Fire and Fantasy: a Limited Edition Collection of Epic and Urban Fantasy

by CK Dawn

  “Or a dragon?” she said.

  Nax pushed her forward. “We both know the dragons may be beasts, but they are not animals.”

  “What are you going to do with us, Nax?” His demeanor had changed. He wasn’t as standoffish anymore. He touched her, now. He’d crossed some line in his head.

  “My boy needs protecting, Ms. Pavlovich. We’re too visible here.” He stopped and poked her shoulder. “You know too much.”

  The air, the ground, Daisy’s body and soul all froze under the touch of Nax’s voice. You know too much were the words of a psychopath. They were the words of a criminal and a killer. And Daisy hadn’t had the sense to run away while she could.

  Orel stood behind his father. He clutched to his chest his art, his book of stories, his imaginations about Drako. He held all that was good in his world.

  His scent had stopped jittering, but he still carried the same dazed expression he’d had before, and here they both were, with his psycho father, about to vanish from the earth like a dragon mimicking the worst of the world.

  Daisy ducked under Nax’s arm. She twisted the way Ladon had taught her, and slipped past his grip. He was fast, but so was she. Daisy landed a kick to his kidney before he could snag her again.

  Nax howled. He dropped to his knees. Daisy grasped Orel’s hand and pulled him in the direction that smelled like the road.

  They were a good two miles into the woods. Not far, but far enough that Nax could easily catch up. If they zigged when he smelled of zagging, they might be able to get out to the road first. If she could get Orel into town, if she could find one of the local healers, they might be able to help him through his semi-activation.

  “Hold on,” she whispered, and guided him in front of her.

  The jittering happened again. The odd dazing. Orel raised his hand. “Duck!” he yelled.

  The stick hit her across the back of the neck.

  Seventeen

  A rough tongue licked Daisy’s face.

  She blinked but it was night and the shadows were too thick and Nax had hit her on the back of the head with a big fucking stick.

  Was she bleeding? Her cheek was in the mud. And the tongue licked her face again.

  Small hands touched her shoulder and held on to her arm. “She’s hurt,” Orel said.

  Big feet shuffled around her head. “She’ll be okay. She fell off her motorcycle, remember? Sometimes you need to knock a Shifter harder than you want to in order to get them to back off.”

  Nax and Orel were still here, so what was licking her face?

  “Let go, son,” Nax said. “We need to go.”

  Daisy rolled over.

  The wolf looked down at her, his big, fluffy ruff all shimmery and shiny like Orel’s Drako. The wolf that had sent Brad screaming toward the park rangers because it was so big and bad.

  She’d sent him on his way. He wasn’t any safer in The Dells than Daisy or Orel. Yet here he was, a shimmering, light glimmering, sweet tingling fairytale of an animal.

  Daisy lifted her hand to touch what could not be. “Are you my imaginary friend, Mister Wolf?”

  Nax snorted.

  Orel sniffed as if he was about to cry.

  The imaginary wolf licked her face again. “Your father asked around,” the wolf said.

  “So you talk?” she said.

  The wolf raised his head. He flattened his ears and snarled at Nax. “Drako asked around too, so I came.”

  “Who are you?” Wolves and dogs didn’t talk. Not real wolves.

  The wolf paced at her side. “The simplest explanation is that Nax’s calling scents are interacting with your head injury.”

  The simplest was often the correct explanation. “You are one logical beast.”

  Orel wiped his face. “Are you talking to your friend, Ms. Daisy?” he whispered.

  She rolled toward the boy fully expecting to push herself to sitting, but it didn’t work. She dropped onto her back again. “I think I might be, Orel,” she said.

  The wolf stepped over her middle and sniffed at the boy. “This one will be gone from your story for a while.” The wolf sniffed again. “A decade or so, I suspect. But he’ll come back, won’t you, young man?”

  “What does that mean?” Daisy asked.

  The wolf stepped between Orel and Nax. “The big one will get what he deserves.”

  Orel dropped to his knees next to Daisy. “Nax hurt you,” he whispered.

  “Yeah, he did,” Daisy said. Her healer had kicked in, but she’d be down again for a while. No way could she follow Nax and Orel now. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize earlier, Orel. I’m sorry I didn’t help right away.”

  He touched her cheek. “It’s okay.”

  The wolf sniffed at his face. “Tell him he’s going to be fine.”

  Daisy tried to sit up again. “My friend wants me to tell you that you’re going to be fine.”

  Orel’s eyes rounded. He nodded. “My mama’s name is Sveta Doroshenko. My name is Orel Doroshenko.”

  Nax pulled him away. “We need to go, son. We can’t be here when she’s back to herself.”

  This time, Daisy managed to push herself up. The world tilted, and the shadows danced, but she was upright. “Nax… think about what you’re doing.”

  Mr. Wolf shimmered in the night air. Waves of blues, purples, and burgundies moved from his snout, through his fur, and to his tail. He twisted his big head toward Daisy, then toward Orel.

  Nax punched a sapling. The little trunk’s crack echoed between the bigger trees. “Have you ever run from Fates, Ms. Pavlovich?” he snarled.

  Orel shrank away from his father. Daisy’s head swam too much, otherwise she would have shrunk away, as well.

  “You have no clue what I have endured at the hands of Fates who wished me horror and pain,” she said. But she reached out to Orel. “It’s not about Fate or Shifter.”

  No, it was never about Fate or Shifter, or douchebags or criminals. It was about the world and doing good no matter who you were or what powers swam in your blood.

  Mr. Wolf looked up at the sky. He reared up, then slammed his six-toed paws into the mud. “Tell the boy to do what his mother does. Tell him to do it now, while they’re listening.”

  “Why?” Daisy asked.

  Mr. Wolf backed away. He shook himself once, then vanished like a dragon.

  The creeping Charlie in the air had cleared. The woods cooled, but so did the scents, yet she inhaled a clear hint of cinnamon and the slightest hint of sunshine. Oranges drifted in as well, as did a new maleness that lacked Nax’s tang of fear.

  Mr. Wolf had vanished like a dragon.

  “Orel.” Daisy forced herself onto her hands and knees. “If your mother was to call Drako, what would she do?”

  AnnaBelinda—the human who lived with Sister-Dragon—once told Daisy that sometimes Fates were easier to find than Shifters. Sometimes, when a Fate used his or her seer, it resonated farther than the sixth sense of the presence of a Shifter.

  Nax tugged on Orel’s arm. “Don’t listen to her. We need to go.”

  Orel screamed and pulled away. He dropped into the mud next to Daisy.

  She moved between him and his father. She should have been more careful; another hit from Nax might do real damage. But she had to try. “Orel, use that special part of yourself to call to Drako.”

  “But he’s not real,” Orel whimpered.

  “He is,” Daisy said. “He’s here.”

  Orel, his hands clutching his bag, closed his eyes. A wave lifted from his body. Not a seer, nor a Shifter’s ability. But some type of power washed off his body and out into the trees.

  Mr. Wolf had been a visionary combination of Nax’s world-warping calling scents and her own unconscious understanding of what her bloodhound nose had picked up as soon as she started toward the road with Orel.

  Your father asked around, Mr. Wolf had said. Orel will be fine.

  Call for help. Because help had arrived. “Please be right,” sh
e whispered. “Please be true.”

  A deep, sonic roar echoed through the woods. The trees shook. The ground vibrated. Orel grabbed hold of Daisy’s arm.

  “Ladon!” Daisy yelled. “We’re over here!”

  Eighteen

  Nax looked down at Daisy and Orel, then out into the trees.

  Every undernote of acidic cold fear in his scent, every bitter hint of anger and frustration and pain, all the sourness and the pressure, burst wide open.

  He vanished. Gone, invisible to all her senses, her nose included, as if he’d never been there to begin with. Nax became just as much of a dream as Drako and Mr. Wolf.

  But that didn’t mean he couldn’t still grab Orel, or hurt Daisy again. She scrambled up and pulled the boy closer to her side. “Ladon!” she screamed.

  A high-intensity flashlight beam pierced between the trees. “Daisy!”

  “Don’t be scared of him when he appears, okay?” she said to Orel. “They’re here to help. They helped me once when I most needed it. They’ll help you.”

  Orel nodded.

  The air swirled. Twigs snapped. Nothing obvious moved in the night but Dragon wasn’t trying to hide himself.

  Something invisible nudged Daisy’s side and she reached out to touch the beast’s head. “His name is Orel Doroshenko and I think he needs a healer, Brother-Dragon,” she said. “Tell Ladon that Nax vanished as soon as he realized you were here. Tell him we don’t know which way he went, or if he’s still hanging around.”

  The shadows shimmered. A gentle violet appeared from the shadows first, a soft, calming dancing light much like the Aurora Borealis. Star-like pinpoints followed. The little lights swirled and danced, and slowly coalesced into highlights along the beast’s sides. The purples shifted toward blues, then greens.

  Dragon’s snout fully appeared first. A line of visibility sparked as it moved over his eyes, to his bumpy crest, and down his long-but-wolf-like neck. It flickered and sped up, and in a blink of an eye, the full dragon stood in front of Daisy and Orel.

  She would never tire of watching the dragons move out of mimicking to the full splendor of their lights and patterns. Dragon kept his colors muted like the night, but galaxies and stars flowed along his sides, and his soft, warm blues stood out against the woods’ shadows.

  He shifted his great weight toward his rear legs so that he could lift his front off the ground.

  Dragon fully retracted his talons and slowly, carefully, extended his giant hand-claw to Orel.

  The boy’s mouth was as round as his eyes. He fumbled with his bag as he handed it to Daisy. And just as slowly, just as carefully, he touched the beast’s fingers.

  “You’re real,” he breathed. He touched the side of Dragon’s head. “You don’t look like Drako,” he said.

  Dragon tipped his head.

  “It’s a long story,” she said.

  The beast nodded.

  “Do you talk?” Orel asked.

  Dragon lifted both his hands. Yes, he signed in American Sign Language.

  Orel pointed. “I don’t understand.”

  Daisy patted his shoulder. “They sign just like any human who has a difficult time speaking.”

  “Oh,” Orel said. Ozone returned to his scent. He touched Daisy’s arm, then Dragon’s head. “We’re not all bad,” he said.

  His eyes rolled back into his head.

  Daisy scooped her arm behind his back. “Get Ladon! Tell him we can’t chase Nax. Orel needs help.”

  Dragon raised his head. A stream of energy moved away from the beast toward his human. The beam of the flashlight swung back around toward Daisy and Orel.

  He comes, Dragon signed.

  “Orel?” Daisy fired healing into his head and chest. It wouldn’t fix what was happening, but it might help. She had to believe it might help.

  His little body twitched.

  “This is the first full seizure he’s had since I met him.” She looked up at the beast. “Don’t flash in front of him, okay? Not until we know if he’s sensitive to light.”

  Dragon nodded. He backed away to allow Ladon to come close. The shadows blended with Ladon’s black t-shirt, jeans, and boots. His messy black hair caught some of Dragon’s shimmering, as did his olive skin, and for a moment, he looked more like a stubble-covered jaw and two big arms reaching through the veil of the night than like any human being.

  But, on some level, Ladon was more than human. His military body posture, the metallic glimmer to his golden-brown eyes, his strength, and his dragon all wound around the man and clearly indicated his true nature—godling. He and the beast, his sister and her beast, several of the long immortal Shifters and Fates, the fire ghouls called Burners—they were all a step to the side of the normal world. They were a step to the side of regular Shifters and Fates like Daisy and Orel.

  Yet here Ladon and Dragon were, a man and the magnificent beast that was his best friend, out in the open in the woods around a small Wisconsin town. They came because one of them had an inkling that Nax was not who he said he was. And because they knew Daisy would refuse to let it go, they got in their van and drove here just to make sure everyone was okay.

  Because, for her, that was Ladon and Dragon. That was Anna and her beast. They were the Dracae. The dragons did not hoard or hurt or burn towns. These dragons protected.

  “Is he okay to carry?” Ladon asked. He bent over and tucked an arm under Orel’s back before Daisy had a chance to answer.

  “I think so,” she said. Ladon could carry Orel all the way into town and not break a sweat.

  Ladon lifted Orel into his arms.

  The twitching lessened. Orel muttered something neither of them understood, but his body loosened, and he relaxed slightly.

  Ladon looked down at the boy. “Dragon says your name is Orel?”

  Orel muttered something else. He placed his hand on Ladon’s shoulder.

  Ladon stood perfectly still for a longer moment than Daisy expected. The muscles around his eyes changed into an expression that reminded Daisy of someone staring at and studying a distant object, but Ladon wasn’t looking at anything in particular. He was speaking to Dragon via their energy connection.

  He nodded. “Dragon says Orel’s brain is calming.”

  Yes, Dragon signed.

  Slowly, Daisy stood up. “Nax hit me on the back of the head.”

  Ladon’s expression hardened. Another round of information passed between him and the beast.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” Daisy picked up Orel’s bag. “Don’t chase him.” She pointed toward the road. “Orel needs help.”

  Ladon and Dragon would hunt Nax when this was done. At this point, all of her father’s people would hunt him, too. And, she suspected, half the Fate families on Earth were already after him.

  Who would cause him the most pain when he got caught? Her father would likely go full Russian retribution on his ass. The Fates were likely to kill him before he understood what was happening.

  But Ladon and Dragon? She didn’t know. Though she suspected that Nax would end up on the ground a stripped-bare, blubbering pile of defeated asshole.

  Ladon chuckled. Then to Orel: “Did Daisy tell you about her dog? She’s about to have puppies.”

  Orel stirred a little.

  Ladon glanced at Daisy.

  “Keep talking to him. Do you know who the local healer is?”

  Ladon nodded. “Yes.” He shifted Orel a bit, to keep the boy comfortable. “She’s a good doctor.”

  Daisy felt a large dragon hand on her back. She nodded and started toward the road. Dragon would keep an eye on her while Ladon made sure Orel didn’t slip out of consciousness.

  Daisy pulled out her phone and did a search for the closest Emergency Department. “It’s going to be okay,” she said to Orel. Then she called the one Shifter who would make sure a healer met them there.

  “Dad?” she said, and followed Ladon and Dragon toward the road.

  Nineteen

  Da
isy’s father called in favors. He negotiated with and, she suspected, strong-armed more than one of the local Shifter clans into helping Orel’s family.

  The local healer took care of Orel. The woman was as good as Ladon said—she could have had an excellent career in Minneapolis or Chicago, but she’d come home instead, and now served not only the large local Shifter population, but also the normals.

  She’d placed her hand on Orel’s forehead and calmed the fires in his head. She’d determined, also, that he was not activating, though she wondered aloud if Nax had done something else to Orel that she didn’t understand.

  No one understood. Ladon only shook his head. The Nax he knew had died two millennia ago. The man had had a special enthraller variant ability—his calling scents glamoured reality on a level no other enthraller had ever matched, but he could not enthrall. He had no calling scent ability to make people do what he wanted.

  Ladon and Dragon had been on their way to The Land when her father had texted Ladon the photo. The similarities to the long-dead Nax had been enough to cause the detour into Wisconsin, but because Nax had run off, Ladon could not say for sure who he truly was.

  Then the doctor asked Daisy question after question about Nax and what she knew and about Orel’s symptoms.

  “Children with one Fate and one Shifter parent tend to have issues,” she’d said, and left it at that. Daisy was not Orel’s legal guardian, and so, ethically, the healer could not say more.

  Daisy’s father located Orel’s family within twelve hours of her giving him their last name. Seemed they had been in hiding, but being Fates, had sensed that someone was coming to help, and walked up to Ben in the Kiev airport.

  Turned out that they were what the Fates called breeders, a triad with only hints of abilities, usually enough to help them with their professions, but not enough to read the world well. They were often arranged triads, like arranged marriages, except with three people instead of two. Their extended families, knowing in advance that they wouldn’t grow up to be strong Fates, often sold them off to produce stronger children such as Orel.