Men And Beasts (Fate - Fire - Shifter - Dragon Book 6)

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  At first, he found her attention problems annoying but her jokes and her smiles pushed all that back. And when her then-boyfriend died on the interstate between Janesville and Minneapolis, she’d needed a friend.

  He’d never seen her face like it was right now. Pain etched lines around her eyes and mouth. Fear, anger, determination—maybe all three—widened her pupils and made her gray-green eyes darken to smoke.

  Rysa Torres, his sweet, bouncy friend, stared over her shoulder at the others with the same I will smite expression Gavin had seen on Ladon’s face. The same piercing, intensely strong stare that the human half of the Dracos carried when he believed only he stood between death and the people he loved.

  “Go. Inside.” Rysa looked away.

  Next to Dragon, Mr. Nicholson leaned forward. His head dropped between his knees and he slowly exhaled. “Please,” he said.

  All of you, swam along the beast’s hide, as a flutter of color and pattern.

  Gavin gripped Daisy’s hand. “I think we should listen.”

  Slowly, Daisy turned away. “Text us if you need anything.”

  Mr. Nicholson nodded. Rysa did not.

  At the front of the bus, Asar opened the door.

  Cold howled through the interior. Gavin’s odd, not-quite-vertigo slammed into his brain and he, once again, felt as if he was moving with the storm, whipping and scouring inside vortices right alongside a billion ice shards.

  Daisy’s grip tightened. “You need food.” She watched him, not the others. Him.

  He couldn’t let her go. After whatever settled out of the horror that had dragged them out here to Wyoming, after they found Ladon and they fixed the storm that pummeled them all harder than the ice pummeled the bus, he’d make sure she understood that he was serious about their relationship.

  She didn’t expect him to be serious at twenty-one. He hadn’t expected himself to be serious. Yet here they were, in a bus with a damaged dragon and a Fate who looked ready to destroy the world. With a Russian prince in a cowboy hat and three unnamed super-spies who probably—maybe—worked for his girlfriend’s father.

  Gavin stepped toward the bus’s door. “Come on. I’ll rub that knot out of your back.”

  A small but sincere grin flitted across Daisy’s face, but she didn’t say anything.

  “The storm will howl for a full twenty-four hours,” Rysa droned. “But it won’t rumble.”

  Mr. Nicholson sat up. Quickly, he waved them away. “Go. All of you.”

  At the head of the bus, Asar silently waved Brandon, Daisy, and Gavin toward the snow.

  Daisy nodded, then pulled him to the front of the bus. “Come on,” she whispered.

  Gavin stopped at the top of the steps. They’d been together on this bus for the last fifteen hours, a moving heap of Fate-power and Shifter-brilliance. He’d been the odd one out—the normal—but he fit into this puzzle. He helped the beast.

  Outside, the wind slammed ice against the windshield and blurred his view of the hotel. He looked back at Dragon. The beast waved him away.

  Sleep, the beast flashed.

  Gavin waved once, then, with Daisy’s hand wrapped around his, walked into the blinding snowstorm.

  Chapter Six

  Gavin dropped to the edge of the hotel bed. He bounced slightly on the firm mattress and the slippery, ugly green and yellow bedcover bunched up under his thighs.

  The bed squeaked. The room’s heater roared under the window and the storm outside smacked against the building. Wind howled and the heater’s grumble pulled away from the room, out into the snow. The entire room sounded as if it had shifted ten feet south, along the path of the blizzard outside.

  Miraculous, he could deal with. Loud, tinny, even static-y would be normal. But the new aids not only translated sound waves but made the blizzard’s pressure feel as if it had picked up the building and slid it along the parking lot outside.

  Daisy stood by the window of their room, her hand curled into the thick, bendy fabric of the hotel curtain and her gaze steady at the whiteout outside. She sniffed, her face crinkling as she glanced down at the heater, before she looked over her shoulder at his place on the bed.

  She didn’t look happy. Then again, none of them were happy. But Daisy looked as if she’d just gotten a whiff of dead skunk.

  Gavin inhaled. The room smelled like every other hotel room he’d ever been in—chemically clean but still somehow dusty. Random old food smells seemed to seep from the walls, and moisture from the floorboards.

  Nothing unusual at all.

  Daisy grinned and shook her head. “I don’t like hotels.”

  Gavin pulled a bottle of water out of the mini-fridge before he patted the bed and grinned right back at her. “Come over here and I’ll let you sniff me.” He pointed at his underarm. “I’m sure I still carry hints of Radar and Ragnar.”

  She stuck out her tongue and flopped on the bed. “You are disgusting, Dr. Bower.”

  The wave of her drop rolled through the mattress with, for Gavin, a semi-audible whiffing sound. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore it.

  Daisy’s fingers stroked the side of his leg. For the first four months he’d known her, he’d dreamed of her touching him this way.

  He’d been more of a puppy around her than her two big German shepherds.

  For the last three months, the touches had glided over his cheeks and his shoulders, and down his arms to the palms of his hands. Then a kiss, and when she felt safe—truly safe, not just calm or relaxed—they would find a bliss in each other’s company he never wanted to be without.

  But she didn’t feel safe right now. No one felt safe. And she worried about him.

  “Do you need me to call Brandon? Ben?” she asked.

  Gavin opened his eyes. Daisy watched him with her amber irises from her lovely, warm face.

  She was, hands down, the most beautiful woman he’d ever met in his entire life—and it wasn’t just her physical perfection. She had plenty of that, as did Rysa. The Fate named Cordelia was also physically appealing in a scary, Disney witch kind of way, though he was pretty sure she wasn’t bad. And AnnaBelinda was a tiny bundle of asskicking female excellence.

  But truthfully, they were beautiful because of the way they walked and the way they took care of what needed caring for. He trusted deep down to his bones every single woman around him right now. They were strong. They were smart. Their talents were theirs and they all knew how to use them.

  Competency made women beautiful; competency made a face lovely and a body eye-catching. And Daisy was the most competent of them all, even if she didn’t always think so.

  Her fingers moved to his cheek. “Do you want me to ask Ben to reverse whatever Rysa threw at you?”

  Not really, he thought. “For the first time since this started, I feel like I can get a good night’s sleep.” He just wished Rysa had asked him first, before enthralling into him a need to ‘find his center,’ because he was pretty sure that’s what she’d breathed out.

  “I think Rysa didn’t have the energy to argue about it,” Daisy whispered. She rubbed her arm.

  She didn’t either, obviously.

  Not that Gavin felt indignant enough about the general lack of energy to argue. He just wanted to get his life in order and his body back into good fighting condition. He chuckled.

  Daisy flopped backward onto the mattress. “What?”

  “I hope she remembers what she hit me with. It’s going to be useful for finals next semester.”

  She chuckled, too.

  He flopped next to her, but the aids made it feel as if the bed had come up to meet him, instead of the other way around. “I feel a strong urge to eat healthy, sleep a full eight hours, drink enough water…” He sipped from his bottle, then closed it and tossed it to the side before rolling on top of her. “… and snuggle with my girlfriend.”

  Daisy curled her arms around his head. “Is that so?”

  Gavin kissed down her cheek to her neck. She had th
e loveliest skin—golden and rich and porcelain all at the same time. She said it came from her Australian and Russian heritages battling it out in her epidermis. Her mom was part Japanese, part Aborigine, and part “random white Australian,” which most likely meant Welsh, Scot, Irish, or English. Her father was literally Russian royalty, though Daisy had said something about there being Greek mixed in as well. Gavin just thought Daisy was magic personified. He kissed the base of her throat.

  She tipped her head. “Are the new aids still bothering you?”

  Gavin groaned. Though right now, she was acting more like his mom than his girlfriend. He must have smirked because she frowned.

  “I can’t help it. I worry about you.” She kissed him gently and tucked her head against his neck.

  Every single member of the security detail was either a Fate or a Shifter. Mr. Nicholson no longer counted as a normal, no matter what he said. Gavin technically didn’t either, now that he could read the beasts’ colors and patterns. But reading dragon language wouldn’t protect him from homicidal Fates.

  He rolled off Daisy. “All this will take some time to get used to.” He breathed in and out and did his best to use Rysa’s calling scents to his best advantage.

  Centering right now would be a good thing for everyone. “Hey, now that I’ve been upgraded, maybe your dad will stop snarling at me.”

  Daisy ran her hand over his chest. “Dad snarls at everyone. He’s the only person on Earth who would dare swear at Ladon and AnnaBelinda.” She smiled a little. “He likes you.” But the smile vanished.

  “You liking me is more important.” Again, the need to center his life kicked in. She didn’t believe their relationship could stand up to med school and her starting her vet practice, and all the superhero crap and… Daisy was full of excuses.

  “How is it that neither Ladon nor AnnaBelinda figured out Dragon’s language?” Her mouth bunched up. “Or Derek.”

  Though Rysa said that Andreas Sisto had figured out some of the patterns. They’d all sat quietly in their seats on the bus for half an hour after that revelation.

  And Daisy was changing the subject. Again.

  She shrugged and answered her own question. “They have their idiosyncrasies.”

  Yes, they did. The revelation about Ladon’s unwillingness to name colors had worked in their favor when they used it against Vivicus.

  “I need to call Dad.” Daisy pulled away. “I’ll get us food.” Slowly, she squeezed his hand. “Do you want a sandwich from the restaurant downstairs?”

  She tried to stand, but he pulled her back to the bed.

  “Stay here,” he whispered. “You can call your Dad now. I’ll order us food from the restaurant.” He pointed at the room’s phone. “Then we can shower together.”

  He grinned and quickly kissed her shoulder. “I’ll wash that hard-to-reach spot in the middle of your back.”

  Daisy’s lips thinned. “How’s your head? You don’t need a migraine.”

  She was avoiding again.

  Maybe his fatigue made him cranky. Maybe spending fifteen hours on a bus with a wounded dragon and anxious humans made him less able to control his temper.

  “I thought we were past this, Daisy.” His voice sounded angrier to his own ears than it should. The damned aids were picking up his own voice enthralling.

  She didn’t answer. At least she hadn’t responded with “Past what?”

  “Okay, look.” Gavin rubbed his face. “We’re in a very specific circle of Hell right now. I get that. But it doesn’t change us.” He waved his finger between them. “You and me. I’m here. You’re here.”

  She frowned and looked away.

  Gavin flopped backward onto the bed again, his arms and legs spread in a big X. “I’m going to be one hundred percent honest right now.”

  Maybe cranky plus an enthralling brought out a part of him he didn’t know he had. He grabbed the water bottle and took a sip.

  The lights glared and he shielded his eyes with his hands. His head hurt enough that maybe he should shut off the lights. “Because I don’t have the energy.”

  She wrapped her arms around her chest.

  “Daisy,” Gavin said. “I know I can’t help with the fighting. With the war.” He lifted his hand off his face and swept it through the air. “But I can help you with whatever is eating at you. With what that bastard did.”

  Slowly, he sat up. “We can make this work.”

  He offered her the water.

  Daisy opened and closed her mouth. “Put that down.”

  She wrapped her arms around her chest again.

  Gavin stared at the water bottle. “Okay.” He dropped it on the bed. “I’m sorry.”

  “My life isn’t simple,” she whispered. “It’s never been simple. It never will be, no matter how hard I work at keeping it… tidy.”

  She chuckled and looked up at the ceiling. “To this bloodhound nose,” she tapped the side of her nose, “you smell like warmth. Like that center Rysa’s trying to make you find with the uncalled-for enthralling she laid on you.”

  Gavin didn’t respond. He didn’t know what to say.

  “But I’m not a center, Gavin. I’ve never been anyone’s point of reference. Not with my mom moving me around and hiding us. Not after Aiden… hurt… me.” She glanced at the bottle of water on the bed. “Not after my dad took me in. Not for the Dracae. Not for the Shifters. Not for myself. And I don’t know if I can lock you to my slippery life.”

  Her life wasn’t slippery. How could his anchor to this world be slippery? He opened his mouth but she held up her hand.

  “Rysa said that you’re going to be a phenomenal doctor,” she said. “She said she doesn’t spy on the future but I’m pretty sure that one time she did.”

  He grinned. It felt good to have some certainty in his life. Rysa’s prophecy also meant that he’d come out of this alive.

  “I can’t pull you away from that path because if I do, it’s not just my future I’m affecting. It’s the future of all the people you’ll help, too.”

  He frowned. “How is being together going to affect the quality of my medical practice?” If anything, her presence would make him better. She’d for sure make him happier.

  Daisy sighed. “I don’t…” She trailed off.

  “Don’t what, Daisy?” Don’t know? Don’t understand? Don’t want? he thought.

  Daisy pointed at the door. “I’ll get us food, okay? I’ll be back in about twenty minutes.”

  He pointed at the phone. “I can order.”

  “If I go down, I can get a good sniff of the kitchen.” She pointed at her nose again.

  She was like that; needing to make sure a restaurant’s kitchen didn’t smell like mice poop and dead bodies. He nodded once and threw his legs off the side of the bed.

  “Can we talk about this when you get back?” he asked. “Please?”

  Daisy stepped closer. After a moment, she bent to kiss his lips. “I’ll be back in a few,” she said, and ran out the door.

  Chapter Seven

  “I will come once the airport opens.” On the other end of the call, Daisy’s father did not sound happy. He’d returned to Portland with Vivicus’s body and was now trapped there until the blizzard passed.

  “We’ll have Ladon back before you get here.” She tried to sound sure.

  Her father humphed. “Yes, we will.”

  Daisy opened the hotel’s stairwell door and the downstairs stink smacked her in the face. “I’m about to order dinner,” she said, though with the level of grease in the air, she didn’t know if she was still hungry.

  “I will see you soon.” Dmitri Pavlovich humphed again. “Take advantage of the hotel and sleep, please.” Something clicked on his end. “You and Mr. Bower.”

  Daisy smiled. “You can call him Gavin, you know.”

  Now Dmitri laughed. “Perhaps I should call him ‘son.’”

  Daisy pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at the screen as if her fathe
r could see her expression.

  He laughed again. “At the correct time, daughter. At the correct time.”

  She put the phone back to her ear as she shook her head. “Good-bye, Dad.”

  “Sleep, Daisy.”

  “Yes, Dad.” Daisy hung up and stuffed her phone into her pocket. Why did he choose now to tease? Sometimes her father pushed the wrong buttons at the wrong time. But then again, he pushed everyone’s buttons, so she shouldn’t take him seriously.

  She inhaled, trying to get a good sense of the hotel restaurant. It smelled nothing at all like The Land of Milk and Honey, nor did it smell like any of the restaurants around the St. Paul campus.

  Daisy inhaled, her nose twitching, and walked into the vestibule between the lobby and restaurant’s seating area. The vestibule acted as a hub for the hotel’s first floor, with one wide-open arch leading to the equally wide-open front desk area, one arch leading into the multiple rooms of the restaurant, and another, smaller arch leading to a set of restrooms.

  Under all the arches, the buzz from the massive overhead fluorescents mixed with the crowd chatter. Staff bustled about. Out of sight, in the dining room, a high pitched peal of laughter rang through the open areas.

  Outside, one of the worst storms to hit the central parts of the United States slapped ice and wind against the building, but inside, people huddled around subpar food, their belongings in bags tucked next to their feet. Every single human here needed to get someplace else. Anxiety wafted from the crowd like a haze of smoke.

  No, the restaurant didn’t smell like a restaurant. It smelled like the Student Union back home, not far from the small Animal Clinic where Daisy saw her patients.

  Daisy rubbed the back of her hand against the tip of her nose. Who knew travelers crammed into a confined space in Wyoming smelled so similar to exhausted, determined students in Minnesota? The hotel was at capacity tonight as, it seemed from the chatter around the front desk, were all the hotels in the area. There really weren’t a lot of options along I-80 between the Nebraska border and Cheyenne, and now that dusk had descended on the land no one wanted to be on the freeways anymore.