Fifth of Blood

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  But Rysa didn’t call her seers. They buzzed and filled the backyard with white noise and wanted very much to flail. She might bounce, but she wouldn’t lose control.

  “Judging situations has kept us alive for two thousand years. When I misjudge, people of great importance die.” AnnaBelinda leaned against Sister-Dragon. “My judging has kept my brother alive.”

  A thought coiled inside Rysa’s head. One both cutting and true: That’s not your job anymore. The ghost snakes snapped between Dragon and Sister-Dragon, and then between Sister-Dragon and AnnaBelinda. The other woman closed her eyes. This time, she didn’t open them again.

  “It is all our jobs.”

  Stop tattling on me! Rysa yelled in her head while she signed straight at Dragon.

  The beast snorted, rolling, and presented his talons. We are family, he signed.

  Rysa threw her hands into the air. The Dracae lack of privacy ramped up her frustration and made thinking all that more difficult.

  Sister-Dragon flamed. Not a big flame, but one large enough to get everyone’s attention. I am to tell you that I am sorry, Rysa, she signed. The other beast backed away, her hide more shadow than glimmer. You protected Derek.

  The asterisked conceptual frameworks still rebounded between her and her brother. Still bounced off Rysa’s mind like a fast-pitched softball.

  Still fell out of the sky like a rock thrown by the gods.

  The godling on the other side of the pool nodded once and turned her back, her short hair a tight cloud of spikes around her scalp. AnnaBelinda walked toward the patio door without another word, her dragon following.

  Rysa’s Dragon—the one the others called Brother-Dragon, or Great Sir, or Ladon-Dragon if they wanted to acknowledge the twin aspect of the Dracae’s lives—her Dragon swung his head between the women, his hide as dim as his sister’s.

  He looked perplexed, like any guy would in this situation. Perplexed and unsure and wondering why the hell the women wouldn’t just let it go so he could trust they would work together. They were making more problems than they were solving.

  Rysa walked back to the pool house to wait for Derek to bring out her breakfast, wondering the exact same thing.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Love, come out.” Ladon waited at the far edge of Bernard’s pool, near the patio door. Early morning cast a bright glow over Bernard’s house. The pool sparkled. Garage doors opened up and down the street. Dogs barked. And Rysa had not touched her breakfast.

  He’d slept later than he intended. Dragon woke him only minutes ago, after Bernard, to his credit, had cooked a splendid meal of fried eggs, toast, and fruit, and had set it out for Rysa.

  When she didn’t appear, he asked Dragon to wake Ladon.

  So now Ladon stood on the edge of the pool, on the edge of her calling scents’ reach, feeling very much on his own edge.

  Is she still upset about last night? Ladon stepped to one side and then back again.

  Dragon didn’t answer. The beast did his own version of Ladon’s nervous stepping, first rocking onto his left limbs, then his right.

  “What are you hiding?” Dragon only did this when he wouldn’t tell a secret. The beast’s need to say pushed at Ladon’s mind like a little kid bouncing up and down because the battle to snitch or not snitch consumed all his thoughts.

  Rysa does not want you to worry and if I say, you will worry. Dragon rocked again.

  Did she ask you to not tell again? Because if she asks you to not tell, you need to tell me. How was he supposed to keep her safe if she hid information from him?

  No. A long pause. Sister did.

  “What?” Ladon yelled loud enough he probably woke the neighbors. He didn’t mean to, but he did.

  Dragon huffed. I do not like facilitating. It does not help us accomplish our goal. He rocked again and his patterns sped up. The beast mimicked the yard, and the horses painted on the garden fence behind him danced over his hide, wavering and changing hue.

  Irritation buzzed across their energy connection, pirouetting with the same frenzy as the horses now oscillating toward the beast’s tail.

  Ladon’s own irritation pumped out from his tensing neck as little muscle spasms running down his arms. His fists clenched.

  What were they now, a pack of thirteen-year-old girls?

  The pool house door swung open. Rysa walked out, her hands deep in her pockets.

  She glimmered as much as the pool, beautiful and glorious, if thin, and his irritation stopped cold. All but the irritation focused on his sister and her dragon, which had solidified into something sharp and pointed.

  Obviously, his talk with his sister and her dragon last night had not set them on the correct path forward, as he had hoped.

  “What are you yelling about?” Rysa’s past- and present-seers flicked outward and popped along the borders of his mind.

  He felt her future-seer, as well. All three seers gyrated with the randomness, the drunkenness, she’d carried since that evil son of a bitch Vivicus stole her true talisman. The effort to control the whipping showed on her face.

  Her seers were always on now, but unlike her Shifter abilities, they seemed to be simply on, like a flood of noise. After a while, his perception of them dropped away, unlike her shifting, yanking calling scents. But now he wondered.

  “Are you having problems with your seers?” What if she started having uncontrolled visions again, like she did when they thought her talisman was the burndust-laced iron shackles?

  “No!” Rysa huffed. “I know what you were arguing about. I had a talk with your sister this morning. That’s all. I don’t know why the dragons are being secretive about it.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Are we ready to go?”

  The wind, thankfully, blew away from him, but he wondered how the neighbors in the house behind Bernard’s were handling the ‘anger’ and ‘hyperactive’ and ‘horny’ wafting over the fence. There’d already been shouting. Bernard did not need cops showing up.

  “Derek and Sister load the vehicles.” Ladon pointed at the driveway. “Eat before we go.” He swept his hand toward the platter next to the door. “What did you talk about?”

  Maybe Sister was trying. Maybe both dragons were overreacting. Ladon inhaled, then exhaled slowly, attempting to force back his rising vigilance.

  Nodding, she took a step toward him, but stopped. “You need to go inside or around front.”

  Dragon rolled against Ladon’s side and he placed his hand on the beast’s crest. She is sad.

  Ladon’s gut tightened. “I’m sorry about last night.” How could he have been such an idiot? Sister might have made Rysa’s mood worse, but most of this fell on Ladon’s shoulders.

  You are not an idiot. Dragon rolled away to rub his side against the gate. You think about sex too much. That is all.

  Ladon chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?” Rysa looked between him and Dragon. From the other side of the pool, he couldn’t tell if he saw anger or confusion in her body language.

  “It wasn’t your fault.” She huffed, crossing her arms again. His fault or not, she was obviously angry.

  “Yes, it was, Rysa.”

  Human misses you, Dragon signed. He rubbed his flank on the fence post. The same flank where he had been shot.

  Ladon’s vigilance spiked and for a second his vision closed down around Dragon’s leg. He didn’t see Rysa. He didn’t hear her, either. Are you hiding pain from me as well? he pushed. Don’t hide if you’re hurting.

  Calling scents wafted to Ladon. ‘Fear’ made his throat constrict. ‘Comply’ made him want to run to her and away from her at the same time. ‘Love’ filled his head with visions of their times together. ‘Love’ and ‘lust’ and ‘regret.’

  But his confusion was all his own. What had he caused? Was his dragon okay? Was his woman?

  The gate swung open. Sister looked between Ladon and Rysa, one of the midnight swords in her hand. She pointed at Rysa. “Move back!”

&
nbsp; Dragon leaped between Sister and Rysa, his big head swinging away from Ladon toward his woman. She backs against the fence. Then to Sister: Do not yell at Rysa!

  Sister walked toward Ladon, the sword down but gripped tightly. “Her calling scents are accumulating in your systems.” She threw her free hand out as if she was about to spin.

  The pitch of Rysa’s voice slid upward. “Why do you have that sword?”

  Dragon stood between them, but the beast still mimicked. Rysa’s mirrored shape bobbed, its edges flickering, as the beast’s muscles coiled. For a split second, a halo surrounded her entire body.

  ‘Fear’ wafted off his angel as she bounced on the other side of the pool—her attention and anxiety problems surfaced.

  “Put it down, Sister.” Ladon held his voice low, restricting it to his chest, and it came out a growl.

  “This must stop!” Sister did not comply, but she did stop walking.

  Sister-Dragon dropped off the roof and landed on the concrete of the patio as silently as a leaf falling. But her hide sped up and she imitated the scene in the backyard. An image of her brother’s own flickering mimicking played along her side.

  Ladon stood trapped between two mirrors.

  She needs her talisman, Brother-Human.

  “Which is why we leave for Portland.” Ladon pointed at the gate. Why are you back here?

  Sister-Dragon rose onto her haunches, a towering beast blending into the house’s exterior roofline. She flattened her hand-claws to sign. Each talon slid inward, retracting one at a time into her dexterous fingers, a silent withdrawal from the world accompanied by a very faint shlimp. And, as happened every time one of the dragons pulled in their talons, the odd not-human sense as the beasts’ hands stiffened while their joints locked.

  They all turned toward Sister-Dragon. They all watched her hands.

  You may have my talon, Rysa Lucinda Torres. I offer it now. One hand curved away from the beast. One talon slid out, glimmering in the morning sun.

  Rysa’s seers stiffened as if she, too, had pulled her talons into each of the fingers of her abilities. “Absolutely not! Your Prime Fate says absolutely not!” Rysa yelled.

  Brother-Human.

  Ladon looked up. Sister-Dragon brightened her hide enough to allow him to see her outline clearly. You are not functioning well. She pointed at Rysa. Your Fate’s calling scents unsettle both you and Brother.

  “I told you not to call her ‘your Fate!’” Ladon stepped toward the other beast. “I will thrash you.”

  “Brother!” Sister caught his arm before he swung a punch.

  A punch he hadn’t realized he was about to swing.

  “She understands it will hurt. She also understands her brother has felt much more pain than her over the past two weeks.” Sister held up the sword. “If this can cut through concrete and steel, it should take off a talon.”

  Constructs flooded between Dragon and Sister-Dragon, fast again. Too fast for either Ladon or Sister to catch—and blocked by one of the dragons’ mental walls. But the substrate of the argument surfaced.

  Dragon blasted the true depth of his pain to his sister. Every moment of unbridled agony he had suffered since the Burners and the Fates and the Shifters first attacked Rysa. The hot rupturing as he rolled down the side of the building in Salt Lake City, when his talon broke free. The slicing, digging invasion of being shot. The acidic haze of being awoken early not once, but twice. And the strain of holding his sister’s mind together at the same time he’d helped to heal her human’s mate.

  Ladon stepped back. All this time, Dragon’s attempts at diplomacy, his refusal to allow petty arguments rip apart his family, had been a cover.

  The beast refused to allow anyone else to feel what he’d felt. Particularly his human.

  Sister gasped.

  Sister-Dragon dropped down to the patio. Her hide flashed. I will give my talon! she signed. Her front limb jutted forward, her great palm spread on the concrete, her sixth finger outstretched and her talon fully extended.

  We protect Brother and Brother-Human, she pushed.

  Sister’s face hazed as if the constructs flashing between the dragons had caged her mind. As if she’d stopped thinking and now only acted, like Ladon.

  She raised the sword.

  “Dragon is my talisman! Not you!” The venom wrapped around Rysa’s final words jolted Ladon back to the moment. Holding perfectly still, more still than Ladon had ever seen her before, she pointed at Sister-Dragon. “Sacrificing a finger will not make up for what you did, Sister-Dragon.”

  Rysa bounced, a manic jump that came out of nowhere, her will to hold her body obviously cracking against the onslaught of her rising panic. Panic also obvious in her calling scents.

  ‘Panic’ and ‘rage.’

  “That’s right! I just called you Sister-Dragon. I don’t care if I don’t have permission or if I do. Because otherwise it’s going to be Bitch-Dragon, you got that?”

  Behind them, the patio door slid open. Bernard stuck out his head, his nose crinkling visibly. “I can hear you in—” He blinked, Rysa’s calling scents hitting him hard.

  The patio door slammed shut.

  “See that? See what just happened? I can’t apologize to our host because of you. I can’t sleep because of you. I have to eat all the time and can’t be near the one person and the one dragon who help me to be calm and to process all this and it’s all because of you!” Rysa’s last word came out a screech.

  His woman imploded in front of Ladon and his sister stood next to him, a sword of unearthly sharpness in her hand, with her back rigid.

  The gate creaked.

  “You made a choice as well, Rysa.” Derek stood in the opening framed by the posts, the sun washing over him. He held his hands by his side and his hat back on his head.

  He’d showered and changed and looked ready to leave. “You decided to go with Vivicus. You could have fought him off and waited for Ladon to wake up. You could have come to The Land safely. But you did not.”

  Rysa opened her mouth to yell something, but Derek raised his hand.

  Ladon hadn’t thought about the circumstances of her abduction. He assumed Vivicus had gotten the jump on her, the way her uncle had when he snatched her. That Rysa had been, as he expected from her, helpless because of her issues.

  She wasn’t helpless. Chaotic, yes. But not helpless, no matter what she believed about herself. Or he chose to believe about her.

  “My seers told me I had to.” Rysa spoke this time, not yelling, but the bounces continued. “Or you would have…” Her voice trailed off.

  But Ladon knew. Derek would have died. She did what she did because it had to happen when it did, no matter how it affected Ladon and Dragon. Or herself.

  “We all bow to the will of fate, do we not?” Derek walked into the backyard. Carefully, slowly, he took the sword from his wife. “Fates, it seems, are especially bound, no matter the damage they cause to the ones they love.” He glanced at Ladon as he patted Dragon’s flank. His wife’s dragon, he ignored.

  Derek set the sword on the table next to the patio door and Rysa’s now-cold breakfast. “The first night out, before all this… harshness… settled over us, after we acquired the car, Rysa and I discussed how happy we were to be alive. Correct?”

  Ladon stifled a wince. The thought of his beloved discussing such things with a man other than him, even Derek, pushed his primal jealousy to the surface. Most days, most good days, he’d laugh at it. Such behaviors were childish. But today was not a good day.

  At the other end of the pool, Rysa nodded, her arms around her chest. She looked small. Cold. ‘Embarrassed’ wafted across the yard. She felt guilt for yelling.

  It did nothing to calm Ladon’s primitive responses.

  Derek continued. “We talked of dragon anatomy and dragon biomechanics. Of your odd blind spots, such as Ladon and Ladon-Dragon’s surprise at being shot. Of how neither you nor your sister understands that you weigh more than a norm
al of your size. And a few other traits.” He rubbed the tip of his nose. “But mostly we discussed the talon.”

  Again, Rysa nodded. “I can’t get close enough to heal it if you chop one off.” She turned sideways, as if to conceal her body from them. “You will need to be healed.” She bounced on her toes.

  “Rysa’s seers confirmed what I always suspected. It will bleed. Our guess is that it will bleed a lot. It is living tissue and not like a fingernail. Cutting one off is not a good idea.” He patted Sister-Dragon’s head. “Twenty-three centuries of infrequent wounds has left you with no sense of what a wound truly is.”

  Derek lifted the sword again. For a second he stared at it as if transfixed. “Our presence here has become a liability for Bernard.” He turned away, his hand and the blade dropping to his side. “Eat your breakfast, Rysa. Anna, come with me. And you, Brother, shower and change. We leave in twenty minutes.”

  Sister’s forehead creased, but she followed her husband out of the yard. As did her now-silent dragon.

  Dragon settled his belly on the concrete of the patio and rested his big head on his front limbs, a posture he often took up when he needed sleep. His hide slowed. Only shadows flitted across their connection.

  I am sorry you had to deal with that, Ladon pushed.

  I know.

  Ladon rubbed the beast’s neck. You shared with me how much your wound hurt in the cabin.

  I was disoriented. You did not need to know. Dragon blew out a small flame. Sister does.

  Ladon felt as if his brother-in-law had made ‘panic’ back away and now he watched it amble on by, a distracted monster looking to attack someone new.

  That monster had long ago taken a chunk out of both him and his beast, and decided it wanted a fresher kill. Like, perhaps, the woman thirty-five feet away with her arms tight around her chest.

  The air filled with more conflicting emotions than he could name.

  “Rysa…” He didn’t know what to say. No matter how vigilant he was, how many times he walked the perimeters or checked for threats, something always snuck up on his love, seers or not.

  She wouldn’t meet his gaze. We love you, he signed.