Games of Fate (Fate ~ Fire ~ Shifter ~ Dragon #1)

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Timor surfaced. Ladon ignored him but the past-seer latched onto his shoulders. Bracing against Timor’s trunk, Ladon punched a right jab directly into the past-seer’s nose.

  Timor bounced, but didn’t let go.

  Ladon wrapped an arm around Timor’s leg. Everything but his fury submerged, like the river submerged Rysa.

  She’d die if he and Dragon didn’t find her.

  Rysa would die and Timor would cause it.

  Ladon’s body worked on its own, acted on its own, and every moment of anger, every minute of rage he felt for the siblings erupted.

  He snapped Timor’s femur.

  The past-seer thrashed as Ladon dove.

  ***

  Water rushed around Rysa as she sat in the mud. Water wrapped her senses in thickness and muffled her life to nothing.

  Is this what the other Fates saw? The sky burning and the Dracae roiling in the flames? Ladon, bloody at her hands. Burners taking cities.

  Ambusti Prime. She couldn’t let it happen. She’d die first.

  She’d let the acid take its due.

  If she cut the threads of her life it might be enough. She wouldn’t be bound by her fate if she passed away to nothing.

  But someone spoke to her in colors and begged her to please go up. To please, please breathe air.

  ***

  The beast whispered and showed Rysa the sky and the stars and told her to reach.

  The muddy water filled Ladon’s eyes but he saw her first, on the edge of Dragon’s lights, her face turned down. She didn’t fight. She didn’t try. The river had her.

  Dragon lifted her into the air. She tried to gulp but her body buckled over, her eyes rolling back into her head as the beast set her on the dry ground.

  Ladon scrambled up the bank. Dragon laid her flat and Ladon wiped her hair away from her mouth. He forced three quick breaths into her lungs. She coughed, water gurgling from her throat, but she breathed for herself. Rolling onto her side, she vomited river water.

  “Love.” He pulled her into his arms as he tore off the tape binding her wrists.

  She heaved again, more water pouring from her mouth.

  “Ladon.” She twisted in anguish and clutched at his arms and chest, but she lived. “You should have let me die.”

  What did they do to her? She couldn’t think such things.

  “I saw it! I saw what’s coming. What the other Fates see. I can’t hide. You should have let me die.”

  “You can’t think that.” He kissed her forehead and her nose as he tried to stop his fingers from shaking. Her cheeks tasted of the river and her breath was dirty and sour, but he didn’t care. “Don’t say that.”

  She hiccupped and her arms pulled him close even as her words pushed him away. He responded, kissing her again and again.

  She shivered. The threat of a horrid future tore at her mind and that damned Burner harmed Mira. Despite her strength, it might be too much. Overwhelmed, she’d give up if he didn’t find a way to help her.

  He’d seen other women fade away. Lose everything they were and everything they could be.

  “My love.” He kissed her again, wiping away the river. “We will not let what you see come to pass.”

  Ladon lifted her and climbed the bank. He should let Dragon carry her, but he couldn’t let go. He wouldn’t put her down. Not now. Not ever again.

  38

  Sirens approached but Ladon held her and kissed her cheeks and checked her wounds no matter how many times she tried to wiggle free.

  Dragon-images poured into her chaos: Anger, frustration, AnnaBelinda’s huge RV pulling away all pulsed from Sister-Dragon. Jagged bursts of color and pattern cracked like ice from an exhausted Dragon. Their cacophony rained down and Rysa curled into a tight ball.

  She pushed Ladon away. Pushed Dragon away. She backed into a corner of the van and sat with her arms around her legs on top of the bin where her shackles clanked when the beast’s weight rocked the vehicle. Sat and pulled a blanket over her head and blocked all their attempts to calm the chaos. They couldn’t. Drawing them in only made it worse.

  Rysa Lucinda Torres, the Parcae monarch of the Ambustae breed. A time-bomb.

  “Rys…”

  Dragon pushed Ladon toward the driver’s seat. Then he laid down his head at her feet and the dragon-noise stopped.

  He didn’t sign. Puffs rolled, but he couldn’t seem to muster the energy needed to translate his thoughts into something a human could understand.

  She’d drained his reserves. He should have left her on the bottom of the river.

  “Headlights.” Ladon pointed up the road.

  Dark images of Mira crackled through Rysa’s seers. Billy had licked broad swaths across her mother’s belly but the damned Burner had listened. For the first time since Ladon and Dragon pulled her out of the river, she actually felt air move into her lungs.

  At least her seers gave her this one good thing. “It’s Billy.” She moved between the seats. An old sedan angled down the bank of the road, parked facing the wrong way so its headlights glared into the van.

  Billy killed the lights when Ladon pulled off. Long shadows spread down the road as her eyes adjusted. The late evening sun set off the dry Wyoming brush. It glowed in high relief.

  Palm prints lined the top of the car, a scorched and ratty pile of junk like everything a Burner touched. A duct-taped sheet of plastic covered a broken back window. It snapped in the breeze, catching the sunset in a distorted arc of bleached-out orange.

  “He has my mom.”

  Surprise darted across Ladon’s face.

  “He was at the hospital. I wrote Bring Mira to Rysa on his hand.” She tapped the tender skin on the back of her wrist next to the insignia and its leather thong. The tape residue stung.

  “You didn’t tell me?”

  Her strength to be indignant had drowned in the river. “I forgot.”

  Ladon scowled, his gaze returning to the car. “He cooperated? Why?”

  No point in using her seers. Burners were unreadable, and Burner fire now locked her abilities into an endless nothing anyway. “I don’t know.” But her mom lived. “She’s in the trunk.”

  Ladon’s head tilted while he talked with Dragon. “Stay here.”

  She pushed off the blanket. He had no right to keep her in the van. “She’s my mom.”

  He slapped the back of the passenger seat. “No Burner gets near you, Rysa!” Anger reddened his neck. His exhaustion fueled a fire not unlike the chaos eating at her mind.

  “He won’t hurt me.” She didn’t want to argue. Why would Billy hurt her? She’d be his queen soon.

  Ladon stood, a hand on each seat. “You should be in the hospital. You might have water in your lungs. Internal injuries. But you won’t let me take you and even if I did, he can’t wait on the roof.” Ladon pointed at Dragon. “Neither of us could go in with you.”

  She knew what would happen. Hospital staff would poke at her, asking too many questions: Why so much blood? What were you doing in the river? Why are you going to let the world burn, young lady? Don’t you know you have a duty to perform?

  She pressed on her temple.

  “You’re wincing again. Dragon and I, we know exactly how deep into your head that bastard drove his spike.”

  A hard edge thrust through their connection and for a brief moment, the world took on a crisp focus. Ladon’s male mind ignored all elements he found irrelevant to the current danger. What he did pay attention to, he saw in spectacular detail: Every minute movement of her body. The time it took for her to react. The feel of her seers. Dragon’s exhaustion. His own disquiet.

  He’d fix everything. No doubt played in his expression, only the rock of his century’s-old confidence. And right now, that meant keeping her in the van, with Dragon, where he knew she’d be safe.

  Even if her mother was in the trunk of a Burner’s sedan.

  If she snuck out the back, she could steal the car, strand Billy in the wilderness, and run
away. She and her mom could go into hiding again and—

  “I’ll find you.” He didn’t say anything more. He didn’t cross his arms over his chest or flare his nostrils like he did when his arrogance surfaced. The only movements he made were to say those three words.

  He would, too. He’d find her and kiss her until she melted in his arms. And he’d never escape her snare.

  He lifted the tread of the top step and pulled out a large knife that caught the last evening rays of the sun in blinding flashes. “Stay here.”

  He was out the driver’s-side door, walking toward the car, before she could answer. The blade flipped between his hands, glinting like a strobe light.

  Rysa crawled toward the back door. She’d stay next to the van, not go near Billy, but she’d be outside if her mom called to her.

  Dragon grasped her waist. Not hard, no pressure, but he didn’t let go.

  “My mom needs me.”

  An image flowed. Dragon made real a concept. He gave it color and texture and spread it through all the parts of her brain that perceived the world: All colors at once. The sensations of skin on skin. The tactile feel of his coat. The knowledge that her details—the ones they perceived in high resolution—were the correct details for their lives.

  So do we.

  She did for them what her talisman was supposed to do for her.

  “Let go of me.” Faustus was right. They’d never fight back. The inevitable roared into the present and they’d let it steamroll right over them. All because she’d been inattentive. Impulsive. Threw caution to the wind and let two days be enough. “Please.”

  No, he signed. Please stop hurting Human.

  ***

  Billy lurched out of the driver’s door. Hair shaggier than in Minnesota, his jacket frayed and warped, the bastard looked dirty. The paint on the car’s roof melted into a welt under his palm. Less control, a stronger smell—he needed to feed.

  Mira hadn’t been enough.

  Ladon twirled the knife. “Let her out of the trunk or I pop you right here.”

  “Your woman told me to do it!” Billy threw his arms forward and pointed at his wrists. The words Rysa wrote on his hands were still visible. The lines smudged across his skin like they’d been traced again and again.

  Ladon tapped the trunk. “Let her out. Now.”

  Billy leaned through the car’s window and the trunk opened.

  Mira’s wounds hadn’t healed like Rysa’s. She lay on her side, her midriff wrapped in an old sheet. Dirty strips of fabric pasted her forearms.

  Damned Burners.

  The crack of Ladon’s punch boomed between the vehicles. Billy staggered into the road as he clicked his jaw back into place. “Stop hitting me, you goddamned brute!”

  “Run, Burner.”

  “But—”

  Ladon slammed the knife into the roof of the car. “Run so I can deal with you over there.” He pointed into the brush. “Don’t want to ruin the finish on my van. But I will. If I have to.”

  Shoulders straight, Billy pointed at Mira. “I turned the other one! Me. In Texas! She said if I told you, you wouldn’t kill me.”

  Mira moaned and touched his elbow. “He did. He was going to help me find my sister but Les Enfants found us first.” Her fingers dropped back. “Maybe she can stop Faustus. I can’t.”

  “You turned Ismene?” He scooped Mira out of the trunk as he glared at Billy. Her heart beat strong, though she moved in and out of consciousness.

  “Fates are so tasty.” Billy sniffed the air like a bloodhound. “Not as tasty as her pup smells, though.” He licked his lips again. “I can smell her on you. She’s got this sweet and sour scent—” He stepped forward, his eyes on the van. “—like her special center is just waiting for me to lick the layers away.”

  “You do not touch her!” Ladon roared. Fury threatened to submerge the world again, like it had in the river. Damned Burners. Damned Fates. Dragon’s exhaustion folded into Rysa’s pain and the temptation to punch Billy into a quivering pile of ash all but took over Ladon’s awareness.

  Billy backed against the car. “Stop yelling!” His eyes darted around and he clutched his throat. “Where’s the dino-dog? He snaps my neck and I won’t tell you anything!” Snickering, he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet.

  Mira moaned. Shifting his shoulder, Ladon positioned her against his chest and released his other arm from under her knees. He reached for the knife.

  “Hey! Leave the machete where it is!” Billy squeaked and backed away. “I remember what happened in Abilene, okay?”

  Ladon relaxed his grip on the knife’s hilt.

  “Fates captured a bunch of us. Set us loose on this compound. Good times, it was.” A dreamy look came over his face.

  Mira dropped her legs but still leaned against Ladon’s chest. Billy’s attention snapped to Mira and he pointed, his fingertip glowing. “That tight-assed brother of hers was beating senseless this pretty, dark-haired Fate. Angry, he was. She screamed and he slapped and said that if she stayed he’d kill her, even if it brought the sickness down on him and their sister.” His finger wiggled at Mira.

  So Ismene was in the compound of her own free will.

  Back straight, Billy snorted. “I’d never turned anyone before. Didn’t know how. Normals are easy, compared to Fates. Shifters always die, but a Fate, oh, if you can concentrate and know how much venom to inject and when, you can turn one.”

  “Faustus helped,” Mira moaned.

  Billy clapped. “Told me to listen and he did that thing they all do and I injected the right amount at the right time and poof!” He snapped his fingers, sending up a sick cloud of vapor. “The world’s first Burnerized Fate!”

  Nothing a Fate did was ever an accident. Faustus had used his sister as a dry run for what he planned to do to Rysa.

  A soft whimper rose from Mira as she clung to his side. Faustus destroyed his own triad because he believed it’s what fate told him to do. Crippled Mira. Murdered Ismene, if not in body, in mind.

  Billy twitched, a walking corpse like Ismene. “Can I go? I’m hungry.”

  “No more killing, you damned ghoul.” If he dropped Mira in the van, he could pop this Burner in the brush.

  Astonishment flicked across Billy’s features. “Do you think I want to?” he yelled. “Sometimes I remember who I was! My blood might pop in my head and I don’t always know what the hell is happening, but if I think real hard I remember being a person, instead of… instead of…” He twirled, his fingertips glowing. “I made women happy, you goon. Girls knew my songs! Some still do. I don’t.”

  “So? Now, you feed. Now, you explode.” Ladon pulled the knife out of the roof.

  Billy waved, a wild gyration. “One recognized me. Middle-aged, she was. Chubby around the middle. Tasty.” Billy glanced at Mira. “But I couldn’t.”

  He didn’t feed?

  “She knew me. I don’t know who I am, but she did.”

  The Burner had stopped himself. For a woman.

  The bastard was still a danger. He’d forget. They always forgot. Unless… “Billy, do you have the pen?”

  The Burner scoffed but he pulled it from his jacket’s pocket. Ladon added “No killing” to Rysa’s words.

  “Thank you.” Billy stared at the back of his hand. “Tell the princess I’m sorry for shackling her.”

  Ladon nodded at the car. “Go. Before I change my mind.”

  Billy drove away, heading south, toward town. Mira’s seer flicked like a bell chiming in thunder. “You were good to help him.”

  Ladon glanced at her closed eyes as he swung her into his arms. The present-seer of the Jani Prime, a woman more dangerous than any Burner, bent her arms around his neck.

  Relief should relax his muscles. Rysa was about to get back a parent. But his senses still piqued for war and the world jumped in high definition.

  A memory jolted: Daniel gripped his sword’s hilt, his eyes glazed by a vision: “Women will be our ruin.”
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  Not women. It had never been women with Ladon. Always one. One body against his in the darkest hour of the night. One kiss to his cheek. One place he found his center.

  Mira held as tightly to him as she could muster. In the van, Rysa stood between the seats, watching him through the windshield. Her open hand moved from her lips in a downward curve, palm up. Thank you, she signed.

  Seeing her like that, her face a sea of emotion so complex Ladon couldn’t begin to understand, Daniel’s other words emerged. Clear and crisp, Ladon heard the future-seer as if he whispered in his ear: “Your beautiful fate will find you one day.”

  His beautiful Fate. Twenty feet away, Rysa watched, blinded by misery. He’d give her what she needed to stop the pain. She was no one’s tribute. She was no one’s ruin.

  Not his. Not Dragon’s. Not the world’s.

  Not her own.

  39

  The mountains mimicked the night. Out there somewhere, behind a curtain, they blended into the dark. Rysa wanted to feel, to know the returning sun and the stillness replaced by walking and running and laughing. To know the curtain could be pulled back.

  She wanted to see Ladon’s eyes gleam again. To feel his living body against hers. To know the darkness she dropped onto his soul could be cleared away.

  He drove, slowing when the potholes became too deep, and they moved through the forest into the mountains.

  Rysa tugged Mira’s bracelet from the leather thong around her wrist. The clasp clinked against the little dragons, but she worked it around the knots without dislodging the insignia. The silver wedding band dropped onto her palm when the chain pulled free.

  “Here, Mom.” The charm draped around Mira’s wrist. The ring, she slipped onto her mother’s finger.

  Mira’s eyes opened for the first time since Ladon laid her on the blankets. She lifted her wrist. “I had a choice: Keep it so I could use my seer, or leave it, to make it harder for your cousins to find me. The little pricks did anyway.”