Mira shrieked and ran for Ismene and Rysa.
The beast clamped the wrench onto the spool casing. He ripped it open and threw the wrench against a plastic-wrapped pallet.
Light burst from his hide.
Rysa reached for Ladon. He glanced at her, then at the beast, then back at her.
Dragon yanked the coiled cable off the housing.
Mira jumped a stack of girders and landed parallel to Ladon. Rysa’s seers flared. Her own future solidified in the rock-solid line fueled by her mother’s intent.
“Mom! Don’t!” If Mira stopped, Ladon could get to them both. But her mom’s dust-infested mind only paid attention to her Burnerized sister.
Rysa shoved Ismene. Her aunt’s hand released and Rysa grabbed for her mom, hoping, this one time, to stop the inevitable.
She blinked. Time slowed. A gust pummeled her shoulders and whipped her hair into her eyes.
Dragon charged down the concrete.
Mira’s arms wrapped around Ismene’s waist, and Rysa’s mother and her aunt, bound together with shrieks and violence, flew off the side of the building.
Mira’s and Ismene’s combined screeches rose like the din of fire hornets and drowned out the storm. Behind Ladon, Dragon boomed, and moved so fast he blurred. Rysa spun backward.
Her foot slipped. In the same instant her aunt and mom fell, Rysa fell too, her feet betraying her body.
Ladon reached out, but he was too far away.
The storm and the lights of Salt Lake City reflected a terrible orange off the clouds above—a chemical-like orange that scorched the sky as if Burner fire. But this time, Rysa wasn’t shackled. This time, she was both Fate and Shifter.
This time, she found her control.
Just above her, Dragon sailed over the side. Ladon jumped too, frantically coiling the other end of the cable around his chest and shoulders.
Ismene grabbed Rysa’s arm. Her Burner rage fried through the fabric of Rysa’s shirt and the cotton smoldered. Her mother howled just out of her reach, her own skin sizzling as she held tight to her sister.
Ladon’s boot hit the top of her aunt’s head and she jerked back, releasing Rysa’s arm.
“Ladon!” Rysa screamed. “Get Mom!” Even if she fell, even if—
Dragon snatched Rysa to his chest and she gasped, disoriented by the sudden pull upward.
“Mom!” She gripped the beast’s coat as tight as she could. Ladon and her mom were in free fall. Dragon had her, but—
They bounced against the building and spun away from Ladon and her mother. The beast ground talons into the glass and they swung back.
Ladon lunged for Mira. She twisted around Ismene’s waist, shrieking and raking her nails across her sister’s face. Little bursts popped off Ismene’s skin. Rysa’s aunt howled and swung her arms wildly. Mira knocked her forehead into Ismene’s chin.
Ladon clutched the cable with one hand and grabbed for her mother with the other. He snagged her upper arm and yanked her from Ismene.
But Ismene’s flailing arms caught Ladon. He tried to push her away but a gust hit and they all slammed into the wall.
Dragon couldn’t swipe at her aunt. He held Rysa and they were too far away. The beast pushed against the building, trying anyway, but Ismene’s anger honed in on Ladon, and her fury pinpointed down onto the curve where his shoulder met his neck.
She hooked onto his back, kicking her legs at her sister clinging to his side, and snaked an arm around his head so fast he couldn’t respond.
He hollered. His neck strained, but she couldn’t twist it. He was too strong. Hope jumped into Rysa’s throat. Maybe—
They suddenly jerked to a stop—the cable must have caught something on the floor above.
Ladon looked up. His shoulders strained—he concentrated all his effort on holding her mother against his side with one arm and the line with the other. Ismene hung on his back. Tendrils of Burner hell puffed off her anger-heated skin. Her clothes smoked. Ismene’s stench was so strong Rysa smelled it from where she clung to Dragon’s chest.
A hate-filled snort popped from Ismene. Ladon knew what she was about to do, his expression betraying that he understood but couldn’t stop it. He wasn’t going to let go of her mother so he could knock her aunt off his back. He wouldn’t let Mira die just to save himself from a Burner.
Dragon gouged his talons into the glass. Images flickered into Rysa’s mind—Ladon on the ground with his arm shredded. AnnaBelinda, her body ashen, unconscious in the dirt. Ladon, his face torn by a mace.
Terror that this time his human might not survive.
Ismene yanked down the collar of Ladon’s jacket and exposed the muscles at the base of his neck. Her mouth glowed a bright and sickly orange.
Dragon growled. They couldn’t swing closer. Everything Rysa’s uncle had set in motion was about to combust through Ladon’s veins.
Ismene bit.
Ladon roared. Agony fired through their connection and punched Rysa like a fist in the gut. She coughed. Dragon jerked under her clenched hands.
A vicious shriek echoed from the floor above as whatever held the cable broke under their weight. They dropped again, but this time the cable wouldn’t catch on anything. This time, they’d plunge to the ground.
Rysa and Dragon slammed into the building as he snatched for the other end of the line—the end that wrapped around Ladon’s shoulder.
The beast’s hide flashed against Rysa’s face and she jolted, but she held on.
So did he. Ladon, her mom, and Ismene had dropped fast and now swung below Dragon’s rear limbs and tail, but he twirled the line around his forelimb. He had them and they wouldn’t slam into the pavement. She wouldn’t lose them both. She wouldn’t lose Dragon as his mind shattered.
Flames poured out of the beast. He couldn’t hold them all. He—
Something new flowed from Rysa. Something that allowed her to will the beast everything she had. Something strong. “Dragon, hold on.” She’d give him all she had.
His hide calmed.
Below them, Mira’s palm snapped upward into Ismene’s nose. The Burner spasmed and let go of Ladon’s back. Ismene plunged toward the asphalt below.
Her mother’s and Ladon’s weight yanked on Dragon’s shoulder, but he held on.
The talons of his other limbs gouged into the building. They slid downward.
Ladon’s boots skidded along the glass just below them. He held his end of the cable looped around the shoulder Ismene had bitten and his other arm wrapped around her mother. He groaned and Dragon’s hide responded in glaring, painful spears of orange and red.
Rysa spread her fingers wide. She was Fate. She was Shifter. She was as much Torres as she was Jani, and her father’s blood coursed through her veins. She could heal Dragon and strengthen his muscles. Reinforce his joints. If she fired her abilities through their connection, she could calm Ladon’s wound.
Her nasty unfolded and revealed its true shape—healer. Her perception grew, tripled, quadrupled, and she knew the positions of the building, herself, Dragon, Ladon. Her mom. They fell, sliding along the building’s surface, but a new heat coursed outward from Rysa’s core.
She knew what to do and how to do it. Her body rippled up and down, becoming active. Becoming Shifter.
Her healer augmented from a well she didn’t know she had and it touched every cell, holding down Dragon’s fatigue and the venom in Ladon’s shoulder.
Some color returned to Ladon’s skin and he gripped Mira closer. His boots danced on the steel and glass as he searched for anything to stop their fall.
Dragon slipped and a talon separated from his foot. Pain fired like flames across gasoline and burst from his mouth as hot tendrils of fire.
Rysa opened her hands against his hide. Her healer calmed his pain and dampened his leg’s raw stabbing.
A new boom pounded up the rain-slicked side of the building. Light flashed, and the glass reflected a brilliance as strong as the lightning over the cit
y.
Sister-Dragon climbed from below.
Dragon grabbed for a seam on the building’s side but slid and lost his footing. They dropped until he dug in another talon and caught concrete. They swung back, and slammed hard against the wall.
Dragon-ribs cracked. Rysa told his cells to stitch the bone. A gust hit and Dragon flung one leg out so as not to crush her against the glass. Rysa strengthened the ligaments in his shoulder to keep it from tearing out of its joint.
They had dropped far enough that they were below the glass and alongside the brick façade. Dragon swung again, rotating on one hind limb, and the pavement below came into view. They faced downward—Rysa hung upside down between the beast’s chest and the hard brick.
Dragon skidded. The façade released with loud pops under his talons. Little bits of brick hit her face. Dragon’s back end slid but his front end stayed in place.
The pavement vanished and the night came back into view, slashed by the whipping cable holding Ladon and her mother.
They were about to hit the ground. “Ladon!”
Sister-Dragon’s head rammed into Dragon’s side inches from where Rysa gripped his coat. They stopped suddenly, bolstered by the other dragon’s stability. Rysa gasped and both beasts released puffs of flame. Heat rolled over Rysa’s back and shoulders.
Sister-Dragon snatched the cable. The other dragon had Ladon and her mom and wouldn’t let them hit the ground. They bounced against the brick, but their fall had countered.
Rysa touched the other dragon’s snout, and all her gratitude fired through her fingers to strengthen Sister-Dragon’s muscles.
The building groaned. Dragon jerked as a swath of brick facing released. Rysa’s body cinched—they were falling again toward the pavement.
She saw the sky above. Rain splattered against her face and she lost her hold on Dragon’s coat.
She’d let go.
They’d almost made it. She was about to hit the ground and every part of her body was going to shatter. She’d die. But Ladon and Dragon lived. And so did her mother.
Dragon’s forelimbs wrapped around her body from behind.
He had her. She jerked backward against his chest.
They rolled down his sister’s back, the two dragon’s ridges snapping against each other as Dragon flipped. Sister-Dragon’s tail whipped and Dragon twined a forelimb in its length as the talons of his back limb caught the wall. They swung down and faced the pavement again.
They stopped, Dragon clinging to the building and the sidewalk inches from Rysa’s nose.
A shudder ran up her spine. They’d survived. Sixteen stories, and they had survived.
Ladon’s feet hit the ground. He released her mom and Mira bounced with a thud against the building’s wall. Ladon rolled to a crouch.
His skin was deathly white. He grasped his shoulder just out of Rysa’s reach. Blood oozed between his fingers.
Dragon flipped her up and set her on her feet. She leaned against his neck as much to check his wounds as to steady herself. She needed to know he wouldn’t die, right there, on the spot, from some hidden injury. He felt bruised, but alive.
But the venom eating Ladon’s shoulder churned both her head and stomach. Blood soaked his t-shirt, and his face was the death-mask she’d seen in her visions.
Ladon was about to turn Burner.
AnnaBelinda grabbed Mira. Like Ladon, the dragon woman dressed head to toe in armored, black clothes. Burner goggles protected her eyes. But she wasn’t satisfied with breaking her brother’s fall.
The petite AnnaBelinda lifted the larger, taller Mira to standing and raised her arm to punch.
“Stop!” Rysa staggered forward but Sister-Dragon’s big hind limb stepped off the building between her and her mom. “Leave her alone!”
“Sister!” Ladon barked.
Rysa tried to push by Sister-Dragon. “Please don’t hurt my mom.”
AnnaBelinda dropped Mira. She leaped her beast’s leg and pushed Rysa. “This is your fault!”
“Get out of my way.” Rysa’s mom was okay but she needed to get to Ladon. Too much blood flowed from the wound. She tried to sidestep around AnnaBelinda.
“No Fate touches my family.” AnnaBelinda flipped Rysa onto her butt. Her foot lifted to stomp.
Ladon groaned again. His entire body spasmed. Dragon, confused and shocked, rocked back and forth.
Rysa rolled out away from AnnaBelinda’s boot. “I am a healer!” If AnnaBelinda didn’t move, Ladon would die. “Get out of my way!”
“Dracas!” Mira screamed. “Let her heal him!”
“Anna.” Derek pointed at the street.
On the center line, rain puffed off Ismene’s convulsing body in little explosions of steam.
“This is not good.” Derek pulled a big pistol from a holster under his jacket. “This is the very definition of not good.”
AnnaBelinda looked down at Rysa, then at the twitching Burner. She stepped back from Ladon. “Force it out, Brother,” she said, and turned away.
Rysa pressed her palm over the blood pouring from his shoulder.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Rysa’s family pulled away. They’d leave her alone. She didn’t foresee Ladon or his sister tolerating any more interference from Fates.
She covered Ladon’s wound as she leaned against his side. Exhausted as she was, she’d have to wait to finish healing the bite, but the blood had stopped oozing. He hadn’t turned.
Derek chuckled and shook his head. He slapped Ladon’s other shoulder. Ladon winced, then frowned.
Dragon blew a line of flame at the Russian’s hat. Ladon signed something she didn’t recognize.
Derek laughed again.
Rysa weaved her fingers into Ladon’s. “What’d you say?”
He pulled her flush against his chest and trailed kisses across the slope of her ear. “We’ll teach you Russian Sign Language.” More kisses moved down the curve of her neck.
Rysa bounced on the balls of her feet. “Oh! When?” She foresaw no boredom with them. And from the way he nuzzled her neck and held onto her backside, she guessed she wouldn’t get a lot of sleep, either. Which was fine. She nibbled on his earlobe.
His skin brightened.
Her grin turned into a smile now that his color was returning. “No fading away, Mr. Monochrome.”
Dragon nudged Ladon and touched Rysa’s cheek, and flashed brilliant burgundies. A rich glimmer reflected in the puddles and off the building’s glass.
“He says that you need not worry. We’re fine.” Ladon kissed her again, this time gently. “You’re with us.”
And she would be, for as long as they wanted her.
Derek’s phone rang. He dug in his pocket and flipped it to his ear. “Cousin!” He winked at Rysa. “You think her father is a Shifter?”
Ladon chuckled.
Derek covered the phone. “Dmitri found a healer. Her name is Lucinda de la Turris. She is flying in from Spain.” He listened for a moment. “Cordoba. Lovely city. She says you may remember her.”
Ladon’s eyebrows arched.
“What?” Derek scoffed. “He wants to know if it’s true the de la Turris clan can hear the dragons. He is jealous.”
AnnaBelinda snorted.
“de la Turris? It means ‘of the tower.’” Ladon laughed and kissed Rysa’s cheek. “Your father must be part of her clan. That explains your connection.”
“My clan?” But she knew it wasn’t the only reason she heard Dragon. She looked at the bracelet on her wrist. Damned chaos blanketed all her abilities.
“Alessandro Roberto de la Turris, you say? Hmm.” Derek gestured toward his wife and pointed at one of the neighboring buildings.
AnnaBelinda tugged on Ladon’s arm. “We must leave. You need rest.” The RV waited next to the low-slung offices.
The dragons sauntered ahead knocking each other’s shoulders. They dimmed their hides but continued to shimmer and their light caught something resting in a puddle a few feet aw
ay.
Ladon said something but Rysa didn’t hear. Drawn to the sparkle in the puddle, she let go of his hand.
Her knees buckled. They both almost toppled to the pavement but AnnaBelinda steadied them, one arm around Ladon, the other around Rysa.
“We will call you back,” Derek said to Dmitri. “No, no. I will call you back in half an hour.” He tucked the phone into his pocket.
Dragon’s talon, the one which had broken free while they fell, refracted in the puddle. It was a good six inches long, and all of the beast’s colors played over its surface.
When she carefully laid it on her palm, it altered and blended with her skin and the night.
Rysa’s sense of tentacles, of grossness and monsters, of other—they all vanished. “Nasty” no longer applied. She blinked, staring at the glimmer in her hand.
The past, present, and future became distinctly oriented in the same way that she knew up from down, back from front, and left from right. Her healer, her Shifter part, also oriented to her seers, in the same way she knew her hands from her feet.
For the first time since she activated, she felt whole. She might bounce still, and talk too much, and get distracted, but her new parts stopped whipping. They no longer hurt.
In the street in Minnesota, when she activated, she wore the burnmetal shackles. But she’d also been held in the air, in Dragon’s forelimbs.
And no one knew what compounds were in his talons.
She pulled the burnmetal link from her wrist and whipped it across the street.
“Rysa, what are you—”
An image of Marcus’s dragon talisman flashed from the beast.
Ladon’s eyes widened. “How can that be?”
All this time, her seers hadn’t meant to siphon. They’d been using her Shifter connection to Ladon and Dragon to reach her true talisman—the beast himself. The chaos of the burnmetal she wore on her wrist had only disrupted her already frazzled mind and kept her from integrating properly.
She held the talon to her chest. “I’m…” She wasn’t Ambusti. She wasn’t locked to the damned Burners.
“I’m the new Draki Prime.” The Fate-Shifter healer.
Ladon swung her into his arms. “You’re ours,” he whispered, and pressed his lips to her temple.
Games of Fate (Fate Fire Shifter Dragon Book 1) Page 33
