“Ismene, I’m sorry,” said Rysa.
“Not all of the Shifters hate us.” Ismene knelt next to Faustus, stroking his hair. “You’d think they would have learned their lesson long, long ago.” She tilted her head. “If I consume him, will I become both past- and future-seer of my triad?”
Ismene bit into Faustus’s arm. She ate, burning away his clothes and taking flesh and meat. His body vanished into his sister, meat and bone disbursed to pay his debt.
Rysa retched. The greasy teen breathed on her ear, increasing her nausea tenfold. She swung, not caring that his skin singed her fist, and punched him in the neck.
He snorted, surprised, and clicked his teeth. “We ain’t supposed to hurt you.” He grabbed her face, his palms thankfully cold, and moved in for a kiss.
Rysa kneed him in the groin.
He coughed, acid blowing into her face, and his fingers heated. She screamed, kicking again, and he let go. She had two hundred feet, tops, between her and the elevators. If she—
Ismene grasped her upper arm. Around her wrist she now wore two eagles, one of the past and one of the future.
Her aunt’s seers locked onto Rysa’s awareness. The disorientation overwhelmed, but it didn’t foam. “You can be a weapon, if you choose. I don’t care.” Her diamond teeth flashed. “But can you rule them?”
Rysa’s seers jarred: Ladon burning. What-will-be gleamed in a different pattern. “The future’s changing. I can’t see…”
“Of course it is, niece. I am Ambustae. I am Parcae. When the breeds cross, the world always finds something new.”
45
Energy surged upward from the base of the building. Energy she recognized. Energy she’d thought asleep.
Ladon and Dragon had come for her.
Rysa touched back and the beast called in colors brighter than the sun.
Ismene’s seers fizzled halfway between the foaming of Burners and the clinking of cymbals in a storm. Bewilderment washed over her face.
“How can this be? His beast sleeps.” Her grip cinched around Rysa’s upper arm. Acid soaked through the sleeve.
Rysa’s skin heated but she ignored it, her attention hyper-focused on the center of the building.
Ladon kicked through the stairwell door. He dodged to the left, avoiding the two Burner guards. Reappearing, he ran up a pallet, his armored jacket and gloves flashing in the lightning reflecting off the mountains.
Thunder cracked through the building.
Ismene’s seers grated over Rysa like nails on a chalkboard but she didn’t cringe. She wouldn’t let her aunt hurt Ladon and Dragon. Her nasty reared up, a snarling guard dog Ismene couldn’t dance around.
Her aunt slapped and her fingers left a sting on Rysa’s cheek. “Please, young lady. Have some respect.”
Ladon’s foot caught a guard. The Burner lurched backward but stopped, hanging in midair.
If Dragon snapped the Burner’s neck, the building—
The entire floor flashed as another bolt of lightning flooded the floor with white light. Rysa squinted, jerking against her aunt’s grip as the thunder crashed across the concrete.
“Down!” Ismene threw her behind the tool cage.
The fireball spread around the mesh. Rysa gagged, stumbling, and one foot slipped off the concrete deck.
Wind and rain buffeted. Sixteen stories below, asphalt gleamed like an oiled snake. If she dropped, she’d bounce. Every single bone in her body would turn to jelly.
Ismene hauled Rysa up the side of the tool cage.
The second guard barreled over equipment. He flew sideways into a column when Dragon rammed him from behind. Ladon whipped a brick at the ghoul’s head, then signed obscenities.
“My mom kept me hidden for a reason. Let me go. Please.”
A new snap echoed over the deck. The other Burner guard bounced off the concrete, imploding as he flew, only to fizzle away in the rain.
Ismene’s scab eyes burned hotter. “Mira abandoned me.” She looked away again. “She didn’t help. She could have helped.”
Ladon ran for Rysa. Behind him, the greasy teen lunged from the shadows, the end of the winch’s cable in his hand.
Rysa didn’t need her seers to know what he was about to do. “Dragon!”
The Burner locked the winch’s hook around one of Dragon’s hind limbs.
The beast roared, kicking and swatting at the ghoul, but he dodged. Grunting loud enough Rysa heard him all the way down the length of the building, he yanked on the power lever and ripped it off the engine.
The winch chugged to life.
The cable pulled Dragon back.
The beast’s hide flared. The Burner laughed, pointing, and danced around. But Dragon’s talons extended. He wrapped his hand around the ghoul’s head and slammed straight down, his shoulder twisting to grind the teen into the concrete.
The agony seething up Dragon’s forelimb thudded to Rysa. It mingled with the beast’s fatigue and slowed his responses. Yet he pushed down harder, grinding the Burner into the floor as the winch dragged him back. The teen’s body spread into a thin trail. Wet bubbles hissed off the concrete, the popping visible to Rysa at the end of the floor’s deck.
Ismene pushed Rysa off the front of the tool cage and landed next to her, her head tilted. Rysa felt ghost-threads of both past and future spool from her aunt. Ismene sniffed the air, eyes narrow.
Ladon jumped pallets and dodged equipment, his gaze locked with Rysa’s. But he couldn’t hide the agony of their stretching connection. He slowed, his face stone.
Dragon flamed the engine. It kept chugging, the cable winding tighter. He smashed a steel bar down onto it again and again.
The beast strained forward but Ladon couldn’t come any closer.
“Leashed by your pet.” Ismene’s finger flickered when she tapped against Rysa’s forearm.
Ladon stopped less than a dragon length away.
Rysa stretched out her hand. The wind carried his scent to her—she picked it out through her aunt’s stench. She focused on it, calling it, wanting nothing more than for their fingers to connect. “You woke Dragon,” she whispered.
“Your mother left a note.” Ladon pulled her wedding band out of his pocket. “Told me what to do.” He tried to smile as he touched his chest. “All these centuries and I’d never figured it out.”
Ismene stroked Rysa’s cheek.
The winch’s engine coughed and stopped but the cable still wound around Dragon’s leg, shackling him away from Ladon.
And from Rysa.
Ladon shuffled forward, his fingers extended. Pain coiled around his body. His jaw hardened to granite. The closer he moved toward Rysa and the farther from Dragon, the more his light dimmed. Ladon turned phantom before her eyes, dying little by little so he wouldn’t have to die all at once when Ismene Burnerized his woman.
Dragon’s hide erupted in mad, desperate patterns, but they, too, were bleached. The hook around his leg held and both their bodies withered. Their souls would crack and she knew where all the blood in her visions came from: Things Ladon thought long gone, horrors he thought controlled, will rupture. Their minds will tear into writhing bits of wrath and vengeance. And someone puts a bullet in his neck.
“Let her go, Ismene. You can leave. We won’t stand in your way. She doesn’t have to be like you.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be their queen anymore, Ladon-Human.” Ismene seared a finger across Rysa’s jaw.
Rysa refused to flinch. To show pain.
Her aunt clucked. “She’ll hunt. She’ll end it all. For me. For you. For my sister.”
“Let her go, Ismene.” Even pale and bleached, fury reddened Ladon’s neck.
“Ladon!” Rysa shouted. Maybe he could escape. Maybe he could control it. “Promise me you won’t let the rage take you! That you’ll do what needs to be done. Promise me right now you’ll survive this! Because I need to know. I need to know you’ll be okay.”
“No!” His stone face turned ice
cold. “Let her go, you damned Parcae witch!”
Ismene trailed a finger over Rysa’s neck like a surgeon marking before surgery, her features as hard as Ladon’s. “Murderer,” she hissed.
“Please don’t,” Rysa whispered.
Ismene closed her eyes. Her lips parted. The interior of her mouth glowed and a nauseating, orange light built behind her teeth.
“You can’t turn her!” Ladon yelled.
Ismene’s mouth snapped shut.
He stepped backward, closer to Dragon. “She’ll die.”
Ismene’s head pivoted, her eyebrows dancing with equal parts confusion and annoyance. “I’m the future-seer! I know what to do.”
“Mira stitched her past.” He pointed at Rysa. “Look! You may see what-will-be now, but you will always be the past-seer of the Jani Prime.”
Rysa gritted her teeth, holding in a scream, as she cringed under the onslaught of Ismene’s frothing seer.
Dragon yanked on the cable. Ladon inched closer.
Foam ate away her mother’s stitching and the veil fell away from Rysa’s past. Her past-seer revealed a vision of Abilene, Texas, through her mother’s awareness:
Rysa’s father, his hazel-green eyes narrow as he watched the dusty courtyard through a high window. “You are the Lady Ismene’s sister. Your safety is my priority.” He’d snapped a Burner’s neck and took a bite to his shoulder to keep Mira safe.
Sandro healed their wounds and oscillated his pheromones and she knew the Burners couldn’t smell them, as long as she stayed against his body.
But he lied. He didn’t protect her for Ismene. He did it for Mira.
So Mira stitched. She couldn’t save her sister. She couldn’t save the Shifters who had taken them in, but she could protect this man from her brother and his malevolent spawn.
Sandro held her close. “Why does he do this?”
Ismene’s life bubbled away into caustic bitterness.
Mira buried her face in his chest and tried desperately not to hear her sister’s screams. She’d have two weeks with him, on the run, before she told him to go. For his safety. But Alessandro Torres had been a warrior for a very long time and he refused. They would be, at least for a while, a family.
The vision clicked off.
Ismene screamed. “You are half Shifter?”
Rysa’s father was a healer. A warrior.
She yanked against Ismene’s grip. Shifter. She wasn’t just a Fate. She was much more. They could plot and manipulate all they wanted, but she had always been more than the Jani Prime realized.
Rysa Torres, Fate and Shifter.
46
By the elevators Faustus had dragged them out of, Mira dropped out of the unfinished ceiling grid-work, a small figure at the center of the building. She cradled Adrestia, an arm around the other Fate’s waist.
Ismene screeched. “You married a Shifter?”
Mira jerked as she set down Adrestia and a vicious, rasping shriek ground from her throat.
Burndust. Her mother had snuck out of her uncle’s bonds and inhaled burndust to power her body so she’d have the strength to pull Adrestia from the Burners.
Ismene shook Rysa. “I was supposed to have my Shifter. Me!”
Next to Dragon, Adrestia pitched forward, something big and heavy in her hands. The Burners had stripped much of her skin. Dragon sniffed at her head, touching her shoulder, and took what she offered.
Mira shrieked, running hard.
The beast clamped the wrench onto the spool casing. Light burst off his hide as he ripped it open.
Rysa reached for Ladon. He glanced at her, his face hard with concentration. A roar billowed across the concrete—Dragon yanked the coiled cable off the housing.
Mira jumped a stack of girders and landed parallel to Ladon. Rysa’s seers flared, her own future solidifying in the rock-solid line fueled by her mother’s intent.
“Mom! Don’t!” If Mira stopped, Ladon could get to them both. But her mom’s dust-infested mind only paid attention to her Burnerized sister.
Rysa shoved Ismene. Her aunt’s hand released and Rysa grabbed for her mom, hoping, this one time, to stop the inevitable.
She blinked. Time slowed. A gust pummeled Rysa’s shoulders and whipped her hair into her eyes.
Dragon charged down the concrete.
Mira’s arms wrapped around Ismene’s waist and Rysa’s mother, Rysa’s aunt, bound together with shrieks and violence, flew off the side of the building.
Mira’s and Ismene’s combined screeches rose like the din of fire hornets and drowned out the storm. Behind Ladon, Dragon boomed, moving so fast he blurred. Rysa spun backward as her foot slipped.
Terror consumed Ladon’s face.
In the same instant her aunt and mom fell, Rysa fell too, her feet betraying her body.
The storm and the lights of Salt Lake City reflected a terrible orange off the clouds above—a chemical-like orange that scorched the sky like Burner fire. But this time, Rysa wasn’t shackled. This time, she was both Fate and Shifter.
This time, she found her control.
Just above her, Dragon sailed over the side. Ladon jumped too, frantically coiling the other end of the cable around his chest and shoulders.
Ismene grabbed Rysa’s arm. Her Burner rage fried through the fabric of Rysa’s shirt and she smelled the cotton smolder. Her mother howled just out of her reach, her own skin sizzling as she held tight to her sister.
Ladon’s boot hit the top of her aunt’s head and she jerked back, releasing Rysa’s arm.
“Ladon!” Rysa screamed. “Get Mom!” Even if she fell, even if—
Dragon snatched Rysa to his chest and she gasped, the sudden pull disorienting.
“Mom!” She gripped the beast’s coat as tight as she could. Ladon and her mom were in free fall. Dragon had her, but—
They bounced against the building and spun away from Ladon and her mother. The beast ground talons into the glass and they swung back.
Ladon lunged for Mira. She twisted around Ismene’s waist, shrieking and raking her nails across her sister’s face. Little bursts popped off Ismene’s skin. Her aunt howled, swinging her arms wildly. Mira knocked her forehead into Ismene’s chin.
Ladon clutched the cable with one hand and grabbed for her mother with the other. He snagged her upper arm and yanked her hard from Ismene.
But Ismene’s flailing arms caught Ladon. He tried to push her away but a gust hit and they all slammed into the wall.
Dragon couldn’t swipe at her aunt. He held Rysa and they were too far away. The beast pushed against the building, trying anyway, but Ismene’s anger honed in on Ladon, her fury pinpointing the curve where his shoulder met his neck.
She hooked onto his back, legs kicking at her sister clinging to his side, and one arm snaking around his head so fast he couldn’t respond.
He hollered, his neck straining, but she couldn’t twist it. He was too strong. Hope jumped into Rysa’s throat. Maybe—
They suddenly jerked to a stop—the cable must have caught something on the floor above.
Ladon looked up. His shoulders strained—he concentrated all his effort on holding her mother against his side with one arm and the line with the other. Ismene hung on his back, tendrils of Burner hell puffing off her anger-heated skin. Her clothes smoked. Ismene’s stench was so strong Rysa smelled it from where she clung to Dragon’s chest.
A hate-filled snort popped from Ismene. Ladon knew what she was about to do, his expression betraying that he understood but couldn’t stop it. He wasn’t going to let go of her mother so he could knock off her aunt. He wouldn’t let Mira die just to save himself from a Burner.
Shock streamed off Dragon and his talons gouged into the glass. Images flickered into Rysa’s mind: Ladon on the ground, his arm shredded. AnnaBelinda, her body ashen, unconscious in the dirt. Ladon, his face torn by a mace.
Terror that this time his human might not survive.
Ismene yanked down the collar of La
don’s jacket and exposed the muscles at the base of his neck, her mouth bright. Dragon bellowed. They couldn’t swing closer.
Everything Rysa’s uncle set in motion was about to combust through Ladon’s veins.
Dragon couldn’t grip the glass. He—
Ismene bit.
Ladon roared. Agony fired through their connection and punched Rysa like a fist in the gut. She coughed, holding to Dragon as he jerked under her clenched hands.
A vicious shriek screamed from the floor above as whatever held the cable broke under their weight. They dropped again, but this time the cable wouldn’t catch on anything. This time, they’d plunge to the ground.
Rysa and Dragon slammed into the building as he snatched for the other end of the line—the end that wrapped around Ladon’s shoulder.
The beast’s hide flashed against Rysa’s face and she jolted, squinting. But she held on.
So did he. Ladon, her mom, and Ismene had dropped fast and now swung below Dragon’s rear limbs and tail, but he twirled the line around his forelimb. He had them and they wouldn’t slam into the pavement. She wouldn’t lose them both. She wouldn’t lose Dragon as his mind shattered.
Flames poured out. He couldn’t hold them all. He—
Something new flowed from her. Something that allowed her to will the beast everything she had. Something strong. “Dragon, hold on.” She’d give him all she had.
His hide calmed.
Below them, Mira’s palm snapped upward into Ismene’s nose. The Burner spasmed and let go of Ladon’s back. Ismene plunged toward the asphalt below.
Her mother’s and Ladon’s weight yanked on Dragon’s shoulder, but he held on. The talons of his other limbs gouged into the building.
They slid downward.
Ladon’s boots clambered along the glass just below them, his end of the cable looped around the shoulder Ismene bit and his other arm wrapped around her mother. He groaned and Dragon’s hide responded in glaring, painful spears of orange and red.
Games of Fate (Fate ~ Fire ~ Shifter ~ Dragon #1) Page 31