He pulled her back into his arms. “And plans to make?” He traced her cheek.
They’d find a surefooted path, one they’d navigate together. She smiled. “I think so.”
He exhaled like he’d been holding his breath. A quick grin danced over his lips. He tapped along her hip as he considered options. “Should we go? I don’t like being out in the open like this.” He moved away, only an inch or two, and reached for their clothes. “There are restrooms in the picnic shelter, if you want. Before we leave.” He pointed at the door.
The crack in the back of her mind brightened. Ladon handed over her bra and panties, not noticing her unease.
“We could find a hotel.” He smiled as he stroked her arm.
She squeezed his fingers, determined to hold the weirdness in check. Her Ambusti Prime status dropped sudden and annoying blasts of Burner chaos into her life. But she had control and she’d tame it. She had the help she needed.
Dragon nuzzled her shoulder and Cara Caras danced through her senses. “He’s still hungry. We should stop.”
Ladon felt around for his socks. “We’ll get food. And I vote hotel. I’d like to sleep in a real bed tonight. With the most beautiful woman who has ever walked this earth right here.” Grinning, his brilliant eyes warm and happy, he pointed at his side. “And your head right here.” His finger moved to his shoulder.
“Most beautiful?” She tossed a sock at his head and chuckled when he made a show of fumbling it.
“Like no other.” He pulled his sock on. “America’s finally given us a reason.”
Dragon opened the back door and rolled out onto the asphalt. Images of itch flicked to Rysa. The beast wanted a good rub against the big tree next to the picnic shelter before they left.
“A reason for what?” she asked.
Ladon pulled on his other sock, watching her watch him. “To remember. To pay attention. To plan.”
Dragon ambled away.
For a moment, a split second, for no reason at all, Rysa smelled fire.
Ladon patted his pocket. “Have you seen my keys?” He turned his back and leaned away, toward the front of the van.
The energy they shared stretched like taffy. It pulled away from her mind like silk lifting from her skin and for a split second, she felt naked and exposed.
Vulnerable.
Sudden glare flooded into her head like fire reflecting off ice. It yanked her mind sideways, a threat so terrible it clamped onto all of her attention.
Death filtered into her nose. Death by fire, death by acid. She’d never smelled death before, but she knew immediately what the stench meant.
She was going to hurt them. It poked from her seers, sharp and so ice cold it sucked away every ounce of the warmth she felt in Ladon’s arms. Like a flood of cockroaches, the thought poured into her seers, through the crack that had been enlarging since the Shifter terrified her in the electronics store.
It swept in, a fountainhead of ice bugs crawling on her skin, fueling an acid death.
“Two days together.” Ladon patted the driver’s seat, not looking at her. “And you’re already taking better care of Dragon than I ever have.”
She stiffened. Her calm shattered like it had been stabbed. Everything she felt seized solid and turned dense and unbending.
The future forced through a new vision: Ladon, rigid and in pain, blood soaking his t-shirt. His agony raked her body.
The control had been an illusion. Her seers lashed out, snapping and screaming and she’d cause Ladon’s death. The truth of what-will-be cut, a knife her nasty couldn’t block. Every one of her muscles contracted.
“Two days,” she muttered. Snaring them like this, so fast—she should have known better. Impulsive and stupid, she’d wanted him and his body and she’d just put the best part of her life in mortal danger because she couldn’t pay attention.
“Rysa?” A rigidness constricted Ladon’s abdomen and he grimaced. “Love, what’s wrong?” A groan pushed out of his chest. He leaned forward and dropped a hand to the floor.
She bolted for the door. Their future held death and it was her fault. The burden of her actions solidified into an evil, serrated knife attacking her physically, as if someone else wielded it.
Her temples throbbed. She was a monster. She wouldn’t cry.
She had no right to ensnare them this way. She’d trapped them inside of something they’d never step out of willingly. A net over their lives, that’s what she was. She held them to the dirty ground.
Her feet landed on the parking lot. All she saw was blood and burning.
She slid on the grit as she ran away.
28
“Rysa!” Her seers buzzsawed across his mind, then vanished, silenced.
The door of the women’s restroom slammed against the wall. Dragon forced his front through before it closed, but she backed away. She huddled inside, refusing to acknowledge either of them.
Is she in a vision? Ladon pushed. Yanking his t-shirt over his head, he dropped off the bumper. Do you know what’s wrong?
The beast’s back end stuck out the door. Her seers are silent. She will not respond to my questions. Dragon mimicked the restroom building, his tail moving in a clipped arc across the asphalt walk. His hide sparked with random flashes. The tip of his tail whipped as it brushed across the ground. He was a dragon-shaped cloud of churning fireflies between Ladon and the door.
She’d muttered “two days.” What if the flare he’d felt had been her future-seer? She won’t tell you why she cries?
No. A pause. She attempts to pull away. A punch of fear hit Ladon before the beast reined it in. She must not leave.
“Rysa!” Ladon ran to the shelter. On the edges of his perception where her seers caressed his consciousness, the music diminished. It backed away like a terrified animal retreating into a den.
Muffled sniffles pushed from inside the building.
“What did you see? Don’t pull away from us!” Agony flitted across the surface of their connection. “Tell me what’s wrong!” If she’d seen the War Babies, she’d have said something, not run away. Whatever it was, he did it—will do it.
She hiccupped. “You’re the second man I’ve been with.”
Second? Was this about that boy? The one who hurt her? He slammed his fist against the door’s frame. He said “two days together” and her past-seer must have fired a terrible memory into her present. Part of him breathed again—she hadn’t seen the future. What tore at her wasn’t some stupid behavior he might do. The past idiocy of others he could deal with.
I’m going to find him, he pushed to Dragon.
Why?
The beast would not approve of his answer so Ladon ignored the question. Will you move, please?
She won’t allow me to touch her, but she won’t allow me to leave, either.
What did that little punk do to her? “Rysa! Come out!”
A sob echoed through the wall. “I’m… I’m…” She trailed off, not finishing.
She signed ‘I’m bad for you.’
“Bullshit!” Twenty-three centuries of companions and wives who watched him from the corners of their eyes, always with a twinge of tension. They didn’t think he noticed, but he did. Not one of them trusted him. Not one touched his connection to the beast. And now memories of some damned normal made Rysa think she was bad for him? “You are the best thing that has ever happened to us!”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does!” He’d find that boy and smack the life out of his pathetic head.
Then he’d snap his damned normal neck.
You will not.
“Why?” Ladon shouted.
Another sob. “Because… because….”
Because you promised Rysa you would earn the joy she gives us.
Ladon hollered, fists clenched. The pain in her voice fired through every one of his nerves. No one caused trauma to his woman and got away with it. “What did he do to you?”
“What are you talking abou
t?” The sobs subsided.
She has moved closer but she still refuses to allow me to touch her.
“That boy. The normal who hurt you.”
She paused. “Why?”
“Why? You’ve locked yourself in a restroom!” A growl crept out of his throat.
“He has nothing to do with this!”
“That’s it!” Ladon smacked the building and knocked loose a brick. “I’m going to find him. He’s going to apologize. Down on his knees, his forehead pressed to your feet. He’s going to beg for your forgiveness.” The punk would offer a sincere apology. He’d mean every word of it or he’d lose fingers. Maybe a whole hand. Dragon could cauterize the wound.
“No, you are not!”
“Yes, I am.” He paced next to Dragon’s tail. “Do you think I will tolerate this? You crying in a park restroom? Hurting this way?”
“Ladon! You can’t!” Anguish spread her voice thin.
All of his attention snapped to her. No more thoughts of revenge. No more pacing. His hearing pinpointed to her breathing. His vision to the edges of the door.
“After what just happened, I can’t let this be.” He’d promised she’d be safe. Past, present, or future, nothing more stalked her.
“He’s dead.” More sobs. “He wrapped himself up in my life and he went home and his car got hit by a semi on 94 outside of Janesville. He died and his cousin died, too. They died in the snow on a freeway in Wisconsin because I had a bad feeling and he wouldn’t listen when I asked him to please wait half an hour before he left.”
The little bastard hurt her, ignored her pleas, and ended up dead. “Beautiful, I’m sorry.” Served him right. But his stupidity killed part of her, too. “It wasn’t your fault. Your seers weren’t active. You couldn’t have stopped him.” Even dead, his ghost tore open wounds.
“Gavin decided my freshman year that he wanted to be part of my life, and what happened to him? The Burners almost ate him. I almost brought ruin down on him, too.”
Damn it, why wouldn’t she let him in? He smacked the doorframe again. “Rysa, you cannot think any of it was your fault.”
“I’m a goddamned Fate!” Her sobbing increased, the volume rising. “I’m a Fate who can’t control her impulses and… and…” She trailed off, her sobs becoming harsher.
She backs away from me.
“You can’t… Love, you can’t think this way.” She’d lose herself in it.
“Ladon, leave me alone.” Her words edged bitter and broken through the wall.
She is hyperventilating.
He heard the terror in her voice. The difficulty breathing. “Rysa?”
A pause. “I should have waited. I should have made sure that…” She hiccupped. “That you and Dragon would be okay.”
“Move.” He leaned against the beast, fear binding his gut. This wasn’t about that boy. Her future-seer showed her something that frightened her so deeply she pushed them away. “Please.”
Dragon backed out of the door.
“No! No! I’ve tangled you up with me and—” She bolted around Dragon.
“Rysa!”
She skidded, her arms around her chest, the sobs as strong as before. Dragon leaped over her head and landed between her and the trees. He circled, his head low.
A rasp pulled up from her chest and she bent over, her arms crossed over her belly. “I see what’s inevitable now. We… we can’t…”
“Rysa…” He stepped closer, but she backed away.
“I know now what kind of…” She looked away. “I’m sorry I snared you. It can’t be anything more than just sex.”
“Snared me? Just sex?” Those four words sliced him open from chest to groin.
She didn’t believe that. She couldn’t believe it. Her head hung and a rasping hiccup pulled from her chest.
Her terror crushed down on his ribcage. She’d lose herself to this. And he’d lose her. “Damn it, Rysa, look at me!”
“No.”
Dragon reeled, invisible, as confused as Ladon.
“That was not just sex!” Anger flickered. “You didn’t think it was just sex before your seers flared.” Underneath, is this what she thought of herself? “With you, it will never be just sex! Never.”
Dragon crept forward but she pushed him away. If she dropped too far, these thoughts would kill her. She’d cut herself off.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe. Or what I want. I’m a Fate and I’m your death.”
He wrapped his arms around her though she pushed against him, too. “No you are not. You’re not my death. You won’t be. Ever. You touched Dragon and color returned to his world. You touched me and I came back to life. You’re—”
She twisted away. “I don’t have control. I thought I did, but I don’t. Penny gave me something fake.”
“No, love, she could only coax what’s in you. So it has to be there. You have what you need.”
Shaking her head, she pulled her arms tighter. She pointed at her temple. “There’s been a hole since …” She slapped the side of her head. “…since Dragon smacked my cousins. The future flooded through. It ripped open and I see fire and I see you dead, Ladon! I’m your death!” Her throat constricted like she wanted to scream, but nothing came out.
The War Babies must have gouged her mind during the Texas vision. Do you feel it? What they did? They damaged her and it manifested now.
The cretins would bleed out at his feet for this.
Dragon sniffed Rysa’s head. Her seers feel wrong.
The Draki Prime’s seers had been a trio of instruments, tuned perfectly. The War Babies’ seers thundered like a storm, discordant and violent. But the Jani Prime, the triad of Rysa’s mother, they’d been in the middle: Cymbals in the wind, chimes, and hammers on a metal drum.
Sometimes Rysa’s seers siphoned. Sometimes they added. But they always sang when they touched Ladon’s mind and they always embraced.
But not now. Her music clanged. Her touch hammered. Her seers felt not as if she’d lost control, but as if her control had been stolen from her.
“Rysa, come here.” He extended his hand.
Daniel could override other future-seers, Dragon pushed. The beast surrounded them both, blocking all views from the trees and the lot entrance.
Centuries ago, Ladon watched Daniel shape the future into a weapon and thrust it into the minds of a triad who didn’t have the experience to fight it.
“Rysa.” Ladon swung her into his arms. “We need to get you back to the van. Now.” His vision charted every corner and shadow of the park. “You’re not safe out here.”
She sobbed against his chest but she didn’t hit him again. “I won’t hurt you. I should have waited. I’m impulsive and I should have remembered and made sure you would be okay.”
He stopped half way to the van. “That’s not you talking.”
Choked whispers buried her words. “I was eleven when my dad left.” Another sob. “I hurt the men I love.”
Everything in his soul slammed against his chest. Everything he felt, everything reverberating to him from Dragon, every kiss, every touch that had spoken more volumes than any word. Every single moment he’d spent with her welled up.
He dropped to his knees on the damp pavement, his arms cinching tight around the woman who had become his core the first moment he saw her. The woman whose touch righted his world.
The men she loved hurt her. But it stopped now, here, in this park.
We must leave, Dragon pushed.
Each tree rustled, distinct and separate. The illumination from the road blinked, dipping slightly with each passing car. Dragon backed away, running silent. After centuries of practice with the Draki Prime, the dragons had learned to hide themselves from both Shifters and Fates, including Primes.
Because only one explanation accounted for what was happening. Only one, and it wasn’t Les Enfants de Guerre.
No matter how powerful they were, their future-seer, Metus, wasn’t Prime enough to inflict t
his kind of damage. In all his twenty-three centuries, Ladon knew of only two Fates other than Daniel who could create an injection: Janus, his fellow Progenitor and man from whom all Fates descended.
And Janus’s son.
A dark sedan with tinted windows spun into the parking lot, its tires squealing.
Ladon didn’t need Fate abilities to know who it was.
29
Rysa pressed her palm against her temple. Her seers erupted flame against the ice bugs clicking in her head: She saw Ladon covered in so much blood it dripped from his arm. She smelled his pain. She felt Dragon’s mind shred as his human bled out.
She couldn’t stop it. Fire and blood and dissolution. Her seers felt stuck on.
“I should have made sure.” She should have stopped herself. Thought things through. But no, she acted impulsive and stupid because a wonderful man wanted to be with her.
She curled into a ball against Ladon’s chest even though she should run. She should leave and take her burning ADHD as far away from them as possible.
“Fight it. Hold on.” Ladon tensed under her palms, every one of his ligaments stretching as his body reflected her torment.
Dragon stepped over his humans, his body a shield between them and the sedan. He flashed in microsecond bursts of angry reds and oranges. After-images filled Rysa’s eyes and she squinted. For a blinding split-second, the pavement turned dust beige and the sky flame blue.
“Don’t trust your seers.” Ladon nodded toward the sedan.
Their connection arced across her consciousness as they tried to calm her spasming seers. Splendor mixed with blood and death. Dragon’s memories rushed through her consciousness: Her touch on his snout. The wonder in her eyes when he held her above the asphalt. Hello. And he blazed more beautiful than any other creature on Earth.
The memories burst to vapors.
Ladon lifted her into his arms. A new symphony played out in the tactile sense of his skin and the tender voice of his words: Beautiful. It echoed in her head, clear and crisp. Beloved. Under the pain in her skull, her seers grasped one thin filament of possibility: Ladon, content and entwined with her. His lips on her forehead. Her head on his shoulder.
Games of Fate (Fate ~ Fire ~ Shifter ~ Dragon #1) Page 20
