The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  You were thinking about when I bit you. He sounded sad. Emma lifted her hair so that Felani could secure the halter strap of the dress, peering with mild horror at the absurd amount of cleavage such a position resulted in. This dress was a very bad idea.

  She sent Fern warmth, but it held an edge of consternation.

  I was thinking about it, but I wasn’t moping, Fern. Felani reminded me of it. We were teasing each other about my unfortunate outfit, the night we met. The night he’d bitten her, injecting her with a magic-laden tarantula venom that bound their minds and spirits, their very lifeforce — against her will. The night she’d emptied a gun into him, and then called his beast from his body with her bare hands, healing him and forging something that Emma wasn’t sure had a damn thing to do with the ‘Enham-Vesh.

  Fern, hovering in her mind, couldn’t stop his involuntary wave of surprise from slapping at her brain. He’d already accepted Emma’s forgiveness for what he’d done to her, but for her to think of it in such a way — a way that told him more than anything else that not only did she forgive him, but that she didn’t resent him for what he’d done — it was more than he had hoped for, deep down in his soul where Emma never looked, where he secretly feared part of her would always hate him.

  You are one thickheaded son of a bitch, Emma sent, a grin in her mental voice. I’ve been trying to tell you that all this time.

  Fern said nothing, just withdrew from her mind, his cautious optimism fizzing briefly against her thoughts like fine champagne. Emma glanced down at Felani. The maiden arched a golden brow.

  “You are glowing,” she accused. “You are talking to him, aren’t you? You act like you are in love.”

  Emma snorted. “I’m not. Fern and I are purely…platonic, or whatever you call it when your minds are linked and you can do whacky stuff like share bodies or power or whatever.” Emma scowled. “Quit looking at me like that.”

  The maiden shrugged. “Do not defend yourself to me. He is not who I would choose for you, but so long as everyone else thinks your attentions are occupied elsewhere, I am content.”

  “Hang on,” Emma said, capturing Felani’s wrist as the maiden reached to start styling Emma’s damp hair. “Who thinks my attentions are occupied elsewhere?” Emma swore mentally, shielding from Fern. “I mean,” she hissed, “who thinks I’m in love with Fern?”

  Felani gave Emma an exasperated stare, gently twisted her wrist free, and then patted Emma’s cheek in an unacceptably motherly fashion. “I would hazard a guess at, oh…everyone?” She ignored Emma’s outraged glare and swung her around, hairbrush in hand. “We must get this hair of yours brushed and…and something. No electricity,” Felani mumbled, almost to herself. “No hairdryer, or hot rollers, or anything else I would need to school this mop into some semblance of acceptability.”

  Emma snorted a laugh; she couldn’t help it. The maiden was an ancient, supernatural being, and totally obsessed with modern cosmetic technology. “I’m sorry I don’t have fabulous, silky, golden hair like you,” Emma said. “Just one of the many pitfalls of being human, I’m afraid.”

  Felani sighed dramatically. “I don’t know how you do it. Truly.”

  “What, being human?” It was Emma’s turn to sigh. It’d be a hell of a lot easier without having to be caller of the blood, that was for sure.

  “There,” said Felani, tone cheery, when she had combed Emma’s hair out and smeared it with smoothing serum. “Now you just need a face.”

  “Nope.” Emma shook her head, examining her reflection in the mirror. “No face. No makeup.” She looked decent enough in the dress. She was not going to make herself up, no matter how crappy she felt or looked. Emma squared her shoulders, closed her eyes, took a deep breath and swept aside the curtain that led to the rest of the pavilion tent, steeling herself with a mental pep talk. She would only look and feel crappier trying to hide herself with makeup. Besides, maybe if she looked plain enough, the jackals would decide she wasn’t worth it after all and hand over the serpent priest and send them home.

  Not much chance of that, Fern sent, mental voice oddly breathless. Emma opened her eyes.

  And wished she hadn’t. Almost everybody had dropped what they were doing and were staring at her, mouths in various stages of trying to close, eyes bugging. The only one who did not gape was Alexi, whose expression bordered more on suspicion than appreciation. Even Rish, Mata and Tarissa looked impressed.

  Red Sun whistled. “Damn, woman!” He slapped his knee, looked around at the others, and sauntered out of the tent chuckling to himself. Fern stared after him, a backpack hanging forgotten from his fingers, an incredulous expression on his face. Emma was mortified.

  “It’s not as though I’ve never worn a dress before,” she snapped, feeling like her face was hot enough to fry an egg on, avoiding Alexi’s scrutinizing yellow gaze and opting for staring at the floor when looking at anybody else proved just as bad. Awkward silence greeted her as the jaguar guards tried to compose themselves; Kal followed Red’s lead and fled, mumbling something about doing a walk of the perimeter, and the two jaguar guards who Emma didn’t know hurried after him. She really needed to get their names — though now was so not the time.

  “Actually,” said Telly quietly, “I don’t believe any of us here have ever seen you in a dress before. You don’t do dresses.”

  Emma lifted her chin and met Telly’s eyes. Which reminded her she had a serious bone to pick with him.

  You, she said, putting the force of her mind behind it, pinning him with a suddenly hard stare. I have something to discuss with you. To Emma’s profound gratification, Telly’s brows climbed his forehead, and his eyes flashed with surprise.

  Emma swept everyone else with a stern look. “Outside. Now. Please.”

  Fern obeyed without a word. Horne hesitated, opening his mouth to speak, but Felani bustled in behind Emma and began shooing everyone out. Even Alexi let himself be herded from the pavilion, with one last, long look over his shoulder. Emma still did not understand the way he looked at her, or the way he looked at Telly. Something between them — a centuries-old grudge. Whatever it was, she couldn’t think about it now, not until she knew she was alone in her own mind.

  “You’re never alone in your own mind, Emma. Fern’s always there.” Telly had moved into the center of the main living area of the tent, and she hadn’t seen him do it. She scowled at him, ignoring the softness in his eyes.

  “That’s different. Fern and I have a relationship.” Damn, that wasn’t quite what she’d meant to say. “He respects my mind, we work together. He doesn’t spy on me.”

  Telly arched a sandy brow. “I don’t spy on you. I would never enter your mind unless it was a matter of life and death, as it was tonight.”

  “That’s just the point. It’s you, entering my mind, you with all the power. You decide when and where.” Emma shoved a hand through her hair. This was all coming out wrong. “Fern made a mistake with me, by binding us together, but we’re both trying to make the best of it. Fern and I are in the same boat. But you…” She fought to meet his eyes; they were charcoal gray, like storm clouds, the darkness betraying the mild, gentle mask of his features. Why couldn’t his eyes just stay the same damn color for once?

  “With you it’s a choice,” she said finally. “You can come and go as you please. You don’t need me.”

  Telly’s mouth hardened. “It was your choice, too. You accepted the mark.” He reached out, captured her right hand in both of his. His thumb smoothed over the tattoo-black starburst. A lick of heat followed, rippling through the mark, but that wasn’t what made Emma’s heart pound and her stomach backflip.

  His hands. The way his rough, warm hands felt on her. Oh God.

  Telly made a soft sound low in his throat, and then said, “So you’re fine with having the venom bond forced on you by Fern, but I give you a choice and you take it, and that makes you nervous? What is it I’ve done wrong here, exactly?” He cocked his head at her, eyes so n
arrow they were mere stormy slants.

  Emma jerked her hand away from him. Something like remorse flashed like lightning across his face, brief, gone.

  “This isn’t about the mark,” he said tiredly. “Or about me being able to enter your mind. It’s about what I am.” He searched her face. “I would never hurt you, Emma. It would never hurt you.” His voice shook, deepening. “Nothing you could possibly find inside of me is capable of hurting you.”

  Emma just stared at him. “You’re wrong. I’m not afraid of you, but you’re wrong.”

  Telly swallowed, eyes widening. “What do you mean?”

  Emma took a step back; magic was starting to seep off him, tickling her skin, making her throat dry. The air shimmered with it. “What I felt when your mind was in mine…it was old, Telly.” Her voice dropped. “It was older than I know what to do with. I’m human, and you’re as far from human as it gets. Things cannot possibly be fair between us.”

  He stared at her. “You think things are fair between you and Fern?”

  She sighed, feeling like the air was just too heavy to breathe. “You never told me what the mark would do. You never told me you could speak in my mind. You kept it from me.”

  “I wanted —”

  “I know,” she cut him off. “You wanted to protect me. You thought you knew what was best for me. You were probably right, but that’s not the point. You think you know better. Fern doesn’t think he knows better than me, he trusts me, and that is fair.” Tears stung her eyes and she willed them not to fall. “You worked so hard to keep Seshua from claiming me, and you lost your shit when I suggested accepting an alliance with the jackals.” Emma lifted her right hand, palm out. “You gave me this mark to even the odds and help stop someone more powerful from taking advantage of me. But what about your power?”

  Telly’s jaw worked, eyes going pale. “My power has its limits. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be here, trying to get the serpent priest back.”

  Emma laughed. “That’s not an answer.”

  “I would never hurt you,” he said again, his low voice starting to echo.

  “I want to believe you,” she said. She wanted it so badly. And that was so dangerous, because she was right: things could never be fair between them. He was a walking god, and she was human — human body, human mind, human heart. Small-fries compared to somebody like him.

  Telly said quietly, “Do you know why I’m here?”

  That was a funny question. “Because otherwise the serpent priesthood would hunt us all down?”

  He shook his head. “Why I’m here. Why I came for you when Anton found out where you were. Why I’m with you.”

  For some reason Emma’s mouth had gone suddenly dry. “Because you made a promise to Anton and Ricky’s mom —”

  “No.” He looked away from her, crossing his arms, eyes losing their focus. “That is not the reason. Betty made me promise to look after her sons, to help them when she was gone, because she foresaw her own death. But I was searching for you before that. That’s how I met her, and how I came to be an ally of the jaguar kingdom for a time — I heard rumors of her power, and I followed them. She was under Seshua’s father’s protection.”

  The urge to hold her breath was strong; Emma had never gotten this much information out of Telly in one go. Not when the information was about him .

  But she had questions. “How long ago was this?”

  Telly looked up, blinked. “Five hundred years?”

  Good lord.

  Anton and Ricky never mentioned that their mom was over five hundred years old.

  Telly went on, and Emma had to bite some of the other questions back. “Seshua was young then,” Telly said. “Betty and I didn’t agree with some of his father’s… ideas, concerning the prophesies. We hoped Seshua would be more progressive. He was, for a time, until his father’s death. Then he couldn’t be reasoned with, and Betty fled the jaguars with my help.” Telly’s face hardened, while his voice softened. “How she would have loved to see you and Ricky together. To know you found each other.”

  Emma felt a nearly crippling pang of homesickness. “Why are you telling me this?”

  Something flared behind his eyes, shadows shifting beneath the surface of his features, and suddenly he was leaner, taller, not human. He looked the same but he was not — and Emma realized with unshakable certainty that although Telly looked like he was made of flesh and bone like anyone else, that was not the truth of him.

  Telly’s edges were an illusion. He was made of power, pure and simple. He was rain and road dust walking.

  And he was looking at her like he might shatter into a million pieces, or go up in flames.

  “I searched for you,” he said, voice echoing now, eyes bleeding white light, his gaze on her so cold it burned. “I searched for you for as long as I can remember. I have forgotten a thousand lifetimes, I’ve lost my mind, I lost my own name for a while. All to find you and keep you safe. So when I tell you I would never hurt you…” Telly stepped toward her, and she had to fight to stand her ground as he captured her with eyes that had lost all their blue. “That is what I mean.”

  The scent of dry heat and lightning enveloped them both; the hairs at the back of Emma’s neck lifted, shivers marching up her spine. All she could do was stare, helpless, caught in his gaze.

  He leaned toward her, slow, so slowly. “Whatever this is between us,” he said, voice a thread of sound and vibrating against Emma’s sternum, “It is not as unfair as you seem to think it is.”

  He was wrong. He was unfathomably old and painfully beautiful and her fingers ached with the urge to touch him, but he was wrong. He was dangerous. Telly had the power to destroy her in a way Seshua never could, because he was a god, and she was human.

  He could forget her in the blink of an eye. He likely would.

  Emma shook her head faintly.

  Telly growled, eyes flashing white light, magic charging the air around them.

  And then the sound of the door flap being flung aside hit Emma like a slap.

  Emma stumbled back and looked up, and found her worst nightmare standing in the entrance to the pavilion, canvas flap crumpled and held back in one hand, with something that looked like a very large tent peg in the other. Alexi’s hair was braided back from his face, leaving the high, sloping forehead and arrogant cheekbones bare, stark. Shadows ringed his deepset eyes, pupils burning like lamps in the darkness.

  Telly didn’t move, didn’t blink, but the moment was broken.

  Alexi grunted, cocking his head as he took in the sight of them. “More games, trickster?” His voice was lazy and thick with contempt, but edged with tension.

  Telly turned, very slowly, to face Alexi, thunder in the set of his jaw.

  Alexi flared his nostrils in an eloquent sneer. “Reckless, to be waving magic around in such a fashion. Your showing off can be felt for a fifty yard radius.” His yellow gaze flickered toward Emma, and for a second something flashed through it — concern maybe.

  Telly moved to position his body in front of Emma, crossing his arms over his chest. “What did you intend to do, Alexi, fight me off with a tent peg?”

  Alexi smiled, actually smiled, as though something were genuinely funny, and cold power whispered against Emma’s skin — just a brief, sharp draft of it, reminding both her and Telly that Alexi needed no weapon for harm. His eyes lit, flaring, molten, but the expression smoldered down to mere mirth. He arched one brow and held up the foot long peg, hooked at one end, at the other end tapered to a blunt but nasty point.

  “This is for Emma.” He dropped his hand, letting the peg swing by his side, ignoring Emma’s incredulous facial expression. “Of us all, she could most use a weapon. She cannot kill with the raw force of power alone.”

  That comment, echoing her own thought, sent a thrill of fear through Emma. She sucked in a breath and brought her mental shields slamming down, which was nifty, since she hadn’t even known she could do that so well — necessity be
ing the mother of invention, or whatever.

  Alexi looked at Emma, a hint of smug triumph touching the corners of his harsh mouth — whether at Emma’s mental panic or at the prospect of making Telly look bad, Emma couldn’t tell.

  He padded into the spacious pavilion on bare feet, uncaring of the thunderous way Telly was watching him. “Kal is scavenging leather to fashion a sheath and belt for it. We were thinking a thigh strap and sheath would work best, easy to conceal beneath that dress at least.” He placed the peg on a carved wood foldout table and gave them his back as he went searching in the backpacks.

  Telly took a stiff step forward. “Get out.”

  Alexi turned to look over his shoulder, thick braid swaying. “I’ve more reason to be here than you,” he replied. He crouched down and zipped open a backpack, tugging out a soft brown shirt. He turned it over in his hands; the back of the shirt was laced from hem to waist in some period style Emma didn’t recognize. He pulled the laces — leather — from their eyelets and discarded the shirt.

  Telly growled, a thin, wet sound. “Emma and I were not finished,” he bit out, barely sounding human.

  “No,” Emma said, earning herself a look from Telly that could have drawn blood, it was that sharp. “We’re done here.” She resisted adding “for now.” If she was lucky, she’d never be able to summon the guts to talk this way with Telly ever again.

  Even if part of her wanted to, badly.

  Telly just stared at her. Alexi straightened behind him. “Felani is sending food. It took her a while to convince the jackals to bring it to the tent.” Alexi’s tone was cool with irritation. “They want you out there, but Felani insisted you sup in private. It will give us time to rig you a thigh sheath for the peg.”

  Emma resisted a laugh; who actually used the word “sup”?

  Well, him.

  She looked at Telly, begging him with her eyes to leave. It was all suddenly too much, the adrenalin had faded, the thrum of magic and power dead in the air, leaving her with just the memory of words — crazy, fucked up words. Had she really told the walking god where to go and where to stick it? She sorta felt like throwing up.