Flux of Skin Read online

  Her hand rose, rigid as if she didn’t have control, and touched the talon before her finger pointed toward the front of the RV. “Something’s wrong,” she whispered. “The road is stiff.”

  Stiff? Her seers pounded on the edge of his consciousness. What was happening to her?

  Dragon’s hand cupped her back. Her fever rises.

  Divots poked again. Trenches deepened. Dread dropped from the sky and slammed into Ladon’s body so hard his back felt as if it would snap.

  Rysa stared through the curtain separating the back of the RV from the front and the road ahead, her eyes narrow. “Put on your boots. Now.”

  “Love, what are you seeing?” An instant of fight flickered along their connection. All edges delineated. All sound heightened. Her seers backwashed into his mind.

  “Past, present, future—I can’t see anything. The world is sharp and cutting. Hard and splitting.”

  Ladon pulled the t-shirt over his wounded shoulder. The bite he had suffered in Salt Lake City throbbed but he ignored it.

  “Ladon…” Her eyes rolled back into her head. Her spine arched. Her mouth opened wide and her breath rattled into her chest.

  She dropped against Dragon’s chest.

  “Rysa!” All the muscles along Ladon’s spine knotted.

  Dragon scooped her up and placed one hand on her back. He flexed his digits, fully retracting his talons, and reached for Ladon. The beast didn’t need to touch his chest. Ladon already felt the torrents flooding off her body. They broke free like vapor boiling off too-hot skin.

  But Dragon touched and an inhale stopped halfway into Ladon’s throat. Fever washed through every fiber of Rysa’s inflamed body.

  She burned.

  And he didn’t know what to do.

  Chapter Two

  Discordant patterns fired from Dragon. He didn’t know what to do for Rysa, either. Ladon crawled over his tail, toward the edge of the bed.

  Sister-Dragon had been ignoring the back of the RV since they left Salt Lake City. She’d extended a bit of kindness to her brother that Ladon hadn’t expected—she’d curled up, her ridges to them and her psychic connection to her brother minimized.

  Ladon yanked the curtain aside and her hide immediately brightened from night-shadow to the dull-but-uniform glow of a dragon roused to awareness.

  “How far—”

  The precision of dragon-sensing overlaid his own already sharpened perception—the world took on exact depth, specific gradients, perfect angles. The smooth wood interior of his sister’s RV glowed in the moonlight filtering through the windows. The windshield acted as a portal to the dark Wyoming landscape outside. The land looked like a snapshot—and under it, a map. Hills, scrub, dry high mountain dirt surrounded the ribbon of freeway they traveled.

  Which meant only one thing—the beasts were tensing for battle.

  Ladon slapped Dragon’s tail. “Listen to me! Rysa needs help!” Not a fight.

  Sister-Dragon raised her head and peered at the back of the RV. Something is wrong. Her hide pulsed with sudden, sharp patterns.

  Rysa is too hot, Ladon pushed back. But his shoulders loosened to enhance speed. His back straightened and his core tightened. His body instinctively readied for a fight anyway.

  Dragon pressed his head against the roof. He watched the road over his sister’s back. Derek comes.

  Sister-Dragon rolled closer and sniffed Rysa. I hear her.

  Ladon’s brother-in-law climbed over Sister-Dragon’s bulk. He nudged back his ever-present hat as he dropped onto the bed. Ladon nodded, thankful as always for Derek’s compassion and his time with Sister—and with him. Derek kept them both from being washed away by the tides of the modern world.

  He’d long ago become the anchor that kept them human.

  Like Rysa. She pulled Ladon out of the brackish pit in which he’d submerged himself a century and a half ago.

  Losing either of them could not happen.

  “Anna wants to know what the hell’s going on.” Derek checked Rysa’s pulse. “She okay?”

  A sense of imminent danced like fire across the back of Ladon’s neck. Outside, through the windshield, the night took on a weight it shouldn’t have. The interstate looked too dark—and crisper, as if the underlying map had pushed its way to the surface.

  Something played over Derek’s face, but Ladon didn’t catch it. Distracting heat wafted from Rysa and fight screamed inside Ladon’s head.

  Dragon swiveled his big head forward. I can feel them, he pushed.

  Sister-Dragon rolled backward, her neck and shoulders undulating over her haunches, and blocked all view of the front. They are close.

  Whatever sparked between the beasts yelled in Ladon’s mind like a manic clown waving his arms. It felt separate from Ladon’s thoughts, but all too real—and nasty.

  Rysa’s abilities were backwashing into his mind again. They had to be.

  Up front, in the driver’s seat, Sister swore. The RV lurched.

  Ladon swayed forward as Sister-Dragon flattened against the floor. Her talons locked onto the RV’s walls. Behind him, Dragon flattened upward, against the sidewall and ceiling, the mirror opposite of his sister.

  The windshield came into view and a sudden bright light filled the RV. Someone pointed a spotlight directly onto Sister.

  Derek also swore. His hand rose to shield his eyes and his face scrunched up in surprise. Ladon squinted, trying to cut through the glare.

  The dragons synced around the humans—patterns moved from one to the other, then back. Sudden needles danced over Ladon’s skin as Dragon snapped his focus to Sister-Dragon and lessened his connection to his human. A groan erupted from Ladon’s core—he saw too much of Dragon’s awareness, felt too much pull—and gravity swirled in his guts. The world was not right and it strained his body.

  Dragon yanked Ladon against the wall under the side window. Up front, even though they were still moving, Sister-Dragon unhooked Sister’s seatbelt.

  Silence draped over the vehicle as a thick and heavy slowness creeping from Ladon’s ears into his vision. It dropped from his eyes onto his nose and tongue. Then it burst into his body.

  Rysa’s seers erupted through the RV, and the past, present, and future became as real and exact as his dragon-enhanced perception.

  For a split second, for nothing more than one frame of one instant, Ladon knew everything that was happening.

  All of Ladon’s thoughts, all of his actions, slammed tight around Rysa. Her abilities writhed through his senses, overlays of the world pumped to him by her mind—the fever in her core made her hurt in ways he didn’t understand. Her seers sucked at her skin as if someone pulled off tape. It all whipped around, searching through what-was-is-will-be for something to attach to.

  Rysa gasped and her eyes fluttered—and Ladon’s chest tightened, as though someone had reached inside and squeezed his lungs.

  A sudden shift in motion rolled her to his chest. The brakes squealed. Ladon braced, fighting the inertia throwing them all forward as the RV abruptly slowed.

  Up front, Sister-Dragon pulled Sister sideways and out of the driver’s seat.

  No one controlled the vehicle. They were at the mercy of the road bed, the engine, and whatever angle his sister had steered them toward just before her dragon pulled her from the wheel. The RV had slowed, but they were on the interstate, and slow here still meant deadly. Dragon-perception filled Ladon’s head, but he didn’t know what to do. How to respond. One wrong reaction and Derek or Rysa might—

  A whisper blew across the surface of his mind. Bullet, it said.

  A ball of flame burst from Dragon—he’d heard it, too. Rysa’s present-seer whispered through her unconsciousness.

  And Ladon responded.

  Derek froze. He cringed from the flame but sat stunned by the light pouring through the windshield.

  The spotlight flickered in circles around one dark, cold point. The glass’s double layers ruptured, and the circles of light fanned l
ike birds spreading their wings.

  A projectile burrowed first through the outside layer of the windshield’s glass, then the inner layer, and an odd harmony filled the RV—the glass cracked high and the dragons roared low.

  Ladon reacted, not thinking, his body responding to this danger Rysa helped him to see. His palm curled around Derek’s shoulder and he pushed hard. Derek snapped to the side. His hat twisted off his head.

  The bullet ripped a hole through the crown.

  Ladon threw himself over Rysa’s cinched-up body.

  Chapter Three

  Sister-Dragon yanked Sister against her chest. The thick skin of the dragon’s back ridges blocked Sister from the glass shockwave bursting into the RV’s interior. Chunks peppered the walls, hit the bed, lodged in the cabinets. But Ladon had Rysa, and Dragon curled around Derek.

  Rysa’s weight lifted from Ladon’s arms.

  Gravity betrayed them both. Ladon and Rysa pushed apart. Each rose at different angles as the RV rolled—as if she had become unhooked from the space and time he occupied. Light danced along her body—light from the spot outside, light from Dragon’s hide. Light showing him exactly how she moved away from the safety of his arms and into the open maw of an attack that would kill her.

  The RV jerked. Ladon slammed to the side. A blistering screech spun up from the wheels and gravity snapped back on.

  Ladon instinctively countered. His muscles moved, contracting, pulling, using all the new information Rysa fed him, and he rolled between her and the flat cabinets lining the walls.

  She bounced, limp and unconscious, back into his arms.

  Ladon’s gut wrenched perpendicular to the way it should be. The world reoriented—up flipped over and down became a deafening crack thundering through the RV. Ahead of him, the front seats corkscrewed sideways. The walls followed. A deafening snap pulsed louder than the screeches of the tires or the bellowing of the dragons.

  The RV slinked onto its side.

  Ladon bounced against the ceiling, his body between Rysa and the shattering metal. Sparks exploded through the side windows sliding across the road—the vehicle ground across the concrete of I-80.

  Another jerk as the RV skidded off the concrete onto the hard pack dirt along the freeway. Ladon, Rysa in his arms, dropped toward the window sliding over the high desert plain. If they hit, they’d grind, too. She’d die. Ladon countered, twisting, and his back slammed hard into a cabinet door handle. A new, sharp agony ricocheted through his core—a rib cracked.

  The RV jolted again. They hit something large—an embankment.

  The rib swayed in his chest. Pain clamped around his stomach. Bitterness filled his mouth as the fruit he’d eaten earlier forced its way up.

  He dismissed his pain. Survival meant protecting Rysa. His body was on its own.

  The whine of the axle tamped down into a frenzied rasp against the desert—a wheel must have caught dirt. The RV whipped around, and centrifugal force slammed Ladon and Rysa against the now-vertical bed. But Ladon held tight and his shoulder and upper arm stabilized her neck.

  He landed on the cabinets in a crouch with Rysa against his chest.

  By his ear, Dragon’s foot crushed through to the metal frame of the RV. The beast braced himself and the talons of one hand gouged the ceiling. The other held Derek, the beast’s digits spread to protect Ladon’s brother-in-law from whiplash and cuts.

  The RV stopped with its front end pointed toward the low hills framing the flat desert. They’d skidded around the embankment and out of sight of the freeway.

  Ladon’s ribs burned but he could breathe. He flattened an elbow against his side. Nothing felt punctured. He shifted Rysa against his chest and moved her weight to his uninjured side to lessen the strain.

  Up front, Sister dropped out of Sister-Dragon’s grip. Blood ran from a gash on her bicep and she looked down at it and frowned. Nothing gushed. She’d be okay.

  She ripped open the door behind the driver’s seat—the cabinet she straddled—and pulled out a rifle. “Where are they?”

  The dragons both rocked, their heads low, but neither answered.

  Sister yanked out another rifle and a pistol and tossed them to Derek. He set the handgun next to Ladon and cocked the rifle.

  Ladon shifted Rysa again and felt along her sides, her arms, her thighs. None of her bones felt broken. He’d taken the brunt of the impact when they hit the wall, but she didn’t move, still a ragdoll in his arms. “Rysa, wake up.”

  Dragon sniffed her face and abdomen. No internal injuries. He signed his words as he pushed them into Ladon’s mind so Derek would understand. The beast sniffed Ladon’s brother-in-law. Be careful with your right leg.

  Derek looked down at his thigh. “I am fine.” But he rubbed it gingerly, and scowled at both Dragon and Ladon.

  Ladon trailed his hands over Rysa’s still form, again feeling panic slopping against the edges of his mind. If it got out of control, he’d put his fist through the side of the RV. Or worse.

  The pain in his side wasn’t helping. “Rysa, can you hear me?”

  The beast sniffed Ladon’s chest. You have two fractured ribs, he signed.

  “Sons of bitches.” Derek stuck a finger through the hole in his hat before placing it back on his head. “We had better get to the road.”

  Sister sniffed as she yanked out another handgun and checked the chamber. “They’re using heavy artillery.”

  Derek glanced at Ladon. They both knew Sister wanted a fight—they’d both seen many times before how she reacted to similar threats. Normally, Ladon would agree. Normally, he’d snap arms and break legs alongside his sister. But right now, every second they spent dealing with their attackers was another second between Rysa and help.

  Derek pointed at Rysa as he held his wife’s gaze. “She needs help.”

  Annoyance flickered from Sister-Dragon.

  How many times had Ladon danced this exact dance with his sister?

  His fractured ribs fanned the consistent throb from the bite on his shoulder. His injuries were all on the same side, all conspiring to pull his arm in and keep him from breathing.

  He’d had injuries before, many much worse than this. But they never burned as if his own body rejected its damaged parts.

  Dragon’s hide pulsed. The beast laid one hand over Rysa’s back and another on Ladon’s shoulders.

  How much of her pain was backwashing to him and the beast? Rejecting screamed through his head and his panic tried, once more, to edge its way in. Or maybe it was her nasty, screaming for help. He couldn’t tell.

  They needed to get her that help. Now. Not bicker with Sister and Sister-Dragon.

  Dragon sniffed Rysa again. Information pulsed between the beasts faster than Ladon could follow. He held back a cringe—the beasts’ exchange made the sensations pulsing from Rysa screech like a damned drunken gang of idiots.

  How did she live with such distractions? No wonder she had problems paying attention.

  Sister-Dragon’s hide turned stony and dark for a split second before she completely vanished. Dragon glanced at Ladon just as he snapped their energy into a tight band. Then he, too, vanished. The dragons ran silent—any Fate or Shifter would have a difficult time sensing them. Even Ladon and Sister would have a hard time knowing exactly where they were.

  Sister crinkled her nose and shook her head. “I just had the RV detailed.” She threw several clips back to Ladon and Derek.

  Rysa lay on the wall, her body tightening up and her eyes fluttering under her closed lids.

  Ladon touched her arm. “Love.” The pet name escaped, a whisper he hadn’t meant to say out loud. But it held more truth than any word he’d ever whispered in his life.

  He’d get her out of here. And he’d do whatever was needed to calm her body’s rejection of its Shifter half.

  Derek’s face softened. He nodded and cocked his rifle.

  They needed to get out of the RV and to someplace protected. Ladon whistled at Sister and poi
nted over his shoulder. The embankment screened the back end of the RV and they could exit out the big window. They could then sneak around the hill to the interstate.

  A faint pop whispered through the air—from the front. From outside. Ladon snapped sideways as a bullet ripped by his ear and nicked Derek’s hat and shredded the brim. It slammed into the RV’s back wall, next to their escape route, and embedded itself in the fiberboard surrounding the window. Derek yelped, but was unharmed.

  Ladon whipped around hoping to catch a glint of a night scope or a flash, but nothing.

  Sister didn’t wait. She flipped out the open windshield onto the dry scrub. Dust billowed as she scampered up the front of the RV and out of sight.

  Sweat beaded on Rysa’s forehead.

  All the fear of Ladon’s dream crashed into his gut. She fell into a volcano and this time he might not be able to catch her.

  Ladon’s growl filled the vehicle, reverberating between the crackling metal and the broken glass.

  “Rysa, wake up.” Derek shook her shoulder as he watched out the windshield and the desert beyond the RV. He blinked rapidly, but—thankfully—kept his wits and pulled her toward the ceiling. Derek hid her and himself as best he could behind the pillows and bunched-up blankets.

  Ladon backed closer as he swung his rifle to his shoulder. Hot pain seared from his cracked ribs, but he held the scope steady.

  He saw nothing. No reflections. No movement. Whoever attacked was very good at their job.

  Sister knocked on the back window.

  Derek looked up, then leaned over Rysa and shook her again. “Rysa, you need to wake up.”

  Ladon bent low over Rysa and whispered in her ear. “Love, wake up, please.” His lips grazed her temple and he moved down gently, carefully, kissing her cheek.

  Rysa eyes popped open. “Down! Now!” She yanked both the men to the ground.

  Chapter Four

  More bullets whizzed by their heads. Ladon pushed Derek flat against the cabinets as the wall behind them burst into a shower of debris.