Flux of Skin (Fate Fire Shifter Dragon Book 2)

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  No one but Derek could be close enough to talk to her without yelling across a wide open space, which both pissed off Ladon and made him thankful. So Rysa did her best to keep her man engaged, even if they couldn’t touch.

  She missed him. A lot. Derek was great—though obviously freaked out by the changes to his body since she’d healed him at his cousin’s bar in Branson, Missouri. But he wasn’t Ladon. He was, pretty much, her brother-in-law, and he seemed to be taking his new role seriously. Derek channeled “mom” better than Rysa’s own mother.

  Right now, Ladon didn’t care where they were. If she asked him to strip naked so she could have herself a good look, he’d do it. Right here in front of the teenager staffing the drive-thru on the other side of the road and the fat housewives stuffing sleepy kids and ice cream into the backs of their minivans in front of the mall.

  Her spectacular man would stand on the heat wafting off the asphalt, in full glory for the world to envy, just because she asked.

  Ladon’s cheek twitched. “You put the insignia in your bra, over your right nipple. So it rubs like my thumb and finger.” All the lust in his voice carried through the phone.

  “Oh…” Rysa breathed. “Maybe I’ll do that. Maybe I’ll take Derek’s and put one on each nipple.” She ran her free hand over her breasts again. “But that’s not where it is.”

  The insignias weren’t her talisman, but they did carry a tiny fraction of dragon talon. They allowed her to use her Fate’s seers, at least a little bit. But losing her true talisman, Dragon’s talon, to that crazy nightmare fuel douchebag Vivicus, and not being able to touch Dragon now because she had to stay back, hobbled her future-, present-, and past-seers.

  And made them random. But she was working on that. When she wasn’t teasing Ladon or being lectured by Derek on what Shifter clan lived where, she talked on the phone with Grandpa Andreas for as long as her brain could hold focus, or used chat, listening and studying and learning how to be a good Fate.

  Even hampered, she’d tracked Vivicus and her talisman to New Mexico. Three days they’d been jaunting around the Southwest, and she hoped they might catch a lead tonight.

  Her seers were clear on one thing—catching Vivicus wasn’t going to happen. At least not now. Vivicus needed new money for new accounts, ones unnoticeable to Dmitri’s cyber-stalkers and not attached to the Seraphim, so he was looking for a buyer for her talon. She sure that Vivicus had morphed his body into a shape just as unnoticeable.

  Her seers had been clear about something else—without her talisman, she’d never get her Shifter half under control. Dragon couldn’t get close for long enough to do any good. And it turned out dragons didn’t shed talons naturally. He’d volunteered to pull out another one—to tie a rope around it and use the van to yank it out the way her dad used to pull out her loose baby teeth when she was little. He said he’d hold still, maybe stay latched onto a tree, and have Ladon gun the van.

  The look of horror on her face had been enough to make Dragon promise not to try. She couldn’t get near him to heal the wound, so she’d firmly—very firmly—said no. Absolutely, unequivocally no. And he was not to argue.

  The relief on Ladon’s face alone had been enough to stop all thoughts of de-taloning right then and there. Besides, Dragon’s missing one was still growing back, so he couldn’t lose another right now.

  Vivicus stealing the talon pissed off Ladon’s sister AnnaBelinda more than it did him. Rysa had picked up bits with her seers—guilt over what had happened in Wyoming and Branson rolled off Anna and Sister-Dragon and muddied Rysa’s present- and future-seeing. But at least Rysa knew it motivated the dragon woman to help this time, not hinder.

  When they left Branson, Rysa gave an order for AnnaBelinda to head off in a different direction, and to think very clearly about where she was going. So Anna had—and had returned to the cave to fetch the other van.

  As far as anyone could tell, Rysa’s plan had worked. No Fates had yet shown up at Dmitri’s bar, The Land of Milk and Honey. She’d had the Dracae and the Shifters send waves of confusion into what-was-is-will-be and they’d dodged a big bullet as a result.

  But the Fates who’d caught her scent were still out there, sniffing at all the possibilities and probabilities of the universe, probably biding their time, and waiting for the perfect moment to show up and cause all sorts of hell.

  Rysa rubbed her fingers over one of the insignias around her wrists as she watched Ladon peer around the parking lot yet again. The threats hanging over her head made Ladon skittish. He stressed about her safety and she didn’t like what it did to him.

  Vivicus selling her talon did matter to her. As did her overactive abilities. But what bothered Rysa the most was that she couldn’t help Ladon without her talisman.

  She was pretty sure he was still having flashbacks. It needed to stop. His well-being trumped everything else, even her seers buzzing all the time. Or her cycled-up calling scents.

  So here Rysa stood, in a mall parking lot in the middle of New Mexico, running her hands over her breasts and making her man guess where she wore the fourth insignia because it made him happy.

  And held his attention.

  “Well?” she asked. He hadn’t answered. Just stared.

  She lifted the binoculars to take a good look. He hadn’t shaved since the group left the bar. All tense and taut, he stood in front of his black van in his black t-shirt and black jeans with a three-day growth of his dark, dark hair covering both his head and his chin.

  All the teasing held Rysa’s attention, too. Another breathy “Oh…” escaped. “Hottie fiancé is hot.”

  “I cannot stand this, Rysa,” he growled. “I am buying a rebreather. A mask. Something. I will have you.”

  They’d had this conversation already. Not seeing his face during sex wasn’t happening. “Too creepy,” she said.

  Ladon sniffed. “Don’t care.”

  Oh my, she thought, her body tingling. He wanted her that much? “You are volcanic.”

  “Mine.” The look he gave her was full of contradictions. His eyes pierced, his gaze steamy and bright and dominant. But one eyebrow and the corresponding side of his mouth both pulled up into a knowing smirk, as if he understood perfectly well how much being referred to as “his” annoyed her.

  He was toying with her, teasing her as much as she teased him.

  Rysa sighed and bit her lip, happy he seemed to be dealing with the situation fairly well. When this was done, when they could be together without anyone else around, all their injuries healed and their bodies whole, he could have her as much as he wanted in as many ways as it pleased him.

  Maybe the rebreather wasn’t such a bad idea.

  Ladon walked toward her, three, four, five paces, but stopped. His face betrayed what her calling scents did to his mind—he grimaced in pain and confusion.

  Frowning, she pulled the phone from her ear. She couldn’t take this anymore, either. Three days without touching Ladon or Dragon—without stroking the beast’s snout or feeling his big head on her lap, or being close enough to pick up images from him. Three days of feeling cold because she didn’t have Ladon’s heat comforting her body, or lonely because she didn’t have his fingers dancing on her skin, were three days too many.

  They had to get her talisman back. Now.

  Ladon scratched at his perfect belly, and frowned just as much as Rysa.

  An idea bloomed. She put the phone to her ear again. Not touching him drove her crazy, so maybe she could touch something that had touched him. “How long have you been wearing your t-shirt?”

  He plucked at it, looking down, and sniffed the fabric. “Why?”

  Rysa stood up straight, smoothing her free hand over her own abdomen, mimicking what Ladon had just done. “Take it off.”

  He didn’t even blink. The shirt came up and over his head before she’d finished saying “off.”

  The binoculars returned to her eyes, even though at thirty-five feet she was still able to see
the definition of his abdomen and his chest. And those shoulders. And his arms.

  A new tingle rolled from the lowest part of her torso up through her belly and into her breasts.

  Ladon’s eyebrows arched. “You just had an orgasm, didn’t you?”

  How the hell could he tell that from over there? “Maybe.” Not like she could tell, anyway. Her good experiences were limited to the few times she’d been with Ladon, and even though they’d been brilliant and intense, they hadn’t been, well, lustful. They’d been loving. So blatant sexual need like what they were both experiencing right now was very new to her.

  Ladon glanced up at Dragon’s perch on top of the van. Rysa scowled. The beast was watching. He must have tattled.

  Ladon’s eyebrow arch turned into a full smile. “You did.” He flexed his chest muscles. “I am never letting you go, you know that? Never.” After a pause, he lifted his chin and his voice dropped deeper. “I have plans for you.”

  He’d trimmed his chest hair, and the line descending from his bellybutton into his jeans. Trimmed it to a shadow so it matched the length of the three day growth on his chin and head.

  Rysa’s mouth dropped open. “God damn,” she breathed into the phone.

  Touch! Touch! Touch! danced through her mind. Oh, to run her fingers over his muscles and lick the sunshine from his skin. She squirmed, and bounced a little, as a terrible thought ran through her mind: Don’t delay! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and when it’s gone, it’s gone!

  But she couldn’t get near him.

  “Plans that will take every morning and every evening to bring to fruition.” Ladon slowed the last three words, his voice deepening again. “And most afternoons.”

  “I want the shirt,” she blurted out. “Tell Dragon to rub it on his eye ridge so it smells like both of you then bring it over here and I’ll back away so you can set it on the hood of the car and I’m putting it on and not taking it off until this is done. I don’t care if it pisses off Derek.”

  Ladon stared, not saying anything, and held up the shirt. It vanished upward, swirling for a moment in what looked like the sky, before landing in Ladon’s hand again.

  The first step forward looked like any other first step, but not the second. A burst of speed pushed him toward her so fast she knew he’d catch her before she got away.

  But he could only hold his breath for so long. Or take her calling scents touching his skin and nose and eyes.

  Ladon was right there, right in front of her, his gorgeous chest angled just right to allow him to pull her to him and fold her into the safety of his arms. But he couldn’t, so he handed her the shirt instead.

  “Ladon,” she whispered.

  He nodded and quickly—too quickly—kissed her forehead. Then he jogged backward, away from her, his gaze still glued to hers as he exhaled the breath he held.

  She set the phone down on the roof of the sedan, and slowly stripped her t-shirt over her head. Yes, she was in a parking lot, but her present-seer whispered no one was looking except Ladon and Dragon. So she changed now, so they’d see.

  Rysa held his shirt to her face, rubbing the fabric against her cheek, wishing for the man and not the clothes. It smelled like him—sunshine and civilization. But also how he tasted—warm and masculine. And it carried Dragon’s warm spices along the front, where he’d rubbed it.

  She pulled it over her head and it fell across her breasts and over her hips and buttocks. She wasn’t a tiny woman, not like AnnaBelinda, but the shirt was big on her.

  Tonight, she’d snuggle into it as she stared at the stars, not sleeping, and holding the fabric against her skin, wishing it was his hands instead.

  The van rocked.

  Ladon glanced up and his face took on the intense stare both he and his sister displayed while listening to the dragons.

  The beast appeared, a sliver of shadow against the black van, and Rysa saw his claw-hands: Marry us, he signed in American Sign Language.

  An image followed, faint but still discernible—richly colored soft flower petals, the feel of Ladon’s hands, the patterns and vibrancy of Dragon’s hide.

  Rysa laughed, signing Yes.

  She’d marry them.

  Ladon glanced at his phone. “Derek is texting.” A pause. “He spotted something.”

  Rysa gave her Fate’s abilities a command, as Grandpa Andreas had taught her to do: Lead me to my talisman.

  Fates with the money and the power to buy her talisman would not deal directly with that psychotic bastard Vivicus. It meant he’d been looking for access. Middlemen.

  Rysa, Ladon, and Derek had been chasing him for three days, following his trail as he moved from one unwilling fence to another.

  Rysa’s future-seer gripped her senses: Soon, in the mall, there’ll be a fight. People running. Screams so loud Rysa cringed as her seer blasted them into her ears. She smelled the fake-butter tang of movie theater popcorn. Felt a sticky floor under her boots.

  Ladon and Derek were about to catch a break.

  Three breaks, actually.

  A Fate triad….

  The story continues in Fifth of Blood….

  The World of

  Fate - Fire - Shifter - Dragon

  The Fates

  (Latin: Parcae)

  Live in bonded triads often made up of family members. Fates bond on a metallic object that embodies a context for their seeing. Prime Fates command an exceptional level of power and ability.

  Past-seer: Able to read the truth of someone’s past.

  Present-seer: Able to optimize the present situation for a desired outcome.

  Future-seer: Sees the most likely future.

  The Burners

  (Latin: Ambustae)

  Crazy, smelly ghouls who eat human flesh and who often explode when their hearts stop.

  The Shifters

  (Latin: Mutatae)

  Class-one Shifters, like Prime Fates, command considerable power and ability. Shifters mostly live in clans and are often exploited by Fates.

  Morphers: Able to morph their bodies within the basic human body plan.

  Enthrallers: Able to control other people’s emotions through pheromone-like calling scents.

  Healers: Able to heal—or unheal—with a touch.

  The Dragons

  (Latin: Dracae)

  Ladon and AnnaBelinda, along with their dragons, form two human-dragon dyads. Both Ladon and AnnaBelinda are former Roman military commanders, and they are often known by their respective Roman honorifics, the Dracos and the Dracas. As brother and sister, they know each other as Brother and Sister, and as Brother-Dragon and Sister-Dragon.

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  The Worlds of

  Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Genre-bending Science Fiction about

  love, family, and dragons:

  Fate – Fire – Shifter – Dragon

  Games of Fate

  Flux of Skin

  Fifth of Blood

  Bonds Broken & Silent

  All But Human

  Men and Beasts

  The Burning World

  Smart Urban Fantasy:

  Northern Creatures

  Monster Born

  Vampire Cursed

  Elf Raised (coming soon)

  Hot Contemporary Romance:

  The Quidell Brothers

  Thomas’s Muse

  Daniel’s Fire

  Robert’s Soul

  Thomas’s Need

  Andrew’s Kiss (coming soon)

  About the Author

  As a child, Kris took down a pack of hungry wolves with only a hardcover copy of The Dragonriders of Pern an
d a sharpened toothbrush. That fateful day set her on a path traversing many storytelling worlds—dabbles in film and comic books, time as a talent agent and a textbook photo coordinator, and a foray into nonfiction. After co-authoring Mind Shapes: Understanding the Differences in Thinking and Communication, Kris returned to academia. But she craved narrative and a richly-textured world of Fates, Shifters, and Dragons—and unexpected, true love.

  Kris lives in Minnesota with her husband, two daughters, Handsome Cat, and an entire menagerie of suburban wildlife bent on destroying her house. That battered-but-true copy of Dragonriders? She found it yesterday. It’s time to pay a visit to the woodpeckers.

  Fore more information

  www.krisaustenradcliffe.com

  krisradcliffe@sixtalonsign.com