’ll get a prepaid phone and meet you outside. It won’t take long.” She tapped his elbows.
She wanted to go into the store without him? He’d have to let go. And this store stretched deeper than his connection to Dragon.
“Don’t make that face. I’ll be fine. There’s not a single Burner around.”
The aisles did look clear. Neither he nor Dragon sensed any Shifters or Fates. “Are you sure?” He’d be happier if she had a phone not linked to her current number.
“It’s bad enough you’ve been driving around with yours on. Plus, the faster we’re done here, the faster we get dinner.” As quickly as she said the words, she smoothed her fingers over his stomach.
The full force of what had been brewing since Minneapolis exploded from the skin of his belly up into his chest. He pulled her into a tight embrace. Every moment they’d been together, every ounce of joy she brought to both him and Dragon, moved from his lips to hers. The kiss, quick but intense, was meant to share it all.
Color deepened across her cheeks. She pulled back but didn’t let go. “Ladon!” Her gaze darted about and she touched her chin. “You…oh.”
“Kissed you?”
“I didn’t think…” She bit her lip.
“What?” He hadn’t thought someone could look both completely happy and utterly embarrassed at the same time, yet she was. Maybe he should kiss her again.
A grumble of irritation rolled from Dragon. The beast felt left out up there hanging on the wall and invisible. Ladon glanced over.
By the entrance, the employee in charge of dispensing faint-but-holier-than-thou sneers huffed and said something into her earpiece.
“You’re going to get us kicked out,” Rysa whispered, her eyes still huge and her hand still on her chin, like she didn’t know what to do.
It is noisy. My head hurts. I want to leave.
“We’ll get the van, pull up front, and wait for you. Then we’ll get him his fruit and us some take-out.” Under his hands, her hips swayed ever so slightly.
She might ask about his past, but tonight he’d prove his intent so she’d know, now and always, what she meant to him and to the beast.
Rysa nodded and bit her lip again. “I need your card if I’m going to buy a phone.”
He offered the plastic. He’d have Derek put her on his account. Get her a card of her own. “We’ll be right out front.”
Letting go of her hips took more effort than killing a Burner. More effort than fighting a class-one morpher. Carrying her out to the van would be like a morning stretch with his face turned to the brightness of the day, even if he kissed her the entire way and relied on Dragon to navigate the potholes.
She kissed his cheek softly. Her perfect lips pressed his skin with what he could only describe as real, true affection. “Don’t run off.”
He’d stay with her like this for the rest of the evening, if he could. This close, touching this way. Knowing that he could make her happy. “We will always be here for you.”
Her lips rounded.
But her smile returned.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ladon kissed her. In public, in a store, in front of people. He stepped forward and kissed her on the lips in a way that said he wanted more than friendship. More, not less. More.
He kissed her like he’d kissed her when she was in the vision.
Thinking wasn’t happening and if she used her seers, she knew exactly what she’d see. Her back would arch and she’d moan in the store, in public, in front of the whole world.
She might anyway, the way he was looking at her. And if he kissed her again, she’d melt—a response just as embarrassing as an orgasm.
A moment to calm down, maybe get her mind under control, is what she needed. A moment without his sun-god scent driving her insane.
So she gave him a little shove. “Go on. I won’t be long.”
His next kiss landed as a gentle touch to her cheek. “You need us, call to Dragon.” Bits of concrete fell as Dragon dropped off the wall.
Ladon’s swagger made her tingle again. She watched his black jeans frame his exceptional backside as he walked away.
A little bounce escaped as she watched him walk through the sliding glass doors, even with all her effort. How fast could she find a phone? Something simple with prepaid minutes and no extras. She needed to stay on task. And to breathe. If she was too hyper, he still might not want her around.
No, they’d have dinner. She’d practice her new-found control. And maybe some more kissing.
She grinned as she walked into the store. First, the phone. Usually, phones were up front, but not in this place. They were behind the music players and across from the movies. Perhaps she should pick up a DVD player for Dragon, but not movies about bad dragons, because he’d brood. Maybe turn gray. That, she didn’t want to see. The players were tucked away with the car stereos for some stupid reason and—
She pulled her attention back to finding a phone. Should she text Gavin? The Feds were likely tra
cing calls to his number. Guilt prodded. He worried about her. She grabbed a phone off a shelf and turned it over in her hands.
“A Fate’s seer sure is grating.”
Rysa spun but the big Shifter grabbed her arms. He was taller than Ladon, wider too, he held her wrists with an iron grip.
“No screaming.” His voice modulated the way Penny’s had. “No running.”
Dragon! she yelled in her head.
The Shifter snickered. One corner of his mouth rose higher than the other. His flat nose bobbed under his receding hairline.
“Why are you so ugly?” she spit out. “Can’t all Shifters morph?”
He slapped her. The sting trailed across her cheek. The lady at the end of the aisle gasped. The Shifter pointed at the woman, but his eyes stayed on Rysa. “Go away, normal.”
The woman blinked and backed out of the aisle.
“That witch Penny Sisto was right. You got a mouth.” He yanked Rysa toward the back of the store. “Do you have any idea how valuable you are? You’re an accessible Jani Fate.”
He sniffed her hair. “You smell nice. Got a good rack on you, too. No wonder he likes you. Is he taking you to his hidey-hole in Wyoming? You know he lives with his sister, right? You want into that? Talk about dysfunctional.”
“Shut up,” she croaked. But with her new control, she found some will to fight his commands.
He stopped and she bumped into his smelly side. “Impressive, sweetcheeks. Fate’s got some immunity, huh? Don’t run into many who can resist. A couple of other enthrallers. A few of the healers. Never a Fate before.” He tugged her toward the store’s back room.
“Let me go.” The words clung to the roof of her mouth. Part of her wanted to spend the rest of her life with this ugly Shifter and his bad breath.
His massive shoulders twitched when he laughed. “Is your boyfriend going to beat me up?” The backroom door swung when he dragged her through. “I walked right by you two when you were doing your cuddle-bunny routine by the doors. He didn’t sense me—”
Two hands wrapped around the Shifter’s head. Surprise made his eyes bulge, and he reached under his arm toward a gun, but the fingers poking into his cheeks jerked.
Games of Fate (Fate Fire Shifter Dragon Book 1) Page 18
