The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  She tried not to see what she was seeing. If she really saw it, it would be worse. So much worse.

  Movement erupted in the scene playing out before her eyes, limbs thrashing. Long black limbs, banded with chocolate and honey colored hair, limbs like fingers twice the length of her own body, the width of her own torso.

  Then she saw .

  The low temple was full of them. They were a thick, twelve foot high mass of writhing arachnid bodies, tarantulas the size of small elephants, their furred bodies climbing over one another in frenzy.

  Emma’s mind clamped down on itself with a shriek. The hallucination disappeared. She came to and blinked wildly up into Fern’s face, his mouth smeared with blood and a thick, shining amber fluid that ran in rivulets through the red. His fangs were retracting, but his eyes were still stark black holes in his face. Unblinking, like glass beads, nothing human left there.

  He’s made me one of them , she thought numbly.

  Not one of us , he answered in her mind. Bound to us. To me.

  “Stop it!” she screamed in his face. “Get out of my head!” She thrashed against his hold, her neck burning as though she’d shoved a fire iron into it.

  Emma, you can’t fight it. I had to do this. Just calm down.

  “Calm down?” She almost laughed. She looked down at herself. Her chest, red, just red, the suede of the bikini top dark and sticky. Amber fluid ran almost clear over the blood in two thick tracks.

  “What is that?” Emma stared at it, the sensation of something being injected into her bloodstream, her body, still fresh and terrible.

  Venom , said Fern in her mind, his mental voice shaking. It binds us now. Our life force is as one. Fern tightened his grip on her arms, his face suffused with determination. I did this not for myself, but for my people . You are a treasure, destined to have great power within the jaguar king’s court, and now the Aranan are forever connected to you — the jaguars will be forced to grant us our freedom. He seemed to notice he still had hold of her arms, and let go of her, taking a small step back. When you’ve recovered and we can merge, you’ll understand.

  Emma just stared at him, rigid, as he gazed down at her. Such relief in his face, in his mind, pouring through him and into her.

  But her mind had gone numb and white. She could hear the sound of her own blood rushing in her ears like the sound of the ocean, and it drowned out almost everything else. Part of her heard the telltale screech of stone as a door to the chamber was thrown back. Another part watched as Fern turned towards the sound.

  Maidens poured into the room, saw them, and froze.

  Emma’s conscious mind seemed to separate, falling into chill, detached pieces, seeing and hearing and feeling without reacting. Part of her recognized Felani. The maiden stepped forward, hair shining like antique gold in the leaping torchlight, face thrown into shadow.

  Felani stared at Fern, aghast. “Sweet Coatlicue, is this what I think it is?” Her voice trembled.

  Fern retreated even farther, away from Emma, away from the maidens. “We are bound. By venom. By blood. You can’t hurt me without hurting her.” He sounded frightened but certain.

  Felani shook her head, her eyes full of horrible knowledge. She said something Emma didn’t catch. There was a roaring in Emma’s ears, steadily building, blocking out everything but the beat of her heart. And with every beat, she felt something foreign, something alien, rushing through her body, through her mind. Thick and heavy and black, part of her now, never going away.

  Emma’s world thinned down, until there was just the roaring in her ears, the feel of her pulse breaking the world apart — with every beat, a wedge in her heart. And into the spaces between, an answering fury whistled and screamed, roaring to life inside her.

  Alexi broke through the crowd of maidens with Marco behind him, just in time to see Emma shrug the cloak from her shoulders and draw the gun from the waistband of her shorts. Her eyes were wide and luminous with rage. Her body shook, but her arm was steady.

  Alexi and Marco froze. Emma opened her mouth and roared like a caged thing, and Fern turned at the sound as Emma fired.

  The gun boomed thunderclap-loud in the stone room. Blood erupted from Fern’s bare torso in a bright red spray as his body jerked with the impact. He might have stayed standing if Emma hadn’t fired again. And again. She bore down on him, incandescent with fury. More than half a clip and Fern crashed down, sliding in his own blood, his face a white mask of shock.

  Emma paused, standing over him, the gun shaking now in her hand. Thick silence descended, broken only by the footsteps of Telly and Ricky and Anton, the dog scrabbling behind them, as they came to a stop behind the guards and simply stared. Bruce froze, one paw lifted, unwilling to risk going to his mistress’s side. Nobody dared move.

  It wasn’t the sight of the gun that immobilized them; it was the look on Emma’s face, the way her chest heaved, the sight of her drenched in blood. The way her eyes stared out of her face like two amber disks, furious and wild with grief and totally devoid of sanity.

  The world shimmered before Emma’s eyes, crystalline and singing with the bright, pure voice of madness. Heartbeat in her ears a sacrificial drum; Fern’s stomach a red, glistening ruin. But even as she watched, the surface closed over, tendrils of white flesh like smoke writhing across his torso. The internal damage would be harder to heal, but he could probably do it.

  He coughed, wet and thick. His eyes were human again, black but human, and he stared up at Emma with a look of complete and utter disbelief on his face.

  “How…?” He coughed again, spittle red. “How could you?”

  Emma blinked at him. The roar in her ears was receding, but the rest of the world still felt behind glass, inside only her and the rage. The look in Fern’s eyes didn’t move her. The blood and the torn flesh was just that.

  The part of her that could feel had fled.

  It might have come back, had Fern not tried to persuade her.

  If you kill me, you will die too , he said with a desperate mental push.

  His voice in her head was too much. If he could still be inside her head, still take away control, still violate the one thing she had left to herself after everything had been taken from her, then she didn’t care if it killed her just to make it stop.

  Her mind screamed at him wordlessly, and she closed her eyes and emptied the rest of the clip into his chest.

  Four more shots and the gun clicked on empty. Emma’s eyes flew open. Fern writhed and choked on his own blood, but he was still alive, still moving.

  The part of her that could still speak screamed, “Die already!” The words tangled in a thick sob. She flung the empty gun at him. It clattered against stone and spun away, lost among shadows.

  Somebody stepped out of the gathered crowd and started to come towards her, but she didn’t have the strength to look up, didn’t have the will to care. Blinded by hot tears, she dropped to her knees, ready to disintegrate, and then Fern touched her mind again.

  This time he said nothing, she could just feel him reach for her.

  Another mistake.

  The touch of his mind, reaching, digging desperately for something merciful within her, brought her power to life in answer.

  She straightened, electrified, her skin suddenly ice cold and crawling. Her vision flared bright and sharp and the rest of the world dropped away; her ears were deaf to the collective gasp of the maidens and the guards.

  There was only Fern. Only his eyes, deep obsidian holes, his skin pale as moonlight, silver and shining. And his lifeforce. Inside her. His animal, like something elusive and slippery and electric that only she could touch.

  She reached out a hand and brushed her fingers over his skin, torn and slick with blood and other things, and she felt what she had when she’d called Ricky’s change: that vibrating, rushing force emanating up from his skin, yet from somewhere deeper still. It flowed over her hand, a prickling, racing river — except for where his body was torn wi
th bullet holes. There the flow mangled, disrupted, hot and sticky. His aura sparked invisibly in those places, the power stinging her fingers when she passed them through it.

  He writhed beneath her, keening. His lungs labored audibly, sucking and sputtering air and fluid. He would heal, if given the time and strength, but he had neither — he was deathly pale, but his eyes had not lost their focus, his mind had not let go of hers —

  And together, they both felt the exact moment when Emma realized she could use her power to kill him. The bond he’d forged between them with his venom gave her the connection, a thousand times stronger than the bond of love and friendship that connected her to Ricky. She felt Fern’s beast, rushing over his skin, over hers, felt its dark heart like an echo inside her — and knew somehow she could rip it from him.

  The air between them shimmered like heat coming off pavement. Fern’s eyes went huge with terror, but her hands on him kept him still. She leaned into him, full of cold fascination, and a wind that came from nowhere blew her hair from her face, caressed them both, swirled the scent of blood and thicker things all around them.

  Like searching through silty mud with her fingers, Emma dug with her mind for the part of Fern that was inside her now, rushing over her in stinging waves. It writhed as he did.

  “No, please, no,” he said. Then she caught it. And squeezed.

  Fern screamed. Black fangs burst from his mouth, the bones of his face lengthening, his eyes drowning black again. His skin bloomed with gray and brown shadows like bruises; his spine bowed, bones quaking, agony tearing through him as his body resisted. His hands came up and grabbed for Emma, and they were black and hard and thin. His arms were suddenly too long. His fingers locked around Emma’s shoulders, and the contact burned them both.

  He panicked, used their bond to scream soundlessly in her mind for mercy, and met with a thick mental wall of grief. Grief so strong it swallowed the world, seethed between them like the power of the change, waves of it crashing against each other.

  She held his life in her hands, yet everything had been taken from her, all power. And the part of her that was wild and merciless and beyond reason would kill him if it thought it could make her feel whole again. She might be human, but she had her own beast, and it had risen to defend her.

  Fern’s mind merged with hers, and in one moment, she felt him understand what he’d done to her, the violation, because his own control was now lost to him. His insides twisted as the spider tried to tear itself away from him, spirit answering the call to change that his body couldn’t make.

  He gave up trying.

  Emma gasped as despair shot through her, and then magic hit her like a massive fist, a wave that drenched her in cold, crawling power. Fern’s body lifted off the floor, nails scoring her arms as he bucked. Blood erupted like a fountain from his mouth. Things shifted beneath the surface of his skin, clawing to get out, and she felt them as though they were parts of her — she was suddenly suffocating under the weight of his animal, crouched like a shadow in her body, in her mind, stretched between the both of them like silken webs — the spider, straining to tear itself from Fern, trying to wrap itself around Emma. Her bare arms blossomed with bands of mottled gray and brown. Blood poured from Fern’s nose and mouth, splashing across his white skin, bright and terrifying.

  Part of her registered the click of claws on stone. Another part recognized the dog’s scent a split second before he nosed her wetly behind the ear, put a paw on her bare thigh, claws scraping…

  And then those parts fused together. Mountains moved inside her.

  “Oh God,” she whispered. “I can’t do this.” Panic burst to life in the pit of her stomach as her sanity slammed back home, oh God no, no no no . She was killing him, it was wrong — she felt his animal, beneath her, around her, tugging at her chest, her heart, her spirit. Only a matter of moments and he would be empty, separated from the thing that made him what he was; so much dead flesh, lifeless and hollow, all because of her.

  It was one thing to die. It was another to be destroyed.

  She choked, sobbing, suffocating on magic. Somebody touched her shoulder and she would have screamed if she could have drawn enough breath. Bruce snarled, low and wet, and someone murmured to him. She couldn’t even turn to look. If she moved it would be finished. The edges of her vision turned black and mottled, and her eyes locked with Fern’s where he watched her from beneath his lashes. His consciousness ebbed, she felt it, sure as her own sickening pulse.

  “Listen to me now, pequeña ,” came a deep and soothing voice she didn’t know. “You hold his life in your hand. In your heart. Breathe through the change and give it back to him. You know the way.” That velvet voice murmured something else in her ear, something rich she couldn’t understand, but the tone held comfort and total calm. It offered her confidence she didn’t feel, but that she wished for, and she clung to it.

  Easy now , she said to herself in a voice she didn’t recognize, a voice from what seemed a lifetime ago, the voice she used on terrified pets and their owners alike. Slow and easy . She concentrated on the feel of her hands on Fern’s skin, one on his stomach, the other resting on his chest. The flesh beneath her lay silent, no rushing hum of energy running across it or out of it, because she held all that energy inside of herself and his body hung from it by a flimsy thread. She could move away from him, sever her mind from his, and he would die.

  Instead she pressed her hands to him, and willed his beast to spill from her fingers to his skin.

  There was no resistance. It rushed from her in a white-hot flood and Fern screamed, shock and wordless ecstasy, as his body threw itself back together. Blood dried and fell from him like dust. Bullets hit the ground and rolled away. For a second Fern’s body shone whole and perfect, healed in the wash of the beast fed back to him, and then he drowned in the light of the change. It burst from him like a captured sun, and out of the blaze, the tarantula exploded.

  Emma gaped. Good fucking CHRIST —

  There was a momentary impression of furred legs twice the length of her body and then some, thrashing as they formed themselves, a hulking mass rising up out of the light and then the light died and Emma was yanked away by strong arms, dragged clear of the colossal monster Fern had become.

  Why was it so fucking big?

  Emma’s feet scraped the floor but she was being dragged too fast, her vision blurred, but sound returned like a bubble popped inside her head, voices assaulted her with rapid speech and shouts, something huge scraping and rustling against stone. Somebody yelled and darted forward from the massive group gathered at the entrance to the chamber, and something hissed in response.

  Felani screamed, “Don’t shoot it, its life force is tied to hers!” Emma blinked, trying to focus. Then her vision cleared.

  The tarantula reared as though forming itself from darkness and shadow, pawing the air with its long front legs, banded black and brown hairs bristling. Marco stood crouched in a defensive position in front of it, his submachine gun cradled in his arms, but his face was grim and undecided: the spider was bound to Emma, he could not shoot to kill. Apparently he didn’t even know if he should shoot to wound, because Fern darted forward and slapped Marco aside with a foreleg that packed the force of a battering ram before retreating.

  Emma had to do something. She struggled against her rescuer, heard him swear under his breath, caught a glimpse of huge dark hands on her pale arms — and then the giant tarantula burst into motion again and Emma could look at nothing else.

  The tips of its legs could have brushed the ceiling if it really stretched, that was the sheer impossible size of the thing. It moved backwards in a dizzying coordination of legs and then angled towards Emma. Its front legs came down, revealing the flat, tucked in face, all black shining eyes reflecting meager torchlight, and bristling, furred fangs. Nothing even remotely human there.

  Emma’s vision phased to gray. Sweet Jesus , she thought, don’t faint now! Focus!

 
; Impossible to tell where the gigantic tarantula was looking, but Emma had the distinct and hair raising impression it watched her. She felt it brush her mind, the faintest touch, something that was Fern but more and less. No thought attached to it. Just a feeling, like a warm breeze.

  Then the focus shifted, and his mind flared against hers, sudden searing anger directed not at her but at the man who held her — and the twelve foot tall tarantula ran at Emma like a nightmare made of grace, tapered feet thundering in the echoing chamber of stone.

  Marco’s voice rang out like the crack of a gun. “Guards, to the king!” The hands on Emma’s arms tightened, she was dragged farther back. The dog crouched in front of her and snarled like a small furious storm. Guards rushed at her, Marco coming behind the galloping Aranan.

  Emma found the last of her strength, faked a faint, and twisted away as her captor loosened his hold in order to catch her properly. She bolted at Fern, revulsion and terror warring with the compulsion to go to him and calm him. If she didn’t, somebody would be seriously hurt.

  Someone shouted behind her. Bruce darted ahead of her, barking, snarls mangling the sound.

  STOP! She yelled with her mind, not realizing how powerful the command would be. The tarantula reared to a halt mere feet from her, legs pinwheeling like a massive black machine, its shocked mental response exploding in her mind. Bruce fell silent, quivering before her, hackles up like knives. Emma’s legs shook but she stood her ground. Fern didn’t mean her harm; she just had to believe that.

  Behind Emma, somebody said in a painfully deep voice, “Nobody moves.” It was the same voice that had coaxed her into saving Fern, but Emma didn’t dare turn around to look. She had bigger problems. Much, much bigger.