“Put me down! You’re wounded.” The bite might open if he carried her to the RV. “Caveman.”
Dragon pushed through the RV door first, squeezing his head through, then his limbs. He curled into the corner of the big bed filling the back of the vehicle.
Ladon chuckled as he carried her through the door and set her down next to the beast. “Ah, but it is an excellent cave. One suitable for both dragons and beautiful women.”
Derek laughed as he went forward to drive. “That it is, my friend!” Sister-Dragon squeezed in behind him.
AnnaBelinda appeared with a med kit in her hand. She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked Rysa over. “Thank you for saving Brother,” she said.
Rysa squeezed the dragon woman’s fingers. “Thank you for saving us from the fall.”
Anna nodded over her shoulder and toward her husband. “Derek will fill you in on how the cave works.”
She wasn’t going to fight about her brother taking up with a Fate, at least for the moment. “Thank you,” Rysa said. A bit of wooziness crept in. She leaned against Ladon’s side.
Anna bandaged Ladon’s shoulder, then checked Rysa’s pulse. “Your heart’s beating fine.” She pressed a palm to Rysa’s forehead. “But you’re feverish.”
Dragon cupped her upper back. Yes, he signed. Your temperature is elevated.
Fevers were to be expected in the newly activated. The bed felt comfy and all Rysa wanted was sleep. She’d be fine, resting with Ladon and Dragon.
AnnaBelinda handed her a bottle of water. “Drink this.” Then she wagged a finger at Ladon. “She’ll need food when she wakes up. Shifters are always hungry when they activate.”
He nodded and kissed the top of Rysa’s head. “I’ll make sure she eats.”
“And watch her fever.”
Rysa sipped the water. She felt safe between Ladon and Dragon. She even felt safe with AnnaBelinda and Sister-Dragon, who glimmered like an ocean behind Derek. There was no other place she wanted to be but with them.
Ladon touched her shoulder and her cheek. “Thank you, my love.”
“You’re welcome.” She cuddled close. “Will you really buy a house near campus?” She’d live with them, even though they hadn’t been together long enough for that. But she knew they’d insist. She didn’t foresee either Ladon or Dragon accepting any other arrangement.
He kissed her cheek. “And another later, if you decide to go to graduate school.”
The level of commitment he offered shouldn’t surprise her, but it did. “You know, in a couple of weeks you may decide you don’t like me.” She stroked his arm. “I can be demanding. And hyperactive.” He hadn’t been around her enough to start making the faces.
She felt her body pull away in the same unconscious reaction she’d had to every guy who offered affection.
She didn’t mean to. Ladon wouldn’t do that to her.
He cupped her chin. “We are more concerned about you.”
“Why?” Her seers didn’t scream bad or be scared. Just the opposite. She saw only happiness.
“I will explain my entire twenty-three centuries and what I have done and why I did it.” He paused, watching her face. “You can ask me any question and I will always tell you the truth.”
“I know.” After what he’d given her already, she wasn’t worried. The wars he’d fought were in the past.
“Thank you.” He kissed the top of her head.
Rysa settled with her head on Ladon’s shoulder and Dragon’s hand draped over her hip. They fell into a rhythm, Ladon breathing in as she breathed out. Dragon matched his patterns to their respirations. His lights reflected off the walls of the RV and moved in soft waves as if pushed by a gentle breeze.
Rysa’s body embraced true calm for the first time since the Burners found her. She drifted off into sleep with her new talisman under her palm.
The stars and waves passing by her eyes shone strong and smooth, like the future. No fire haunted her soul. Rysa slept with only visions of sunshine and oranges filling her dreams.
The story continues in Flux of Skin….
FLUX OF SKIN
Chapter One
Bumps and divots and tactile non sequiturs wrenched across Ladon’s abdomen. The RV bounced. Reflections of Dragon’s patterns whirled across the ceiling and only added to his unease.
A damned dream had turned his gut into a cauldron.
He rubbed his midsection. They’d be home soon. The Jani Fates might have put them through hell—he could think of a thousand safer ways to activate his beloved Rysa’s new Shifter healer abilities than the fight they’d just endured in Salt Lake City—but that was done. In less than four hours he’d be in his own bed, under the solidity of the cave’s dome with his woman where she should be—pressed against his side and free of her family’s torture.
He’d sleep off his wounds in comfort and peace, all his nightmares be damned.
Yet a sour sense of foreboding grated at his insides. The fractured emotions of the dream still chafed his body raw.
Rysa lay between him and Dragon, asleep again. He rolled against her back and snaked an arm around her waist. Gently, he splayed his fingers over her belly and laid his forehead against the nape of her neck.
Her mist-under-the-moon scent calmed some of the dream’s aftereffects.
Sighing, she rolled slightly, and her body unconsciously molded against his. He shifted to close the gap, and the sourness seeped away.
This, with her, filled more holes in his long life than any other moment he’d experienced. Yet he couldn’t shake the thought that the dream’s menace was backwash from her Fate’s future-seer. Her abilities saw something bad coming, and through the connection they shared, so did he.
Except it felt familiar. It felt like him. Twenty-three centuries he’d walked this earth and rolling dread only pierced his gut before the universe reduced his life to rubble.
Dragon’s patterns flickered to warmer tones. Unease filtered through the river of energy Ladon shared with the beast—or it filtered from him to Dragon. After over two millennia sharing a psychic connection, sometimes neither of them could tell to whom an emotion belonged.
We are safe, the beast pushed into his mind. A slow ocean of disconnected patterns moved across the beast’s hide. You must not worry. Rysa will be distressed by your mood.
Ladon willed his muscles to loosen. Even if his body screamed to pay attention, to keep his eyes open and his senses primed, she didn’t need to see his unease.
She blinked and stretched, and a strand of her richly-toned hair fell across her eyes.
The beast nuzzled her shoulder. Rysa yawned and wiped away sleep with the back of one hand while scratching Dragon’s jaw with the other.
Ladon forced a grin as much to bury his discomfort as to mask it from his love. Even without her abilities to see past, present, and future, Rysa picked up more than she realized. The beast was correct—she’d sense his anxiety if he wasn’t careful.
He stroked the stray hair from her forehead.
“Hmm… Where are we?” The blanket bunched up between them when she scooted closer.
Before they left Salt Lake City, they’d both changed into some of his brother-in-law Derek’s extra sweats. She now cuddled against Ladon’s side wearing a big-eared, big-eyed Russian cartoon character emblazoned across her chest. The t-shirt stretched tight between her perfect breasts.
He’d never found a woman with such exquisite balance. One breast was slightly fuller than the other—just a fraction, not enough that a normal would notice—but her other had a small mole on the center top. When she held her arms out to him, it formed a line between her shoulder and her nipple and perfectly balanced the slight extra roundness of her other breast.
He traced his finger over the cartoon character’s ear, gently circling the mole under the fabric.
Her fingers traced the grooves of his bicep.
Every inch of his skin, every muscle and every tendon, sighed under
her touch. Four days they’d been together. Four days and his body only felt whole when she pressed herself against his side.
“We’re almost to Rock Springs,” he whispered.
Her fingers caressed his forearm. Her seers danced along the borders of his consciousness with the rhythm of her movements, both tender but solid, in a lovely and sure cadence.
He let it flow over him. The music of her Fate abilities wove into the edges of his mind the way her fingers wove around his hand. He breathed under the completeness of her caress—mental and physical—soothed more than he should allow himself to be.
He glided his lips over her brow, then down the bridge of her nose to land a gentle kiss on the tip. Another kiss followed, a sweet touch of his lips to hers. Her scent curled into him, but this close, a hint of something new added a deeper note to her bouquet: ‘Acceptance.’
Rysa’s Shifter half had brought more than healer abilities—she had burgeoning close-range enthraller calling scents, as well. Scents he could only smell when he was within inches of her body. Scents made just for him. Scents that said she loved him.
He could let his focus change. Concentrate on her skin and her touch and the wonders she shared with him. He could cover her with his body and kiss the sleepiness from her mouth. Give back to her all she’d given him and let everything else fall away.
He nuzzled and nibbled her earlobe. The divots lessened as he pressed himself against her and he felt, for the first time since opening his eyes, that maybe he’d only had a bad dream. A reaction to what had happened, not what will. He lay now next to perfection. What bad could happen?
She tickled the furrow between his abdomen and his hip and he squirmed. “Woman, you will be my end.” A rumble threatened to escape from his chest—his rolling dragon vibration that emanated from the spot below his heart. It had happened with other women, but never as loudly as it did with Rysa, and never as often.
And she seemed to enjoy it. If they were quick, they’d be dressed again before Sister drove the RV into the all-night grocery in Rock Springs. He worked his hand up her thigh to the firm curve of her bottom.
She grinned and her eyes twinkled, but she yawned and leaned her head against his shoulder. “You’re going to have to wait until I feel better.”
He pulled back. That’s not what she’d said outside of Salt Lake City. She’d crawled on top of him, the activation of her Shifter half priming all her appetites, and rubbed against his groin until he couldn’t take it anymore and flipped her on her back.
He pushed himself up on his elbow. Her skin felt hot beneath his hand. He hadn’t thought about it—she might take longer than other Shifters to come out of activation—but now he wondered. And she hadn’t asked for food since they’d left—not even an apple or a drink of water in the five hours they'd traveled.
The dream’s dread resurfaced and scoured a new trench across his stomach.
Behind Rysa, discordant patterns swirled across Dragon’s hide.
Rysa rolled away. “I feel everything you two pulse back and forth between each other, you know.” She rubbed the beast’s snout. “I’m fine. I’m still activating, that’s all. Who knows what kind of Shifter I’ll be, huh? Since I’m an active Fate, too.” She grinned but only the corners of her mouth lifted. She didn’t believe her own words.
How could he have missed this? He’d been so wrapped up in his own desires, so amazed by the newness of her Fate-Shifter combination, that he’d failed to consider the potential danger of a double activation.
There were probably good reasons half-breeds were only activated as either Fate or Shifter. Probably very good reasons.
Her skin had taken on the tone of ash. The fever hadn’t diminished and still flushed her face and neck, but a pallor had set over her cheeks and eyes.
He touched her forehead. She felt warm yet clammy.
“Ladon, I’m okay.” Her brows knitted and the corners of her mouth dropped down. She looked the way she did when she worried about him. “When my aunt gets here, she’ll take care of it. I’ll be all right.”
She lied—fear sparked across their connection. Her aunt might be a class-one healer, but Rysa thought her double-activation was destroying her body. She was trying to conceal it from him and Dragon.
“Rysa, if you’re hurting, don’t hide it. Don’t—”
Dragon flattened his digits and retracted his talons. Dmitri says Lucinda de la Turris comes, Rysa, he signed in American Sign Language so she understood, one big eye level with Ladon’s face. He says she is a good healer and will help. He spoke to Derek, and they are cousins. Dmitri would not lie.
The beast pulsed calm as his big hand returned to her hip. You are increasing her anxiety, Human.
Ladon sat up. She’s sick. Dragon’s accusatory tone wasn’t helping.
Rysa rolled onto her back, one palm on Ladon’s stomach and the other on Dragon’s snout. “Quit fretting! You’re both worse than my mother.” She rolled onto her front and closed her eyes.
Dragon’s hide pulsed in his version of a frown and Ladon stared at Rysa’s back not understanding why she acted this way. It didn’t make sense. He would do whatever was necessary for her to be healthy. He’d go anywhere and acquire anything, even if he had to fight every Fate, Shifter, and Burner on the planet to do it.
She knew that. She didn’t have to ask.
“I’m serious.” Rysa buried her face in the pillow. “I’m not a doll. I won’t break.”
“But—”
She sat up in one swift, stiff motion. Her seers raked through the back of the RV, grating and dissonant and not at all as rhythmic and musical as they should be.
Ladon squinted. No Fates’ seers had ever felt so harsh. Rysa’s had turned rasping and violent so fast the surprise of the change hit him harder than the new rawness spreading through his mind.
The part of her she called her “nasty” jigged along their connection as if it danced on hot coals. He felt it, and almost saw it as a real, visceral extension of the woman he loved.
Inside Rysa, Fate and Shifter rubbed against each other and the sparks set her body on fire.
The energy he and the beast shared collapsed into a tight stream. Every other time they’d contracted their energy around Rysa, calm settled her mind and pleasure eased her body. Her nasty would drink deep and order would right her world.
But now, her breath hitched. A glaze clouded the moonlight of her irises and she blinked in a steady but unnatural cadence. “Put on your shirt.”
Ladon nodded as he reached for a t-shirt. Her face had flattened as it did when she passed out—but that shouldn’t happen anymore.
When she’d scooped Dragon’s talon out of the puddle in Salt Lake City, she’d realized the beast—or whatever metallic compounds made him shimmer—was her true talisman, not the burndust-infested chains. The talon seemed to make her feel safer, as if having such a large dose of concentrated Dragon on her body gave her extra confidence. So Ladon had bound it in duct tape and twine, to blunt its edge and hide its dragon-vanishing properties. Rysa now wore seven inches of talon as a curve of adhesive tied with a square knot at her nape, even though it was still obvious and would likely draw stares from normals.
Her hand rose, rigid as if she didn’t have control, and touched the talon before her finger pointed toward the front of the RV. “Something’s wrong,” she whispered. “The road is stiff.”
Stiff? Her seers pounded on the edge of his consciousness. What was happening to her?
Dragon’s hand cupped her back. Her fever rises.
Divots poked again. Trenches deepened. Dread dropped from the sky and slammed into Ladon’s body so hard his back felt as if it would snap.
Rysa stared through the curtain separating the back of the RV from the front and the road ahead, her eyes narrow. “Put on your boots. Now.”
“Love, what are you seeing?” An instant of fight flickered along their connection. All edges delineated. All sound heightened. Her seers backwashed
into his mind.
“Past, present, future—I can’t see anything. The world is sharp and cutting. Hard and splitting.”
Ladon pulled the t-shirt over his wounded shoulder. The bite he had suffered in Salt Lake City throbbed but he ignored it.
“Ladon…” Her eyes rolled back into her head. Her spine arched. Her mouth opened wide and her breath rattled into her chest.
She dropped against Dragon’s chest.
“Rysa!” All the muscles along Ladon’s spine knotted.
Dragon scooped her up and placed one hand on her back. He flexed his digits, fully retracting his talons, and reached for Ladon. The beast didn’t need to touch his chest. Ladon already felt the torrents flooding off her body. They broke free like vapor boiling off too-hot skin.
But Dragon touched and an inhale stopped halfway into Ladon’s throat. Fever washed through every fiber of Rysa’s inflamed body.
She burned.
And he didn’t know what to do.
Continue the story with Flux of Skin….
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The Worlds of
Kris Austen Radcliffe
Genre-bending Science Fiction about
love, family, and dragons:
Fate – Fire – Shifter – Dragon
Games of Fate
Flux of Skin
Fifth of Blood
Bonds Broken & Silent
All But Human
Men and Beasts
The Burning World
Games of Fate (Fate Fire Shifter Dragon Book 1) Page 34