Felani sat ramrod straight beside him, in the front middle seat. Her sunglasses were back on.
Ricky rubbed Emma’s shoulder with his, climbing half into her lap to smear his chin all over her head in greeting. “Jesus, Ricky, you’re gonna kill me with that jaguar breath. Oof.” She plastered herself to the seat and tried to avoid claws; his paws were heavy enough to leave bruises, without getting cut up on top of that. Emma cleared her throat, shoving at Ricky, who when in jaguar form did not understand subtlety.
“He really was just trying to help,” Emma said to the back of Felani’s head.
Felani twisted around in her seat, squishing herself up against Andres to do it. “How do you know he wasn’t sniffing around on purpose?”
Emma gave Felani a look. “Maybe he was, but I don’t think it was for the reasons you suspect.”
The maiden narrowed her eyes, nostrils flaring. “What do you mean? You are the one who seemed to think he was innocent, now you suggest I don’t know his true motives?” Felani growled, a nasty little sound that reminded Emma of a Siamese cat.
Emma stifled a laugh. “Felani, I’m suggesting that maybe it’s been a while since somebody nice tried to hit on you.”
Emma couldn’t help it; a laugh escaped as Felani’s face transformed into a taut mask of shock.
Andres made an indignant noise. “Having tried to hit on Felani a couple of weeks back, I resent that.”
“Sorry Andres,” Emma said dryly, “But from what I’ve seen, you jaguars aren’t exactly masters of the subtle seduction.”
Andres, thank God, laughed first.
5
Since Emma was the only person living on the ranch who couldn’t change her shape, nobody batted an eyelid when Ricky sauntered out of the truck in his birthday suit.
Then again, Emma didn’t know all that much about shapechanger biology — maybe it wasn’t really his birthday suit. Now there was a mind-boggling thought.
Resolving to ask someone about it as soon as she got up the nerve, Emma carted a box of groceries into the kitchen and set them down on the table, greeted Bruce as he trotted up to her with his tail going crazy, and tried not to look at Ricky below the waist as he came in after her with a sack of flour thrown over one shoulder. Even more unfortunate than Ricky’s state of undress was the fact that Anton was hot on his heels and wearing a nasty expression on his face. It was the one that said “we’ve got to talk”.
“I know,” Emma held up a hand as Anton opened his mouth. He shut it again with an amusing clack. “We have to talk, right?”
Anton frowned and opened his mouth again, but Ricky emerged from the pantry and piped up. “What about?”
Anton frowned at his brother. “Maybe you should get dressed.”
“Why?” Ricky cocked his head at Anton. His gaze strayed to Emma. He gave her an arched eyebrow and turned a knowing look on Anton that Emma couldn’t decipher. “Fine, I’ll miss the talk.”
Telly walked in with an armful of supplies and dumped them on the table. “What talk?”
Anton made a frustrated noise. Telly gave Emma a foxlike grin and clapped Anton on the back.
Anton did not seem mollified in the least. “Seshua called.”
Silence greeted that. Well, silence except for the sound of Bruce’s tail whacking against the kitchen table.
Emma had been about to crack out the chocolate and the rest of her impulse purchases, but now she put the bag down. “And?”
“And he had something important to discuss with you, that he couldn’t discuss with me, or the maidens, or his own guards. He’s calling back at eleven.” Anton’s green eyes darkened like jewels in the shade, and Emma felt something rolling off Anton that she hadn’t felt before: power. It felt wet, like mist, like the spray of water against rocks. But the look in his eyes was fear.
Emma felt Fern push gently at the edge of her mind, the touch warm and comforting, like brushed cotton. Great, I remind you of socks, that’s very flattering.
Emma wanted to laugh; he was trying to cheer her up. But she just couldn’t find it in her.
Emma?
“I’m going for a walk,” she said to Anton. His eyebrows came down. “Oh for god’s sake, I’m just going out to the fence. And yes, I’ll talk to the king,” she added. Surprise lit Anton’s face as she answered his unspoken question. A little thrill of satisfaction went through her. She gave Telly a wry look; he returned it. He wasn’t the only one who could learn to read minds.
She snatched up her bag of stuff and headed for the hall so she could drop it off and go out the front way. Bruce stayed behind, presumably in the hopes of food.
You want some company? Fern was careful; he was trying, and failing, to judge her mood. Nice to know that some things were still a secret, even if someone could literally get inside her head.
I think I just wanna hang out on my own for a while. Anton’s really been breathing down my neck lately.
Fern refrained from mentioning that for the past hour, Emma had been well out of Anton’s reach. Besides, it had only been an hour. One hour in six weeks at the ranch.
Take all the time you need, Fern sent. I’m gonna lurk around the perimeters with the guards, see if I can’t piss them off.
Emma entered her bedroom, which looked like somebody had taken all her things, jammed them into an enormous jack in the box, and cranked the handle. The resulting explosion was made up mostly of clothes. She’d figured if she couldn’t live in her own home, with all her own things, then she would just spread out everything she did have over as great a surface area as physically possible.
I still don’t like how the guards treat you, Emma mentioned as Fern’s words finally sunk in. This whole interspecies racism thing stinks. It wasn’t that Fern wasn’t a jaguar — it was that he was Aranan , and in the shapechanger food chain, the tarantulas ranked pretty low. Until recently.
Fern chuckled happily, but there was darkness beneath it. Since he’d bound Emma to him with an ancient magic nobody knew even worked on humans, thereby binding all his people to her, his kind were moving up in the world — exactly how, Emma didn’t really know — but the price had been high. For Emma.
Distracted by the terrible state of her bedroom and the search for a free surface on which to put her groceries, it took Emma a second to realize that Fern was hanging around in her mind apprehensively, guarding his thoughts. He was getting better at it; they didn’t all spill out as soon as she noticed he was holding them back.
What is it?
He hesitated. You’re strung out. I don’t want you to feel…
Pressured?
Yeah.
Just tell me. Emma sat down and started taking her shoes off.
I spoke to my sister last night, after you hit the sack.
Emma stopped, shoe in hand. She had not met his sister, or any other of Fern’s people for that matter, but Fern thought of her often.
Cara. The King’s psychic.
Not anymore. Cara’s refused to act as royal seer, but she won’t leave the palace; she’s negotiating land rights with Seshua. Or trying to. He won’t talk to her, because he doesn’t know what to do, and she knows it. Fern’s mental voice was thick with apprehension. All our people know it. But he won’t have her kicked out of the royal sanctuary, because, well…because he’s afraid you’d hear about it. She’s my sister. He’s not stupid.
Emma’s opinion differed on that last point. She frowned, trying to concentrate on lacing her hiking boots. It had been a few months since she’d had the chance to hike properly. Sadly, it would probably be many months more.
Your sister’s negotiating land rights? But I thought the jaguars allowed the Aranan territory…
In exchange for limitations on business rights, compulsory labor, and shitty working conditions, finished Fern coldly.
Oh. So…the Aranan don’t have land of their own at all.
No. Fern sent her a shrug. If my kind moved away from the jungles and into the cities, we’d b
e relatively free to live as we pleased, but it’s impossible for us. We can’t get around unnoticed when we’re changed, like most shapechangers can.
Emma made an appreciative noise. Hard to keep your identity as a shapechanger secret when you turned into a tarantula the size of a small bus. Ironic, that one of the smallest animals turned into the largest when you added shapechanging magic to the mix. Something about metaphysics making distribution of mass different for invertebrates — way different.
We need access to the seclusion of the jungle, Fern continued, so we can’t go further than the outlying towns. And the jaguars control almost all of the available land from Central America to Mexico — and if you go farther south than that, you get into the territories of the South American jaguar tribes — more isolated, more cutthroat. There are restrictions, a lot of them, if you wanna play in the jag’s backyard. Fern sounded resigned. It was a state of affairs which had existed for a very long time.
As in, centuries.
They do it so they can control you, don’t they? So you can’t become a threat.
Fern shrugged again. I suppose. I think they do it just because they can, because that’s the way it’s always been done. The Aranan don’t breed fast, we have a high infant mortality rate, and we rarely forge halfbreed lines. That was what the shapechangers called it when they turned a human — forging. A shapechanger who started out life as human was referred to as light-forged, because — rather than a bite or a curse, like in the movies — the only way to turn a human was to capture them in the light of the Change. If they survived, they turned. Usually it was done on purpose. Accidents, though rare, did happen.
Why have the Aranan never made a stand before now?
Fern was silent a long time.
Time enough for Emma to realize how terribly ignorant a question she’d asked. Although Fern looked younger than she did, he was just over a hundred years old. To say he’d seen a lot was a vast understatement.
She stood, eyes not seeing the bedroom, mind too focused on Fern. Your kind have made a stand before.
Yeah. More than one.
How come you never won?
We’re not predators, Emma. We weren’t designed to compete with the jags. They’re better fighters, they’re better organized, and their territorial aggression works in their favor.
Emma frowned, fishing beneath a pile of freshly laundered underwear for her little custom wrist sheath and the knife that fit it. Anton and the guards didn’t want her walking anywhere other than the house without a weapon. She probably should have remembered that before she went to the general store.
Jaguars are solitary animals, Fern. Their territorial aggression is toward other jags. She strapped the leather in place, enjoying the smell. It reminded her of horses.
Fern sent her a wry smile. Tarantulas are solitary too. But humans aren’t, and the jaguars are better at harnessing their human sides to their advantage. Instead of fighting with each other, they fight with the rest of us. Most of the time. The Aranan have never been able to adapt; we just don’t have the drive for it.
You seem pretty human to me.
I seem that way.
Emma was instantly reminded of the jaguar king. What was it she’d said to him?
“You seem civilized enough.”
“That is precisely how civilized I am,” he’d said. “Enough.”
Emma suppressed a shiver and entered the living room, passing a mountain of boxes. Going by the labels, they were full of her books, and they had Telly’s handwriting on them. The long, scrawling hand fascinated her for some reason. Warmth hit her as she opened the front door; the morning was already heating up and it wasn’t even ten.
Ugh. That reminded her that Seshua was calling at eleven.
She trekked up the gradual slope from the house, heading for the creek beyond the rise of land. Fern nudged at her mind again, about to say something else, but then he detected her longing to walk by the creek and the thread of irritation that wound through it.
I’m gonna go creep up on Horne, Fern sent. The note of cheer was back in his voice, but it was forced, and Emma knew he wasn’t going to be terrorizing the guards this morning. She could read a different impulse beneath his thoughts.
Well, she sent casually, if you get bored of that, feel free to unpack my books and poke through them. Fern’s answering shrug was just as casual, but Emma sensed him turn around and head back toward the house. She smiled to herself, and tried to relax enough to enjoy being outside for the moment.
One look at the meager creek trickling along mere yards from the house, and Emma knew with crushing finality that she needed to get so much farther away than she was able to. She followed the thin ribbon of water upstream, past a broken post and rail fence that must have marked the far reaches of what used to be a backyard. There were skinny weeping willows up here, bending over the tiny stream. They were beautiful.
She just didn’t give a damn. Claustrophobia tugged at her, and looking up to the endless sky didn’t help.
Shit. Fuck . She had to get it together. Seshua was going to call, and it was not going to be good news, whatever it was, and she could not fall apart in front of him and all the rest of them — and what the hell was she going to say to him about the Aranan, because she had to say something, she couldn’t just let —
Emma gulped air, realizing she was starting to hyperventilate, swiping at tears she hadn’t felt come. Startled, she waited for Fern’s mind to brush hers — it was inevitable, her freaking out like that, he’d have heard her — but it never came.
Because I’m shielding. The thought resonated like a bell, resounding off invisible walls she’d wrapped around herself, clanging around inside her skin like she was made of steel. Hell, now she was shielding, and she hadn’t even thought about it. Good to know she could do it whilst having a meltdown, but not when she actually wanted to.
“Emma?”
She choked back a scream. Apparently she was shielding so well, she’d been oblivious to Telly coming up behind her. She whirled to look at him, and his sandy brows furrowed, eyes going from blue to bleaker gray. “Something’s wrong,” he said. He cocked his head, daring her to contradict him.
She swallowed against tears; her heartbeat was very loud in her own ears, and her throat throbbed hot with panic. She closed her eyes and just breathed. She so did not want to flip out in front of Telly.
“I…” Her voice wavered. She tried again. “Everything’s wrong. I’m going crazy here. I’m trying really goddamn hard, but I’m just not…not used to…fuck .” She pinched the bridge of her nose, clamping down on the urge to shout hysterically.
She heard Telly breathe out noisily through his nose. She thought he was sighing, until the sound went on a fraction too long. She cracked open her eyes to see his halfclosed; his shaggy blond hair was bristling on invisible waves of power.
He opened his eyes, hair still floating around his face, and his eyes were white. But his smile was lazy and warm. He walked around her and started walking in the direction of the trees. “Come with me.”
Emma blinked, meltdown forgotten. “What about — we’re not allowed to go anywhere without telling somebody. I’m not allowed to go anywhere at all without —” She started after him. “Telly, we’re not supposed to go into the woods.”
He glanced back at her. His eyes were no longer white, but a sunnier blue than she had seen them in a while. “I know. But into the woods we go. Are you telling me you don’t want to?”
Emma stared at him. The hell she didn’t.
6
“Somebody must have seen us leave.” Emma jogged up a winding path through the trees, catching up to Telly, house disappearing behind her.
Telly shook his head, eyes on the ground ahead, his pace easy. “Nobody saw. Nobody will know we’re gone. For a while.”
“You cloaked us.” Telly’s nod was small, matter of fact. “They’ll go nuts if they think I’m missing.”
Telly looked back
at her, mischief in his eyes. “That doesn’t appeal to you?”
Emma opened her mouth, and then closed it, thinking. “Sometimes it does. But it’s more the notion of being missing that appeals to me, rather than everybody going crazy trying to find me.”
Telly chuckled, and the sound of it made something in Emma’s chest do a backflip. “You shouldn’t worry so much about everyone else’s feelings. You have to do some things your way, whether the others like it or not.”
“Should you really be giving me this kind of advice?”
Telly vaulted over a fallen log; Emma was a little slower navigating it. “What kind of advice?” He turned around to walk backwards into a clearing, pausing to let Emma catch up again. The ground was slanting upwards. Soon they’d be into the low foothills that surrounded the ranch.
Emma dusted bark off her shins. “The kind of advice that encourages me to run off on my own and put myself in danger.”
Telly laughed, a sound that was somehow musical and masculine all at once. “You’re better at staying out of danger than the others give you credit for.” He sobered. “But you need space. I would not have this place be a cage for you.” The ranch had been Telly’s suggestion; Emma wasn’t sure if he owned it, or if it belonged to someone he knew, or if the situation was more complicated. The only reason the jaguar king had permitted the ranch as their hideout was because he couldn’t stop Telly from taking Emma. Seshua had cooperated, because at least that way his guards were there, which meant contact with Emma.
“It’s not a cage.” Emma looked around. The foothills were richly wooded, redolent of new grass and growing things, shaded and quiet and beautiful. She almost couldn’t see the house through the trees. One more turn in the path and it would disappear.
“But if you feel trapped, then it’s no better than Seshua’s sanctuary. A prison.”
Emma said nothing. It was too close to the truth, and he knew it. She didn’t need to answer.
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