Men And Beasts (Fate - Fire - Shifter - Dragon Book 6)

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  The hand and arm of a dragon appeared and cupped around both Rysa and Addy. They flew backward, both vanishing into the protective embrace of a beast.

  Daniel Drake overlaid Aiden for what seemed to Daisy like forever. He looked at her, his iron-gray eyes sorry and pained and as tired as AnnaBelinda’s. Then he, too, vanished toward Brother-Dragon.

  Aiden seemed to inhale, or sigh. He blinked as if trying to focus, as if seeing beyond the veil of new between him and the real world took more effort than he thought it was worth. He adjusted his stupid, goddamned, douchey psychopath’s hat and he rubbed his palm.

  Then he smiled at Daisy.

  Aiden Blake hurt people. He had been about to inflict onto Adrestia a long immortal’s lifetime of living with a killer worse than herself—of living with a rapist inside her body.

  “You said we would hunt.” Daisy raised her hand. She extended her fingers, her pointer and the one carrying the Tsar’s ring, and touched the center of Aiden’s forehead.

  “He’s right here, Andreas,” she said. “Directly under my hand.”

  What had appeared to be the rocks directly behind her moved. Sister-Dragon stepped to the side. A small female shape curled her arm around Daisy’s waist and hauled her out of the way at the same time as a large male arm lifted to aim a huge, Praesagio-built weapon.

  Aiden’s eyes widened. His mouth opened.

  And Andreas Theodulus Sisto, a man who was most certainly not a ghost, put a new-killing bullet through Aiden Blake’s skull.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Rysa watched poor Dmitri pace at the base of the Dragon’s Rock. Red crept up his neck and every muscle in his neck tensed. He’d break the case of his cell phone if he gripped it any tighter.

  “Why did I not know of this project?” he growled into his phone. Dmitri Pavlovich was not a happy Chief Executive Officer.

  Not ten feet away, Andreas did his own pacing with a borrowed phone at his ear. “I’m sorry, honey,” he said. He’d called his girlfriend, Renee, at The Land of Milk and Honey the moment they stepped outside.

  Andreas paced toward the Rock and Dmitri away, directly at each other, both men with their heads fully in their conversations. They both pulled up short less than three feet from each other. Dmitri scowled. Andreas frowned. Then they turned their backs and walked in the opposite direction.

  After Andreas put a bullet in Aiden Blake’s head, Rysa and her mother both used their seers to look for ways to transport his body back to Praesagio Industries Research and Development in Portland. No one could see or touch his corpse, though Daisy had a good sense of where it was.

  Turned out the systems inside the fabric strips marking the Dragon’s Rock helicopter landing area contained some sort of “quantum dot this or that” and an “ambient low-energy distributed processing system” that made it… new.

  Ladon and Dragon went out to the Rock and brought in one of the strips. The ring reacted to it immediately, telling Daisy where the fabric was in the same way that it told her where Aiden was. So they wrapped his body in it.

  He lay at the base of the rope ladder up to the top of the Rock, a high-tech, hollowed-out mummy. The fabric coiled around and molded to a human-shaped negative space. Nothing was in there—Rysa had stuck her hand into the space—but yet there he was, Aiden Blake, a brains-splattered, very dead new corpse.

  Every time she looked at the not-body, a shiver ran up her back, but she couldn’t look away. Knowing, too, that they had invisible brain bits all over the tunnel to the upper reservoir didn’t help.

  Dmitri refused to stay for the wedding. “Duty calls,” he said, but he gave Andreas a quick side-eye when he said it.

  The Dracae’s Second saved the day with technology from Dmitri’s company. Tech he did not know about. Heads, Rysa suspected, were about to roll.

  Andreas said the gun was a special high-velocity prototype built specifically for the special bullet he used to kill Aiden. That bullet was now “halfway to the center of the Earth” he said. Or at least a good six hundred feet into the solid mountain behind the tunnel.

  The gun now waited in the cave’s armory until Dmitri finished his CEO business. Andreas put it there himself. The shard of the Fate Progenitor’s talisman Andreas had been carrying to help hide him in the what-was-is-will-be—the one Daniel-Adrestia had lifted from Ladon—he handed over to Dmitri. “The Fates want you to carry this at all times,” he said. No one argued.

  Rysa’s dad and Dmitri fixed all the damage Aiden had done to Gavin, maybe a little more. Rysa couldn’t put her finger on the change and now that Gavin wore the ring, she couldn’t use her seers to look either, but he seemed stronger. More alive. So at least he benefited from the pain he’d been put through.

  Daisy wouldn’t let him out of her sight. She’d hugged her father and stayed in the cave, saying that she would see him in a couple of days, at the reception. They’d parted, and now Dmitri awaited his ride back to Portland.

  He growled something in Russian into his phone. Ladon laughed and wrapped an arm around Rysa’s waist. “The Ulpi are about to gain a fuller understanding of their new working environment.”

  Rysa had no doubt. “I’ll ask Mom to watch his back.” The Ulpi, Trajan included, had a healthy respect for Mira of the Jani Prime.

  Her mom and dad were staying; Dmitri would send another copter in two days for them and Andreas. Daisy and Gavin would travel with the dragons to Branson for the reception. Her parents tended to Addy-Daniel at the moment, and were okay with sending her-him back to Portland if and only if Dr. Eric Nakajima met the copter in Rock Springs. He’d agreed, and had assured Dmitri that he would personally care for Addy-Daniel until Rysa’s parents returned.

  Daniel had control more often than not, now. Between Andreas and Sandro, Addy wouldn’t be getting out of hand again.

  “Where do you want to go for our honeymoon?” Rysa asked as she leaned against Ladon. At least they were finally threat-free. Vivicus was dead. All three of the Children of the Burning World were dead. A smattering of Seraphim were out there causing trouble, but none of them were worse than an annoyance compared to what they’d just survived. All was well, and Rysa, Gavin, and Daisy could finish their schooling in peace.

  “Dragon wants to take you camping in the Boundary Waters.” Ladon hugged her close.

  Yes, Rysa, the beast signed. We will swim and play with wolves.

  Rysa rubbed his snout. “You play with wolves?”

  He wagged his big head. I like wolves if they are not angry.

  She shouldn’t be surprised. The beast had a way with animals. “Do you want to bring all three kittens home from Branson?” She’d have to ask Daisy about song bird training.

  Yes, he signed. The copter comes.

  Dmitri ended his call, as Andreas did his. They both walked over, both a little testier than she liked. She hugged Andreas first. “All’s well with Renee?”

  He frowned and looked southeast, as if gazing in his girlfriend’s general direction would solve his woman problem. “I don’t know.”

  Dmitri sniffed. “I will speak to her. Explain the necessity of your act.” But his eyes narrowed just a fraction. “I agree that Aiden Blake would not have come out of hiding if he had known you were alive. Faking a death when Fates are involved takes initiative.”

  Andreas raised an eyebrow. “Only Mira and Daniel controlling Adrestia’s present-seer could have stitched my ‘death’ well enough for me to get away with it.”

  Her mom and her dad had known all along that Andreas was still alive. Her father had been the healer who put his heart back together. But he’d enthralled everyone to repress the knowledge. It had surfaced for her mom when Andreas and Daniel made it to the cave’s door.

  Dmitri fiddled with his glove. His hand still bothered him and her dad couldn’t seem to make the tingling go away. “If you had killed him before he transformed, at the hotel, none of this would have been necessary.”

  Andreas laughed and poked Ladon
in the shoulder. “Someone needed his ass saved. Again.”

  Behind them, one of the big Praesagio copters landed on the Dragon’s Rock.

  Ladon chuckled, but stopped. “Wait. You had a familiar car.”

  Andreas laughed again. “I was wondering if you’d remember it.”

  “Car?” Rysa asked. Andreas had been the driver when Cordelia went out into the storm to fetch Ladon.

  “A turquoise 1967 Chevy Impala,” Andreas said. “One with burndust-enhanced side panels and snow tires good enough for a Wyoming winter.” He winked.

  “Wait….” Rysa remembered that car. “You were driving Penny’s car?” That witch Penny who was both Andreas’s and Ladon’s ex-girlfriend?

  Andreas patted her on the shoulder. “Ivan found her and ‘asked nicely’ to borrow the car. Ivan suspected the car was more valuable than my ex-wife. She was right.”

  The copter’s engines wound down and the pilot opened the side door. Dmitri offered hugs and handshakes, and made his way toward their invisible villain corpse.

  Andreas watched him go. “I wish he would stay.”

  Ladon patted his friend on the shoulder. “We have you.”

  Andreas smiled and hugged Rysa as they watched the copter lift off, Dmitri and the dead ghost boy on board.

  “Wedding time!” Andreas shepherded them toward the cave. “You too, Brother-Dragon.”

  The beast nuzzled Andreas’s side. Do not die again, Andreas. Sister was distressed, as was I.

  “I won’t, Brother-Dragon.” He patted the beast’s neck. “I promise.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The late afternoon sun reflected through the fenestra draconis and splashed a sea of color over the wedding gazebo. A bright cone of reds and blues sliced through Derek’s meticulously oriented and engineered open roof. Each color wavered delicately with the slight movements of air, glass, and iron. Each splash danced like the dragons themselves.

  Derek’s wife stood in a puddle of violet, her face turned up toward the oscillating light. She wrapped her arms around her lower belly and closed her eyes. For a moment, Anna almost looked serene.

  Seven decades, they had been together. Seven decades of him needing her more than she needed him, until seven months ago. Now, it seemed, those seventy years of uneven distribution of vulnerability had flipped on its head.

  He knew about the pregnancy. He had known in Portland; he was not blind to the rhythms of his wife’s body. The soft roundness to her belly and the change to wearing her new knit leggings gave it away, anyway.

  He had decided to let her have the space she needed. He knew of at least two other pregnancies in their time together. Neither had quickened. He also understood that the loss of a babe was not an uncommon experience in her long life.

  There was nothing he could do; nothing any of her men could have done. Loss was as much a part of the Dracae’s lives as their dragons.

  Derek approaches, pushed Sister-Dragon. She lounged at the edge of the gazebo, inside the red oak and warm citrus that was to be their arch for the wedding. Slow tones slid along her hide, still mostly the blues and greens of the ocean, though more crisp than usual, as if touched by a cool fall day’s sun.

  She lifted her great dragon head. Is the body gone? she pushed to him. Revulsion painted her push a sickly gray while at the same time anger gave it a vibration that set Derek’s teeth chattering.

  He was certain she had subconsciously felt Aiden Blake’s presence, however it was that a dragon experienced subconscious foreboding. Her unease had been what made her act so possessively.

  She calmed considerably when Rysa told them to wrap the body in fabric from one of the landing strips. She and her brother both stood over the not-there corpse, both sniffing and peering and touching. Both flooded their nearby humans with exquisite, detailed dragon-perceiving. They had gone so far as to insist that Gavin also try to understand what they sensed.

  Which, as far as Derek could tell, was something. No one, not even Anna and Ladon, fully understood. But the beasts seemed satisfied.

  This will not happen again, his Dragon had pushed. Then she and Anna walked out of the tunnel.

  How long they had been here, in the light thrown by the window, Derek was not sure. “Have you eaten?” He walked up the gazebo steps and across the rough wood flooring. He and the beasts would finish the structure after the winter. He would hate to have to pull it down.

  Anna reached out her hand. He pulled her close. She tucked her head under his chin, his small-yet-not-small wife, and he breathed in the warm dragon-and-spices of her natural scent.

  She was a wonder, his AnnaBelinda. Stronger than any other person he knew, himself and, at times, Ladon included. But she was tired.

  The withdrawal, her beast’s cranky behavior, the frowning and the quickness to fear the worst, her immediate fall into grief when Vivicus took him seven months ago, all spoke more of her current fragility than it did to anything else. She had lost her fortitude. His Anna and her dragon felt as if they were buried under a mountain.

  How did Ladon move through the debris of his long immortal life and still function? Though Derek knew the answer to his own question: Before Rysa, there had been vodka, which was not functioning at all. How did Anna move under all that weight?

  He knew the second answer, also: She did not. She pushed, but she slowed. And if the world around her did not change, he feared that she would stop.

  “I will eat in a minute.” She looked up at his face. “No side effects? Aiden left you alone?”

  She worried more about him than she did about herself or her beast. He nodded. “Sandro checked me over.”

  “Mr. Bower is okay?” She tucked her head under his chin again. “Daisy?”

  “They are both fine. Mira and her babe, as well.” He kissed her hair. “Sandro asks that you sit for an exam. He would like to make sure you are both okay.”

  Dragon snorted. I did not tattle.

  Derek chuckled.

  Anna stiffened. “How long have you known?”

  He kissed the top of her head again. “Three months.”

  She looked up at his face, her eyebrow arched and one corner of her mouth raised. “You are a better poker player than I thought.”

  He laughed. “I felt it best to allow you time.”

  She stepped away, but continued to hold his hands. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I should have, but he hasn’t quickened yet and…” She pursed her lips and looked away.

  “It’s a boy?” They were going to have a son?

  Anna looked up at the hole in the roof. “I thought maybe we would name him Nicholas, after your father.”

  I prefer Alexei, their beast pushed. She lowered her head again and rolled slightly, to scratch her ridges against an upright.

  A wicked smile danced over Anna’s lips. “Do we allow the dragon to name the babe?”

  Derek pulled her close again. “How about George? I have always liked George.”

  She chuckled and tucked herself into his arms again. “You are a good and patient man, Derek Nicholson.”

  “You need not worry. The Legion is here. You and your beast may rest.”

  He felt her face crunch up as if to say I don’t believe you. Or, more accurately, I can’t believe you.

  He made her look at him. “I am serious, Anna.” He looked around. “I am now as Dracae as you, as is Rysa, in her own way. You and your brother are no longer alone in this world.”

  She nodded, but he could tell it would take time. “I think I would like to—oh!” She grabbed his hand and placed it on her belly. “Do you feel that?”

  No, he thought. He would not, this early—but dragon-perceiving overlaid his own. Anna’s body took on a glow and a super-solidity he could not sense on his own. He moved his hand.

  There, right there, under his palm, his son kicked.

  Derek laughed. “You will allow Sandro to check you, please?”

  She nodded again.

  Sandro t
eaches me to use the doctoring equipment. Dragon nuzzled them both. The babe is healthy.

  “I guess you are fully like us.” Anna kissed his cheek.

  “Pregnant?” He could not help his silly jokes.

  Anna stroked his arm, elbow to wrist, the way she often did when she needed touch. “Do you think Daisy realizes yet that she is also with child?” She stroked Dragon’s crest.

  She has newly conceived. Dragon looked out into the garden. She will be surprised.

  “Not only her.” Derek looked out over the gardens as well, as he pulled his wife back into his arms. Gavin and Daisy were off alone in their room. “I suggest we keep this to ourselves. They are at a fragile and important time in their relationship. It would be best for them not to feel pressured.”

  Anna stared out into the garden area as well. A bird flitted by and landed in a nearby fruit tree, its little wings fluttering. Once it settled, it called out its evening song.

  Anna closed her eyes. “We will love them no matter what happens.”

  A part of Derek that had been holding its breath finally, fully exhaled for the first time in what felt like decades. What, if he were honest with himself, was his entire life.

  She would be okay. Their babe would be okay. A private moment between Daisy and Gavin would stay as it should—private. And life would go on.

  “My brother marries tomorrow.” Anna swung her arm to loosen her shoulder. “The gazebo is magical and perfect, husband.” She smiled up at him. “Thank you.”

  “Come,” he said and pulled her toward the kitchen. “Let us eat.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Andreas straightened Ladon’s tie. “Your beast did well with the trim.”

  Ladon ran his hand over his head. Dragon took out the braids and twists, and cleaned up the top and sides. Ladon shaved only an hour earlier, to minimize the stubble. And he’d forced himself into the two-tone tuxedo.