Fate's Fools Box Set

by Bell, Ophelia

  “No, just nymphaea. It takes one in the group to be the focal point, and then their minds are all linked for a time.”

  Maddie gave us all a shocked look and I bit my lip, wanting to apologize, though I wasn’t sure what for. Bodhi covered his face with his hands and shrank down into the armchair like he wished it would swallow him whole.

  Maddie cleared her throat. “I think I will leave that to you kids. Sounds a little too complicated an ordeal for a woman my age.”

  “Maddie, Llyr is older than I am,” Willem said.

  “No wonder he’s so filthy,” she muttered. “On that note, I’m going to go take a bath. I will sing whatever needs to be sung to help you guys out, and I do still have some dance moves. I may not be up for melding with you all, but I can hold my own on stage. But if it’s just backstage help you need, I’m there too.”

  “Thank you, Maddie,” I said, relieved that her reaction was so level-headed. When she disappeared into the other room, the longing look Willem gave the door wasn’t lost on me, but he turned back to us and settled on the barstool Maddie had vacated.

  “The resort has its own sound engineers on staff. We’d have to adjust a little to accommodate our own material, but the show itself is ready to go, aside from the performers.”

  “Which would be us,” I said, the idea still sinking in.

  “Yes,” he said. “If you guys want to meld to pull it off, that’s one way to do it, but I should point out that Deva’s dragon soul likely has enough power now for her to use her magic to similar effect. Only breath would need to be exchanged.”

  “You mean mind magic?” I asked, excitement flaring inside me. I’d used it on the waiter earlier, but hadn’t tried it on a larger scale yet.

  “You have Prismatic powers, Deva,” Willem said. “The ability to transmit magic to another dragon is only part of that. You can manifest the powers of any color, including a Blue.”

  “I know. I’ve just never really tried anything that complicated.”

  “Do you want to test it with us?” Rohan asked. He stood and pulled me up to face him, gazing into my eyes with wisps of golden smoke already seeping out of his mouth. My stomach fluttered as I realized what this meant. Sharing breath for the sky races was one of their most intimate gestures the same way sharing bodily fluids was for the earth races.

  “Yes,” I said. “But I think we should hold off for now. I want to see what we actually need to accomplish first. Are there videos of Aella’s concerts I can see to understand the scope?”

  Bodhi trotted to the enormous entertainment center spanning nearly an entire wall, and a moment later the big screen flared to life. He did a quick internet search and the screen filled with a brilliant light show illuminating a stage and several dancers with a band backing them up. The figure front and center was a leggy woman with a cascade of shimmering hair that appeared made of light. She wore a sequined dress that pushed creamy breasts up and hugged her curvy body, leaving almost nothing to the imagination.

  The music itself was somewhat familiar—a tune I’d heard played on the radio over the past few weeks—but I recognized the voice and style from others that Ozzie had included in the collection he’d given me a year ago.

  I studied her movements as she pivoted and swayed to her music, the pair of dancers behind her moving in perfect sync. I didn’t want to copy her style exactly, but knew we needed to put on a show every bit as eye-catching and sexy that took advantage of the venue already prepared for Aella herself.

  The band behind her was no more than what we could provide, at least. She had a drummer, keyboardist, bass guitarist, and rhythm guitar, as well as a trio of backup singers. Where we were lacking, we’d have to make up with a more showy presentation.

  Costumes I could handle with Rohan’s help, and if this breath-syncing between the group worked, I would be able to share the ideas for choreography with everyone on the fly, but I needed a little help nailing down the moves.

  “I need a dancer for this.” I turned to Bodhi, who was standing to the side with the remote control. “Can you put on Fate’s Fools? We need to find a few tracks that would translate well into this kind of show.”

  “Most are meant for smaller venues. Acoustic shows,” Ozzie said. “We never intended to play for crowds this big.”

  “Well, we’re going to tomorrow and we need to make it worth their while.”

  Before Ozzie could argue, Bodhi cranked the volume, and one of the Fate’s Fools songs I loved best drowned out any further conversation. I turned away from Rohan and reached for Llyr, who had come to stand off to one side.

  Llyr was a nymphaea, who had always been the dancers of the higher races. His affinity with water gave him a fluid grace that translated well to moving in tandem with a partner, whether it was in a dance or making love. I had never danced with him before, but his rhythm was one I was familiar with from our other intimate moments.

  My body heated as he closed the distance, took my hand, then pulled me toward the open section of floor between the living room area and the kitchen. He spun me around and swayed to the song, a slow-paced ballad about lost love. My feet easily matched his steps and we moved like that, finding our bearings together before he bent down and murmured into my ear, “This isn’t the kind of show that will drive the crowd wild, you know.”

  He turned me to face the screen. The sound had been muted, and the rhythm of the dancers didn’t match the beat of the Fate’s Fools song we danced to by any stretch. The figures on stage were twisting around together in an almost erotic display.

  The Fate’s Fools song ended and a quicker one began. Llyr moved his hands up my sides and slipped one hand around the base of my throat. My breath hitched as he tilted my head back and looked down into my eyes, his irises swirling with power.

  The magic took hold, my body surrendering to the instinctual movements that his desires dictated, and we danced. This time, I let my limbs follow his commands through our meld, my mind only a waystation for the impulses to catch hold before traveling through my body with the speed of a thought. This was his lesson to me in how to do this right, and I paid attention, despite my rising arousal.

  “Sing to us,” he murmured, and I lifted my voice with the words of the song, one of the more suggestive songs the band had ever written, its lyrics and notes dripping with desire and the promise of pleasure.

  When the song ended, the music stopped and Llyr released me, and stepped back. I glanced around in a daze at the room, and everyone else blinked back at me with awestruck expressions.

  Bodhi let out a whoop and rushed me. “Holy shit, that was amazing!” He wrapped me in his arms and spun me around. “Goddamn, it made me want you so fucking bad too,” he murmured into my ear. His mouth found mine, and we shared a heated kiss that I forced myself to break away from with a shaky laugh.

  “Was it that good?” I asked, looking around at them all. I’d been in a near trance through most of it, so all I knew was that it felt right.

  My gaze paused on Ozzie, his severe expression not quite succeeding in masking an underlying fear that shaded his aura. I couldn’t begin to make sense of his weird shifts in mood, so I dismissed it and looked to Willem instead.

  He beamed back at me. “You’ve got some moves, Blackbird,” he said.

  “I’ve already got ideas for the playlist, and if Llyr can dance with me, we can at least put something memorable together. But I think we’re forgetting one thing.” I met Willem’s gaze again.

  “We still don’t know how it will help us find Sandor,” he said.

  “You know his song, at least the melody. Are you willing to add lyrics to it? I want to fit it into the playlist somehow, perhaps at the end. I’m hoping with the music amplified, it’ll help the hounds pinpoint where he is. Maybe if it works, we’ll be able to reach him after the show is over.”

  It was probably a long shot, but I had to believe he was here somewhere.

  “I don’t know,” Willem began, but trailed
off when the bedroom door opened and Maddie came out, wrapped in a fluffy robe and humming to herself. She waved absently at us and headed toward the kitchen.

  “Don’t mind me. I saw how well-stocked this place was and thought I’d take advantage of it to cook. And Deva, it feels so strange to ask, but I could use some clean clothes if it’s no trouble. I didn’t exactly get time to pack and we haven’t stopped since we left.”

  “No trouble at all, Maddie,” I said with a smile.

  She went back to humming as she peeked into cabinets and began pulling out ingredients. The hounds hopped up and followed her into the kitchen, parking their butts at the edge of the tile floor as their heads swiveled back and forth in sync with her movements, tails swished in time to her private song. Boots remained standing and made an inquisitive warbling noise that changed pitch as he began to follow her around. It was almost as if he were singing along to the tune she hummed.

  All of us stared. Eventually Maddie froze in place, her cheeks reddening.

  “Good Lord, what the hell is wrong? Have I sprouted a second head?” She brushed tentative fingers over her close-cropped black hair.

  Willem stood up and took a few slow steps toward the kitchen, his brows drawn together. “The tune you’re humming is Sandor’s song,” he said.

  “I know. It’s the one Deva played this morning to help bring us here. It’s a beautiful tune. So light if you just change the key. If the original version was meant to lure in a woman, it’s no wonder it took so long. I even added lyrics to match.”

  She set down the bowl she was holding and closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she began to sing.

  When you were lost

  And the world was dark

  No care for the cost

  I dared to embark

  To find you, to find you . . .

  The song went on, the other hounds joining in with a strange harmony that seemed to elevate her song. Her voice filled the room and Willem sank down onto a barstool as if his legs could no longer hold him up. When she stopped singing, she gave us a bright smile and a light shrug.

  “Simple, but I think it gets the point across. He’s the love of your life. We need to find him.”

  When she took in Willem’s shocked expression, her pleased look faded. “Will, what’s wrong? Did I ruin it somehow? Oh dear god, I’m so sorry—”

  “Maddie, no,” Willem said, holding up a hand. “The song was beautiful. It was perfect. But do you have any idea what it sounds like?” He turned and looked at Ozzie. “You heard it, didn’t you? You had to. You know Sandor’s song as well as your own.”

  I looked at Ozzie and then tore my gaze away when I saw the look of absolute longing in his eyes. I was all too aware of what unrequited love felt like—a song half-finished, a mating song without a lover’s answering call. I had sung a song like that song for him, but I wasn’t so naïve to think my song had any power to inspire an answer from anyone. It still hurt.

  Ozzie cleared his throat and walked over to the bar, leaning on his hands on the edge as he looked intently at Maddie. “Maddie, what you just sang was the second half of a duet. For our kind—for me and Sandor—only our true mates know the second half of our songs.”

  Maddie’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “Oh no, it’s not . . . You can’t mean . . .” She halted and swallowed, darting a look at Willem. “It can’t be me, can it?”

  “Only Sandor would know for certain,” Willem said. “If he’d met you—”

  “He wouldn’t have known if he’d met her before,” I said. “Because Maddie is bloodline. She wasn’t linked to anyone, so it was going to be tricky to find her a soul mate as it was. But when Fate attacked me and Bodhi yesterday and we had our little negotiation, it severed Sandor’s link to his original soul mate and chose a member of the bloodline instead. It’s absolutely possible it was you.”

  “Oh, dear Lord,” Maddie said, bracing one hand on the counter and pressing the other to her forehead.

  Willem rounded the counter and hooked an arm around her before she could swoon. “If it’s Fate, there’s nothing to do but accept it. I want to believe it’s true, don’t you?”

  “Bodhi?” she called, looking like she still needed a voice of reason despite the big, solid White dragon propping her up.

  “I’m here, Mom,” he said, moving up beside me. “What exactly do we do with this information?” He glanced down at me. “If she’s the one Fate chose for him, is that a bad thing? Is there any way to get her out of it?”

  “Only Fate can make that choice,” Ozzie said. “Any turul who tries to break that link is as good as dead. But I’ve never known Fate to harm anyone who’s followed the rules, and I’ve never known anyone to be unhappy with the soul mate they wound up with. Sandor’s a good man.” He turned back to me. “And this means you need to adjust the playlist.”

  I shrugged. “It’s already done. Willem and Maddie will sing the finale. I’ll leave it up to you two to write the rest of the song.”

  33

  Ozzie

  My nerves were shot after Willem’s suggestion that Deva share breath with us to get in sync for the show. It was truly the best option, of course; I couldn’t deny it. It was a benign enough action that Maddie and Willem could be involved without scandalizing anyone—a collective satyr melding would not go over well when family members were involved, so I had no arguments that we wouldn’t be following through on that. And with Deva’s dragon magic at full power, I was confident her breath would work.

  But I’d have been more comfortable trading essence with Deva than breath.

  Sandor would have understood. I was surprised Willem didn’t catch onto my hesitance after spending a lifetime with a turul as a partner. Sharing breath was how we formalized our mated bond. I’d done everything but share breath with Deva the night I shared my soul with her. If there was any chance of Fate being lenient if he discovered my link to Deva, that would go out the window the second I actually mated her.

  Thankfully, Maddie’s offer to cook distracted everyone from the idea of testing Deva’s mind magic for a little while. We enjoyed the meal and the luxury of the resort’s nicest suite, and we all pretended to ignore the looks that Willem and Maddie kept giving each other. Whenever they spoke, desire filtered into their words like whispers meant for only their ears, but the Wind hears everything.

  Maddie was anxious, but excited about the new direction our trip had taken her. Her affection for Willem was unmistakable, but she’d been resigned to the role of friend until now. I couldn’t predict whether they’d follow through on those desires now that it was likely she was Sandor’s One—or his other One, as the case may be. Sandor and Willem had been close friends of mine for ages, so seeing the end of their search was something worth savoring, and as Willem regaled her with stories of his time with Sandor, it became more than obvious that Maddie would have no issue with a shared arrangement.

  Llyr was less enthusiastic about the discovery, his expression pinched and his demeanor jumpy. “You need to chill out,” I finally said when we were clearing dishes after eating. “You’re putting us all on edge.”

  “I’m not comfortable making a deal with that Chase creature. Whatever he is, I’m pretty sure we don’t want to get tangled up with him.”

  “Fate didn’t exactly give us many options. The hounds are our only shot at finding Sandor, and they’ve clearly led us to Chase. We just have to perform tomorrow night. Maddie’s song will reach Sandor and the hounds will be able to locate him. Then when Fate comes calling to finalize Deva’s agreement with it, we can do what we need to trick it into giving either me or Sandor a choice.”

  “Do you really think it’ll be that easy?” Llyr asked dubiously.

  I stacked the dishes in the dishwasher, but before I could start it, Llyr stopped me. With a wave of his hand, they were suddenly clean. I gave him a level stare.

  “Not that easy. I’m not a fucking fool. There’s going to be a catch of some sort, but w
e know Fate likes to twist things to its own ends. We’ll deal with whatever it is. Chase is just a means to an end. We’re doing him a favor by simply being here, and this concert is our way to finally find Sandor.”

  But despite my nonchalance about our host, when his assistant arrived a little while later, every hair on my body stood on end as if the air were charged with strange power. Deva had changed back into her preferred outfit of black leather and was out the door before I could make a game plan. I followed with Llyr reluctantly behind me, waving for the others to stay, but no one else seemed too keen to follow.

  “Is he human?” I whispered to Llyr as we trailed behind Sergio. I made sure to use a turul whisper to avoid being overheard, though I knew Deva could also pick up my words if she chose.

  “Yeah, but he’s shackled by that thing’s magic.”

  “His aura’s just as messed up too,” Deva added as she stepped into the elevator and turned to face the doors.

  “Right this way,” Sergio said, giving us a tight-lipped smile several minutes later as he opened a door at the end of a long hallway. We slipped into a well-appointed room, but something about the asymmetrical angularity of the decor put me on edge.

  “Mr. Chase will be with you shortly,” Sergio said and closed the door behind us.

  “You sure he’s not a dragon?” I whispered while we waited, neither of us venturing farther into the room.

  A voice seemed to emanate from the walls around us and my blood chilled. “Not a dragon, though if I had to choose one of the higher races to align with, I can see the allure.”

  I shook it off when the man himself appeared from a door in the far corner. The way his voice had sounded had to have been my imagination, or else the fault of some interesting acoustics.

  “What the hell are you?” Llyr demanded, his hands balling into fists at his sides. This terrified version of the satyr was certainly one I’d never expected to see.