Games of Fate (Fate Fire Shifter Dragon Book 1)

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  She’d drained his reserves. He should have left her on the bottom of the river.

  They drove in silence, heading north, for at least an hour.

  “Headlights.” Ladon pointed up the road.

  Dark images of Mira crackled through Rysa’s seers. Billy may have licked broad swaths across her mother’s belly but the damned Burner had listened. For the first time since Ladon and Dragon pulled her out of the river, Rysa actually felt air move into her lungs.

  At least her seers gave her this one good thing. “It’s Billy.” She moved between the seats. An old sedan angled down the bank of the road, parked facing the wrong way so its headlights glared into the van.

  Billy killed the lights when Ladon pulled off. Long shadows spread down the road as her eyes adjusted. The late evening sun set off the dry Wyoming brush and it glowed in high relief.

  Palm prints lined the top of the car, a scorched and ratty pile of junk just like everything a Burner touched. A duct-taped sheet of plastic covered a broken back window. It snapped in the breeze, catching the sunset in a distorted arc of bleached-out orange.

  “He has my mom.”

  Surprise darted across Ladon’s face.

  “He was at the hospital. I wrote Bring Mira to Rysa on his hand.” She tapped the tender skin on the back of her wrist next to the insignia and its leather thong. The tape residue stung.

  “You didn’t tell me?”

  Her strength to be indignant had drowned in the river. “I forgot.”

  Ladon scowled, his gaze returning to the car. “He cooperated? Why?”

  No point in using her seers. Burners were unreadable, and Burner fire now locked her abilities into an endless nothing anyway. “I don’t know.” But her mom lived. “She’s in the trunk.”

  Ladon’s head tilted while he talked with Dragon. “Stay here.”

  Rysa pushed off the blanket. He had no right to keep her in the van. “She’s my mom.”

  He slapped the back of the passenger seat. “No Burner gets near you, Rysa!” His neck reddened. His exhaustion must be fueling a fire not unlike the chaos eating at her own mind.

  “He won’t hurt me.” She didn’t want to argue. Why would Billy hurt her? She’d be his queen soon.

  Ladon stood, a hand on each seat. “You should be in the hospital. You might have water in your lungs or internal injuries. But you won’t let me take you and even if I did, he can’t wait on the roof.” Ladon pointed at Dragon. “Neither of us could go in with you.”

  She knew what would happen. Hospital staff would poke at her and ask too many questions. Why so much blood? What were you doing in the river? Why are you going to let the world burn, young lady? Don’t you know you have a duty to perform?

  She pressed on her temple.

  “You’re wincing again. Dragon and I know exactly how deep into your head that bastard drove his spike.”

  A hard edge thrust through their connection and for a brief moment, the world took on a crisp focus. Ladon’s male mind ignored all elements he found irrelevant to the current danger. What he did pay attention to, he saw in spectacular detail—every minute movement of her body. The time it took for her to react. The feel of her seers. Dragon’s exhaustion. His own disquiet.

  He’d fix everything. No doubt played in his expression, only the rock of his centuries-old confidence. And right now, that meant keeping her in the van, with Dragon, where he knew she’d be safe.

  Even if her mother was in the trunk of a Burner’s sedan.

  If she snuck out the back, she could steal the car, strand Billy in the wilderness, and run away. She and her mom could go into hiding again and—

  “I’ll find you.” He didn’t say anything more. He didn’t cross his arms over his chest or flare his nostrils like he did when his arrogance surfaced. The only movements he made were to say those three words.

  He would, too. He’d find her and kiss her until she melted in his arms. And he’d never escape her snare.

  He lifted the tread of the top step and pulled out a large knife that caught the last evening rays of the sun in blinding flashes. “Stay here.”

  He was out the driver’s door, walking toward the car, before she could answer. The blade flipped between his hands and glinted like a strobe light.

  Rysa crawled toward the back door. She’d stay next to the van, not go near Billy, but she’d be outside if her mom called to her.

  Dragon grasped her waist. Not hard, no pressure, but he didn’t let go.

  “My mom needs me.”

  An image flowed. Dragon made real a concept. He gave it color and texture and spread it through all the parts of her brain that perceived the world—all colors at once. The sensations of skin on skin. The tactile feel of his coat. The knowledge that her details—the ones they perceived in high resolution—were the correct details for their lives.

  So do we.

  She did for them what her talisman was supposed to do for her.

  “Let go of me.” Faustus was right. They’d never fight back. The inevitable roared into the present and they’d let it steamroll right over them. All because she’d been inattentive. Impulsive. She’d thrown caution to the wind and let two days be enough. “Please.”

  No, he signed. Please stop hurting Human.

  Billy lurched out of the driver’s door. His hair was shaggier than in Minnesota and his jacket frayed and warped. The bastard looked dirty. The paint on the car’s roof melted into a welt under his palm. Less control, a stronger smell—he needed to feed.

  Mira hadn’t been enough.

  Ladon twirled the knife. “Let her out of the trunk or I pop you right here.”

  “Your woman told me to do it!” Billy threw his arms forward and pointed at his wrists. The words Rysa wrote on his hands were still visible. The lines smudged across his skin like they’d been traced again and again.

  Ladon tapped the trunk. “Let her out. Now.”

  Billy leaned through the car’s window and the trunk opened.

  Mira’s wounds hadn’t healed like Rysa’s. She lay on her side with her midriff wrapped in an old sheet. Dirty strips of fabric pasted her forearms.

  Damned Burners.

  The crack of Ladon’s punch boomed between the vehicles. Billy staggered into the road as he clicked his jaw back into place. “Stop hitting me, you goddamned brute!”

  “Run, Burner.”

  “But—”

  Ladon slammed the knife into the roof of the car. “Run so I can deal with you over there.” He pointed into the brush. “Don’t want to ruin the finish on my van. But I will. If I have to.”

  Billy pointed at Mira. “I turned the other one! Me. In Texas! She said if I told you, you wouldn’t kill me.”

  Mira moaned and touched Ladon’s elbow. “He did. He was going to help me find my sister but Les Enfants found us first.” Her fingers dropped back. “Maybe she can stop Faustus. I can’t.”

  “You turned Ismene?” Ladon asked. Mira’s heart beat strong, though she moved in and out of consciousness. He scooped Mira out of the trunk as he glared at Billy.

  “Fates are so tasty.” Billy sniffed the air like a bloodhound. “Not as tasty as her pup smells, though.” He licked his lips again. “I smell her on you. She’s got this sweet and sour scent—” He stepped forward, his eyes on the van. “—like her special center is just waiting for me to lick the layers away.”

  “You do not touch her!” Ladon roared. Fury threatened to submerge the world again, like it had in the river. Damned Burners. Damned Fates. Dragon’s exhaustion folded into Rysa’s pain and the temptation to punch Billy into a quivering pile of ash all but took over Ladon’s awareness.

  Billy backed against the car. “Stop yelling!” His eyes darted around and he clutched his throat. “Where’s the dino-dog? He snaps my neck and I won’t tell you anything!” Snickering, he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet.

  Mira moaned. Ladon positioned her against his chest and released his other arm from under he
r knees. He reached for the knife.

  “Hey! Leave the machete where it is!” Billy squeaked and backed away. “I remember what happened in Abilene, okay?”

  Ladon relaxed his grip on the knife’s hilt.

  “Fates captured a bunch of us. Set us loose on this compound. Good times, it was.” A dreamy look came over his face.

  Mira dropped her legs but still leaned against Ladon’s chest. Billy pointed a glowing finger at Mira. “That tight-assed brother of hers was beating senseless this pretty, dark-haired Fate. Angry, he was. She screamed and he slapped and said that if she stayed he’d kill her, even if it brought the sickness down on him and their sister.” He wiggled his finger at Mira.

  So Ismene was in the compound of her own free will.

  Billy snorted. “I’d never turned anyone before. Didn’t know how. Normals are easy, compared to Fates. Shifters always die, but a Fate, oh, if you can concentrate and know how much venom to inject and when, you can turn one.”

  “Faustus helped,” Mira moaned.

  Billy clapped. “Told me to listen and he did that thing they all do and I injected the right amount at the right time and poof!” He snapped his fingers, sending up a sick cloud of vapor. “The world’s first Burnerized Fate!”

  Nothing a Fate did was ever an accident. Faustus had used his sister as a dry run for what he planned to do to Rysa.

  A soft whimper rose from Mira as she clung to his side. Faustus destroyed his own triad because he believed it’s what fate told him to do. Crippled Mira. Murdered Ismene, if not in body, in mind.

  Billy twitched. “Can I go? I’m hungry.”

  “No more killing, you damned ghoul.” If he dropped Mira in the van, he could pop this Burner in the brush.

  Astonishment flicked across Billy’s face. “Do you think I want to?” he yelled. “Sometimes I remember who I was! My blood might pop in my head and I don’t always know what the hell is happening, but if I think real hard I remember being a person, instead of… instead of…” He twirled. “I made women happy, you goon. Girls knew my songs! Some still do. I don’t.”

  “So? Now, you feed. Now, you explode.” Ladon pulled the knife out of the roof.

  Billy waved his arm. “One recognized me. Middle-aged, she was. Chubby around the middle. Tasty.” Billy glanced at Mira. “But I couldn’t.”

  He didn’t feed?

  “She knew me. I don’t know who I am, but she did.”

  The Burner had stopped himself. For a woman.

  The bastard was still a danger. He’d forget. They always forgot. Unless… “Billy, do you have the pen?”

  The Burner scoffed but he pulled it from his jacket’s pocket. Ladon added “No killing” to Rysa’s words.

  “Thank you.” Billy stared at the back of his hand. “Tell the princess I’m sorry for shackling her.”

  Ladon nodded at the car. “Go. Before I change my mind.”

  Billy drove away, heading south, toward town.

  Mira’s seer flicked like a bell chiming in thunder. “You were good to help him.”

  Ladon glanced at her closed eyes as he swung her into his arms. The present-seer of the Jani Prime, a woman more dangerous than any Burner, bent her arms around his neck.

  Relief should relax his muscles. Rysa was about to get back a parent. But his senses were still piqued for war and the world jumped in high definition.

  A memory jolted. Daniel gripped his sword’s hilt and his eyes glazed with a vision—“Women will be our ruin.”

  Not women. It had never been women with Ladon. Always one. One body against his in the darkest hour of the night. One kiss to his cheek. One place he found his center.

  Mira held as tightly to him as she could. In the van, Rysa stood between the seats watching him through the windshield. Her open hand moved from her lips in a downward curve, palm up. Thank you, she signed.

  Seeing her like that, her face a sea of emotion so complex Ladon couldn’t begin to understand, Daniel’s other words emerged. Clear and crisp, Ladon heard the future-seer as if he whispered in his ear: “Your beautiful fate will find you one day.”

  His beautiful Fate. Twenty feet away, Rysa watched, blinded by misery. He’d give her what she needed to stop the pain. She was no one’s tribute. She was no one’s ruin.

  Not his. Not Dragon’s. Not the world’s.

  Not her own.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Ladon drove, slowing when the potholes became too deep, and they moved through the forest into the mountains.

  Rysa tugged Mira’s bracelet from the leather thong around her wrist. The clasp clinked against the little dragons, but she worked it around the knots without dislodging the insignia. The silver wedding band dropped onto her palm when the chain pulled free.

  “Here, Mom.” The charm draped around Mira’s wrist. The ring, she slipped onto her mother’s finger.

  Mira’s eyes opened for the first time since Ladon laid her on the blankets. She lifted her wrist. “I had a choice—keep it so I could use my seer, or leave it, to make it harder for your cousins to find me. The little pricks did anyway.”

  Mira’s thumb rubbed against the underside of her ring. Her other hand wrapped around her knuckles as if protecting the silver band. “I miss your father.”

  “Oh, Mom.” Rysa hugged her mother, offering what comfort she could. “Ladon has a friend looking for him.”

  Her mom’s seer blipped. Rysa sensed that she would have chuckled if she weren’t so exhausted. “Your father’s a good man.” Her brow furrowed and her seer blipped again.

  Mira stroked Dragon’s crest. “I remember the toy dragon you had, honey. You loved that little beast.” She rolled slightly and moved away from Rysa and toward Dragon. “I should have learned sign language so that I could talk with you, Great Sir, but I always knew it was more important for Rysa than for me.”

  Dragon didn’t raise his head, though a puff curled from his mouth. Little flashes popped along his hide but moved slowly from his crest to his tail.

  “The Primes were all bound to a war waged by our Progenitor. We all suffered horribly because of the arrogance of my father.” Stiffly, Mira extended a hand, but quickly pulled it back. “We Parcae are bound to our fate. Those bonds are… difficult.”

  Mira sighed. “I am truly sorry, Ladon-Dragon. It’s paltry, I know, but I offer it to you. I should have offered it then. To you and your family.” She pulled a blanket to her chin. Her eyes closed and she rolled onto her side, drained by all her words.

  “Mom?” Rysa touched her cheek.

  Sleep had taken her again. She’d offered what Rysa couldn’t give—forgiveness. Dragon puffed again and draped his hand over her mother’s hip.

  They rode in silence, Rysa stroking her mother’s arm, Dragon watching, until Ladon pulled into a large, barn-like building and the van stopped.

  He opened the back. He stood in the door watching her mom for a long moment, then inhaled deeply before squaring his shoulders. “We need to transfer.” He pointed at one of three flatbed trucks facing a large door at the rear of the garage. “I can’t take the van on the mountain roads.”

  Rysa took his hand. “She means it.” At least her mom could give them some solace. Her presence only offered a future of pain.

  He kissed her temple as she stepped off the bumper. “I know.”

  Another van almost identical to Ladon’s, as well as several ATVs, waited along the sides of the building. A disorganized kitchenette full of boxes and folded-up cots occupied another bay.

  Rysa helped her mother into the back of the new vehicle. Ladon coaxed Dragon over to the truck and the beast coiled around Rysa and Mira.

  A door in the rear of the garage opened and they drove into the Wyoming night.

  The sky gleamed with the brilliance of millions of stars. Rysa touched Dragon. His hide glimmered only a fraction of his normal luminescence. He should be beautiful beyond anything she could imagine, like the sky above. Beautiful and happy and unaffected by the
terrors of the world.

  But instead he lay almost comatose next to two Fates.

  She pulled back her hand.

  They turned onto a switchback. Ladon crept along, his body forward in his seat, as he watched every bump and rock. The road switchbacked again and he pulled the truck under an overhang and backed into a cave. He stopped the truck behind a wall of rock that blocked all sightlines from the outside.

  Rysa crawled out. The sheer granite walls all extended into blackness above. “Is this it?”

  “This is our front door. You’ll both be safe inside.”

  “Safe” had been gutted when she activated, ripped down to a word defined only by other words, with no real core of experience. It had become a Trojan horse with an exterior of calm but filled to the brim with memories of everything but safety.

  Dragon climbed into the overhead gloom. His head and forelimbs swung down and he lifted Rysa by the waist. She teetered, disoriented by the sudden pull, but he set her on a ledge and nuzzled her hair. Wait here, he signed.

  He set Mira next to Rysa and she leaned against the wall.

  A tunnel ending in a warm glow extended into the rock. Ladon handed up their supplies and Rysa helped Dragon pack them into a pull-cart sitting on the ledge next to the tunnel.

  Ladon jumped up to the ledge. Mira moaned when he lifted her into his arms. He stood silent for a moment, looking down at Rysa’s mom.

  “This way,” he said, then he carried Mira into the tunnel.

  Dragon hooked his tail around the handle of the cart as he passed by. A squeak echoed off the rocks each time one of the cart’s wheels hit a divot or pebble. The sound blended into the gloom like some weird ghost-cry of a long-dead mouse.

  Rysa shuffled down the tunnel toward the glow.

  They came to a big brass door, one round and studded with rivets and set into the rock. It looked like an old bank vault with a brown and green patina. Rysa’s seers blinked, still drowning in flames but hinting at treasures inside.

  Ladon set down her mother and jumped to another ledge. He rounded a corner and the door hissed open. Dragon ushered her through, followed by Ladon with Mira.