All but Human

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Her fists clenched. Vivicus died in a fire, in Canada. Praesagio’s people found his charred corpse and identified his body by his teeth.

  Teeth were extremely difficult to change, even for a morpher like Vivicus. It was him. He died.

  She had her talisman. She was safe. Gavin was safe. They were all safe.

  More past-seer flashes bombed her consciousness: Visions of her struggles to locate her talisman after Vivicus stole it. The anxiety-caused tactile tightening of her skin and muscles when she thought that she’d become responsible for Ladon and Dragon’s death. The wonderful rush she experienced every time she kissed Ladon and tasted his brilliant scent of sun and civilization.

  Stop! She should not be having uncontrolled visions. Her Dragon’s talon talisman hung from a leather cord around her neck and laid flush in the hollow of her throat, just below her Legion insignia. They gave her Fate’s seers purpose.

  But…

  Rysa dropped her hand to the soft fabric of her jeans and breathed slowly, counting in her breaths, then counting them out. The fluorescent lights cast harsh shadows against the walls. The space glowed, both overlit and heavily shadowed. The should-be-innocent hallway stood out as a high-contrast tunnel-to-nowhere.

  The smell of dogs and dust from the dry South Dakota grounds outside lingered in the air. And, she realized, a hint of burndust sat gritty on the back of her tongue.

  In her head, her three little buddies of the past, present, and future shook like a trio of terrified puppies. They whipped around tentacle-like again, a behavior she’d gained control of in the three months since she activated. But not now. Not here.

  Her body shivered and she wanted to gasp, but she wasn’t that person anymore. She wouldn’t quiver and whimper and be a girl Ladon needed to protect. This door might make her seers throw visions and yank up memories that made her want to puke, but she was Rysa Lucinda Torres, the Draki Prime and the healer of dragons.

  She would not cower.

  When she texted Gavin, before Praesagio Industries took back her talisman, that psycho Vivicus stood right here, where she stood now, in front of this exact bright cobalt slab of metal. He entered the very same code she’d sent to Gavin.

  But if her friend hadn’t gone through this door, Vivicus would have killed Daisy Pavlovich, Dmitri’s daughter and the woman who’d saved him from Burners.

  The lock gleamed in Rysa’s vision, highlighted not only by her present-seer but also by her past-seer. Her fingers rose, wanting to touch the cold steel of the number pad buttons. Her body wanted to know if this surreal moment was actually occurring or if it was a nightmare.

  She yanked her hand back from the lock mechanism. Was this what it meant to be a Fate? No matter how hard she tried not to be Parcae—tried not to manipulate and scheme and not give a shit about anyone or anything other than the fate to which she was bound—her seers manipulated and schemed anyway.

  Vivicus could have killed Gavin. He could have killed Daisy. He might have scooped out their eyeballs and bounced them off the locker room walls because Vivicus was a demon way worse than some random whacked-out morpher. Yet Rysa’s present-seer sent people important to her into a very dangerous situation instead of pulling them out.

  Rysa’s foot slid into the shadows behind her and she returned her hand to her thigh.

  Her present-seer pointed backward, down the hallway and out into the gift shop building. Ladon and Dragon were out there enjoying themselves. They trusted her seers. She was the Draki Prime, after all. The Prime Fate of the Dracae.

  Her job—her life—was about keeping them safe. School, travel, rest were extras that would mean nothing if she became a woman gagged and bound and tossed into fate’s trunk.

  Not safe. Not able to protect herself or the people she loved.

  She would do better. She had to do better.

  She had no other choice.

  Chapter Three

  Rysa leaned against the back of the passenger seat of the van. She smiled, memories of Ladon’s post-climb, middle-of-the-night return to her playing not only through her mind’s eye, but also across the tender skin of her nipples and the deep muscles of her belly.

  Her man had a knack for calming her nerves.

  But she still needed to be vigilant. To learn to use her seers and healer correctly. And, now, to finish her final year at the University of Minnesota.

  Daisy Pavlovich had generously invited them to stay at her house until they found a place of their own. They now turned north on Highway 280 and were minutes from rejoining civilization.

  “Gavin has a login for the most disgusting medical website on the planet.” Rysa thought it best to warn Ladon and Dragon what they were about to step into. “He showed me. Once.”

  Sitting forward, she held up a single finger for emphasis. “I never want to see it again.”

  Ladon chuckled but he kept both hands on the van’s steering wheel. He’d taught her how to control the big vehicle before they left home and she’d done the majority of the trip’s driving, but she got squirrelly outside of town and figured he’d do a better job in traffic. Coming home home, even if it was just for a year, made her bouncy.

  “Dragon wants to know if this disgusting website your friend enjoys includes circulatory and respiratory system functioning as well as physiology.” Ladon smirked but nodded toward the back of the van.

  They were moments from their exit and surrounded by heavy traffic. Dragon had no choice but to drop deep into the van’s shadows, so he relayed questions and comments through Ladon. Rysa twisted and the edge of her seatbelt dug into her chest, but she wanted to look around the seat and answer the beast directly.

  He shimmered softly in the back, a Clydesdale-sized mound of dragon lying on the van’s raised floor with his big head on his front limbs and forlorn patterns moving across his hide. He didn’t like hiding behind the seats. It made him feel excluded.

  Rysa rubbed his snout. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.”

  Dragon snorted and the van filled with hints of cinnamon, frankincense, and a touch of orange, all warmed by the sun.

  “I think he signs,” Ladon said to Dragon. Then to Rysa: “You said he knows American Sign Language, correct?”

  The van slowed and sped up, slowed and sped up. Rysa swayed, hoping they’d get off the highway soon. Rush hour traffic always upset her stomach and frazzled her nerves. But now, at least she had her healer abilities to calm her tummy. The frazzledness, though, would take some extra attention from Ladon to settle.

  She reached across the space between the seats and used her finger to draw a little circle on his thigh.

  Ladon looked down at her hand, then at her, then returned his gaze to the road, all while arcing an eyebrow and grinning like a happy little kid.

  She hadn’t yet told Ladon about the locker room. At the inn, he’d crawled into bed all dusty and handsome and on this new, happier path. She didn’t want to ruin it.

  Ladon continued to grin. “I think your focus may be straying from the task at hand,” he drawled, his voice low and sexy as hell. He flicked on the van’s turn signal and drove them down the exit ramp into the city streets of St. Paul.

  “I am focused.” Rysa grinned too as she drew the little circle again, but this time counter-clockwise.

  Ladon’s grin turned into a full, wonderful smile. “You seem happy.”

  Happy probably wasn’t the best word. Determined seemed to fit better. Determined to fake it until she made it.

  If she acted like she had her seers and her life under control, then maybe she’d get there. And in the meantime, she wouldn’t worry Ladon and Dragon.

  Rysa wiggled and blew out ‘want you’ calling scents, even though they were too far apart for him to catch a trace. But Ladon knew her body posture when she made those scents for him, so he knew what she was doing.

  The hungry look he threw her affirmed her suspicions.

  My work here is done, flitted through her mind, a though
t vocalized by the naughty part of her brain. She looked away, wondering if her inner Parcae asshole was being flippant. But Ladon did seem happier.

  Making Ladon smile, cuddling with both the man and the dragon, listening during those few moments they wanted and needed to talk—it was all as much about helping herself as it was about helping them. It all felt good.

  The van stopped at an intersection and Ladon watched the cross traffic before taking them deeper into the neighborhoods surrounding the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota. “We haven’t visited Daisy in, what, three years?” He nodded toward the back of the van.

  Dragon’s hands appeared between the seats. Four, he signed.

  So a year before Rysa started at the University, Ladon and Dragon had been on campus visiting a friend. A small, baseless twinge of jealousy pinged up from the back of her mind even though she and Ladon had talked about his friendship with Dmitri Pavlovich’s daughter. About how she’d been hurt by a predatory Fate triad and the guilt Ladon felt because he still believed he was at least partially responsible, no matter what anyone told him.

  They’d talked about finding a house. Someplace on a bit of property so Dragon had room, but now Rysa wondered. Her seers had been poking at her mind even though she’d been determined to ignore them, and the certainty of a house of their own seemed less and less likely.

  Daisy’s place, though, framed Rysa’s thoughts about her final year of college, and proved, once again, that a future-seer wasn’t infallible. That whatever powered her Fate’s abilities to see the past, the present, and the future wasn’t an absolute.

  Rysa suspected their status as “guests” would quickly turn into “roomies.” Hopefully, Daisy would welcome the change, and not be flustered by Rysa’s… active nature.

  Though Rysa wasn’t the first Torres with an “active nature” Daisy had dealt with in her life, a revelation that surprised no one except Rysa. Her father only shrugged and smirked, saying that the “angel Fate,” a mystery woman who’d been helping for a decade now and that no one could identify, much less find, seemed to be looking out for all of them.

  Rysa tried not to think too much about it. An entire team of Fates worked for Praesagio Industries and now that Daisy’s father had been named “the new Caesar” and had his hands deep in their dealings, the Fates in question had no choice but to act angelic.

  So Rysa focused on getting her degree and tending to her young relationship with her gorgeous man. She squirmed again and fought the need to ask Ladon to pull off behind a random building for a quickie.

  Ladon chuckled and shook his head. “Your friend Gavin, he signs, correct?”

  Rysa glanced into the back of the van, realizing she’d never answered Dragon’s question. “A hit and run driver took a lot of his hearing when he was eleven.” Right about the same time Rysa’s father vanished from her life on the orders of the so-called angel Fate. “Almost killed his younger brother, too.”

  Ladon nodded. Rysa’s seers hinted that the common ground of trauma was often the means by which Ladon bonded with other humans, and that she was about to see such a bonding unfold in real time. With Daisy, for sure, and, Rysa hoped, also with Gavin.

  Because Gavin was going to be her “bestie of honor” this winter when she and Ladon married, so the men couldn’t spend all their time scowling at each other.

  “He hears pretty well with his aids.” Rysa tapped the side of her head. “He told me his new ones are phenomenal.” Which didn’t surprise her, since they were Praesagio Industries built—another revelation that had caused its own set of problems.

  Ladon’s face scrunched up as he spoke to Dragon. “And he is learning to doctor?”

  They turned off Cleveland Avenue and into the swankier part of the neighborhood behind campus, toward the sleepy street with Daisy’s house. The late afternoon sun danced over the rooftops. Trees rustled and dogs barked.

  “He’s pre-med.” Rysa sat back in her seat again, watching a familiar world glide by outside the van. Maybe this once, she could test the coming waters. Cheat just a wee bit, to make sure the upcoming social interaction satisfied everyone.

  She called her present-seer, her little buddy of the moment who wielded its thick marker it used to outline look at this.

  Pizza appeared into her head. An extra-large topped with tasty sausage, mushrooms, and olives, the set of toppings included inside the overlap area of Gavin’s Venn diagram of What Rysa and Daisy Will Eat.

  And from her future-seer, a hint of happiness she knew had to happen.

  Chuckling, she tapped the door panel under her resting arm. “Can we make a quick stop?”

  Ladon glanced over, his face clearly indicating that he felt her seer. “What did you see?”

  Rysa smiled. “That this coming year is going to be a whole lot of fun.”

  Chapter Four

  Daisy’s house looked the same as it had when Ladon and Dragon visited four years ago: Bright and airy with a naturalized yard and a considerable number of flitting and buzzing insects. Butterflies drifted through warm shadows cast by the early evening sun. A small animal chirped and skittered through the cone-shaped flowers next to her concrete walk.

  The air tasted fresher here than it did in most of the other urban areas Ladon and Dragon had had the unfortunate experience of living in. Not fresh like their home in Wyoming, but less soot and burning combustion engine stink than most of the other modern cities in the United States.

  Ladon closed his door and surveyed the neighborhood. Houses similar to Daisy’s stacked up along the street, some smaller, some larger. All well maintained. A few students milled around, but most home owners looked older and less likely to harbor threats.

  I will check the roof. Dragon sauntered by on his way up the side of Daisy’s house and to a good view of the backyard and the alley behind the house.

  The detached garage offered a strategic challenge. Ladon frowned.

  Rysa bounced around the vehicle, her lovely face bright, and held out her hands.

  She didn’t know how her smile righted his world. How seeing her free of her anxiety and happily returning to her schooling made the hell they went through three months ago tolerable.

  His beautiful love glanced around the neighborhood and the unconscious music of her seers touched the edges of his mind. She’d advanced in her training to the point that checking for threats with her Fate’s abilities had become an almost continuous sweet stream of melodic notes that danced along the surface of the connection they shared.

  He didn’t think she realized what she did. Nor did he think she understood how comforting he found her seers’ caresses.

  But he understood how she appreciated the calming effect she experienced when inside the energy bond he shared with Dragon. They calmed the spikes and jaggedness of her attention issues, and buffered the typhoons they caused her mind and soul.

  Knowing they helped in a way no one else could, knowing that Dragon wanted to help as much as Ladon did, and knowing that their presence returned peace to her life, made getting up in the morning worthwhile.

  For too long—too many centuries—waking up felt cruel. The day meant more hell. More terror. But not now. Not with Rysa.

  Her scent of mist under the moon and sweet jasmine curled around him. He pulled her close, breathing her in, and pressed his forehead to hers.

  “No threats,” she whispered.

  Ladon smiled. His body carried more than his blood and bones. Vigilance gave his and Dragon’s world a structure most other people did not understand. His sister understood, as did the Legio Draconis Second in Command, Andreas Sisto. They parsed the world into moments of concern, items of threat, places of interest. As the core of the Legion, their purpose was to know what threatened their people and how to stop the danger in its tracks.

  Vigilance meant perception of the past, present, and the future, with or without seers.

  But now the new Draki Prime and the healer of dragons deemed him worthy of
her love. When Rysa touched his chest, he breathed easier. When she stroked his temple, the vigilance ratcheted back and loosened its hold on his muscles.

  And, most days, it let him see the true colors of the world around him, not the flat haze of his melancholy.

  What she did, he didn’t know. She didn’t seem to understand, either. But after several determined days and nights of Rysa listening and loving him and touching with her healer’s hands, he’d begun to feel better.

  I see no threats in the back, Human.

  Ladon felt the familiar prickling that accompanied the stretching of his connection with the beast. Until Ladon moved closer to the house, the peak of the roof was as far as Dragon could go.

  The invisible beast carefully lowered himself over the front of Daisy’s home and stretched out so that he could drop onto the porch roof. The less he used his talons on the shingles, the less damage he did.

  It was best not to leave behind signs of a dragon’s passing.

  A mental chuckle rolled across their connection. Daisy watches from the attic window. An image appeared in Ladon’s mind. Daisy looked the same as she had the last time they’d seen her four years ago: Tall and strong with the same no-nonsense, intelligent eyes and the same attractive, athletic build.

  A young man also stood in the window. He, too, watched with bright, intelligent eyes that glimmered more pale than Derek and Dmitri’s icy irises. About Daisy’s height, and also athletic, he seemed to be taking in everything, including Ladon and Rysa—and the sounds Dragon made as he moved on the roof.

  The kid jumped back from the window.

  I believe he is Rysa’s friend, Gavin, Dragon pushed. He seems perceptive.

  Ladon chuckled. “Dragon says your friend is here.”

  Rysa quickly kissed Ladon’s lips. “Be nice. He’s a good guy.”

  Ladon rolled his shoulders and glanced at the house. “Of course I’ll be nice.” Though a tiny pang of irritation fizzled like a sparkler at the base of his mind. This kid was an unknown who not only had knowledge of Rysa and Daisy but of the entire world of Fates, Shifters, Burners, and Dragon and Sister-Dragon. This Gavin kid could be a problem. He might get underfoot and become a distraction.