The first lad swung his arms at the trees. “They killed our father, but our papa holds them off. Father told him to. Father said—”
The woman screamed and the lad dropped her with a thud. She ceased suddenly, the lad falling over her body. He shook as violently as his mother.
Far into the forest, the woman’s other triad mate died. A Fate’s life flared through the trees, a wave of power not unlike what followed a catapult’s heave of Greek Fire. Her triad-mate’s death smothered her in her own, lone present.
Ladon dropped from his saddle and straightened her neck. Maybe she could survive this. Give her boys a few more years. Sister might seethe, but he’d give this family shelter. Fate or not, no lad deserved to see his parents murdered.
“Mama!” The second lad shoved Ladon aside. His ear dropped to her chest. Only a single hiccup left his throat when he sat up.
“They came for us,” he croaked. “They claim we are part of their family. That we are to be a tribute.”
The other lad closed his mother’s eyes. “For the new Emperor. But our fathers spit into our mouths this morning. Both in turn, in each of ours.”
“They said to run.”
“So we ran,” they said in unison.
These lads’ parents sacrificed their lives to protect their boys from yet another insane Emperor. They gave their children something Fates never extended to each other—a chance.
The lad’s eyes glazed. They both blinked and both their mouths slacked—at the same time, in the same way, synchronized.
Human!
Ladon stepped back. The beast saw the new motion first, but Ladon felt the power of a third lad flare from the trees. His brothers, in front of Ladon, moved mirror-opposite each other, their arms out. The new lad leaped, pushed high by his brother’s added momentum.
Ladon countered but the young man’s abilities compensated. Ladon fell onto his back, the lad’s knee in his throat.
Ladon roared—he offered these children help and this is how they responded?
He punched but the lad dodged and ripped Ladon’s Legio Draconis insignia from his armor’s straps. He leaped away as quickly as he had charged.
The lads gripped the entwined dragons of the insignia as one being. They did not acknowledge Ladon, nor did they pay heed to Dragon. They stared at the metal they held as all remaining normalcy blasted from their bodies.
Seven hundred years walking this earth and neither he nor his sister had witnessed a triad activate. Now a new Prime triad activated in front of him. Holding a Legio emblem.
Sister emerged from the trees. “I told you they’d come for us! They still believe us part of the—” She stopped, her sword half sheathed, her gaze darting from one lad to the next.
The internal growl from Sister-Dragon set Ladon’s teeth rattling.
Sister snatched their emblem from the lads. “You let Fates activate holding our insignia?”
He stepped between her and the lads. He’d had enough of killing. “I will not cut down children.” Especially the killing of Fates.
Her sword clinked against her scabbard. “They are men! And active.”
Slight, their hands and feet large for their frame, they hadn’t reached their full height. They were men only because they were now parentless.
The lad who had stolen the insignia sat up. “We mean you no harm, Dracas. Of this we swear.” His eyes were a different color than his brothers’, and his face rounder, but his body carried the same lean strength. “I am Timothy.”
The lad who had burst from the trees first pushed himself up. “I am Marcus.”
The lad who had carried their mother bowed his head. “I am Daniel.”
“Not all of our kind is in league with the devil.” Marcus stood. “Not every Fate dances with the Sins.”
Timothy held out his hand. “Please return our talisman.”
They did not falter, nor did they cower. They faced the dragons, tall and strong, even if they all shook down to their bones.
Sister could destroy them now, if she wanted. Take from them what they needed so their triad could never use their abilities. But potential flowed from the young men, great in both power and soul. So Ladon pried the insignia from his sister’s hand.
Daniel laid it on his palm, then closed his fingers over the two metal dragons. He glanced over his shoulder at the trees, his seer sputtering to life for the first time. “They will return with reinforcements in two weeks’ time. Their leader wants a fight with you, Dracos.” He handed the pin to his brother.
“You have always won,” Marcus intoned.
Timothy took the pin as he watched Sister. “Our fate may yet be death.” He walked forward and stopped within striking range, but he did not shrink. He bowed his head and dropped to one knee, his core remaining erect. “We serve only the Dracae, benevolent Dracas.”
Ladon repressed a grin.
“We serve you. We serve your brother. We serve the beasts who circle us now, their hides as clear as the waters of the river.” Timothy’s gaze, strong and true, turned to Ladon. “We are now and forever the Draki Prime.”
11
Sixteen centuries the Draki Prime lived among Ladon’s men. Sister never completely accepted them, though many times over the years she took Timothy into her bed. Sixteen centuries through losses so horrible they overpowered Daniel’s unmatched ability to see what-will-be. Through gains so brilliant Ladon and his sister still lived off the riches acquired. Through wars and deaths and births and the inception of a Fate family who wove themselves through much of Europe’s technological innovations.
Until the night Daniel and Timothy bled to death on the shores of the North Sea. Ladon and Dragon purchased a steam ship and crossed the Atlantic the next day. The entire trip they vomited, Dragon unable to sleep on the waves of the ocean. They retched for months afterward.
A light penance for the failures that drove them from their home and destroyed the only Fates who had ever treated Ladon and Dragon as something other than a blight on the world.
Marcus crossed the ocean as well, chasing after Shifter healers. Ladon visited twice, the first time to help build the house in the then-bustling town on the Minnesota River. They’d sawed wood and nailed the boards, but barely spoke. He and Dragon left shortly after they set the roof.
Seeing Marcus without his brothers pained them both, the memory of Daniel’s and Timothy’s deaths a cloud that never dissipated. Staying away was the least Ladon could do.
Yet here he was, inching his van down the driveway of the little house outside of St. Peter. The gravel spread into a large parking area between the house and two outbuildings. The detached garage must have been added in the fifties or sixties. Ladon didn’t recognize it as he peered through the deep gloom. It looked solid but old, the peeling paint popping in high relief in the van’s headlights.
The house also needed painting. Cracks riddled the ornate gingerbread. But the structure stood true, as it had in 1884, when Marcus set the foundation with his own hands.
The Parcae sickness had already started to cripple his joints. Not that Marcus complained about the pain.
In the back of the van, Dragon lifted his head. He’d curled around Rysa the entire drive, cycling the area of his hide near her face in calming patterns. The beast hoped to use his lights to bring her out of her stupor. She didn’t wake, but she didn’t drop deeper into her vision, either.
“Are you sensing him?” Ladon had sped to St. Peter and it was now shortly after midnight. He backed the van toward the front porch and turned off the ignition.
He sleeps. Dragon nuzzled Rysa’s cheek.
The beast’s agitation tensed Ladon’s neck and jaw. His fingers strained. He’d gripped the steering wheel the entire drive from Rysa’s home.
Ladon’s new phone sat on the passenger seat, silent except for the whine all electronics produced. The app mining cell phone calls for words like “fire” and “chemical spill” and “smell” showed no hits. It had led him to
the theme park in Wisconsin, but nothing appeared now.
Ladon suspected that the beast was correct—the Jani family would inflict a swift vengeance and pull their Prime present-seer from the Burners. The ghouls were unlikely to attack anyone else, Fate or Shifter, once the Jani had taken their revenge.
He’d put out a call anyway. Every Shifter within four hundred miles was on high alert, but nothing. No indication of Fate activity, either.
He’d called Sister, asked her to drive east. Take over hunting the Burners, just in case. She’d agreed, until he told her about Mira and Rysa.
She hung up on him.
Rysa had started trembling about ten miles outside St. Peter. She didn’t open her eyes. Dragon stroked her hair.
The beast raised his head. The front porch light is on.
Ladon checked the mirror. Harold, who had long been Marcus’s companion, pushed through the screen door.
Ladon’s boots hit the gravel. He slammed the driver’s door.
Tall and lean, Harold stood on the porch in plaid sleep pants. He squared his shoulders, pointing at Ladon. “You decide to show up now, in the middle of the night?”
“I need Marcus’s help.”
“Of course you do. Why else would you come around? Huh? To visit maybe, you know, the last remaining member of your Parcae triad?” He threw his hands in the air. “Because that couldn’t be the reason!”
Harold called them Parcae. Ladon didn’t understand why. The only Fates who had ever been good to him were the Draki Prime.
Ladon ran his fingers through his hair before pointing over his shoulder at the van’s rear door. “A vision has her. She won’t wake up. She’s trembling.”
Harold gritted his teeth. His expression hardened and he flipped Ladon a rude gesture as he ran down the steps. He crossed the gravel on bare feet, his heels dancing on the sharp rocks, and hopped into the back of the van.
Ladon followed.
“Ladon-Dragon.” Harold nodded to the beast as he crawled toward Rysa. “Where did you find her?” He felt her forehead. “She’s got a fever.”
It has decreased. Dragon signed the words. He balanced himself on his haunches and lifted both of his six-fingered claw-hands off the floor. Then he flattened and elongated his digits, retracting his talons, to accommodate human gesturing.
They’d both learned sign language before leaving Europe. Ladon had never seen Dragon so proud as the day he first communicated without his human’s help. He’d long tried to create text on his hide, occasionally even attempting to write, but it never made sense. Signing, though, the beast could do.
Harold frowned. “I don’t remember my signs, Great Sir. I apologize.”
“He says it’s decreased.” Ladon ran his hand through his hair again.
Sweat glinted on Rysa’s forehead. If she fell back into her activation, she’d die, no matter how frantically Dragon tried to cool her down. Die and leave forever before Ladon had a chance to apologize for his behavior.
Harold ducked his head out the door. “Where’s her triad?”
“She’s a singular.”
Harold balked. “A singular? And her family didn’t protect her?” He touched a shackle. “Who the hell put these on her?” His face heated as he poked Ladon in the chest. “You better not have done this! She activated tonight, didn’t she? She wouldn’t be like this if she hadn’t just activated.”
Ladon grabbed Harold’s throat so fast the other man jolted in surprise. “She needs help. You will help her. Do you understand me, pedes?” He would not tolerate Harold’s usual behavior. Not now. Not with Rysa in danger.
Harold swung at Ladon’s head, but Dragon caught his arm.
Please help Rysa, the beast signed.
“I understood ‘help’, Great Sir,” Harold choked out. “I can’t help if your human throttles the life out of me.”
Ladon let go. His fingers constricted, lurching in little spasms. Hitting Harold wasn’t the way to a better the situation.
Harold rubbed his neck. “Don’t call me pedes. I was never one of your men.”
“Where is Marcus?” Ladon would muzzle Harold anyway if he continued to cause more problems than he solved.
Harold pressed his palm against Rysa’s forehead and then the side of her neck. “Get her inside.”
She felt too warm and her arms trembled when Ladon picked her up. Cradling her close to his chest, he jumped to the driveway. Dragon followed, his hide dark. He sparked though, his concern for Rysa flashing as minute points of light along his sides.
Harold held the screen door. Dragon squeezed across the threshold, first his head, then each shoulder, and turned on his side and contracted his ribcage to fit his body through. The beast moved fast and looked as if he flowed through the opening.
Harold stepped in behind the beast and flipped on the lights, Ladon following with Rysa. The clean lines of the house’s modern interior stood in stark contrast to the grillwork coating the outside. A huge painting, abstract and distracting, hung over the fireplace.
“Still tasteful, I see.” Ladon set Rysa on the perfectly proportioned couch.
Harold ignored him and ducked into a darkened passageway, vanishing around a corner. Muffled voices wafted into the living room.
Marcus, Dragon pushed.
Ladon nodded as he squatted next to Rysa. “She stopped twitching.” He touched her arms, checking the bites she had manifested at the house. No blood seeped through the bandages, but dirt crusted the ones under the cuffs.
They’d get the damned shackles off her. He’d shape a talisman bracelet or necklace from the chains, something small and unobtrusive. Or he’d cut down a cuff, round it smooth so she could wear it without difficulty. Then he’d stud it with jewels, to counter the Burner ugliness that had bitten into her life. Or maybe braid fine gold and silver around it, if she preferred.
Whatever he did, he’d make sure it didn’t weigh her down. She needed her talisman, but by the gods he’d make sure she wasn’t a slave to it.
Dragon leaned his head over the back of the couch. Marcus comes.
The sickness began eating at Marcus when his brothers passed. Since 1862, he’d been looking for Shifter healers to calm the inflammation ravaging his joints and organs since the loss of his triad mates.
Ladon gripped Rysa’s fingers. He’d find her a healer, if he needed to. But as a singular, she might not get sick. He didn’t know. They may not know for years.
The voices grew louder and Dragon’s head pivoted toward the door behind the couch. Ladon stood, dusting his knees.
Marcus shuffled out of the shadows. He stopped in the harsh light of the living room, his iron eyes squinting. The sickness had worked its horrors and his balance betrayed him, distorting his stance with subtle shakes.
He’d aged. At the end of World War Two, the second time Ladon visited, Marcus had looked to be in his mid-thirties. He’d stood on the porch leaning on his cane as he watched Ladon and Dragon back their truck toward the house. Ladon’s girlfriend had kicked him out. Marcus waited for Harold to return from the Pacific theater. They drank enough whiskey that night to drown a mule.
Now, light streaked his dark hair and lines creased his face. Marcus had become a man who could be Rysa’s grandfather.
The past-seer inhaled and stood up as straight as he could. “Dracos,” he said, using the Roman honorific for both Human and Dragon.
“Hello, Marcus.” Ladon moved around the couch and took his elbow.
Harold frowned but didn’t argue. Dragon pulled a chair close to Rysa. The beast sniffed Marcus’s head as Harold and Ladon helped him descend onto the cushions.
“I have a considerable amount of medication in my system.” Marcus waved his swollen knuckles at Ladon. Pain etched creases around his mouth. “They interfere. But I will do what I can for the young lady.”
“Thank you.” Ladon squeezed his arm. Marcus had always been a man of honor who offered assistance to anyone in need. He’d helped his share of S
hifters over the centuries, to the dismay of his brothers.
Ladon squatted next to Rysa. She breathed quicker and shallower than he liked. “She’s been like this since we left her home. Dragon says she’s still in a vision.”
Marcus’s mouth twitched. “Not good.” His past-seer reverberated through the room, a brilliant and practiced music produced by an instrument honed from centuries of use. It had slowed since Ladon last visited, dulled by both pain and drugs. “This may take a moment. I need to find the edges of her seers.”
The past-seer sat back, surprise rounding his expression. “She’s Jani.”
Dragon dropped his head over Rysa, a protective shield between her and the men.
Ladon and the beast should have realized Rysa’s family would be a problem for Marcus. A terrible problem. How had he not thought the situation through? How could he have been—
His mouth rounded and he glanced up at Dragon. Did she infect us when she was siphoning? She’d said something about not being able to pay attention. The disorientation he’d felt at the house burst back into his mind. Did she always see the world in such a fractured way? How did she live missing connections? She was bright—both he and Dragon felt her intelligence—but she missed information. Lost perceptions. Forgot things.
And he had, too, when his focus had constricted so tightly to her.
Harold jabbed his finger at Ladon. “Jani? You brought a Jani into my home? What the hell were you thinking?” He yanked open a cabinet next to the fireplace.
Infect is not the right word. She is connected. The beast nuzzled her hair, ignoring Harold. It is strange.
Inside the cabinet, Harold’s katana and other swords sparkled in the light. He pulled out a handgun and a box of ammunition. “Are you trying to kill Marcus, too?”
Ladon’s attention jumped from the weapons to Harold’s tight face. The man dare not imply negligence on Ladon’s part.
Games of Fate (Fate ~ Fire ~ Shifter ~ Dragon #1) Page 8
