by Compulsio
Ladon knelt next to the girl. Terror still contorted her face but it didn’t hide her beauty. The lush roundness of her body and the warm glow of her skin indicated Spanish somewhere in her ancestry. The enticing tones of her thick hair suggested something else mixed in as well—maybe Irish. Yet the planes of her face seemed Germanic.
And her eyes… Did he see what he thought he’d seen in the street next to the campus parking lot? The way she’d looked at him right before she blacked out had held more openness than he’d seen from a woman in a very long time, if ever.
He sat back. The smooth curves of her breasts and hips might entice, but gaining control of the situation had to be his priority. He’d long ago had his fill of women and their demands. And their disappointed looks and their leaving. He didn’t need aggravation from one with the ability to see the past, the present, or the future.
Ladon stared out into the parking lot as he unzipped his jacket. Dragon’s nascent attachment was influencing his responses. It had to be. Fates caused more problems than they solved.
Most of the time. Except when they wanted to help.
“She can’t stay with us.” Whichever Fate ability she had—seeing the past, the present, or the future—wasn’t enough to justify keeping her around.
Ladon threw his jacket at the van wall. Giving in was not an option. Not with a Fate.
The jacket’s plating caught the back of the passenger seat. A loud rip screeched through the van as the armor opened a hole in the seat’s leather.
“Oh for the love of the gods!” First the Burners escape. Then a Fate in his van. Now damage to his seats?
The top of an empty vodka bottle poked out from under a stray t-shirt. The weight rolled around his wrist as his fingers maneuvered the glass. He threw the bottle at the rip, neck first. It hit and lodged in the frame, the body angled toward the van’s roof.
A low grumble rolled from Dragon.
Grumbling back, Ladon kicked a pile of magazines and clothes into the corner. “So what do we do with her?”
She must come with us. The beast began cleaning her wounds. He fully retracted his talons and flattened his digits, his huge claw-hands taking on an almost human-like shape. Even after all the centuries they’d shared, Ladon still didn’t understand how Dragon manipulated his bones to create such changes.
Or how he managed to do such delicate work.
The beast gently wrapped the burns in bandages and tucked the material between her skin and the cuffs. Stubborn as he was, he’d continue to minister to the girl until he felt she was safe. He’d ignore all of Ladon’s words and every pulse of annoyance he pushed to the beast. Dragon saw an injured young woman and not a Fate, and he was going to treat her as such, no matter how vigorously Ladon objected.
Ladon knelt next to her again and peered at the perfect contours of her face. She’d been unconscious for longer than she should be. Fates were supposed to activate as a bonded triad of three seers. Activating alone might have done some hidden damage. “Are you sure she’s okay?”
What were they going to do with a sick Fate?
He touched her forehead. Did the boys see her beauty? Or did they keep their distance? Most normals sidestepped around Fates, both the activated and the unactivated. They muttered words like “odd” and “untrustworthy.” Then they pointed fingers and screamed “Witch!” and burned the Fate at the stake.
The beast sniffed her hair and shoulders. I do not know. He paused. You must cut the chains.
Dragon pulled the bolt cutters from the tool storage under the floor. At thirteen feet from snout to tip-of-tail and twice Ladon’s width, Dragon was cramped. The beast’s body alone was the size of a table capable of seating six people. But the van provided room enough for him to at least turn and stretch his neck and tail.
Ladon refused to take the cutters when the beast held them out. “You do it. You’re the one fretting.”
You fret as well.
“No, I do not.” Perfect breasts under a tight t-shirt, perfect hips under tight jeans—she’d continue to be a distraction.
Not all Fates are bad. Dragon nuzzled her again. No one deserves to be locked to Burners.
Ladon’s jaw tightened. The beast was correct—not all Fates were bad. This one didn’t seem to be. Though good ones were few and far between.
And she’d never be part of a triad. Never understand the bond that came with it. And because of the burndust in the shackles, her Fate’s seer was now and forever locked to the chaos of the Burners.
He sat back on his heels. She did need their help.
Dragon nudged Ladon’s shoulder. This is not her fault.
Ladon nodded, touching the girl’s elbow. Like them, she’d been caught in this disaster. Unlike them, though, she couldn’t walk away from its consequences.
He picked up the bolt cutters to snap the links connected to the cuffs. They’d need to cut off the restraints, but if he cut the chains now she could move when she woke up. He leaned forward, the cutters ready.
Her eyes flew open.
Surprise bent him backward. Her Fate’s seer reverberated through the van, rich and oscillating and as beautiful as the moonlight color of her irises. It washed over him, warming the connection he shared with Dragon as it sensed for information about either the past, the present, or the future. Feeling a seer normally made Ladon groan and crunch his nose as if he smelled something foul. But not hers. It felt incredible.
She is not awake. Dragon poked her with his snout, first on her left cheek, then her right. She ignored him. A vision takes her.
“Uncalled?” A Fate used her ability to harness the seer inside. The seer didn’t use the Fate.
At least for every Fate he’d ever known.
Dragon grabbed for her waist but she dodged, the chains rattling. Her hand splayed on the blankets and her hips twisted. One foot planted and the other pushed.
Ladon fell flat on his back, the girl holding his arms against the floor, her chains spread over his chest. The strength of her limbs held him firm as she straddled his hips, her thighs tight around his waist.
Dragon snorted.
Shut up, Ladon pushed. Are you going to help?
Why? the beast pushed back. You do not want help. She is lovely.
The way her pelvis ground in slow waves against his shoved aside his anger and a new emotion coursed from his belly. A grin worked across his face. “Well, now.” Dragon might be right. Maybe they should keep her around. He could use some distraction.
She stared down at him, her expression open and inviting.
A lock of her hair dropped to his cheek and glided like silk over his skin. It kissed his lips when more fell across his chin, a touch more intimate than he’d felt in centuries.
Her eyes, soft yet intense, held his purpose. Her touch, gentle where she grasped his arms, made him want to weave his fingers into hers. The beat of her heart moved from her skin to his and his own pulse steadied.
He breathed in her sweet, complex scent.
“Lovely” didn’t come close to describing the woman who pinned him to the floor.
But a blankness fluctuated with her openness. Nothing and everything reverberated across her features. Ladon guessed she saw only her Fate’s seer playing through her mind’s eye.
Ladon’s grin vanished. “Pretty Fate, can you hear me?”
The story continues in Games of Fate....
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Also available from Kris Austen Radcliffe:
The Fate - Fire - Shifter - Dragon Series
Fantasy and Futur
istic Romance
Trilogy One: Activation
Games of Fate
Flux of Skin
Fifth of Blood
Short Fiction:
Prolusio
Conpulsio
Trilogy Two: Redemption
Silence Summer 2014
All But Human Coming soon
The Quidell Brothers
Contemporary Erotic Romance
Thomas’s Muse
Daniel’s Fire Coming soon
Robert’s Soul Coming soon
Coming in late 2014…
Old friends—and old enemies—return in All But Human, Fate - Fire - Shifter - Dragon book 4. Rysa works to finish college as she struggles with her ADHD, to deal with an escalating world of paranormals out for blood—and to mend Ladon’s broken soul.
All But Human launches Trilogy Two: Redemption in late 2014.
Coming this summer 2014…
Between Activation and Redemption falls a world of silence.
Silence, Fate - Fire - Shifter - Dragon book 3.5, launches this summer.
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About the Author
As a child, Kris took down a pack of hungry wolves with only a hardcover copy of The Dragonriders of Pern and 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.
