Fate's Fools Box Set

by Bell, Ophelia

  For a moment I wavered, disoriented from the cold, tingly invasion of my physical space. My vision cleared just as the man toppled over, eyes wide and his arms raised as though he could see the thing that had just sunk its teeth into the center of his abdomen.

  He roared, and if I hadn’t seen his dragon nature in his aura, that sound would have given him away. A billowing torrent of flames erupted from his mouth and nose, aimed at the beast on his chest and licking beyond it to encompass me as well.

  I yelped, instinctively raising my hands to protect my face, even though my conjured clothing was dissolving in dragon flames around me. The hound howled and fled, charging through my flame-covered legs and back the way it had come.

  From the other side of the store came an unholy ruckus that mirrored what had just happened in front of me. The smaller and darker of the two men behind the counter released several bolts of lightning from his fingertips. A second hound released his friend, retreating after the first.

  The scruffy ursa who’d also been manning the counter ran to the dragon’s side.

  “Rohan! What the fuck just happened?” He shot a menacing look at me. “What did you do to him?”

  Rohan wasn’t answering. He lay there, his guitar smoking from where his fire had singed it.

  “Gaia’s tears, Rohan!” The ursa crouched over his friend, shaking him by the shoulders, then darted a wild look around the store. “For fuck’s sakes, will someone tell me what just happened?”

  “I . . . I think I can explain,” I stammered, my gut wrenching. They shouldn’t have come, not in daylight, and they hadn’t attacked any of the higher races before, either. Their previous behavior pointed to them being after the bloodline.

  I fucking hoped I could explain. Reckless—I’d been reckless testing out such a powerful instrument, knowing music could affect them. When they’d appeared outside the window, the yellow blaze on the hound’s face had caught my eye just before it launched itself the rest of the way across the store. Its pale-pawed companion had followed suit on the opposite side, and now they’d claimed two more victims.

  I couldn’t let myself think about the fact that Bodhi and his mother had hopefully been unlinked from the hounds, now that they’d chosen new victims. I shifted my vision to see the core of power in the center of Rohan’s chest and a hot lump formed in my throat. Four large puncture wounds marred the surface of his soul, red-gold power seeping from it like molten metal.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I came here to fix it. I promise.”

  The big, white-haired dragon who ran the store lay slumped against the wall behind the counter, unconscious. The turul stood and came over, regarding me with a dark look.

  “I’ll close up. Keagan, you get Ro upstairs and find the girl some clothes. I’ll be up with Willem in a few and we’ll sort this out.”

  Silently, Keagan obeyed, hoisting Rohan up and draping him over his shoulders as though he were a sack of grain. With barely a glance back at me, he turned and headed to the back of the store, through a heavy steel door, and up a concrete stairwell.

  My gut was an icy tangle of dread and confusion as I followed, eyes burning from the tears that threatened to fall. None of this made sense. Bodhi’s grandmother said the music was the only thing that helped. He had to have been playing for her before I got there, and yet the hounds hadn’t attacked them again. And now . . . they’d followed me out in daylight? And attacked two dragons?

  As much as I hated the idea of reaching out to my family for help, now that things were progressing, I was starting to wonder if I was in over my head. I had no useful powers—nothing like the fire Rohan had just breathed or the lightning the turul man had shot from his fingertips, both of which had clearly sent the hounds running. My ears still rang with their yelps of pain.

  We reached a landing and another metal door. The ursa opened it and then stared at it, glancing between the opening and the huge mass of unconscious dragon flesh slung over his shoulders.

  “Let me help,” I said.

  Blinking to clear my vision, I climbed the last couple steps and stepped in front of him, my face warming at the awareness of how very naked I was. The apparently fire-resistant guitar was the only thing I still wore. Its strap just barely obscured one of my nipples, my hair draping over the other breast, and from the ursa’s height, the body of the instrument probably blocked my hips, but the dragon’s fire had succeeded in pretty much dissolving every stitch of conjured clothing I wore.

  I pushed into the room and held the door open from the inside, shielding myself with the guitar to protect what little dignity I had left. I half-heartedly tried conjuring a new outfit, but could tell my well was completely dry. It was as though the hound’s passage through me had sapped every last drop of power I had.

  The ursa turned sideways and bent his knees, his brows knitted with worry and concentration as he maneuvered the dragon’s big body through the door. His golden curls came first, head lolling dangerously close to the jamb. I pressed back against the door and reached out, covering his head with my hand as he passed through to keep him from knocking into it. His hair was soft as silk and my heart fluttered at the memory of his sweet, rough voice joining mine in the duet.

  I knew dragons could sing. My stepmother Belah regularly sang with a band, and occasionally she and her two turul mates would grace me with their music and we’d sing together. Her voice was a rich alto that complemented the saxophones my stepfathers played. My dad—Belah’s first love, but her third mate—didn’t seem to have any musical inclination whatsoever, but adored the three of them and never missed a session when we sang together.

  This dragon had a voice like honey. It had evoked an immeasurable joy in me just to have him share that moment, for all the damage it had done him in the end.

  The ursa twisted to lay him down and I let the door swing shut, jogging across the big living space to help. The guitar knocked against my elbow and I stopped to deposit it on the coffee table. I was dealing with one unconscious man and another who seemed more concerned about his friend than about the naked girl beside him. My abundance of exposed skin could take a backseat to the drama for now.

  I reached the sofa in time to help the ursa lower his friend to the cushions and had a pillow ready to support his head. The pair of us remained kneeling beside him in silence for a moment, and the worry and tension in the ursa’s aura flared and pulsed intensely enough for the small hairs on my arms to stand on end. I frowned as it occurred to me that their relationship might be deeper than mere friendship, but the dragon’s song had been one of the more intimate interactions I’d had with a man—more so than the duet I’d sang with Bodhi the night before.

  That wasn’t something I needed to sort out now, though—not when I had another comatose victim of a creature I still wasn’t equipped to understand.

  “Is he going to die?” the ursa asked, gruff voice cracking with emotion.

  I winced, then cautiously answered. “Not if I can help it.”

  Magic bled from the punctures in his soul, evaporating into mist and floating away in the direction the hounds had gone. I pressed a hand to the center of his chest as though I could somehow stanch the flow, but it only passed through my flesh, a barely perceptible warmth carrying pieces of his life away with it.

  “Who the fuck are you?” the ursa asked, finally turning to look at me.

  His sand-brown eyes flashed with accusation as I opened my mouth to answer. I was interrupted by the door banging open as the turul entered, pushing through with somewhat less grace than the ursa, the big white dragon draped over his shoulders. He stomped wordlessly into another room, grunting as he deposited his friend onto what sounded like a bed.

  The ursa and I both stood. Sunlight washed across my naked skin from the big windows and I stooped again, grabbing a blanket from the sofa and wrapping it around me.

  The turul slipped back into the room, his gaze dark and sparking with telltale wind magic t
hat he thankfully kept in check. An emotional turul could causes hurricanes if he were powerful enough and lacked self-control. He glanced at the guitar on the coffee table, then looked at me again.

  “You aren’t turul, yet you played her like she was meant for you. Who the fuck are you?”

  I blinked, then glanced between the unconscious dragon on the sofa and the room he’d just come out of, mouth open to ask why he cared about the damn guitar and not his friends. He cut me off with a swipe of his hand through the air, his fingers awash in silver electricity.

  “Something about how you played that guitar triggered its magic. It’s meant to call fate hounds, but there hasn’t been a turul powerful enough to actually do that yet.”

  My eyes widened. “Fate hounds . . . is that what they are? You can see them?”

  He sighed and shook his head, then walked over and slumped into an oversized armchair. “No, but I felt their power, and when Willem was attacked, I saw its shadow. They aren’t supposed to behave that way . . . they don’t bite, at least not as far as I know.”

  I perched at the edge of another chair, carefully clutching the blanket around my chest. “I’m sorry about what happened . . . they respond to my singing in a weird way, but I didn’t think they would come out during the day. I guess now I know why that happened.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me and I sighed, realizing I needed to elaborate. “I’ve been watching them since the Equinox. They attack members of the bloodline. Sometimes their wounds are fatal, or they just fall into comas. I haven’t been present when any have actually died. I don’t understand why they would attack dragons, though. The bloodline is human. Well, except for their link to Dion.”

  “Most dragons have a human parent,” the turul said softly, shooting a worried look at the unconscious dragon on the sofa.

  “Dion . . .” the ursa said thoughtfully. “You mean Dionysus, the actual god? Were you there when he sacrificed his power to kill the Lamia? Are you—do you work for the Quorum?”

  I chewed on my lip, trying to decide how to begin explaining exactly how I fit into everything. The turul sat forward with his elbows on his knees and saved me the trouble.

  “I think you’d better start with your name,” he said. “I’m Sandor Sirocco. This is Keagan Sundance, and our unconscious friend here is Rohan Tanan. Willem’s the big guy in the bedroom.”

  I took a deep breath, shooting a glance at Keagan, whose face was pinched with worry I ached to ease. He slipped down onto the floor beside the sofa, angled toward Rohan’s head with one hand resting on his friend’s chest. Could he sense the damage to Rohan’s soul?

  “My name is Deva Rainsong. I’m not exactly working for the Quorum. They don’t know where I am, which they probably aren’t too happy about.” I shook my head, cringing inwardly at how pissed my parents probably were.

  “But you’re somehow involved with them and the bloodline, I take it,” Sandor said.

  “The Quorum are my family,” I answered, lifting one shoulder. “I helped deliver the message to the bloodline on the Equinox.”

  That was the understatement of the year, but I wasn’t ready to divulge my full significance until I knew where I stood with these guys. The last thing I wanted was the Quorum—in other words, my parents—descending on me and hauling me back to one of the four sacred realms we called home. I had to figure out what was going on with these beasts, these fate hounds, and why they behaved the way they did around me.

  “You aren’t an ursa,” Keagan snapped. “Why the hell is your name Rainsong?”

  My skin prickled at his bitter tone. The hand he had rested on Rohan’s chest was now clenched into a fist. The dragon’s energy gradually seeping out beneath it reminded me that we really didn’t have time to just sit around chatting, and it was too much effort to try to come up with adequate lies or half-truths that would satisfy Sandor’s turul lie detector.

  “The Summer Shaman is my mother,” I said. “Or one of them, anyway. She’s how I got my name. The rest really isn’t that important. All you need to know is that on the Equinox, I sensed something attacking the bloodline. I was in the Haven at the time and drifted directly to the nearest victims, both of whom happened to be admitted to a hospital in town. I’ve been watching them ever since, but today’s the first day something new has happened. I believe I can help heal your friends, if you let me.”

  “So you know why the fate hounds bit these guys?” Sandor asked. “You know how to wake them up?”

  “Why they bite, I don’t know. I believed it was just what they did . . . feeding on their spirits. But I do know how to wake them up. Music—at least music with some turul power backing it up—seems to strengthen the victims’ auras enough to slow the soul bleed. I’m not sure how to heal the bites completely, though.”

  Keagan jumped up and grabbed the guitar, shoving it at me. “Do it. Wake him up. Now!”

  Openmouthed, I took the instrument. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to use this again if it’s what summoned them.”

  “Will singing work by itself?” Sandor asked.

  “Coming from you, it should. Better than me, probably.”

  Sandor lifted an eyebrow. “Whatever the hell you are, you’re a modest one. I may have designed that instrument, but my power’s never been strong enough to play it to that effect. Yours is. Only a turul soul with the pure strength of one of the Winds could make Agnes sing the way you did.”

  I shook my head. “Then it couldn’t have been the guitar that attracted the hounds. Maybe it was something else about me. They probably tracked me from the hospital.”

  He gave me a dubious look. “What makes you so sure it wasn’t you? With a voice like that, you absolutely have turul blood.”

  “I do. I have North blood, in fact. But what I don’t have is a turul soul. I don’t even have a soul.” My shoulders slumped and I hugged the guitar gently, taking comfort in its familiar heft.

  “I find that hard to believe,” Sandor said. “But if my singing will help, we’d better do that. You two join me, but yeah . . . better not test Fate again by playing Agnes.”

  He reached to the side of the chair and produced another guitar that had been hiding in the shadows. After only a few notes, I recognized another song from one of the many tunes I’d heard on the radio over the past few weeks.

  The very moment our three voices mingled, Rohan’s aura brightened and his complexion warmed. His shallow breathing gave way to a single big exhale.

  Keagan’s voice broke and he fell to his knees again. “Rohan, are you all right?”

  Sandor kept singing, but stood and moved back around the chair toward the bedroom, strumming his guitar as he went. When his playing halted I knew Willem must have roused as well.

  I kept going, not wanting to chance them falling unconscious again until they regained their wills a bit. After seeing how Susannah had managed to remain conscious even with the weaker power of her daughter and grandson’s music, I hoped that would be enough to at least allow Rohan and Willem to remain awake.

  Rohan’s eyelids finally lifted, revealing shining golden irises. He glanced at Keagan for only the briefest second before craning his head toward my singing. With his gaze fixed on me, he sat up and smiled.

  My breath caught, the song cut short. I could only stare at him as my adrenaline spiked, at first from the most acute arousal I’d felt in weeks, then from the terrifying knowledge that I’d fucking done it again: I’d fallen for a man in the span of a song.

  At least Rohan’s soul had brightened to a healthy orange glow despite the open wound. His aura glimmered stronger now, thanks to the singing.

  A faint, curious warbling hit my ears and I stiffened, skin erupting in goosebumps at the awareness of a new presence in the room. Rohan’s bleeding soul pulsed and he let out a gasp, clutching at his chest.

  Stealing a glance down at my side, I shook my head in denial. “No, please go away and leave us alone,” I whispered. “Stop hurting them, please!”<
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  The hound craned its neck and pushed its blaze-adorned snout into my hand, then padded over to Rohan and pushed its nose into his chest. With its tail a fan of shadowy wisps wagging in the air, it looked back at me and warbled again, looking proud of itself.

  I had the strangest impression that it believed I somehow wanted Rohan’s soul juice. But I didn’t; all I wanted was for them to go away and stop hurting people.

  Sandor had said the guitar I held was made for summoning these things. If that was true, then maybe I could use it to make them leave too.

  Retrieving the guitar and standing, I began to strum one of the more powerful songs I’d learned recently, and with deliberate intent, sang straight at the beast.

  Around the part where the song demands of some unwanted lover that they walk out the door, the hound whined and astounded me by actually hopping up and trotting away with its tail between its legs.

  The guitar continued to vibrate with odd power after I stopped playing, and when I looked up, all four men were staring at me.

  “ ‘ I Will Survive’?” Willem said, then chuckled. “I’ll have to remember that one.”

  “What just happened?” Rohan asked.

  “It came back, didn’t it?” Sandor gently extracted the guitar from me as I slumped back down in the chair, burying my face in my hands.

  I nodded. “I don’t understand what it wants . . . what they want.”

  A warm palm gripped my shoulder, sending a jolt of heat through my body. Without looking, I knew it was Rohan.

  “Why don’t you tell us what you saw, and we’ll help you figure it out? Was it the thing that attacked me? For a second there, I felt like something was trying to pull my testicles out through my belly button. Not a pleasant sensation, so I’d love to get to the bottom of it too.”

  Even though I knew simply looking at him was risky as hell, I couldn’t help it. His warmth and humor drew me in, making me acutely aware of how damn lonely I’d been for three weeks. But there was no denying that I’d managed to unlock something between us with the song we’d sang together, and that something was mutual.