Bonds Broken & Silent (Fate Fire Shifter Dragon Book 4)

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Calling scents that said ‘die.’

  The Fate gurgled like she couldn’t breathe. Purple and black spread out along the flesh the doctor held. It moved into her hand and up her arm, under the sleeve of her jacket. She blinked, her mouth open as if she, like Lonestar, wanted to yip but could not.

  The blade dropped to the carpet and hit point first. A soft twang reverberated from it when it stuck, poking straight up, just in front of the dead dog’s body. The knife vibrated like a little cross-shaped metal headstone at the head of a good animal’s grave.

  The purple appeared on the woman’s neck. The knife would be the Fate’s headstone, too, if the doctor didn’t stop.

  “Don’t kill her!” Daisy yelled. “You’re a doctor!” How could she trust him if he acted just like the Fate? Like Kobayashi?

  He stared like his attention had flipped a switch from flitting around to becoming an arrow piercing the world. His eyes hyperfocused on the Fate’s skin and his grip on her wrist.

  He was a daddy. A good man. Maybe he didn’t always think things through but he couldn’t do this.

  Daisy grabbed his arm, but she lunged back as fast as she touched. Even through the sleeve of his shirt, she could feel what he did to the Fate. Felt the pressure of the inflammation he forced into her body. “Stop! Please.”

  He shook, a wave of small movement running up his spine. He let go, stepping back fast. The Fate dropped on her backside, her ankles twisting as she fell off her heels. She slid across the carpet on the leather covering her ass, and slammed against the wall opposite Daisy and Cecilia. A harsh cough popped out of her throat, as if she was trying to hack up a nest of bugs. Her eyes rolled back into her head. She twitched.

  And the Fate slumped down, whether dead or unconscious Daisy didn’t know. He’d unhealed the woman. He’d just done the opposite to the Fate of what he’d done to Daisy after the car broke her leg.

  Daisy had never seen real violence up close before. Never seen so much blood. Never smelled the tang of death and the undertones of shit that came with it. Never smelled so much fear and determination wrapped up into a singular human stench she could only call I don’t want to die.

  The doctor inhaled and held his breath. A soft “Thank you” rode out on his exhale.

  Daisy patted his arm, but didn’t say anything. The stench of fear in the air took all her attention.

  It wafted off the living dog as well, but in an in-the-moment, raw, painful way. She’d just lost her mate.

  Dawnstar paced next to Lonestar’s body, whimpering. Daisy’s mom whimpered too, and bent over the dead animal.

  “He saved us.” She leaned over the dead dog. Tears welled up.

  The doctor quickly checked the Fate’s pulse. He wouldn’t look Daisy in the eye. “She’ll survive.” He stepped over the pool of blood spreading from the dog. “Get up, Ms. Reynolds.”

  He didn’t reach for her mom. He didn’t touch her at all. He slammed his hands into his pockets like he knew he carried deadly weapons that needed to be locked away.

  “Get out!” Cecilia screamed.

  “When her triad mates show up, they will kill everyone. So you need to stand up, Ms. Reynolds. Stand up, get the talisman, and get the hell out of here before they kill your daughter.” He pulled his hand out of his pocket long enough to point at Daisy.

  Her mom’s eyes looked black when she glanced over her shoulder at Daisy. Black and blank and defeated. Her shoulders slumped. Daisy couldn’t help but feel, in her gut, that her mom had just given up.

  “It’s in your kangaroo.” That’s all Cecilia said. Then she waved Daisy away.

  “Get up, Ms. Reynolds. Before they show up.” Dr. Torres stepped into the living room and craned his neck like he was looking out their open front door. “Daisy, get the talisman.”

  “Shouldn’t we leave it here?” They probably shouldn’t touch what all the Fates were looking for. Better to slink off hoping no one would give them a second thought.

  The doctor’s lips thinned to a flat line. “They’re going to hunt you, now. No way around it. And you heard what she said. They can’t see the talisman. I’m hoping being in its proximity will make us vanish, too.”

  Daisy’s mom looked up. “That works?”

  The doctor shook his head. “I don’t know. But I’ve heard stories. There seems to be some sort of proximity issue with their seers. It happens with the dust of dead Burners. Why not with an artifact that interferes?”

  Could hiding behind something Fates couldn’t read be enough to get the doctor out of the city? “The Fate said I’m supposed to cause a distraction.” Daisy circled to the side, then back. “Do you think this is what she meant?”

  Dr. Torres scratched the back of his head as he, too, stepped side to side. He looked like he wanted to bounce on his toes. “Maybe.”

  But that meant she’d have Fates who wanted to kill her chasing her forever, and the Fates were much worse than Kobayashi. Daisy stared at the unconscious woman on the floor. Much, much worse.

  “They’ll catch whoever has the talisman sooner or later.” Cecilia looked at her feet, not at her daughter or the doctor. “It’s suicide.”

  “Then you and I will go one way, Mom. The doctor another. They don’t know who he is and I don’t think they care. After a couple days, we dump it somewhere and run again. We hid before, we can do it again.”

  Daisy’s mom placed her hand on Dawnstar’s head. Quickly, she closed her eyes and leaned against the dog. A soft woof sounded from the back of the shepherd’s throat and she shook the way she would shake off water.

  And Daisy got the distinct sense of Yes, I understand.

  Dawnstar padded over to Daisy. The dog looked up once, then dropped her butt onto Daisy’s feet and leaned against her leg.

  “She’ll protect you,” Cecilia said. “Be good to her, daughter. She trusts you. She’s always trusted you.” Her mom waved her fingers through the air.

  The gesture said I’m fine. But it also said I’ve given up.

  “Mom! The plan will work.” It had to work.

  But her mom shook her head. “Doctor,” Cecilia whispered. “I don’t think my daughter and I can hide anymore.”

  Dr. Torres closed his eyes for a second. “No, you cannot.”

  “What?” Why were the adults just giving up?

  Her mom didn’t look at the big man. She stared at Daisy. “Help me get the camping equipment. We need to get you out of here.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Cecilia glanced at the doctor, Daisy saw a big dose of I’m sorry on her face. Not “I’m sorry you have to take care of her,” or “I’m sorry this all happened and I was so freaking weird about it.” No, Daisy saw “I’m sorry you have to deal with the future.”

  Cecilia stepped over the dead dog and into the hallway, effectively turning her back on any question Daisy might ask. “The equipment is in the hall closet.”

  The doctor nodded. Quickly, he and her mother pulled out the big hiking backpack, the tent, the little stove, and the two sleeping bags.

  “Daisy,” Cecilia pointed at her bedroom. “Get your kangaroo and koala toys. And clothes. Hurry.”

  Daisy dashed into her bedroom, Dawnstar on her heels, and threw open her closet doors. Under the pile of dirty clothes on the floor, beneath the shoe box with her one pair of “nice” kitten heels, below the old plastic grocery sack full of last semester’s English Lit assignments, Daisy found the cloth bag containing the two toys she’d carried out of Australia.

  She pulled it out. A deep royal purple, it still felt slick and smooth, and glimmered in the light. Her mom had brought it home from work one day, saying it had been in a damaged crate shipped to the company where’d she’d done a house call that day, though she probably stole it, too. Said Daisy could have it, if she wanted it.

  Inside had been the kangaroo and the koala toys.

  They weren’t big. Both were approximately the size of the softballs her gym teacher tossed around. Both
soft and cuddly, the kangaroo was brown with a tail good for a little kid to grasp, and the koala gray, with ears good for a little kid to chew.

  Daisy flicked her finger over the koala’s left ear, feeling the thinned fabric under the pad of her thumb. On the flight across the ocean, she’d almost chewed it off.

  Behind her, Dawnstar whimpered.

  “It’s okay, girl.” Daisy scratched at the dog’s ear. They needed to leave, to calm down. Find a place to think things through and make a real plan. Or not make a plan, if making a plan made it easier for Fates to find them.

  Daisy inhaled slowly, held her breath for a moment, then exhaled with even more forced slowness. She was good at rolling with the world. The universe dropped ugly, biting things into her path all the time and she’d long ago become good at jumping barriers, picking up gold coins, and stealing healing mushrooms.

  No more chewing on ears. No more fear. Daisy gathered her clothes, stuffing most into the purple silk bag that used to hold the toys. She pulled on her lightweight jacket, the one she wore on the few evenings when the San Diego air actually cooled, and stuffed her talisman-hiding toys into the inside pockets, one on each side, before returning to the living room.

  In the kitchen, the doctor stuffed shelf-stable food into the backpack. Her mom, cash into the pockets of her cleaning service uniform.

  A lot of cash.

  “You’ve been hiding all that money? Did you steal that too?” What the hell. “How come Kobayashi’s goons didn’t find it?”

  Her mom looked up. “Tony’s an idiot.” She stuffed the last wad into her bra and pointed at the door as she sniffed the air. “I sense no enthrallers. Doctor?”

  Dr. Torres sniffed as he zipped up the bag. “Me, either.”

  On the floor, the Fate he’d zapped with his death-making healer-hands moaned.

  Daisy’s mom stepped back, toward the door, like she’d just been slapped. “Why hasn’t the rest of her triad appeared yet?”

  Dr. Torres swept his hand toward the door as if to usher Daisy outside. “I don’t know. I’m surprised they split up in the first place. Makes me wonder about their future-seer.”

  “Maybe they didn’t split up on their own,” Daisy said, a thought dawning. “Maybe someone split them up. Maybe that Fate who keeps calling us did something useful for once.” Maybe the woman decided to actually help instead of yelling and ordering them around like her personal servants.

  Neither the doctor nor her mom said anything and Daisy got the distinct sense that neither adult believed a Fate would actually help help. Because they’re assholes.

  The doctor handed Daisy one of the sleeping bags and she stuffed her bag of clothes into its center. Easier to carry that way.

  Next to her thigh, Dawnstar—she’d just call her Dawn now—woofed again.

  Daisy patted the dog’s head. Each time the animal made a small barking sound, or nuzzled her side, or tried to sit on her foot, Daisy felt a little better. Like this beast had her back in ways the doctor and her mom did not. Could not.

  Dawn seemed to think guarding Daisy was the right thing to do, no matter what, and she looked like she was taking her new job seriously. Whatever her mom had told the dog seemed to have made sense to her canine mind.

  Daisy hitched the sleeping bag’s strap up onto her shoulder. The doctor, for his part, pulled the pack onto his back, but watched her mom—who now carried the bundle with their tent—more than Daisy.

  He probably thought her mother was losing control. Daisy thought Cecilia was losing control, the way she twitched and stuffed cash into her bra.

  Cecilia sniffed again as she ducked her head out the door. “Kobayashi must have turned tail when the Fate showed up.” But she still glanced around like they were about to be attacked.

  Next to Daisy’s leg, Dawn let out a soft bark. “Quiet, girl.” No monster was going to get past the German shepherd. Daisy had to believe that. At this point, any other thought would send her into a tailspin.

  Her mom walked out into the hallway first, Daisy and the dog in the middle, the doctor behind. They quickly and quietly moved down the back stairs and out the same door they’d come in.

  Out in the lot, the doctor and her mom both did the weird nose wiggle again.

  Would she look like that after her mom activated her? Both adults looked like someone had stuck a rotten-egg-soaked bumblebee up their noses.

  She bet only Shifters did it. The doctor’s Fate tell gave away a lot of his thinking, but the twitch gave away who he was. “You two both do a freaky thing with your noses when you smell for calling scents.” Daisy ran for the doctor’s car and opened the trunk when he unlocked it.

  Dr. Torres and her mom threw each other knowing-but-weird glances. “Remember what it looks like, Daisy,” he said. “Knowing when you are in the presence of an enthraller is half the battle.”

  Luckily, Daisy had only experienced Kobayashi’s enthralling. Who knew what a really strong one could do to her mind? She didn’t want to think about it right now.

  Daisy stuffed the sleeping bag into the trunk and stepped aside so the doctor could put in the pack and the tent, which he took from her mom.

  Cecilia nodded. “If you can resist—” Her head swiveled toward the other apartment building, across the lot. The one that was just as ratty as theirs. The one with people yelling and shouting as they pushed through the front door into the parking lot. “Damn it.”

  People who probably were wondering why Dawn pressed against Daisy’s leg and not their drug-dealing neighbor’s.

  Daisy’s mom leaned toward Dawn, her mouth open. The dog pressed her big doggie body against Daisy’s thigh and her mom nodded.

  The doctor moved between them and the other building, presenting himself as a big man-mountain of a target. “We need to go. Now.”

  Cecilia pointed at the pocket of Daisy’s jacket. “Take out the koala, honey.” She started digging in her own pockets, but didn’t pull out the cash in the open, in the parking lot of their drug-dealer-infested apartment complex.

  Digging with the same giving up look on her face she’d had back in the apartment.

  “Why?” Daisy suddenly had the sense her mom was about to do something stupid. She smelled it in the air, coming off her mother like a bad perfume. She smelled determination. And a strong indication of fuck it.

  Her mom was about to do what Daisy had thought the doctor wouldn’t be able to resist. Like taking a dare and doing something stupid because she wasn’t going to be seen as a pussy by anyone. Not Kobayashi. Not the goddamned Fates.

  Daisy’s gut knotted up into a tight, hard ball. As tight and as hard as the thing her mom had hidden inside the belly of her kangaroo that waited inside her other pocket.

  “Because you need the cash.” Quickly, she wadded up all the twenties and fifties and jammed them into Daisy’s jacket.

  Cecilia took the koala. It vanished into her left pocket at the same time as she slammed the trunk. The sound echoed through the lot like thunder. “Go.”

  “No, Mom!”

  Cecilia wasn’t coming.

  The doctor pushed Daisy around the car but he was talking to her mom, not her. “You have to come. She needs activating.”

  “You know as well as I do what happens when a Shifter activates. Time is of the essence here. Do you want her…” Cecilia’s mouth rounded, then she slammed it as tight as she’d slammed the car’s trunk.

  On the other side of the lot, one of the yelling people pointed at them.

  The doctor pointed at Daisy. “Activate her now!”

  Her mother crossed her arms and her foot slipped back. “No.”

  Dr. Torres pushed Daisy into the car. “Stay down.”

  “Hey!” Daisy fought but he was big. And strong. Dawn didn’t help but instead hopped in and over Daisy’s lap, her claws wisping on the cloth seats of the doctor’s sedan.

  He slammed the door. Outside the car, he leaned toward her mom. Both sets of adult hands gestured; both adult
mouths flapped at high speeds. They yelled at each other in quiet whispers for what felt like a millennium.

  Then the doctor stood up straight and opened the driver’s side door.

  Her mother walked away.

  “Mom!” Daisy tried to crawl over the seat but the doctor pushed her down.

  “Stay down. Tell the dog to stay down.” He started the car.

  “Why isn’t she coming with?” Daisy couldn’t think of anything stupider than what her mom was about to do. Except, maybe, going to the Fates.

  The sun had dropped to the horizon and the lot’s one street light popped on just as they drove under it. The brief flash lit the backseat of the car and Daisy squinted. On the floor, tucked in tight, Dawn sniffed at her nose.

  Daisy, alone and unactivated, felt like whimpering right along with her dog. “That’s right, girl. Stay down.”

  They watched the few trees surrounding the little lot vanish. The doctor took them out along the side drive, the one that led into an alley where no one ventured. Because it wasn’t safe.

  “Does my mom think Kobayashi will protect her from the Fates? Because I don’t think he wants to be on their bad side.” Her mom should have come with them.

  The doctor turned his sedan into the alley. Daisy sat up enough so she could see out the side window. He slowly crept the car along before turning into the parking lot of another building. Once through that lot, they turned onto a suburban street.

  “What the Fates do is out of her hands,” the doctor said. “She’s accepted that.”

  “Then why didn’t she come with us? You’re strong. You know how to handle yourself. You’re a better choice than staying behind!” A much better choice. That hard lump in Daisy’s belly got harder.

  The doctor glanced over his shoulder. “She can handle Kobayashi. He’s her best option right now.”

  “She told you this?”

  The doctor’s grip on the steering wheel looked extra tight. Like his knuckles would start bleeding or something.

  “The talisman isn’t the only thing of value in your stuffed toy.”

  “What?” Her mom was a total klepto. “What else did she steal?”