Determine the Future (The Exceptional S. Beaufont Book 10)

by Sarah Noffke

  But now…now Tanner was a dragonrider. He was powerful. He was strong. And others did what he said because he was the third in command for the Rogue Riders.

  The drug dealer jerked his head to the side, his eyes wide with surprise. He hadn’t expected Tanner to be able to best him in a fight when he mouthed off to him. Tanner had seen the guy around bullying the homeless and showing off for hussies at the end of the lane. When he’d approached him a while ago and demanded the Rogue Riders’ cut of his profits from dealing, the jerk had mouthed off and told him if he wanted the money, he would have to take it himself.

  The loser had probabaly thought that like other times before, Tanner would back down or run off, unable to defend himself. That had been how it was on other occasions when Tanner had confronted the dealer. Furthermore, the Rogue Riders were still new and had to enforce their rule on the criminal community. Soon everyone would know who was in charge and they’d cower when Tanner walked down Skid Row, as they should have all along.

  Using his other hand, Tanner clenched his fingers around the drug dealer’s jaw and lifted him higher in the air, above his head. “Before it was going to be thirty percent. Now the Rogue Riders are taking fifty percent of your profits.”

  “Bu-Bu-But…” the guy stuttered. “I can’t survive on that.”

  “You’ll have to figure it out if you want to survive at all,” Tanner threatened.

  “Th-Th-This isn’t fair.”

  “What isn’t fair is punks like you not bowing to the authority of the Rogue Riders.” Tanner spat in the guy’s face as he spoke.

  “Y’all have no right to take a cut from us,” the drug dealer complained.

  “Sure we do.” Tanner laughed. “We’re the new authority in the mortal criminal world. You answer to us, which means you won’t sell to minors anymore.”

  “Y-Y-You’re telling me how to run my business and taking a cut?” the guy stammered.

  Tanner’s knee jerked up into the dude’s groin and made him howl with pain. “Is that going to be a problem? Because those who don’t comply with the rule and fork over what belongs to us disappear. The thing is, no one misses a drain on society that peddles illegal drugs. So, your call. Pay up and do as I say, or you’ll regret it.”

  The low-life laughed at Tanner, which made his head hot. What was with this guy? Didn’t he know who he was messing with?

  “You might have me pinned up against a wall right now, but later when you’re not looking, people like me will come after you because we don’t like being told what to do, hence being criminals as you call us.”

  Tanner narrowed his eyes and slammed the dude harder into the wall. His head banged hard into the bricks. “You get that I’m stronger than you and can break your neck if I want to, right?”

  “You get that I have enough ammo to blow off these muscles you got, right?” the man countered.

  “Guns,” Tanner said with disgust. “That’s how you’re trying to intimidate me?”

  “It’s not intimidation,” the guy boasted. “It’s a promise if you think I’m turning over half my money. That won’t even cover my expenses.”

  “Nor your bad habits,” Tanner sneered. “And yes, you’re going to, or you’ll pay with your disgusting life that no one will miss.”

  The dude shook his head and reached for something at his back, behind his waistband. “Sorry, pal, but that doesn’t work for me.”

  Tanner threw his shoulder into the guy’s chest and blocked the hand reaching for what he suspected was a weapon. The dealer grunted from the assault and choked on his spit.

  Tanner dropped the guy and reached for the gun. His reflexes made him the victor, and he slung the pistol to the side where it skidded across the ground and landed next to a nearby building.

  The criminal crawled in a hurry across the pavement on his hands and knees, and this time, Tanner didn’t try and stop him. He knew the guy wasn’t going to get to the gun. Plus, he enjoyed the fact that the guy thought he would and had a fighting chance. He could feel the excitement wafting off the dude.

  When he was only three feet away, Coal, Tanner’s dragon, shot a stream of fire down from the rooftop above. It blasted the gun and made the guy instantly retreat. He jumped back and landed on his rear end, his feet suddenly in front of him and hands holding him up.

  The expression of horror on the guy’s face as he crab-walked backward filled Tanner with giddy excitement. The dude’s eyes widened even more and made the whites bulge when his chin jerked up, and he saw the black dragon soaring down from the rooftop.

  Coal swiftly landed on top of the weapon and whipped his long spiked tail to the side, nearly hitting the criminal. The black dragon leaned low, his red eyes narrowed as a loud growl ripped from his mouth.

  The dude jumped to this feet and backed away to the brick wall again while nodding erratically.

  “Y-Y-Yeah, you can have fifty percent,” he stammered and nearly tripped on his feet as he tried to get as far from the dragon as possible.

  Tanner laughed and smiled victoriously as he strode for his dragon. “I thought you’d change your mind. You had to see things from our perspective.”

  He swiftly climbed onto Coal’s back and swung his leg around as he grabbed the reins streaming from the bridle around his horned head. “I’ll be checking on you when it’s time to pay up. Don’t think you can cheat the Rogue Riders. We know how much you make and how much you owe. If you break our laws, we’ll break you.”

  The dude, who was as white as a ghost and glued to the brick wall, quickly nodded.

  Tanner shook his head at the bully as he yanked on the reins and made Coal rush forward before he launched into the air and flew away.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  “I think the cyborg is broken,” Evan muttered in a low voice as he regarded the egg white omelet that Trin, the Gullington’s housekeeper, had placed in front of him.

  Wilder dug into his porridge and smirked. “My food is fine. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He glanced at Sophia. “How’s your bacon?”

  “Bacony.” She chewed on a bite of the crispy meat as she held up a piece. In front of her was a plate with half a dozen strips of the cooked breakfast meat.

  Instead of the usual method where Trin brought out large serving platters of food, on that particular day she was serving each person at the table individually, and it appeared she was customizing their orders based on their tastes.

  The cyborg hurried through the door from the kitchen carrying Mama Jamba’s short stack of apple cinnamon pancakes as the old woman strode into the dining hall, holding a Travel + Leisure magazine.

  “Why, thank you, dear.” Mama Jamba flashed a smile as she slid into her normal chair at the dining table while Trin set the pancakes in front of her. “How did you know I craved apple cinnamon today instead of my normal blueberry pancakes?”

  Trin winked at her with her human eye. “It might have been the bushel of apples I found at the foot of my bed upon waking.”

  Mama Jamba glanced at Quiet, who was buttering his raisin toast with great care and grinned. “I guess I have you to thank for that then.”

  The gnome mumbled something inaudible before sticking the toast into his mouth and chewing.

  Evan waited until Trin retreated to the kitchen before saying, “Why is it that Mahkah gets scrambled eggs and ham? Hiker gets his black pudding, baked beans, and toast. Sophia gets all the bacon. Wilder, the brand new vegan, has porridge, but I have to choke down a ridiculous egg white and veggie omelet?”

  Wilder leaned forward with a conspiratorial expression on his face. “I think the message is sort of clear. Trin has finally gotten to know you, and like the rest of us, doesn’t like what she’s learned.”

  “Or maybe it’s the opposite,” Mama Jamba offered, then flipped open her magazine.

  Evan sighed and picked at his omelet. “I’m not sure I want her to like me if this is the result.”

  Quiet muttered something and s
tuffed a Danish in his mouth.

  “Why don’t you put a bunch of sausage at the foot of Trin’s bed tomorrow?” Evan asked the groundskeeper.

  Since his mouth was full, Quiet simply shook his head. Crumbs flaked off his mouth.

  “It’s pronounced sau-sauge,” Wilder teased.

  “The vegan isn’t allowed to tell me how to say meat words,” Evan fired back, then reached for a piece of bacon on Sophia’s plate. She slapped his hand away at once.

  “Hey,” he complained and pulled his hand back. “You don’t need all that.”

  “I do too,” Sophia argued. “I have to up my meat intake to undo all the good that Wilder is doing by being vegan.”

  “That makes sense,” Hiker mumbled through a bite of toast, seeming a bit amused.

  The leader of the Dragon Elite was in such a better mood lately since Ainsley had returned to the Castle and they’d sort of made things official between them. At least, they weren’t trying to hide the fact that they were in a relationship and blushed when Evan and Wilder teased them and made kissing noises at their backs. However, the elf had to return to the Elfin Council for diplomatic business, which was why she wasn’t there to offer insights on the new housekeeper’s strange behavior of serving everyone but Evan their favorite meals.

  “You haven’t touched your food,” Trin observed while looking over at Evan as she brought through a pitcher of orange juice.

  Evan gave the housekeeper a look of uncertainty. “Not to complain, but—”

  “The phrase that precedes a bona fide complaint,” Wilder interrupted.

  Evan cut his eyes at him and gave him an annoyed look before glancing back at Trin beside the table. “It appears that everyone got their favorite breakfast or what they were craving this morning.”

  “That’s correct,” Trin agreed. “I thought that would be a nice change.”

  “It’s lovely.” Mama Jamba cut into her pancakes.

  “Very lovely,” Evan stated in a dry tone. “Thing is, my favorite isn’t an egg-white veggie omelet.”

  Trin tilted her head and gave him a surprised look. “No?”

  He looked longingly at Sophia’s bacon. “Yeah, I’m not really a vegetable guy. That’s more Wilder’s thing.”

  “How do you know if you haven’t tried them?” Trin indicated the untouched omelet.

  “I know,” he answered. “Ainsley served me salads nonstop for an entire decade while the rest of this lot got pot roast and other various delicious foods.”

  Trin harrumphed. “Sounds like Ainsley was looking out for your best interests. You live longer if you eat your vegetables.”

  Wilder laughed. “I don’t think Ainsley wanted him to live longer.”

  Evan pursed his lips. “What’s the point in living a long time without bacon?”

  “There’s life without bacon,” Wilder intervened as he finished his oatmeal and pulled a bowl of raspberries to him.

  “Your opinion on this matter doesn’t count, Vegan,” Evan stated. “You and I officially can’t share a pizza.”

  Wilder laughed. “When did we ever share one? You ate the whole thing.”

  “My point remains,” Evan began, “you’ll go on to ruin all foods from this point forward.”

  Wilder popped a raspberry into his mouth. “It’s true. The other day I ordered a pizza and told the guy no cheese or sauce, that I only wanted peppers.”

  “Why no sauce?” Sophia ate another bite of her bacon.

  Wilder winked at her. “Because it fits the story. Anyway, the guy remarked that it was the strangest pizza he’d ever heard of. That’s when I reminded him that I ordered the pepper-only pizza the last time.”

  Almost everyone at the table groaned at Wilder’s bad joke. Mahkah grinned slightly. Mama Jamba giggled while flipping the pages of her travel magazine.

  Trin began to clear the empty dishes and glanced at Evan. “Tomorrow, I’ll fix you something else, but your favorite could be something you haven’t tried yet. It could also be something healthy.”

  “I’m a dragonrider,” Evan argued. “I don’t need to eat healthy, all vegan style. I’ll live a long life regardless. And unlike some do-gooders, I don’t want to save the animals.”

  “I’m only doing this vegan thing because I don’t want to poison my body with disgusting animals,” Wilder replied. “I can’t stand those creatures.”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Mama Jamba stated, her focus casually on her magazine.

  “There a reason that you’ve been browsing through travel guides lately, Mama?” Hiker asked as he finished his breakfast. Trin swooped up his plate right away and retreated to the kitchen with the dirty dishes.

  Mother Nature shrugged. “Had an itch lately. Maybe got a wanderlust bug coming on.”

  Hiker narrowed his eyes at her. “You can’t go anywhere. We have an impending war brewing with demon dragonriders.”

  Unhurried, Mama Jamba glanced up from her magazine. “For starters, I’ll remind you that you can’t tell me what to do, son. Second, I’m well aware that the Rogue Riders are making power plays, but that’s not my concern as much as it is yours. This is your job, after all.”

  He growled slightly, and his beard vibrated. “You recently came back after being in hiding for all that time. I simply hoped that you wouldn’t run off again.”

  “I’m a bird,” Mama Jamba said in reply.

  “Who can’t be caged,” Wilder added in a sing-song voice.

  Evan leaned over and studied the page Mama Jamba was looking at. “Does the appeal of travel still count for you since you created these places?”

  “The Earth is my creation and my home,” Mama Jamba answered. “It’s like you retiring to a certain room in a Castle. Some you might like better than others, and some have a specific purpose.”

  “But there’s no better one than your bedroom where you can be safe and rest,” Hiker cut in. “Which would be the Gullington for you, Mama.”

  “True,” she chirped. “But who wants to be confined to their bedroom all the time?”

  All the heads at the table whipped to look at Hiker.

  He ground his teeth together. “We rely on you to help us navigate things. Having you here is important.”

  “It’s a prosperity thing for you,” she argued. “I’m not doing you any favors offering up new information on anything, and you know it.”

  “Sometimes you help with things,” Sophia countered. “You assigned Mae Ling to me at fairy godmother college.”

  “You created the tracking device for the demon dragons,” Evan said.

  “And the time orb for Ainsley,” Wilder reminded her.

  “And countless other things,” Mahkah offered in a low voice.

  “That’s all true,” Mama Jamba said matter-of-factly and pushed her plate away. “When I leave, it’s not forever. I simply might need to get out soon, and you all will have to fend for yourselves. It’s not like I can help with your current problem.”

  Hiker nodded. “Sophia, have you had a chance to research the barrier magic? We need to determine what kind the Rogue Riders are using to keep us out.”

  She tapped the bag hanging on the side of her chair where the Complete History of Dragonriders currently resided. “I’m going to research the kind we have here at the Gullington after breakfast, then see if there’s anything in here about soul stones that are tied to the kind the Rogue Riders are using.”

  “Or you could simply ask Mr. Talks-A-Lot,” Evan offered and pointed at Quiet.

  The gnome glanced up from his nearly finished plate of various breads and pastries. He mumbled something that sounded like, “You talk enough for everyone.”

  Evan nodded. “See, as clear as mud. We’ll get to the bottom of this barrier thing in no time with help like that.”

  The groundskeeper slid off his seat and trotted for the doorway, probably headed out to the Expanse for his daily chores—whatever those were.

  “Thanks for everything, lit
tle guy,” Evan called at his back. “You’re a real lifesaver.”

  “He is.” Sophia stretched and tested her back to see how her injuries were healing. She’d be back to her old self soon, thankfully.

  “Research the barriers and let me know what you find out,” Hiker ordered her, then stood from the table.

  Mama Jamba got to her feet as well and closed her magazine. “You know who might be able to help you with barriers?”

  Sophia simply stared at Mother Nature, silently urging her to continue. When she didn’t supply an answer, as though it was a rhetorical question, Sophia thought for a moment and considered the question. Barriers were in a few places. The Gullington, the House of Fourteen, the Great Library, and Happily Ever After College used them. Well, and now the Rogue Riders. Each of those barriers was different, and none was more powerful, according to Sophia’s experience than the one at fairy godmother college. Not only did that barrier allow only select people onto the campus, but it also protected the climate and ecology of the place, keeping it always pristine—well, except for right then when a science experiment gone wrong had taken over the school.

  “Do you mean Mae Ling?” Sophia asked. “Are fairy godmothers experts on barriers?”

  “See?” Mama Jamba sang while striding for the doorway. “You all don’t need me. You’re perfectly capable of figuring things out on your own.”

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Sophia would have popped off to Happily Ever After College right after breakfast after learning that fairy godmothers were experts on barriers. However, she knew that the campus was empty. All the fairy godmothers had evacuated while waiting for her to find the solution to the goo eating through the school. Well, Sophia hoped that it was still contained for the time being. She’d have to pay Bep, the potions expert, a visit as soon as she’d fully recovered from Coal’s attack, which shouldn’t take long thanks to the magical healing of the Gullington.

  Because the Barrier that protected the Gullington didn’t affect the weather, autumn winds sprinkled with spitting rain filled the air when Sophia strode out to the Expanse. She’d spent her time wisely after breakfast and had read about the Barrier that surrounded the Dragon Elite’s headquarters. It was known as a loyalty barrier because only those who were Dragon Elite members or pledged their allegiance to them could get through.