Flux of Skin

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Rysa jumped back so fast she fell on her butt. Andreas stood directly in front of her, his giant arms crossed over his chest, one eyebrow raised, and a smirk on his face.

  “What the hell!” She bent forward, between her knees, trying not to pant. “Ladon’s sleeping!” AnnaBelinda probably was too, and she was the last person Rysa wanted to see right now.

  Andreas shook his head. “You’re more concerned about Ladon-Human’s naptime than your own safety?”

  “No!” She was safe here, anyway. “You won’t hurt me,” she huffed.

  Andreas took a step toward her, his big body taking on a hint of menace. “How do you know it’s me, Rysa? What if I’ve enthralled you to think you see me? Or what if I’m a morpher who’s changed to look like me?”

  “You called me ‘Grandchickadee.’ You wouldn’t know that if you weren’t Andreas.” She pushed herself to kneeling. Her hip hurt again. She’d smacked it pretty hard when she landed on the gravel. “How is scaring me going to help me learn anything? Now I hurt, too.”

  “Quit pouting. I don’t give a rat’s ass about your booboo and even less about your ‘attention issues.’” He air-quoted the last two words.

  She stared up at him. He hadn’t been mean before. What the hell happened? Did AnnaBelinda say something? And how the hell did he know about her ADHD?

  His chin thrust out and he pointed at her nose. “Right there. You were running a parade of questions through your head, weren’t you?” He crossed his arms again. “Did you call your seers?”

  No, she hadn’t. “But—”

  “Do you think a smart enthraller’s going to come after you blind? Or a smart morpher? You’re a Prime Fate, one of Jani descent, and the Draki Prime. No one but an idiot would come after you without some sense of how to fool you.”

  Andreas towered over her, and she knelt on the gravel between his cabin and hers, looking up at him from inside his shadow.

  “Use your seers all the time, Rysa. You’re a singular and a Prime. Your mother’s gift to you is just as valuable as your father’s. Use it.”

  “I can’t! I use my abilities and I get sick.” And even if she was healthy, it wasn’t that easy. “I don’t know what I’m doing in the present half the time. How am I supposed to navigate not being able to pay attention, and seers, and a healer? I’m not you!” She wasn’t her mother, either. Or Marcus and the original Draki Prime. Or a good healer. She’d had to heal Ladon twice.

  “You listen to me, Rysa.” He pointed at her again, but he stepped back and his face took on a serious note again. “You use them all the time.”

  “Andreas!” How much confusion did he think she could handle at one time? “Stop! I can’t think. This isn’t helping. How am I supposed to find Derek if you have me all confused?”

  She felt as if the cabins spun. The sun crept up in the sky but the clouds moved overhead as if chased by demons. Somewhere in the desert, a lone bird chirped.

  A cocktail of calling scents meant to calm and heal wafted from Andreas. She looked down at her hip. It no longer hurt. She pulled up her shirt. The bruise still spread across her skin, but it looked lighter, greener than it did before. She was healing faster than she had last night.

  “You’re not going to flash away, Rysa, burned out by your abilities—or your attention problems. You have the Dracos. They will walk through volcanoes for you.” Andreas smiled. “And you have me, Grandchicklet. We are Legio Draconis. We support each other.” He pointed at the insignia on her wrist. “So you might think I’m harsh right now, but I will never push you beyond what you can take.”

  “I…” Andreas considered her Legion?

  “I know you’ve been active less than a week. This world is new to you. And believe me, Ladon-Human and Ladon-Dragon know plenty about how it operates, but they don’t know the intricacies of what it means to be a Shifter. Or a Fate. But I do.”

  He thumped his chest. “Your mother called me for a reason. There are Fates who could train you. Marcus would do a fine job. There are other Shifters who could train you as well, like your father, who should be here now because you aren’t healthy, but isn’t for some reason I will discover. But I’m Legio Draconis. I understand your parts, Shifter and Fate, and your talisman.”

  He inhaled, his chest expanding. “You are the reason my legatus saved your mother all those centuries ago.” He bowed his head. “We will find your balance, Draco Reginae.”

  The huge man in front of her bowed his head to her as if she was royalty. “You’re just as gushy as Ladon.” She peered at him with her eyebrows up in a mock expression of shock. “Is it a Roman thing? Because I thought all Romans were badasses.”

  Andreas laughed again, but stopped and frowned. “You were born into a special time. One with few diseases and plentiful food and people happy enough with their lives to live by the rule of law.” He exhaled slowly, as if his memories were filling up too much of his mind. “The Dracae are capable of great violence. Enough to protect their own in times very different from now. Often, more than either of them could tolerate.”

  He glanced at the cabin she shared with Ladon, then over his shoulder at AnnaBelinda’s cabin. “Do not begrudge them their times of happiness.”

  She hadn’t thought of it that way. Her life growing up had been one playground torment after another, and she never thought about the fact that her single mom, who worked at a school district, still managed to get them a nice house in a nice suburb of a nice, clean city in the middle of one of the safest places on Earth. Or how she never went hungry, or needed new clothes. Or worried about affording a car, or even her college tuition. Her mom had taken care of all that, and Rysa had spent all her time trying not to drown in her school and attention problems.

  And now she had Ladon who, she suspected, wanted nothing more than to live with her and investigate these new, modern problems because they meant he could breathe and build things and not worry about madmen with swords killing those who looked to him for protection over slights and slices of bread.

  For Ladon, she represented much more than an end to loneliness.

  Which meant Derek represented much more to AnnaBelinda than just spouse. Rysa had seen it in action—he was the moderator between both AnnaBelinda and Ladon and the mysteries of the world. They relied on him to run interference with society.

  She had to get him back, alive and without injury. He was the core of the Dracae’s world, not her. Both Ladon and AnnaBelinda needed him.

  She had so much to learn, and not just from Andreas. From Derek, as well.

  “I think I misinterpreted my seers,” she said. The day had begun to brighten and she wished she’d brought out sunglasses. “When I looked at Derek, I saw these slipping walls around him, irrational, not-real walls, and I thought it meant he’d die.”

  Andreas humphed. “No Fate has ever described such a thing to me before. I don’t know what to tell you, other than your hybrid status seems to be generating oddities in your abilities.”

  “Are there others like me?”

  Andreas walked toward the center of the gravel circle. He stepped out of the shadow thrown by his cabin and into the bright southern Wyoming sunshine, and he breathed in, his face tilted toward the sky. Even this big man, with more history than Rysa could possibly fathom, loved warmth on his face.

  “Shifters and Fates make babies more often than either side wants to admit.” He shrugged. “Fates have a… charm.” His boot drew across the gravel as he leveled out an area. “No one activates both halves. The child never survives beyond four hours after the second activation.”

  Yet here she stood. Though every time she used her abilities, she felt hotter and hotter. Like now. Andreas had forced her to use her seers and she felt woozy again. “Is that why I feel sick when I use my abilities?”

  He shrugged again. “Though you have the ability to control the opposition. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to draw it out of you when I breathe out a
brew.” He pointed at her again. “You are unique. It will take effort, I suspect, but we will find all your balances, Rysa de la Turris.” He nodded and crossed his arms over his chest again.

  He kept referring to her as de la Turris, but she didn’t know any of her clan. Hell, she barely knew her own father. He’d vanished when she was eleven. “I think I’d like to stick with Torres. It’s the name my parents gave me and it’s the name I want to use.”

  Andreas nodded once. “As you wish. But your father must explain what he did. I do not understand why he left you and your mother unprotected. Or how he managed to activate you without being here.”

  Her mother had been more than capable of protecting them, obviously. At least until recently. She didn’t think Andreas meant to be chauvinistic.

  And her father hadn’t activated her. No one had spit in her orange juice other than her mom. “I activated myself.”

  Andreas laughed again. “Doubtful. Your father is a brilliant man, Rysa. I see the same fire burning in your eyes I’ve seen in his, and all of your clan.” He smiled. “Ladon-Dragon chose well, with you.” He pointed at the gravel. “Now come here. We will do some close-range work with your seers at the same time we hone your skills. I will teach you how to use your talisman to find answers instead of allowing it to constrain you.”

  Honing her skills. “You need to teach me how to make ‘heal’ for myself, so I don’t need you all the time.”

  He scratched his chin. “True. But in order to find Derek, we need to give you focus. You need to be able to see around these walls you spoke of, and your talisman should give you what you need to do it.”

  She walked over and stopped in front of him. He truly was huge, and not just because he pumped out a constant level of ‘don’t mess with me.’ She wondered if he’d ever been in a place—or time—when he felt small.

  Grinning, he nodded toward the cabin. “I know what you’re thinking, Rysa. The same thoughts always cross a woman’s mind, sooner or later. There are many things in this world bigger than I am, the dragons included.”

  They were bigger than she was, too. All of this was bigger. She just needed to find her place in it.

  “Now.” Andreas narrowed his eyes. “Where is my Legio Draconis insignia?”

  “What?” How was finding his insignia going to help?

  He grinned again. “Your talisman is a dragon’s talon. The insignia represents the dragons, so it is well within your seers’ domains. I wear an insignia. You wear an insignia.” He pointed at her arm and the little dragons Ladon had tied around her wrist only days before. “Do you think perhaps Derek might as well?”

  “Oh!” Why hadn’t she thought of that? But she’d seen it. And she knew he didn’t have it on him anymore. “His belt buckle! But he switched jeans with Ladon.” She pointed over her shoulder at the cabin.

  “Rysa, you are a singular. One question need not be answered by one seer. This is why you are dangerous. Your seers talk to each other. They operate as one. A triad’s seers cannot.” He sniffed and stared at her with a face that said duh. “Operating together is what I taught the first Draki Prime. That is why they were powerful. Their raw talent level was high, yes, but they weren’t your mother’s triad.” He shook his head. “Fates aren’t nearly as powerful as they pretend to be. A little bit of future-seeing and a lot of bullshit will get you a long way in this world, as many triads have learned.”

  Her seer-voices bitched at each other more than talked. And she still didn’t understand how the insignia would help find Derek. “I need to know where he is right now, not where his belt buckle was, or where it will be, which is probably where it is, in the back of the van.”

  Andreas laughed again. “Are you always like this? Arguing about everything?”

  “Okay. Fine.” Rysa first touched her talisman, looking for the edges of how it filtered her seers. How they used it to define what they did. It still left her clueless—she felt tentacles and heard the whispers, but the space of it seemed huge and formless.

  Learning to be a good Fate was going to take some time.

  “Here.” Andreas stepped close and breathed out ‘calm’ and ‘centered,’ plus a good dose of his ‘heal’ brew. “No use in you feeling sick again, especially with me right here.”

  “Thanks.” She inhaled deeply and held it for a moment, and exhaled slowly. Concentrate, she told herself. See the insignia.

  But an insignia wasn’t the only thing she saw. Not the one around her wrist, or the second one around Derek’s neck, or the one Andreas wore embedded in the skin of his right shoulder—in his skin—or the one on the belt buckle in the back of the van. Or the myriad others on Ladon’s and AnnaBelinda’s weapons. Or the ones on various items scattered around the cave, or around another place, a bar, that screamed Branson. Or around the necks and wrists of several other people she knew—Marcus and Harold, in particular—and several others she did not recognize. Yet.

  Rysa saw something else. Something brutal.

  She saw pain.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “Dragon’s waking up.” Agony bounced around inside Rysa’s head. Someone had poured gasoline on her seers and lit them on fire and now smashed them against the walls of her brain.

  This was worse than any of the weirdness the Burners had inflicted on her. Much worse. This time, it hurt her, Dragon, and Ladon.

  Andreas steadied her so she wouldn’t fall to the gravel, and blew calling scents into her face. The pain stopped.

  “What did you do?”

  He looked around, his face as confused as she felt. “It’s early. He shouldn't be waking up for a good eight hours.” He glanced over his shoulder at AnnaBelinda’s cabin.

  “Andreas, what did you do to me?”

  He looked down at her. “I numbed your pain center. You will feel injuries, but they won’t hurt. It’ll last for an hour at most, so we need to get this under control.” He glanced around again. “And you need to be extra careful. Humans feel pain for a reason.”

  She nodded, and touched her talisman with her other hand. Her seers erupted, all three tentacles, all three looking for the energy bond shared by the dragons. Her past-seer snagged it first, curling around the ribbon, then her present-seer. Her future-seer snapped toward the cabin, and Dragon.

  The beast’s sister had done this. She’d snuck out of AnnaBelinda’s cabin, running silent so neither Andreas or Rysa felt her, and she’d prodded her brother awake.

  “Sister-Dragon!” Rysa yelled. “You’re hurting him!”

  Raw pain blasted from Dragon, pain without a language Rysa understood. Andreas’s scents kept it under control, but Rysa felt it deep inside, in her gut and her heart and her bones. Dragon needed more time to heal his gunshot wound.

  “Where are you?” Rysa snarled. She couldn’t locate the other beast. Sister-Dragon might be on the cabin’s roof, or behind it, or inches away, and she wouldn’t know. And where the hell was AnnaBelinda?

  Rysa’s present-seer snapped her the truth—Anna slept on her bed in her cabin, as naked as Ladon, after hours of crying and rocking and anger with herself for not being strong. For mourning even though in the deep recesses of her heart, she believed that her new Draki Prime would prevail. That Rysa was a good woman, her brother’s mate, and unlike the original three, would not let Anna’s mate die because it was his fate.

  “Andreas!” Rysa pointed at AnnaBelinda’s cabin. “Wake her up. Damn it!” She turned in a circle, her hyperactivity reasserting itself. “Do not leave Anna’s side.” Anna could not be alone. “Please! She’s…” Rysa blinked, trying to figure out what to say. Anna wasn’t suicidal. More like homicidal. But that wasn’t correct, either. Only those who deserved to die would find their end at the tip of her sword.

  Rysa’s gut rolled. Her past- and present-seers snapped information back and forth so fast she didn’t know which fed her what.

  Andreas squinted and pressed his temple. “The first triad was never like this. Never this powerf
ul.”

  “What?” Who was he talking about? Rysa turned in a circle again, looking for the treacherous dragon. “Where are you, Sister-Dragon?”

  Andreas stepped backward, toward Anna’s cabin. “You are a true Prime, Rysa Lucinda de la Turr—Torres. The only true Fate threat.” He pressed his temple again.

  “Andreas!” she yelled. Other Fates were not the issue right now. Sister-Dragon’s actions were. “Go to AnnaBelinda. Right now!” She whipped her finger toward the other cabin. “Keep Ladon’s sister safe.” Her seers pushed more words from her mouth. “You are the Second of the Legion. Do as the Draco Reginae commands.”

  Andreas balked, stepping back again. But he nodded, and didn’t ask more questions. He understood to follow the directives of his legatus’ Prime. His bulk rose up to cast a long shadow, and he pointed at the door of the cabin she shared with Ladon. “Stay out while Ladon-Dragon awakens, Rysa.”

  Her seers writhed, screaming No! “They need me.”

  Andreas poked out his chin. “You do not need to see them like this.”

  “I don’t care!” Ladon needed her. Dragon needed her. She would not run away like a child.

  “Great Lady!” Andreas stretched out his arms, his palms up. “Show yourself. What you do is not wise.”

  A brilliant line burst across the other dragon’s snout, mere inches from Rysa’s cheek. She screamed, and jumped as the line flickered down a neck, onto a back, and to the tip of a tail.

  “Sister-Dragon!” Andreas yelled. A wave of intense ‘calm’ pheromones flooded the circle, but they did not calm Rysa. They were purely dragon.

  Sister-Dragon rocked back and forth, first one forelimb lifting off the gravel, then the other. The rocks crunched under her weight, a grinding sound grating across Rysa’s senses.

  Rysa’s present-seer yelled Breathe! Learn!

  She sucked in Andreas’s calling scents. They flowed over her palate, salty like the ocean. Gulls called somewhere along the edges and the colors of the sky swirled. Her past-seer had just hooked into Andreas’s calling scents and called up a memory—The Empire. Dragons swimming in a bay. Two Humans, happy and laughing.