Flux of Skin (Fate Fire Shifter Dragon Book 2)

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  “We all know who you are, Vivicus.” She wiggled her ass in the seat. The rope around her wrists felt smooth and nice too, and she wondered if he’d tied her up with some sex toy. At least he hadn’t shackled her again, like he’d threatened.

  Nor had he taken her insignia, though from the feel of how it sat on her wrist, she suspected he’d tried to untie it while she was passed out, but couldn’t.

  She smiled to herself—Ladon had found yet another way to foil the insane bastard.

  Vivicus sniffed and his shoulders jostled again. “That’s right. You do.” He jabbed his finger at her again, then fingered her talon. “Fates are nothing without their talismans. Your toy’s mine.”

  The leather under her behind was uncomfortably warm. He’d switched on the heated seats about half an hour ago, even with the AC blasting. “Could we open a window?” she asked.

  He sped south down some two lane country road, no doubt doing his damnedest to limit Ladon’s opportunities to follow.

  “Why do you want the windows open? Can’t take the heat?” Vivicus snickered.

  She didn’t answer. He’d probably stuff the pretty silk scarf in her mouth and babble on about working it out with her tongue as one of “her trials.” Or he’d simply hit her again.

  With all his power, he should have taken over the world a long time ago. He could mimic almost as well as the dragons. And he’d figured out how to copy other people’s abilities. A couple of Fate triads somewhere must keep their collective eye on the son of a bitch and take him down a notch or two when he needed it.

  Like her uncle had, twenty-one years ago.

  Other Fates, right now, would be the lesser of two evils. Maybe one or two would show up, but her seers whispered no.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked yet again. They’d been playing this game for over an hour.

  Vivicus sniffed and looked her up and down. “Abilene, Texas. You will face your final trial where your father abandoned his duties as a Seraphim. Seems poetic.”

  She hadn’t expected an actual answer. Inside, her seers told her to keep him talking.

  “But Burners destroyed it.” She batted her eyelashes again. He’d keep talking if he could gloat.

  “It’s an amazing property. One of the best I own. We worked hard, but the renovations were worth it. It’s Fate-proof now. Totally Fate-proof.” He jiggled his shoulders like some used car salesman.

  If he took her there, he might actually dissect her. Or he might give her a tour just to show off the facilities.

  “You’re a lunatic, you know that, right? Bonkers.” She probably shouldn’t tell him that to his face, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  He grinned Ladon’s handsome grin at her, but too wide and too bright. “It takes an insane person to make the best of the world.”

  Her seers whispered again. Offer the best of the world.

  “You know I can hear Sister-Dragon, too, right?” Rysa let the words flow out and didn’t censor herself at all. Two dragons were better than one. The best.

  He didn’t answer, but his grip on the steering wheel tightened.

  Rysa inched closer. “I can hear both dragons at the same time.” What the hell were her seers doing? Something bubbled up, something unfiltered, and dripped from her mouth like the best fermented wine. “You copied me. You can too,” she purred.

  “Two dragons?” He glanced over at her. “At the same time?”

  “I don’t think either Ladon or AnnaBelinda can control both dragons.” She sat back, letting the lie swirl around him, as enticing as any pheromone she could make. “I can’t. It’d take someone with a greater ability to hear than mine.” She frowned. “Because of my attention problems.”

  “You know this?” He stared out the front windshield of his gold-trimmed mammoth of a land yacht. “How?”

  “You know how. It takes effort. Understanding of the will of the universe. The fortitude to take on the challenges no one else will.” Now she sounded like God’s used appliance salesman. “Why squander an opportunity?”

  He drove in silence for a long moment, but his fingers danced on the steering wheel. Rysa breathed out ‘do it’ even though the AC blew hard on her face and it made her feel nauseous.

  “You try even once to get away, I will cut off your hands. Won’t kill you.” Vivicus sniffed again.

  After another hour or so of driving, they turned onto Interstate 70.

  Toward Branson, Missouri.

  And deep inside, Rysa felt the probabilities and possibilities of the universe shift. Derek now had a chance.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Ladon turned on his phone. The whine blossomed in his head like unfolding petals of meat and sinew. It sucked and slapped and his connection to Dragon tensed like a terrified child. He didn’t want to see what lay at the center of this flower.

  He’d driven north, back to I-80, then swung south to I-29. Six more hours and he and the beast would be in Branson, ready to channel the tension of an eighteen-hour drive into bone snaps and cracked skulls.

  The phone beeped. Several texts and five messages from Andreas and one from a number he recognized. He hit it first.

  “Ladon,” the sweet and husky voice at the other end said. “Something’s wrong.”

  Renee, one of the bartenders at The Land of Milk and Honey. They’d had their evenings. She’d always been less enamored with his Progenitor status than the other women who worked at the bar.

  “Pavlovich isn’t around. Ivan’s in charge though she’s acting weird. Why is Derek here without one of you? He gave me a note and told me to call you.” Ladon heard paper crinkling. “It says ‘I am sorry.’ What the hell does that mean?” A hush dropped over the call. “I gotta go.” A pause. “I think I’m done working around all these enthrallers.”

  The message cut off.

  Ladon looked at Andreas’s texts. “Derek” had called, telling them he was in Branson.

  Ladon threw the phone into the passenger seat and it bounced against the side panel before sliding off the front of the seat and hitting the floor with a sharp smack.

  Was it a trap? Obviously. Did it matter? No.

  A grumble rolled from the back of the van. Derek shot me.

  Derek did not shoot you, Ladon pushed back. The Seraphim shot you. Derek is not to blame.

  The grumble folded into a growl. Derek is a normal. He could not help himself.

  No, he could not. He did not understand when Dunn carried him out of Siberia in 1917. Or comprehend his gilded cage until Sister offered another path in ’45. Nor could he stop himself when a Seraphim enthraller got him in ’84, either.

  Or now. Normals had no control.

  I am hungry.

  The beast needed to eat before they ripped the heads off the people who caused this last change of events. Every last head off every last worm who’d crawled out solely to profit from Ladon’s anguish. Dragon needed his strength.

  At least drink, Human. The beast had found more water under the floor, in the bins. A bottle appeared next to Ladon’s shoulder.

  I am not thirsty. Ladon didn’t raise a hand off the steering wheel. His need to push through to the inevitable end was much stronger than his need for water.

  Dragon grumbled again before circling and returning his head to his blankets. At least no more pain spread from his haunch. The wound had healed. He could vanish.

  Rysa had done something after the beast woke, while Ladon lay naked on the floor sobbing and disoriented. She’d fixed his dragon.

  If they survived long enough, Ladon would hire a plane and fly himself and the beast to India. It might take some time, but they’d track Dunn. The Shifter Progenitor needed to know the pain her negligence had caused them and Sister. Pain that Rysa would never have a chance to heal.

  Then he’d put a spike through Dunn’s brain.

  The van’s headlights opened a tunnel into the rural Missouri night. They glared hot and bright into soggy air thick with flying creatures
.

  Ladon had walked many versions of evening—some lit as bright as a cloudy day by both moon and stars. Some as dark as the deep recesses of the cave. Many filled with blowing dust, and some with the stripping sting of whipping snow. A few times, cyclones of sand.

  But he hated insects more than anything else. Insects meant bogs and bogs meant men with attitudes as thick and sucking as the ground under his feet.

  Though in this modern world, the normals had paved over all the bogs.

  Still, he did not like Missouri.

  After crossing over from Nebraska, he’d listened to Andreas’s messages. His Second had managed to constrain Sister and they waited a few miles north of The Land of Milk and Honey with her dragon ripping down trees and wailing like a banshee on the moors.

  So much for the element of surprise.

  Ladon pulled the van around, lights still on high beam, and pinioned his Second in the glare. Andreas paced, one hand shielding his eyes and a pistol in the other. He walked quickly toward the driver’s side door as soon as Ladon stopped the vehicle.

  He tapped the glass. Ladon lowered the window.

  “Why didn’t you return my calls? Is Rysa with—” He rubbed his own bare scalp when he saw Ladon’s. “What happened?”

  Ladon didn’t answer. Dragon popped the rear door and rolled out. His sister pranced in the trees, behind Andreas’s SUV, out of sight but not out of mind. She hissed at both Ladon and the beast.

  Vivicus took her, the beast signed. Vivicus hit her.

  “Damn it!” Andreas picked a stone and whipped it into the trees, at the other dragon. “How does this help you?” he yelled.

  Andreas stepped back from the door. “Get out, Ladon-Human. We have work to do and your balance is gone.” He rubbed his scalp and pointed at Ladon’s head. “You need ‘calm.’”

  “If you enthrall me, Andreas Sisto, son of Idunn, I will pull your breastbone from your chest with my bare hand.” He’d been gripping the steering wheel too tightly again. It stayed deformed when he lifted his hands away. He’d need to be careful with his weapons. Too strong a grip disturbed his throws.

  Ladon killed the van’s lights.

  Andreas stood his ground. The dark turned him into nothing but a giant mound of shadow, but Ladon saw the other man’s chin thrust out anyway. “I still walk this Earth, my legatus, as do you. I still take my vows to the Legio seriously. My duty is to protect the dragons and their godlings.”

  Andreas’s mother had given him his task one night on the edge of their Legio encampment, on the fringes of the Empire. Ladon remembered the Shifter Progenitor’s constricted face as she stood swathed in silks and draped in precious metals. She’d not yet taken the name Idunn, but all the Shifters under his command knew who she was. And they all knew the boy whose hand she gripped was not like them. She’d birthed a new breed of Shifter, and he was the first.

  He’d been small, then, and darker than any of the men on the northern fringes. He was the son of a Carthaginian, a warrior and a pirate, and a man of great naval skill. Andreas inherited his father’s brilliant ability to navigate all waves, and all storms.

  Dunn had pointed at Ladon, then bent to her son, whispering in his ear. The boy had looked up, nodding once, as if he understood better than a child should. And at that moment, the greatest warrior of the Legio Draconis took his first vow.

  Andreas would hold the world together, when this was done. He’d keep Sister from falling into the same sullen pits as Ladon.

  Ladon had danced on this ledge before. He knew it well. His boots knew the crags and his body the leans and stretches to keep his balance. For Ladon, dealing death was not an unfamiliar path.

  So Ladon did not need Andreas’s enthralling. He did not need ‘calm.’

  “She lives, Ladon-Human. Rysa will not die, by this I swear.” Andreas all but whispered his words. “She is a Prime Fate. The Draki Prime. She may not have had a chance to tell you what you needed to know before these circumstances fell on her, but trust in her abilities.”

  Ladon wished he could. But she was untrained and likely overwhelmed. Untrained because he hadn’t done his job.

  The van’s door swung out and Ladon dropped his boots to the spongy Missouri ground before the hinges swung back. This place soaked up more than water. It marinated in the past fifty years of Ladon’s life—the conflicts surrounding Derek, and Dmitri’s damned political posturing, all punctuated by the occasional call to pop a Burner. All the vodka. All the forgettable, unending sprawl of a life with no real reason or goal.

  And here he was, his feet once again in full contact with this dirt, with Andreas daring to tell him to have hope?

  His Second watched Dragon rock side-to-side. “I am having… difficulty holding the Dracas. They wish to rip Pavlovich’s bar to kindling.” He shook his head.

  To get in and out without risking Derek’s life, they needed a Fate. Most of Andreas’s voice messages had been explicit.

  They no longer had a Fate. Ladon no longer had his reason or his goal.

  Andreas clasped Ladon’s shoulder. “If I can get to one of the higher ranking Seraphim, I can compel him to tell us where she is.”

  Yes, Dragon pushed. Tell Andreas I will hunt and bring him the freshest kills. A Seraphim will talk. The beast dug his talons into the dirt. Then Andreas is to make Rysa forget what they do to her now.

  He and the beast had not discussed the what-ifs. There was no point. Yet a low growl rolled from Ladon, issuing from below his throat, but above his heart—from just above his point of rumbling.

  Andreas stepped back this time. “Your sister does the same.” He glanced into the woods. “She did the same when she lost her daughter.” He clasped Ladon’s shoulder again. “Listen to me, my friend. Let me help you. I’ve been…” He paused, his face and shoulders tightening enough Ladon saw it, even in the gloom. “…using my calling scents on the Dracas without their permission. I felt it the best idea, until you arrived.”

  Andreas did not enthrall the dragons without permission.

  “Are you asking forgiveness?” Ladon snarled. He pushed his friend away.

  But Sister-Dragon had forced herself into Dragon’s mind and caused the sacrifice of Ladon’s woman. She deserved much worse than Andreas’s attempts to keep her calm.

  Ladon had been focused on the Seraphim these past sixteen hours. The drive had honed his fury into something solid and unbending, a new glass floor on which he walked. It extended into walls around him, but he did not care to break them. They acted as lenses—spyglasses giving him a brilliant and unwavering clarity of vision.

  Ladon’s fury set his mind into a perception not unlike the dragon perceiving he’d experienced at the hospital. But this was all him, and his mind processed it with every ounce of speed and agility with which it processed everything else.

  “Maybe.” The vulnerability in Andreas’s answer surprised Ladon. “I will break promises, if the breaking of that promise guarantees the integrity of a greater promise.”

  Ladon’s hand shot out faster than Andreas could counter. He gripped the larger man’s throat, his fingers over the veins that would drop even this giant into unconsciousness if pressed. “You do not have permission to enthrall me. Break that promise if you will, but I will counter.” He let go and stepped back.

  Andreas rubbed his neck and did not respond.

  “The dragons wish to maul.” Ladon nodded toward the glimmer moving toward them in the woods.

  He did not care to plan. The bar teemed with enthrallers and morphers, and a wall of normals who would only get in the way. Walking in the front door and directly up to the Seraphim holding Derek’s leash would save Ladon from subterfuge. He had no stomach for a siege.

  Sister-Dragon’s glimmer vanished.

  Andreas point into the trees. “Ladon, she is not in her right—”

  The beast landed on Ladon. Her forelimbs pushed him to the ground as a flame curled from her mouth. Your Fate did this, she pushed, more a vi
olent writhing structure of concept than words.

  Ladon’s body reacted, his mind taking the thing the other dragon had forced into his brain and turning it into its own violent writhing action. He punched Sister-Dragon’s snout, a straight on jab with all the power his upper body held.

  She howled, rearing up over him, an angry disciplined puppy ready to snip. Except dragon snips did more than break skin.

  Ladon rolled. Her forelimb came down hard where his head had been.

  A blinding flash burst through the small clearing, illuminating the van, the SUV, Andreas, and Ladon’s sister’s small frame as she ran from the trees. Ladon jumped to a squat, ready to punch again, but Dragon landed on his sister’s back. His great mouth clamped onto her neck ridges.

  The combined push of dragon roar filled Ladon’s head and he cringed, his own roar ripping from his throat. “My Fate did not do this!” he bellowed. “She is a woman and her name is Rysa!”

  Dragon rolled with his sister, and dropped his left-side limbs to the ground. You woke me early. You let in Vivicus! He set his muscles, his neck pulling back.

  Sister-Dragon flew across the clearing and straight into Andreas’s SUV. The vehicle skidded to the side.

  “Damn it!” Andreas yelled. “No more!” The clearing filled with ‘comply’ and ‘calm.’

  Ladon roared again. A rock found his fingers. A smooth rock, one good for smashing heads, and he lifted it off the ground.

  No one enthralled him. No one.

  Sister landed on his chest, silent as a cat, claws out like a cat, but she didn’t slash. She punched.

  “Do not lay hands on my Dragon, Brother!” she spit.

  “Control your beast!” he spit back. “She did this. Since when have you been so weak-willed as to let her cause this much harm?”

  Sister balked. “Since when have you thought of Brother-Dragon as someone to control?”

  It wasn’t about control. This was about balance. “He listens to me!”