Fate's Fools Box Set

by Bell, Ophelia

  19

  Deva

  The wind caught the back door the second Llyr opened it, yanking it out of his hand and slamming it against the wall. Rain and leaves and sand pelted the metal and tore through my hair, leaving me gasping for breath and momentarily blinded.

  Rohan and Bodhi closed in on either side of me, Keagan’s bigger frame close to my back as we pushed out into the parking lot. I glanced up at the roiling black clouds, the lights over the parking lot flickering ominously.

  Nadia huddled close to Neal, who seemed to be having second thoughts about letting her join us. He turned and placed both hands on her shoulders and bent down, his face close to hers.

  “Go back inside. It’s not safe!” he yelled, his voice barely audible.

  Nadia shook her head and grabbed his cheeks, kissing him soundly in response. He stumbled back as if her touch were stronger than the wind itself, but he didn’t push again. He took her hand, kissed it, then moved to Llyr’s side. Keagan hooked Nadia around the waist and pulled her close to our group, and the guys closed ranks once more.

  “I’ll shift if needed to protect her,” Rohan said, his voice clearer in my mind than if he’d tried to speak.

  “It’s a bad idea in this wind—a recipe for broken wings, and you know it.”

  I reached for the power within me, recalling the dome I’d created to protect me and Bodhi from the hounds after our accident. I’d draw on it if needed, but hopefully Llyr and Neal could get through to the Winds and I wouldn’t have to. We just needed to have a single conversation, get them to listen, and then they could go back to whatever ridiculous fight they were having . . . if that was indeed all this was.

  There was no escaping the wind, and it took all our effort to push even a few feet into it across the parking lot. A hideous roar tore through the air and I blinked up into the darkness, sure my eyes were playing tricks on me. I could have sworn I’d seen an actual figure fly overhead. A telephone pole a few hundred yards away splintered, the top breaking off and toppling over, suspended from the ground by its wires.

  We kept moving forward until we came around the corner of the building within sight of the nearby marina. The docked boats bobbed on the violently surging water, looking like nothing more than enormous toys in some cosmic bathtub. I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone told me Chaos really was the cause of this storm and I’d done something to piss him off, but I hadn’t pegged him as the vindictive type. Impulsive, yes. But not violent.

  Besides, now that I was out in the storm, I was positive Callie had been right. This was Wind magic, and someone was definitely pissed the fuck off.

  Something hurtled out of the air and we stepped back just in time for it to crash into the pavement in front of us, leaving a crater the size of our tour bus. Lightning crackled around the edges of the crater, and a second later a naked man with long, pale hair whipping around his head lurched out of the rubble and shot straight into the sky, leaving a trail of lightning in his wake. His arms transformed into enormous wings as he rose, flinging an unholy yell and a string of curses. Flaring threads of electricity covered his skin.

  A deafening crack of thunder sounded overhead and I ducked reflexively. I clung to Bodhi and Rohan, stomach lurching as Neal and Llyr joined hands and stepped forward to the edge of the pit the man had just flown out of. Remnants of the Wind’s electricity raced across the ground, tangling in a web over their feet and causing their silhouettes to glow.

  Every hair on my body stood on end when the pair pulled the magic to them. It raced across my skin on its way, stronger than the ambient magic in the air when we’d exited the building, and I realized what Callie meant about it being safer on the ground. The Winds were fighting above us in the sky, not down here, and while I could sense their magic, I wasn’t close enough for it to affect me directly. It still made me ache for the magic I’d lost, and Rohan wrapped his arm around me, pressing a comforting kiss to my temple.

  In a voice as resonant and powerful as the wind itself, Llyr said, “We call you to us, powers of the air! Boreas, Notos, Eurus, Zephyrus! Hear our plea! Answer our call!”

  The wind howled around us, not abating one bit, and another body was flung into a boat out on the water, crashing through its roof and leaving a dent the size of a boulder before more crackling electricity shot out of it. A dark-haired figure stood up for a second, shook out his wings, then shot back into the air.

  Llyr repeated his chant again, receiving no response save for more howling wind from above and a crack of thunder.

  Still carrying the magic he’d summoned, Llyr yelled, “This is bullshit! Will you fuckers listen to me for five goddamned minutes?” He turned to Neal. “Stay with them!” he commanded, then turned to the water and broke into a run.

  “No!” I cried, starting to run after him, but two sets of hands held me back. My heart lurched into my throat as Llyr launched himself into the sky, transforming into an enormous bird that was immediately swallowed up by the night.

  The world spun. I couldn’t lose him too. Not after losing Ozzie only two weeks ago.

  I fought against Rohan and Keagan’s grip, struggling to push forward. Neal closed in and pushed me back. “It’s too late,” he said, his turul voice the only thing audible over the wind.

  I closed my eyes and reached out with my mind through my meld with Llyr, seeking any sign that he’d survived that flight into the storm. I couldn’t even hear him now over the roar of the winds, the chilly rain pelting me from all sides despite the wall of flesh surrounding me.

  I reached for a hand and found Nadia’s fingers. She squeezed reassuringly, turning her head where it rested against Neal’s chest, her eyes meeting mine. She looked as worried as I felt, but her soul burned bright, tendrils of it already reaching out toward Neal’s soul. Tentatively, their spirits caressed one another.

  My link with Llyr was stronger than that, despite not having a piece of his soul yet. I wouldn’t believe he’d been killed carrying out this crazy stunt to help me. And if he was, the Winds would have a serious fucking problem on their hands.

  Lightning flashed overhead, lighting up the sky enough for me to catch a glimpse of three distinct figures locked in combat, flinging power at each other with their fists. A fourth figure rotated around them, agitated, but not interfering.

  And then I saw Llyr, his enormous bird shape silhouetted against the lightning, fighting the wind to reach the conflict. But for what? These assholes were clearly too wrapped up in their own drama to care about ours.

  With all my energy, I reached through our meld to call him back. It wasn’t worth the risk for him to try this. But he denied me, his own desperation to find Ozzie hitting me like a punch to the gut. I’d never asked him how he felt about Ozzie—it had never occurred to me that he might want to find him for his own reasons and not just to help me. But there it was . . . their blood-meld was superficial to the deeper bond the pair had formed, blazing hot in Llyr’s mind. It wasn’t a soul mate bond, but it wasn’t far off from one, either, and the realization startled me so much I lost sight of him.

  Another figure came hurtling out of the air above the roof of the club a moment later, crashing down with nothing more than a dull thud. No lightning flashed this time, and a naked man didn’t charge back up to the sky. My heart plummeted and I cried out in alarm, shifting before I could consider the dangers of trying to fly in this mess.

  Keagan’s and Bodhi’s objections were barely loud enough to hear, but I ignored them anyway, launching into the air and kicking off Keagan’s grip around my ankle. Rohan roared and was beside me in the next instant, his enormous golden wings snapping loudly in the wind.

  We didn’t have far to go, but it was an ordeal nonetheless. The winds were so strong they tossed me several yards wide of the edge of the rooftop, forcing me to circle around and pull in my wings to fall gracelessly toward the surface. At the last second, I lashed out with my talons to grab the very edge of the bricks to keep from falling back to
the pavement.

  Shedding my dragon shape, I ignored the sharp pebbles that covered the rooftop and bit into the soles of my feet. I sprinted to the dark shape laying in the center, body crumpled against a dented air conditioner. I fell to my knees beside him, the wet tendrils of hair obscuring his face, but his naked body was familiar enough to confirm my fears.

  “Llyr!” I yelled, hands shaking as I cupped his cheeks, swiping the hair from his face and turning his head toward me. He didn’t respond. He didn’t even move.

  The wind and rain abated, warmth surrounding me and I glanced around, realizing that Rohan still remained shifted and hunched over us, sheltering us with his enormous wings. He lifted his head and let out a bellowing roar, golden flames shooting straight up into the storm.

  When he directed his next breath at us, it covered me in soft clothing and a blanket fell over Llyr’s body. Hot tears pricked my eyes. Llyr hated the cold.

  Rohan nudged me gently with one of his talons, and I shifted aside for him to hook his huge claw around Llyr and lay him flat, conjuring a blanket beneath him before setting him back down.

  He wasn’t dead, just hurt—at least, I hoped that’s all this was. But he wasn’t waking up, and I couldn’t immediately tell what was wrong.

  “Calm down, Deva,” Rohan sent to me, exhaling a cloud of golden smoke. It eased some of my agitation, but not all of it. Still, it was enough for me to focus and I cupped my hands around Llyr’s head again, closing my eyes as I pushed a small amount of magic through my palms to try to find where he was injured.

  I exhaled in relief when I found nothing significantly damaged. He’d taken a bump to his head, but nothing was broken. Hopefully, he’d regain consciousness soon. Until then, there wasn’t much I could do.

  Except go rip those fucking Winds a new one. I stood and turned to Rohan, yelling up at him, “Let me up! I’m going to have a talk with those assholes right now!”

  It wasn’t his voice that answered me, however.

  “You’re better off yelling at a wall,” Zephyrus said, voice calm, yet tense.

  I spun around and faced him.” He stood only a few feet away, the whipping wind having no effect on his appearance whatsoever. “Why won’t you guys stop this?” I implored the one Wind I knew. “We need your help!”

  “It isn’t me, I promise. My brothers are having a little disagreement, so it’s usually best to let them fight it out.” I heard him as clear as day over the noise, despite his conversational tone.

  “A disagreement over what? What’s so damn important they can’t stop for five minutes to answer a question? Are they so oblivious they didn’t hear when Llyr called to them? Do they even know he’s hurt?”

  “They heard; they just don’t particularly care at the moment. This fight’s been going on for the past two weeks. Resolving it isn’t going to happen instantly.” He shot an irritated glance at the sky.

  “That’s not fucking good enough!” I yelled. “Can’t you help us? You’re the West Wind!”

  “I can hear you out, but I won’t make any promises.”

  “Even for me?”

  He regarded me with eyes the same sky-blue as Ozzie’s, then sighed. “Numa adores you, so yeah, she would want me to do what I can. What’s wrong?”

  “Ozzie disappeared almost two weeks ago,” I said, tension burning the center of my chest. I took a deep breath to dispel it, but it wasn’t that easy to shake. “Fate severed my bond with him. I hadn’t even realized I had a soul bond with him until that moment. And when it happened, Ozzie disappeared—sent to some other plane, I think, because not even Llyr can find him, and the two of them are blood-melded. I didn’t even remember he’d shared his soul with me, but now that I do . . . ”

  The memories welled within me, choking off my words. I shook my head, unable to continue.

  Zephyrus frowned and stepped closer. “That was how you broke the curse wasn’t it? You gave up your turul soul.”

  “I thought he didn’t love me,” I said, unable to suppress the pleading note in my voice.

  Zephyrus reached out and took me into his embrace. I fell against him, clinging as the tears flowed. This was my fault; if I hadn’t suggested we forget, none of this would be happening.

  “Hey,” he murmured, cupping my chin and looking into my eyes. “You forget I was there the day you were born. Everyone in that room could see the love he held for you. Granted, we’d have never predicted how it would evolve, but there was no denying it. He loved you the very second you drew breath and showed us the power of your lungs.”

  “Then help me find him. Please! I can’t survive without him. Ever since he disappeared, I’ve been losing my mind, and it isn’t getting better.”

  Zephyrus glanced up at Rohan, whose enormous dragon shape still hovered over us, then down at Llyr’s unconscious body. “We do crazy things for love,” he said. “Only the nymphaea risk actual insanity for it, though. If Ozzie’s trapped on another plane, it’ll take all four of us to find him, but as you can see, those three aren’t exactly in a civil state of mind right now.”

  “Can you make them listen?” I asked.

  He sighed and offered a slow nod. “Perhaps. You’ve given my brothers hope, though I don’t think they realize it yet. When Fate first cursed the turul, it cursed me and my brothers with an eternity of impermanent forms. We were only allowed to borrow the bodies of birds of prey, and could not take permanent lovers as a result. When Numa chose me as her mate, Gaia helped lift the curse on me, but my brothers still suffered. Thanks to you, their curse was finally lifted too.”

  I glared up at the angry sky. “They have a funny way of showing their gratitude.”

  Zephyrus chuckled. “They’ve got their heads up their asses right now. They probably don’t even realize you’re down here. But their newfound, curse-free existence has come with a price: They’re in love with the same woman, and they aren’t willing to compromise over who gets to have her. They’ve been fighting over her for weeks and aren’t showing any signs of stopping.”

  “A woman? This shit is over a woman?”

  “Are you surprised?” he asked, quirking a smile.

  “Why the hell are they fighting here?”

  “Because she’s here. As far as I can tell, she’s a particularly powerful member of the bloodline. They met her a little over two weeks ago in Australia and have been embroiled in this fight ever since. She keeps running because she refuses to choose, but doesn’t realize they’re going to keep at it until she makes a decision.”

  “If I help her figure out who to choose, will they agree to help?”

  “It’s worth a shot,” he said. “Give me a moment.”

  He stepped back several feet and looked up at the sky. Lightning crackled over his skin, and he transformed into an enormous falcon seemingly made of electricity. He shot into the air with a whoosh, and a few seconds later, a thunderclap threatened to strike me deaf.

  Rohan shrank down to his human shape beside me and took my hand. “We should get him inside, but I don’t think it’s safe to fly down off this roof.”

  “Give Zephyrus a few minutes,” I said, anxiously staring up into the darkness and wishing I could make sense of the flashes of light in the clouds.

  The wind had eased a little since Zephyrus left, which I took as a good sign, and after another couple moments had abated to only a faint, warm breeze. Then, as I looked on, four winged men floated down to the rooftop, landing in a circle around me.

  Zephyrus nodded. “They’re willing to listen.”

  My skin prickled with awareness of the immense power surrounding me. Zephyrus was the odd one out, with a tall, lanky body like a typical turul male. He had short hair and a goatee, the dark strands shot through with silver, but he’d acquired his physical body more than a year ago through different means than his brothers. The three of them were huge, frankly god-like in stature, and almost as big and muscular as Dionysus—or Ouranos, I supposed, the god who had fathered them when he ra
ped Fate.

  I regarded them in turn, realizing they stood at each of the cardinal directions on the rooftop. Which meant the bearded man with the wild blond hair whipping in the breeze from the north must be Boreas, the man with the long brown hair to the east was Eurus, and the black-haired man to the south was Notos. I didn’t know what names they preferred, so I simply nodded at them.

  “Tell me what I can do to help,” I said.

  20

  Deva

  Llyr remained unconscious while Rohan flew him off the roof and back down to the parking lot. I took a moment to conjure proper clothes for him before Keagan took over carrying him, easily slinging the big satyr’s body over his shoulder and pushing through the door back into the club.

  The entire crowd cheered when we entered, dozens of people commenting on the abatement of the storm, but the noise faded swiftly when they saw the injured man being carried through. Nadia led the way, opening up the manager’s office for Keagan and the rest of us to follow. Keagan laid Llyr down on a long sofa and I sat at his side for a moment, wincing at the trickle of blood that trailed from his temple down the side of his face that I hadn’t seen in the darkness outside.

  “Will you guys stay with him?” I asked Nadia and Neal. They both nodded.

  The audience was subdued, but curious when I stepped back up on stage and looked out at them, trying to see if I could pick the woman out just by sight.

  Near the center of the crowd, someone hesitantly lifted a hand to ask a question. I nodded toward them and they said, “Can you guys control the weather?”

  “Not exactly,” I said, smiling. “But that storm was not exactly natural in origin, either. And it’s only on hold for now. Only one of you has the power to make it stop completely.”

  They all murmured to each other until someone else piped up. “What do we need to do?”