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

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Rysa spread her fingers wide. She was Fate. She was Shifter. She was as much Torres as she was Jani, and her father’s blood coursed through her veins. She could heal Dragon and strengthen his muscles. Reinforce his joints. If she fired her abilities through their connection, she could calm Ladon’s wound.

  Her nasty unfolded and revealed its true shape. Her perception grew, tripled, quadrupled, and she knew the positions of the building, herself, Dragon, Ladon. Her mom. They fell, sliding along the building’s surface, but a new heat coursed outward from Rysa’s core.

  She knew what to do and how to do it. Her body rippled up and down, becoming active. Becoming Shifter.

  Her healer augmented from a well she didn’t know she had and it touched every cell, holding down Dragon’s fatigue and the venom in Ladon’s shoulder.

  Some color returned to Ladon’s skin and he gripped Mira closer. His boots danced on the steel and glass, searching for anything to stop their fall.

  Dragon slipped and a talon separated from his foot. Pain fired like flames across gasoline and burst out of his mouth as hot tendrils.

  Rysa opened her hands against his hide. Her healer calmed his pain and dampened his leg’s raw stabbing.

  A new boom pounded up the rain-coated side of the building. Light flashed, the glass reflecting a brilliance as strong as the lightning over the city.

  Sister-Dragon climbed from below.

  Dragon grabbed for a seam but slid and lost his footing. They dropped until he dug in another talon and caught concrete. They swung back, slamming hard against the wall.

  Dragon-ribs cracked. She told his cells to stitch the bone. A gust hit and Dragon flung one leg out so as not to crush her against the glass. Rysa strengthened the ligaments in his shoulder to keep it from tearing out of its joint.

  They had dropped far enough that they were below the glass and alongside the brick façade. Dragon swung again, rotating on one hind limb, and the pavement below came into view. They faced downward—Rysa hung upside down between the beast’s chest and the hard brick.

  Her stomach flung into her throat. It took all her effort not to retch. But she had to hold it down. She needed to keep—

  Dragon skidded, the façade releasing with loud pops under his talons. Little bits of brick hit her face as they twisted on the wall. His back end slid but his front end stayed in place.

  The pavement vanished and the night came back into view, slashed by the whipping cable holding Ladon and her mother.

  They’d hit. “Ladon!”

  Sister-Dragon’s head rammed into Dragon’s side inches from where Rysa gripped his coat. They stopped suddenly, bolstered by the other dragon’s stability. Rysa gasped and both beasts released puffs of flame. Heat rolled over Rysa’s back and shoulders.

  Sister-Dragon snatched the cable. The other dragon had Ladon and her mom. She wouldn’t let them hit the ground. They bounced against the brick, their fall countered.

  Rysa touched the other dragon’s snout, all her gratitude firing to strengthen Sister-Dragon’s muscles.

  The building groaned. Dragon jerked as a swath of brick facing released. Rysa’s body cinched—they were falling again toward the pavement.

  She saw the sky above. Rain splattered against her face and she lost her hold on Dragon’s coat.

  She’d let go.

  They’d almost made it. She’d hit the ground and everything would shatter. She’d die. But Ladon and Dragon lived. And so did her mother.

  Dragon’s forelimbs wrapped around her body from behind.

  He had her. She jerked backward, against his chest.

  They rolled down his sister’s back, the two dragon’s ridges snapping against each other as Dragon flipped. Her tail snapped—he twined a forelimb in its length. The talons of his back limb caught the wall. They swung down, facing the pavement again.

  They stopped, Dragon clinging to the building, the sidewalk inches from Rysa’s nose.

  A shudder ran up her spine. They survived. Sixteen stories, and they survived.

  Hanging upside down, she saw Ladon’s feet hit the ground. He released her mom and Mira bounced with a thud against the building’s wall. Ladon rolled to a crouch, his skin deathly white. He grasped his shoulder just out of Rysa’s reach, blood oozing between his fingers.

  Dragon flipped her up and set her on her feet. Disoriented, she leaned against his neck, as much to check his wounds as to steady herself. She needed to know he wouldn’t die, right there, on the spot, from some hidden injury. He felt bruised, but alive.

  But the venom eating Ladon’s shoulder churned both her head and stomach. Blood soaked his t-shirt, his face the mask of her visions. What-is blended into what she’d seen as what-will-be and pumped through her chest, overriding any sense of reality.

  Ladon was about to turn Burner.

  AnnaBelinda smashed Mira against the wall behind Ladon. Dressed head to toe in black like Ladon, her eyes goggled, the dragon woman raised her plated glove to punch.

  “Stop!” Rysa staggered forward but Sister-Dragon’s big hind limb stepped off the building between her and her mom. “Leave her alone!”

  “Sister!” Ladon barked.

  Rysa tried to push by Sister-Dragon. “Don’t hurt her.”

  AnnaBelinda dropped her mother. She leaped the beast’s leg and wrenched Rysa’s arm. “This is your fault!”

  “Get out of my way.” Her mom was okay but she needed to get to Ladon. Too much blood flowed from the wound. She sidestepped to wind around AnnaBelinda.

  “No Fate touches my family.” AnnaBelinda flipped her onto her butt. Her foot lifted to stomp.

  Ladon groaned again, his entire body deforming. Dragon rocked back and forth, confused.

  “I am a healer!” If AnnaBelinda didn’t move, Ladon would die. “Get out of my way!”

  “Dracas!” Mira screamed. “Let her heal him!”

  “Anna.” Derek pointed at the street.

  On the center line, rain puffed off Ismene’s convulsing body in little explosions of steam.

  “This is not good.” Derek pulled a big pistol from a holster under his jacket. “This is the very definition of not good.”

  AnnaBelinda stepped back. Rysa rushed forward and pressed her palm over the blood pouring from Ladon’s shoulder.

  47

  Rysa knew every nuance, every cell and every tissue of Ladon’s body. His life, his pain, his power. And this thing scorching into his being was going to transmute him into a Ladon-shaped fiend. It’ll look like him—mostly like him—but it won’t be him. It won’t beat with the heart of a man. It’ll drone with the buzz of a Burner.

  And he’ll set fire to the planet.

  “Don’t let me turn.” A howl ripped from his throat, the pain too much. “I’ll hurt you. I’ll hurt Dragon. I’ll hurt everyone.”

  The future world gave her a vision more terrible than any she’d had yet. She saw through the eyes of a nameless victim: Ladon crouched on the rubble of a distant building. His eyes a vicious red visible to all, his will imposed on the Burner chaos, he set fire to a chunk of concrete sitting on his palm. Behind him, Dragon’s hide swirled with the flames of a demon. Ladon roared and the beast jumped over his head, his speed and strength tripled.

  Rysa gasped.

  His Progenitor blood will be a thousand times more caustic than Ismene’s. Ladon, the Ambustae-Dracae hybrid, would burn the world with an unstoppable flame.

  This new vision wove itself into the familiar. So sure of his interpretation, Faustus had caused this. He’d set into motion this one improbable future.

  But Rysa’s healer, working with her seers, knew how and where the venom changed his body, even if she couldn’t read it. Ismene’s injection invaded Ladon’s cells and altered his chemistry. It set every protein on the verge of ignition. “I can get it,” she whispered.

  A new sensation: The putrid rotting of Sister-Dragon’s blackened corpse.

  Rysa flinched but didn’t let go. She wasn’t going to let
it happen. She’d pull out the venom.

  “It’ll hurt you.” Ladon doubled forward. “Let Dragon take care of me. You can hear him. He can bond to you. You’ll both be safe.”

  “Don’t say that. You don’t know that.” She cupped his face with her free hand and made him look at her. “You can fight this! We can get it.”

  Derek watched Ismene as he uncoiled the cable from around Dragon’s legs. In the street, AnnaBelinda and Sister-Dragon circled her aunt.

  Ismene sat up and Sister-Dragon vanished. Mira backed away.

  Dragon, disoriented and swaying, stayed between them and Ismene. Rysa fired her healer through their connection and the beast calmed. He dropped his head low, nudging Derek closer to his side.

  Rysa refocused her attention onto Ladon’s shoulder. She pulled at his cells and forced the venom back toward the bite, but it danced around her efforts.

  Ladon howled again, his body stiffening. “I won’t hurt you…”

  “Then don’t. Fight with me.” Her palms over the wound warmed. “Ladon, please. We can do this together.”

  Bits of the venom crystallized and exploded below his skin. He cringed, his lips curling. “I can’t stop it.”

  The venom twisted and lurched and danced around her attempts to yank it out. She had to focus, had to—

  Dragon’s snout touched her shoulder. An image pushed into her mind—sinuous tunnels, a layered maze. She couldn’t see. “Dragon! Don’t blind me. Don’t—”

  Veins. Understanding danced through her mind, a beautiful ballerina gift from her present-seer. Dragon was giving her the structure and pattern of Ladon’s body. His arteries. The push and pull of his muscles. The windings of the injection.

  Dragon’s perception mapped. Her seers navigated. The venom snarled like a rabid animal, but it couldn’t escape their combined efforts. It tussled with her, angry and random. It exploded parts of itself in an attempt to disguise its way. She blocked it anyway, calling its bluff.

  Dragon bolstered her abilities and showed her the way. She followed his map, outflanked the venom, and stopped it cold.

  She hooked it.

  In the street, Sister-Dragon roared as AnnaBelinda knifed Ismene’s side. Ismene whipped the already imploding blade at AnnaBelinda. Sister-Dragon caught the hilt and slammed the knife into the pavement.

  The ground buckled, the shockwave rolling under Rysa and Ladon, but she held on.

  Venom pooled in the wound, as red as Ladon’s blood but phosphorescent and glowing. Rysa flattened her palm over it, drawing it out.

  AnnaBelinda hooked her legs around Ismene’s neck and flipped her to the pavement.

  Ladon clutched Rysa’s waist so tightly her ribs creaked. She couldn’t breathe, but she concentrated, ignoring her own pain, and hovered her palm over his shoulder.

  On her hand, four drops of red liquid rolled like scarlet mercury. Ladon fell back, gasping. He lived. She wasn’t going to lose him.

  A whine rose from the venom.

  “It’s imploding,” Ladon croaked.

  He grabbed for her waist again but her seers took control and she dodged, her fingers closing around the red liquid. Her palm spasmed. The venom’s power stung as if electrified barbed wire wrapped around her arm, but it didn’t feel hot. It felt ice cold, as if it sucked away all her heat.

  Dragon swiped for her, too. Her seers flared and she dodged again.

  Naked Burner venom would destroy Salt Lake City. Murder Ladon and Dragon. His sister. Smear her mother across the—

  Mira had her, one arm around her shoulders and the other plunging a knife toward her free hand.

  “Mom!” She held onto the venom. She wouldn’t let—

  The knife pricked. A weld of blood appeared on Rysa’s ring finger.

  Fate blood stabilized Burners. Calmed their chaos and gave them threads of past, present, and future. Shifter blood made them more of what they were. More volatile. More explosive.

  Rysa was both.

  The venom began to shrink into itself.

  She poked her bleeding finger into the red bead of venom. It stopped, frozen, the whine momentarily silenced. Stunned, she yanked back, but a drop of blood stayed behind. The venom lapped at it, feeding like some damned animal.

  Its color darkened. A ripple traveled across its surface.

  But the whine started again, quieter and less frantic but still piercing. Still Burner.

  Rysa knew the truth, even if she didn’t want to admit it: Chaos could not be constrained. Slowed, yes. But not controlled. If it couldn’t have Ladon, it would have her. Shifters always died. But so would the venom.

  “Not you. It can’t be you.” Ladon didn’t plead. He wouldn’t. But she saw his need—and love so deep it still surprised her, even after all they’d shared.

  If she let in the venom—if she licked it off her hand or let it in through the prick on her finger—Salt Lake City would still stand when the sun’s rays broke through the storm clouds at dawn. But her mornings vanished from the future. She’d never wake to his smile and his kisses and to him loving her with all the intensity she saw in his eyes.

  She saw Ladon and Dragon shattering. They’d become the brutal anger she’d glimpsed before and there’d be bullets. “Don’t make them kill you! Promise me. Ladon—”

  “Not you!” Ladon roared. He clutched his shoulder as he staggered to his feet. “You do not have to be Parcae! You are not bound! You’re not—” He dropped to his knees again, the pain too much.

  She reached for him but he held her at arm’s length, his muscles solid steel.

  “I will have what I want, Rysa! I will have you.” His skin blanched again—he hurt and without her, he’d also die. “You’re smart enough to fix this,” he whispered.

  Out on the street, AnnaBelinda slammed Ismene’s face into the pavement. She pulled another knife, ready to pierce the Burner’s heart. Ismene hissed, a sound very similar to the whine of the venom in Rysa’s hand.

  She looked down at it. Concentrated chaos might not be constrained, but blood-diluted chaos had been contained for twenty-three centuries.

  Inside Burners.

  “Stop!” Rysa held out the venom for Ismene to see.

  Dragon lifted his sister-human off Ismene and her aunt bolted across the street, her gaze not leaving Rysa’s hand.

  AnnaBelinda shouted and punched Dragon’s forelimb until he dropped her. He flamed, but she also ran for Rysa.

  Derek stepped in front of his wife. “Honey.”

  Ismene stopped an arm’s length away. “You’re giving it back to me?”

  Rysa called her seers. She didn’t see Ismene but she saw the one path that didn’t lead to burning. Or her own death. “You will contain it.” She stepped closer. “And you will stop killing. No more, Ismene! You’ve caused enough harm.”

  Ismene’s eyes narrowed and her back stiffened. “Why should I pay you a penance?” A finger pointed over Rysa’s shoulder, toward Ladon. Ismene’s face scrunched into a tense façade. “You forgave him.”

  Ismene was jealous. It bubbled off her with her seers. Jealous of the family the Dracae represented. Jealous Rysa had the man she loved and Ismene didn’t.

  Jealous and petty, just like a Parcae.

  “Why?” Rysa’s fist tightened around the venom. “Because you’re no better than Faustus,” she hissed. “Because I refuse to die just so you don’t have to take any responsibility.” She waved the venom at Ismene and its whine grew louder. “Figure it out! And when you do, I will forgive you, aunt.”

  Ismene pursed her lips into a defiant line. “I have no control over the Burner within me.”

  “Then you ask for help and you accept what’s given to you. But if you harm my mom, I will find you. The Dracae will be the least of your worries.”

  Mira touched her sister’s arm. “Please, Ismene.”

  Rysa opened her hand. Ismene bent forward watching both Rysa and the liquid, her head tipped at the Burner angle as she listened to it whine. She glanc
ed up, assessing Rysa. Her face changed, her eyes taking on an acceptance Rysa had never seen in a Burner before, and she licked the venom off Rysa’s hand.

  Her skin changed, calming, a cooler tone moving from her lips across her face and down her neck. The rain no longer exploded when it hit her skin. Her Burner stench diminished, its acid notes clearing.

  Her features lost some of the Burner gear-and-pulley strain, and she turned her eyes to the clouds.

  Mira touched Rysa’s arm. “I’ll take her. I’ll take Addy, too. We’ll protect her.”

  Her mom wanted to take on the task of overseeing a Burner? “Mom, the sickness. Can you do this?”

  Mira’s seer flared. “For now, yes.” She squared her shoulders and nodded at her sister. “There are other Jani triads besides the War Babies, honey. You have family. Both mine and your father’s.”

  Rysa took her mother’s elbow. “I won’t be Jani, Mom. Not after Faustus killed all those people in Chicago to get to me.” The burnmetal bracelet slid down her wrist when she held it up. “Not after everything he did. Everyone he hurt.” She nodded toward Ismene.

  “I understand.” Mira bowed her head toward AnnaBelinda. “Dracas.” Then to Ladon. “Dracos. The Jani family will no longer cause you pain. Of this we swear.”

  Ismene narrowed her eyes again. Mira’s grip on her arm tightened and she looked down at her sister’s hand before looking up at Ladon.

  She nodded once, then turned away.

  “Mira.” Ladon pulled her mother’s wedding band from his pocket.

  All this time, Rysa had been both Fate and Shifter and she never knew.

  Mira slipped on the ring. “Tell him I’m waiting.” She took Ismene’s hand.

  “Mom?”

  Mira looked back.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Ismene’s seers thundered. “If another thread had been followed, you would not have activated yourself.” She lifted her arms to the heavens. “Fate or Shifter, you are the first. The Jani Prime did find the cure.”

  48

  Her family pulled away. They’d leave her alone. Rysa didn’t foresee Ladon or his sister tolerating any more interference from Fates.