Games of Fate (Fate ~ Fire ~ Shifter ~ Dragon #1) Read online

  Gavin halted like he’d run into a wall. He gagged, bending forward. The stench must have hit his nose.

  “He your boyfriend?” The hand over her mouth loosened.

  “Please don’t hurt him.” The ghoul could take her, but Gavin had a life ahead of him. He’d do good. Become a wonderful doctor.

  The ghoul’s eyes narrowed and his head tilted again as he peered at Gavin. He flicked his chin toward campus. “You better listen, little normal. Better run. Before my mates find you.”

  Gavin stepped back, both his mouth and his hands working but not making sense.

  “Run!” Rysa screamed. He had to get away. She’d make sure—

  Then the world flickered hot yellow again and Gavin was gone. The ghoul stood on her other side, anger dancing though his eyes.

  “Do not do that again!” He slapped and caustic chemicals burned her cheek. Yanking hard, he dragged her toward the break in the fence framing the walk to the road. “Claw me one more time and you’ll be lucky if you keep your arm, you stupid cow.”

  She didn’t remember clawing him. She didn’t remember Gavin running away, either. What did she do? She’d had another blackout and lost more time.

  Nothing made sense.

  The man dragged her through the lot gate and into the street. He pushed her forward with one hand, the fingers of his other tapping in the air as if he played an invisible piano. The tips glowed and smoldered one at a time, turning on and off as he pressed each imaginary key. “Quiet now, luv.”

  A dark-gold hatchback with rusted side panels and blistered paint weaved down the street. A blue van, just as ratty, rushed from the other direction.

  The man inhaled, his chin up. “Time to meet the family, princess.”

  2

  They tumbled out of the vehicles. Ten, twelve, maybe more, their stench so thick it hung in the air like a sick yellow-green mist. Rysa coughed and the man holding her by the neck laughed.

  “Billy! You found her, huh?” The smallest of the group lunged out of the hatchback. Slight and willowy, he—she—Rysa couldn’t tell for sure—wore tattered sweats low on her ass and a baseball cap twisted to the side. She stopped close and tapped her foot on the asphalt as she leaned forward, her little fists pushing into her hips.

  The air whistled into her scrunched-up nose. “Yep, she’s one of them, alright. Pricks!”

  This thing in front of Rysa was a child, no older than ten.

  The kid jumped straight up into the air and spun in a half-circle, landing on the precise spot she’d launched herself from but with her back to Rysa. “Bring’em out!” she yelled. Another bounce and she faced Rysa again. “Party time, skankadoodle.” Little sparks popped between her fingers when she clapped.

  Billy waved his hand in the air, his fingers skittering like they had a mind of their own. “We’re too visible. He’ll find us again, like at the park with the rollercoaster. That way.” He pointed east, toward Wisconsin. “The Fells. Kells.”

  “The Dells, dickweed.” The child shrugged.

  A woman with dirty hair jerked out of the van, a balled up blanket in her arms. She staggered backward into the bumper—the weight she carried obviously throwing her balance—and she dropped the bundle.

  Chains unfurled. Shackles bounced against the van’s door.

  Metal clinked across the pavement.

  Rysa’s mind drowned in a final flood of panic. She’d been able to keep some wits about her. She’d sent Gavin away. But the pressure behind her eyes screamed and these people had chains and she needed to get away before—

  Time hiccupped. She had her hand around the neck of the dirty-haired woman. The skin of her palm burned as if she’d touched a hot stove and she shrieked, pitching backward.

  How did she get away from Billy? She must have slammed the female ghoul against the van. Her stomach rolled. They’d kill her now. Chained or not, no way would they let her live.

  “Bitch!” the woman shouted.

  Her teeth glowed like miniature, bright-white scalpels. Rysa tried to scream, but no sound came out of her mouth. But the woman had a grip on her arms and heat pushed toward her skin and the panic wouldn’t stop.

  “Lizzy!” Billy caught the woman’s arms. “Hush now.” Wisps of something—smoke, dust, ash, Rysa didn’t know—rose from the woman’s skin when he touched her cheek.

  The child skipped over, her little finger poking at Rysa’s chest. “Get her up!”

  Lizzy let go and another ghoul snatched Rysa’s head back. Disorientation overrode all sense of up or down. A raw scream erupted from her throat, sound finally pushing out. Hands lifted her hips into the air. More held her legs. The ghouls flung her up high above the pavement and giggled when they caught her on the way down.

  The chains rattled and the child’s harsh laugh hissed through the air. Billy’s grip on Rysa’s thigh tightened. The heat from Lizzy’s palms burned through Rysa’s shirt to her skin.

  The sky above glowed. Reflections of Minneapolis set the cloud deck ablaze and the sky swam in yellow-green, like the haze from these monsters. They held Rysa’s neck, waves of burning acid stench rolling to her nose from their breath.

  Mutters arose from the ghouls as they carried her away from the vehicles. Someone clamped shackles onto her wrists. Big, thick manacles like she’d seen in bad movies. Rysa thrashed, but another set clamped onto her ankles.

  They held her above their heads but the heavy chains pulled down her limbs. Her back arched as her shoulders and hips wrenched downward. She saw only the night above, the clouds hanging over the world the way her body hung over the asphalt.

  Heat seared from the metal across Rysa’s right wrist. Pain jolted her mind as bright bolts and white noise. Maybe she’d black out again. Maybe she’d blink and be on top of the blue van, her body turned ninja to rain death down onto the ghouls.

  But they held her tight.

  She couldn’t turn her head but she felt what the child did. She saw the sky but a finger melted resin into the lock and bonded the metal around her wrist.

  “Stop! Please stop!” Tears blurred her eyes. Her voice rasped. The acid haze burned away every thought in her mind.

  One of the ghouls screamed and the heat at her ankle stopped. A loud crack puffed next to her head. More screams, and the hands under her back and hips let go.

  Rysa fell.

  Her back tensed as her instincts pulled her knees toward her chest. The shackles’ weight wrenched. She rolled. Her vision lost the horrid glow of the sky and filled instead with the blackness of the pavement.

  She knew what was about to happen, felt the anguish play across her muscles and bones. She’d hit the ground. Snap ribs. Her head would bounce, blinding her with colorless flashes. Blood pool in her mouth. A hip crack. And her forearm shatter.

  But it didn’t. Huge hand-like claws—long, dexterous digits ending in vicious-looking talons—scooped under her shoulders and hips. She bounced upward, her free-fall countered by something new. Something large.

  A new power surged over her skin. Every hair on her body stood up. The talons retracted into the fingers in a wave moving across each hand. The fingers pushed her gently as the hands pulled her back. She rolled again, facing upward once more.

  Nothing stood over her. The cloud deck swirled in the sky, open and visible. Both hands vanished to nothing as well, though she felt them curl tighter.

  A ghost held her inches off the ground, yet it felt warm and real and alive. Invisible muscles coiled and powerful limbs adjusted position. She rocked and a massive chest pressed against her side.

  She should feel terrified. She should scream at this new impossibility and fight and flounder in its arms. But her vision channel-changed again and she knew what held her wouldn’t hurt her. It wouldn’t bite and rip or hurt her. Ever.

  Carefully, she touched what she couldn’t see. Soft under her fingers, the energy crackling from it left her with a distinct sense of amazement.

  It let go and her feet hit the g
round. Whatever had caught her altered its stance and the position of its chest dropped. Weight shifted. Something strong that felt like it might be a neck rubbed her shoulder.

  Across the lot, near the van the woman had pulled the shackles from, another crack thundered through the air. A man wearing black jeans and a black jacket zipped tight around his neck smashed his gloved fist into the nose of one of the ghouls who’d held her in the air.

  The fiend staggered back and pulled a knife from his belt. He grimaced, his face reddening. The blade flashed, and he cut down his arm. The stink increased and Rysa covered her mouth and nose, gagging. Whiffs of smoke rose from the ghoul’s clothes but he continued to slice.

  The man in black cursed and slashed a whip at the ghoul’s arm. The tip stripped the knife and the man bolted into the lot before the blade hit the ground. The ghoul danced around, swearing, until he looked at the blade next to his foot.

  It glowed red. A whine, high-pitched like a wind-up toy about to be released, reverberated between the van and the hatchback.

  The knife exploded. The ghoul’s leg below his knee burst into a red haze.

  They didn’t just burn. They didn’t just eat people, either. Their blood made knives explode.

  And shopping malls. They had to be responsible for all the explosions. All the fires.

  Panic welled in Rysa’s gut again. Maybe she was having an aneurism. Maybe none of this was real. How could it be real? She stumbled backward. Maybe—

  The invisible chest of the creature who had saved her from her fall blocked her way. It pressed against her back, gentle and real.

  Her terror lessened, driven away by this giant she couldn’t see but felt wrap itself around her.

  Next to the hatchback, the man in the black jacket smashed an elbow into another ghoul’s chest. “Damned cockroaches!”

  A chill ran up Rysa’s spine. His voice, even filled with anger, melted more of her terror.

  “Fuck you!” the child shrieked. She and two others ran for the van. Billy and Lizzy snuck around and hid alongside the hatchback.

  Another ghoul ran at the man. He dropped his whip and pulled a gun as long as his forearm from a holster on his leg. The barrel recoiled as a poof blasted a barbed spike through the fiend’s heart and spine. It popped through the ghoul’s back cleanly, no blood or gore, just more of the red glow. Then hooks spread from its tip. When the man yanked on the rope, the ghoul fell forward.

  Whatever pressed against Rysa’s back moved away but stayed next to her. She felt its presence, but couldn’t see—until a shimmering ghost-line of rich yellows and oranges rolled through the air. A snout and an elongated head appeared. Golden light erupted across the creature’s flank in swirling dots, lines, and hard-edged patterns. Huge, her first thought was dinosaur, but it had a vaguely canine set to its limbs. Whatever it was, it looked strong and agile, and like it could stop every single attack the ghouls threw at it.

  It reared onto its hind legs as the man tossed it the gun, the cable trailing. Every muscle along the creature’s ridged back undulated when it caught the weapon. It flicked the cable and the ghoul’s body flew straight up, high above the fight.

  For an instant, the ghoul floated in midair like a helium balloon on a tether, still and lifeless. Then the body crystallized, little sparkles rapidly spreading outward from the wound in its chest. Without a sound, the shards vaporized and became a person-shaped, red dust cloud.

  Unconsciously, Rysa backed against the creature’s side, seeking its protection. The red dust rippled with menace. The ghoul was dead, but the dust wasn’t. It embodied something far worse than mindless rampaging. The red dust was chaos unfettered.

  The cloud imploded. The limbs pulled in first, the dust shaping into a red ball. Flutters rippled the surface like a puff of smoke or a drop of blood.

  The entire sphere sucked into a tiny point in space.

  A blinding flash ripped through the street and parking lot. The creature curled around Rysa, its talons gouging the asphalt as it blocked the shockwave from throwing her to the ground.

  Next to the blue van, a high-pitched screech erupted from the child. “I hate you, dragon boy!” She stomped her feet.

  The creature was a dragon?

  The kid ran straight for Rysa. “Give us the Fate!”

  All Rysa’s panic returned, clawing through the chill on her spine left by the exploding dust. Fate? Billy called her the same thing when he snatched her. She pressed against the dragon’s chest once again, grasping for the calm she’d felt before, but the chains attached to the shackles restricting her wrists and ankles knotted and she tripped. Her palms came down hard on the pavement, her hands wrenching inside the cuffs, and she dropped to her elbows.

  Dust pillowed off the ground when a forelimb slammed down on each side of Rysa’s body. A neck appeared over her head and bright, glimmering reds flashed from the dragon’s hide.

  The beast blocked the child. The little ghoul couldn’t get close.

  Next to the hatchback, the man in black tipped his head as if listening to someone whisper in his ear—and above her, so did the dragon. Energy crackled over her skin.

  The man and the dragon shared a bond.

  Their energy flowed over Rysa in slow waves and every cell in her body tingled. Their connection wove itself into her senses, brightening her perception and calming both her panic and the pain in her arms.

  The dragon dropped its head next to hers. It sniffed her hair, touching her face with its snout. Warmth spread across her belly as its tail coiled around her waist and legs.

  The flavor of the energy between the man and the beast altered. Dismay flowed across their connection. Rysa leaned into the beast, needing to soothe, feeling that she was supposed to, and flared her fingers over the swirls and patterns moving across the creature’s hide.

  The man in black snarled and pointed at the ghouls. “We can stop this!”

  Flame burst from the dragon’s mouth.

  Real flame, warm and bright and scented with frankincense and spices. Real fire, not the chemical acid death released by the ghouls. It flooded the area between it, the man, and the kid.

  The kid pulled up short. “You think so, huh?” She flipped off the man as she ran for the van. “Prick!”

  The man glanced at Rysa, then the child, then back to her again. A surge moved through the energy flow connecting him and the dragon. The beast flamed in response.

  “Why are you so stubborn?” The man pulled off his gloves as he ran to Rysa, his head tipped again as if he were listening to someone whisper. “A Fate?” Lifting his goggles, he looked down at her with golden-brown eyes. “They shackled you? What kind of Fate are you that you couldn’t get away from Burners?”

  The dragon nudged the man at the same time one of its hands curled around Rysa’s belly.

  The man’s brow furrowed as he squinted at the beast. “What?”

  More energy pulsed between them.

  “He says you’re activating.” The man looked around. “Why the hell are you alone?”

  “I…” She didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t know what “activate” meant, or why everyone kept calling her a Fate. But she wasn’t alone. The dragon enveloped her and their energy cascaded over her mind. A calmness she shouldn’t have settled in. She felt right, centered, and for first time in her life, she didn’t feel alone.

  The man lifted the chain and peered at it in the dim light. “Burndust in the metal? Can you get your hands out?” He yanked on the cuff, the furrow between his eyes changing from exasperation to concern. “Hey! Can you hear me? Try!” He blinked, his eyes wide.

  Rysa blinked, too.

  Her eyes saw more than was possible. More than she could handle. In her vision, several versions of the man pulled and twisted and ripped at the shackles, as he tried, but failed, to pull them off. All versions were not quite the same but all possible, as if she watched multiple takes of the same scene overlaid onto each other.

  Each render
ing of the man understood what was happening, even if she didn’t. Each iteration worked to stop her from becoming something as terrible as the ghouls who now peeled away in their hatchback and van. She felt a need to help pulse along the energy connecting the man and the beast and she knew even if she panicked again, she was safe.

  A sense of separation washed over her. She’d taken a step to the side no one else had, or could. Her angle on the world reformed and she saw things clearly that had been obscured before—things that should be obscured. Things she wasn’t supposed to see.

  Possibility took on weight. Portions of time became threads. The universe had a weave and Rysa could see its fabric now.

  See it, even if she didn’t understand what she saw.

  Ladon. Their name danced through her mind, a separate voice, one that was her but not her. Their name was Ladon, and some of their possible futures were more probable than others.

  She grasped her throat, the chains dragging across her chest. No air entered her lungs. The dragon lifted her into its forelimbs and held her close to its body.

  When what she knew moved sideways, the world burned hot and cold, her fingers frostbitten as her core boiled. Did the fire ghouls do something to her? Except her hands looked fine, not blue and frozen.

  Her perception of the dragon fanned out, multiple takes playing at the same time again. She felt the physical edges of each possibility slide along her skin while they flared through her vision.

  She held tight, feeling this big beast’s intent. Knowing, understanding, seeing it all for a fraction of a second as a multi-dimensional blossom. For the moment, it—he—was all colors and shapes and textures at once. He gleamed with the stars themselves.

  Ladon’s gold-flecked eyes, warm and full of life, anchored the spinning and the world slammed back to normal. She felt better, stronger, with both of them next to her, as if they’d get her through this. They stabilized what-is and what-will-be—the present and the future—and understanding the process of “activation” wasn’t important. Only that she activated now, with them.