Ladon didn’t need to flirt or make jokes.
“You feeling okay?” She patted Dragon’s snout. “What about you?”
We are fine, Rysa.
“We’re sorry we ran off.” Ladon rubbed Dragon’s tail. “We needed… quiet.”
Dragon raised his hand. Yes.
“But you feel okay? No pain? No flashes or heat like the seizures?” They were fine, at least physically. She’d healed them both at the hotel and three different Praesagio healers checked them over. Daisy checked Dragon. “We could go back. Dad can make sure, if you want. In case I missed something.” Because at this point, she was beginning to wonder.
Ladon picked up a poker and prodded the fire. “We will sit for a full exam with your father before the ceremony. We promise.”
Rysa nodded. “Thank you.”
They sat in silence. A bluish squiggly pattern moved from under Rysa’s hand on Dragon’s snout, along his ridges, to under Ladon’s hand on the beast’s tail. Ladon watched it glide along, his face blank, and inhaled deeply when it disappeared off the tip.
“The editing you spoke of? The sense you had that something important had dropped out of the what-was-is-will-be? What did it feel like?”
Her fingers jittered. Her entire body wanted to crawl through the fire and onto his lap. “Thinness.” But she stayed still. “It feels…” She thought for a second, trying to find a place of common understanding between them. Describing how her seers worked was difficult enough for her. She would have thought that twenty years of explaining her ADHD would have made it a lot easier, but it didn’t.
How could she describe something with no physical world equivalent? “When Dragon pushes to you, when I sense the push, it feels as if I’m inside a high-definition, three dimensional image. My brain sees and hears a hologram.” Not that she expected him to understand what a hologram was. “The editing feels as if the hologram is still there, but it’s low def and what matters is missing.” The editing felt intelligent and it operated on a different level from her talisman.
Ladon slowly exhaled. “Like someone stripped out the plumbing and the electrical.”
“Yes.”
He stared out over the pool. A fish plinked in the quiet, and water dripped. Dragon rubbed against the rock. “I feel edited.”
She crawled around the fire, but she stopped without offering a touch. She had to ask. She had to know. If he needed help beyond what she could give, then they needed to go back right now. Her father was here, as was Dmitri. Someone would know what to do.
“Is this worse than the melancholy?” What if he shaved his head with a steak knife again? Would Dragon be able to hold him together?
Ladon shook himself as if surprised. He blinked, his mouth round and his brows knitted.
He pulled her into his arms and hugged her to his chest. “It’s different,” he said. “We’re okay.”
She nodded and squeezed her eyes closed. She’d hold herself together. She had to hold it together. He’d held it together for her when she first activated and damn it, she’d hold it together for him now. “But you’ll tell me if it gets bad, right? Because I’ll know, Ladon. I’ll—”
He kissed her the way a boy would kiss his first crush. He groped at her shirt and her backside as he pulled her around so she straddled his lap. “We will not lose you,” he said against her lips. “Not you. Not our reason.”
She wouldn’t cry. “I don’t know how to describe how much I missed you. How much Dragon missed you.” She touched the beast’s snout. “We can’t lose you, either.”
He kissed her chin.
“I thought Dragon might die. I thought Vivicus might have hurt you and that you might be trapped and I was only seeing what you wanted to do, not what you would, and I’m a Fate and I should have known but I didn’t and my rampage Fate came and… and…” She hiccupped.
“We’re alive.” Ladon glanced at Dragon and energy pinged between them. “We’re okay. We need time and rest, that’s all. So do you.”
She wiped at her eyes. “You’re too calm, Ladon.” He should be angry. She would be angry if someone stripped Dragon from her. Angry and full of rage and manifesting a dark Fate’s blade of new.
“Anger won’t help. Vivicus is dead.” For a long moment, Ladon stroked her back in silence. He twitched a little here and there, as he pushed to Dragon.
She picked up some: They needed to be vigilant. Aiden Blake could do as much—more—damage as Vivicus. They needed to protect, especially now with new lives about to be added to their family.
And they would. Protecting was what they did.
But their energy carried the editing Ladon spoke of—a diminishing of the weight of their centuries and of what it meant when a villain got through their protections. They understood the consequences, but they didn’t carry a boulder in their guts anymore.
Was this good? Bad? It was definitely different.
Ladon pulled away as if he’d made a decision. “Come.”
Dragon stretched like a giant cat. He flicked out a hind leg and arched his back, then drew in the leg again. The other leg flicked out over the pool. His talons grazed the water’s surface. A sweet tinkling sound followed and fluttered into the silence of the cavern as if little faeries carried bells into the dark.
Did you bring your phone, Rysa? the beast signed. He stretched his front limbs and lengthened his giant claw-hands. Waves moved from the base of each of his six digits out to his talons, then back.
Dragon did hand flutters better than any bellydancer Rysa had ever seen. “Why?”
Ladon picked her up off his lap and gently set her on the rock next to the fire’s glow. Dragon’s lovely swirls and patterns played over the cavern’s craggy ceiling, out over the calm and glistening pool, and visually warmed the space as much as the fire warmed air.
He shook. His reflected lights jiggled into streaks of blues and reds and when he stilled his body, the patterns had changed into stars, comets, and little ringed planets.
Ladon touched her cheek. Slowly, he leaned close enough to graze her lips with his. “I once promised you a real date with dancing.” He kissed her again. “Dragon’s wondering if you have music with you.”
“Dancing? Here?” In a cold cavern? Was this Ladon or ghost-Nate?
Does it matter? whispered her present-seer. The effort makes them happy. Let them do this.
“I have it.” She reached for her pack. “I also brought oranges for Dragon. Do you want to eat first? I’m hungry. Are you hungry?” She sounded as teenager-like as Ladon. “No starving on me, okay?”
Ladon pulled her to her feet. He glanced over her shoulder at Dragon and the gentle flow of information resumed—one rich with the touch of rose petals and brushes against Dragon’s coat. A full spectrum of colors followed, all layered with warm depth.
The emotional information smoothed over her skin like a silk scarf, or Ladon’s kisses, or his breath on her neck when they made love. The editing he felt hadn’t stripped away how he felt about her. If anything, it had uncovered clarity.
Ladon led her around the fire to an open area near the edge of the pool. Dragon dug into her pack and pulled out her phone. He held it out in front of his big cat eye and tipped it back and forth as if rotating it made seeing her playlists easier. Then he shinked in a talon and scrolled through the options.
After a moment, he started up a list, and her favorite band pulsed from the phone’s little speaker.
Ladon twirled her around, then dropped her into a dip. “We aim to please our most beautiful love with only the best moves.” His arm wrapped around her waist and he drew her close for a quick kiss. “Now and always.”
He spun her toward Dragon, who expertly caught her waist. The beast dipped her into the crook of his opposing front limb, then spun her back toward Ladon.
Rysa laughed for the first time since returning to the cave. For the first time since Vivicus stole Ladon away. For the first time, she thought, all winter. “You are fu
ll of surprises, Mr. Drake.”
“By all the old gods I want you,” Ladon breathed into her ear.
She drew a small circle just below his heart, over the spot from which his rumbles emanated. “You always want me.”
“You have no idea.”
“No idea? I live inside the flow between you two.” She wagged her finger between Ladon and Dragon. “And I’m a Fate. I know.”
Dragon rubbed against her back. Their energy contracted into a tight torrent gushing around Rysa’s body. It danced over her skin with the same joy as Ladon danced with her body. It sparkled and laughed and for the first time since their first lovemaking, Ladon and Dragon responded to her in the present, in the what-is, without their past or future interfering.
Rysa curled her arms around Ladon’s head. His stubble rubbed her lips and his hair wrapped between her fingers. His scent of civilization and sunshine filled her body with the calm that only came from him—the knowledge that she was safe, that he would not push her away because of her hyperactivity, that he and Dragon had her back. She relaxed into his embrace and pressed as much of her body against his front as she could.
Ladon’s tongue touched her lips and he groaned into her mouth. “You had better marry me.” He kissed her again.
“Or what?” She ran her hand over his hip and down the square splendor of his backside.
Ladon lifted her into the air and pulled her legs around his waist. “Or I will shower you with roses every day.” He kissed her again. “I will leave jewels on your doorstep.” And again. “You will endure unending pleading and many dragon pouts.”
The burst that moved between him and the beast did not carry the teasing of his voice. For a split second, fear washed over her, but not like any fear she’d ever picked up from them before. Not the fear for her life, or the fear of a cold, dead future, or of isolation.
This new fear carried the same clarity she’d picked up when he first spoke of the editing. This fear felt more like the fear of maiming, of becoming half of what they are, or what they wanted to be. This was fear of loss itself, not the fear of dealing with loss yet again.
“Ladon,” she whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.” Nor would anyone take her from him, the way Vivicus took him from her. Not again. Never again.
Ladon pressed her against Dragon’s side. “My mate,” he growled. “Mine.”
Not Nate’s. Not the Fates’ or the Shifters’. Not the Burners’. Not even Dragon’s. She was his.
“Always.”
Yes, flickered from Dragon. His humans. His family.
Ladon gripped Dragon’s coat. “I want this ghost out of my head.”
He wanted only Rysa and his beast.
“Then we get him out,” she whispered.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Earlier….
The Scottish pirate landed the helicopter on a broad rock plateau up the side of a mountain, out in the middle of nowhere and in the depths of winter. The man flipped a switch, the rock below lit up, and here they were, three of the old and one of the new. The talon sliver heated in Aiden’s hand again and he flipped between sitting on the copter’s floor, leaning on Pavlovich’s legs, to sitting on the ground leaning against the Tsar, so close to a dragon he should have felt her heat.
Then back to the copter, when Pavlovich stepped out.
An hour on the damned copter and he’d held his gut, but the dragon’s pull knocked loose the final straw. Aiden vomited what little remained in his stomach onto one of the many crates stacked in the copter’s transport compartment.
The pirate unhooked himself from his cables and helped unload crates onto the rock. The Shifter with the gale-force healer ability paced and pointed. Mira Torres’s present-seer encased her inside a lovely, rippling bubble of velocity. He’d poked his finger in halfway through the flight, but pulled away when she twitched.
He let her be. Patience had gotten him to this point, and patience would get him what he wanted.
The pirate-pilot lifted the puked-on crate. He sniffed at it, and his past-seer rolled out, but he shrugged and carried it out of the copter.
Aiden wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Well, well.” He stuck out his leg to trip the man but he just stepped over the same way everyone avoided contact. “If I shit on your seat, will you know?”
He was half-tempted to test his question, but thought better of it. He might use any means necessary to achieve his goals, but he was not an animal. He watched the man lift another crate.
“I remember you.” He shoved the pirate but, once again, nothing happened. “Does Pavlovich realize who he hired to pilot his billion-dollar airship?” Not that it mattered, though Mira Torres’s amusement during the flight had washed off her as colorful waves of sensation.
Pavlovich stepped off the copter. He stretched and threw his arms wide in an obvious gesture to the people below.
Aiden looked over the edge.
The dragon sensed him. She had to, from the way she circled the Tsar. She stalked back and forth at the foot of the rock plateau and her head whipped between looking up at Aiden’s position and pressing against the Tsar’s side.
“He’s mine, beastie,” Aiden yelled. “I’m going to take him away from you. I’m going to slice him into thin Tsar strips.” He made quick snipping motions. “He’s going to leave you!”
The dragon pranced again and her hide flashed an agitated pattern, though neither the Tsar nor her human looked up toward where Aiden stood.
“What are you telling them?” He tightened his fist around the sliver, and… moved.
“… talk about this, okay?” The Tsar rubbed the beast’s crest.
Aiden flipped back to the top of the plateau, staggered, and almost fell the twenty feet to the ground below. Yelping, he swung his arms and dropped onto his ass on top of whatever fabric they used to light up the landing area—and yelped again.
The fabric burned. It wiggled and it squiggled like a damned dragon and it set his skin on fire. Heat so strong it passed through itself and into a cold and freezing sting pooled in his fingertips, his nostrils, his ears. His gut heaved. The yanking he’d felt in the bar when Pavlovich walked away now felt as if a million needles pierced his skin.
He rolled onto the rock.
The copter was gone, as were the crates. The dragon and the humans, as well. The sun had moved lower and now sat on the horizon.
Aiden threw up again. He rolled onto his back and tried to breathe. Tried to think beyond the electrified wire brush of pain ripping at his flesh.
Did his nerves burn because the universe wanted him to understand that he’d become too big for his shell? That he needed to take his fire and burst through the barrier of new around him and become the godhead he was meant to be? He had the strength to survive this. He would be the last one standing, when the world ignited.
He might just be the one to do the burning.
Time to give birth, he thought.
Slowly, he pressed the dragon talon sliver into the flesh of his palm. A new, sharper pain radiated from where it bit into his flesh, but the heat of his existence overrode most of the discomfort. He wiggled the sliver back and forth. A gash opened, one stretching from the base of his ring finger to the fleshy mound above his wrist.
Aiden worked the sliver under his skin. No way he’d lose it now, but its presence under his skin triggered a shift in the world again.
The snow became slithering, writhing shades, the plateau broader and flatter. The sun overhead shifted to cold and red and to filling half the sky. When he looked down, the Draki Prime with her gray-green sunburst eyes and her lovely auburn hair stood right in front of him, so close he could kiss her plump lips.
Oh, she would have made a tender, naïve, ripe-for-the-plucking mark a few years ago. He’d had plans. He could have ripped out her heart and fed it to her, the little bitch.
But her mother hid her well and he never felt her presence even though he was the best Fate. She knew too much n
ow; she called him a rapist here, on the plateau, to his face.
He ignored her outburst. He wasn’t a child. “I lead the way,” he said. “It’s up to you to follow.” He would rise. If she followed, he might not kill her on the other side.
The writhing fog bit his ankles and drew blood. It gnawed and chewed and when he looked up, the too large, too red star receded into the darkening sky.
Aiden Blake no longer stood on the Dragon’s Rock. He’d moved once again—the cold of winter no longer charged the raking pain attacking his skin. Energy swirled around him as a massive vortex of moving-yet-not-moving, fueled by the many long immortals and the raw power of the young ones.
Rock jutted up over his head. Light filled the cavern. Colors danced and women laughed and he was in a kitchen with a dragon, her people, and his true love.
“Daisy,” he breathed. He stepped to her, quickly curling his arms around her waist. He rubbed against her front. Her shape glided against his hardening parts, her smooth curves and her strong muscles. “You smell nice,” he murmured, doing his best to remember her scent against the gales of power. “Like a flower.”
When she opened her mouth to speak to her boy toy, Aiden stuck his tongue into her mouth.
He tasted nothing. He felt nothing of her kiss. The closer the boy toy came, the less of Daisy’s presence Aiden felt—and the more of the pulsing, overriding glass in the boy’s rib, and the boy himself.
Dragons, the glass whispered. Dragons dragons dragons dragons…. A shock snapped through his mind. The raking, wire brush pain flared, but he held on and….
His beautiful flower touched his cheek. “Mira and Sandro are making dinner tonight.”
The glass hardened his rib, and he wasn’t to exert himself, but the need to impress Mr. Pavlovich gnawed at his mind and he figured if he helped with the barbecue sauce that he’d—
Pavlovich spoke to Dr. Torres as the two men moved away, toward the equipment. Aiden popped out of Gavin—burst off him the way a seal on a jar popped.
Men And Beasts (Fate - Fire - Shifter - Dragon Book 6) Page 25