They ventured into the throng. “You mean there are actually steps?”
Kahotep laughed, sounding surprised. “It is quite simple.”
Emma snorted. “Simple my ass,” she said, and nearly slammed into Kahotep as he stopped dead and shot her a look of such perplexity that she nearly laughed out loud.
“It has been a long time since I spoke to an American,” said Kahotep with an apologetic dip of his head. They continued into the crowd of dancers and Kahotep startled her by twirling her to face him.
He saw her eyes widen and took a step back. “I’m sorry.” He looked around, big eyes uncertain.
“It’s fine.” Emma took a deep breath and captured his hand in hers. “Let’s dance.” Kahotep’s face brightened. “And talk,” Emma added.
He frowned, holding her hand high in his and circling her, urging her with his body to follow in slow, rhythmic steps. “Talk?”
Emma would have felt he was being suggestive, if not for the courteous way he held his lean body away from hers, giving her room, or that sincere little frown. She concentrated for a moment on following his steps; it seemed they were just turning slow circles, and then turning back again. She could handle this.
“Yeah,” she said. “Talk. Get to know each other. Something your uncle didn’t seem too concerned with.”
He missed a step, caught himself, hand tightening on hers. “The king is from another time. He rules as he will. It is not easy to understand.” She thought he would say more, but he did not, merely turned her again and watched from beneath his lashes, slim face calm and mild.
“What about you, Kahotep? What do you do when you’re not courting potential metaphysical business partners?”
He stopped. “Is that what you think this is? A business transaction?” Looking around, he started moving again, faster now, leading Emma in tight circles as they ventured farther into the surging mass of people, closer to the bonfires. A glance toward the edges of the field, and Emma saw what Kahotep had: Tarik, stalking through the milling crowd, watching them.
Emma stumbled, struggling to keep her feet, but was determined to look Kahotep in the eye. It was better than following the graceful poetry of his body as he led her in the dance, and better still than dwelling on the king’s vizier shadowing them.
“How could this be anything else? We don’t know each other. Doesn’t that bother you?”
Unease stirred in the depths of his incredible brown eyes. “Of course not.”
Emma changed their direction, skipping to get ahead of his pace. “Liar.”
He stumbled again, recovered, and drove her back. “How can you be so bold?” He looked truly perplexed. She almost felt sorry for him.
“Because it’s my ass on the line.” They whirled together, slowed, circling again. Kahotep arched an eyebrow; it was the most normal expression she’d seen on his face yet. It did something funny to her heart, made him human to her.
No, not human.
A familiar touch brushed her mind. As human as the rest of us, Fern sent faintly. As though that light touch had flicked a switch, a radar, Emma glimpsed a comforting face in the crowd: pale skin, black eyes, black shock of hair as messy as ever.
Be careful, Emma, he sent. Nathifa joins the dance. Great. That was just great.
“Surely you are making fun at my expense,” Kahotep said, bringing her back to him. His face was dark and guarded. “If anyone’s ass is on the line, it’s mine. I make the pledge. You just accept it.” He continued to look stormy for a second, and then slow horror dawned in his face. He swept himself away from her with a low bow, under cover of the dance, and returned to capture her arms in his long, elegant hands. “Caller of the blood,” he whispered, sounding torn and terrified, hands squeezing. “Forgive my insolence.” He dropped his hands, chewing on his full bottom lip, eyes huge and wet with anxiety.
Emma, all too conscious of Tarik’s black eyes watching them from somewhere in the crowd, reclaimed Kahotep’s hand. “It doesn’t matter. You make it sound as though you get nothing out of the pledge. If so, why do it?”
Kahotep stepped close to her, crowding her with his body, but there was no threat in it. He swayed, putting a tentative arm around her — it seemed Emma was not the only one aware of Khai’s scrutiny. Emma leaned in, and he turned her, cradling her back gently against his front, turning them once again in a slow circle. Only this one was way too sensual for Emma’s peace of mind. She tried not to squirm.
Kahotep put his mouth near her ear. “I do it for honor. For my kingdom.” His voice was flat, uninflected. “The blood of our people…” She felt him shrug, quick, tense. “With the pledge, I give up my will, my freedom, my control.”
“You don’t sound too cut up about that.” Emma fought to keep her tone cool, though she felt like screaming. How could they do it? How could they expect her to accept, any of them? Did they think her a monster?
Again he shrugged, the tension in his body betraying his casual tone. He was silent a long moment.
“Part of me is. The other part…finds it hard to mourn that which it never truly had.” He whirled her to face him, and his smile was sad. “Anything for the blood of my kingdom.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Emma said as he moved backwards, tugging her with him — except maybe she did know. Something Felani had told her. Something about a wasting illness that struck anywhere and had no cure — until Emma came along.
Kahotep’s eyes went dark and hooded, but he didn’t answer her, just led them both back into the dancing, until they were lost inside the press of bodies and the scent of smoke and sweat. Emma was grateful to be hidden, closer to Fern, closer to her guards, perhaps.
And closer to her enemies. The crowd parted, forming rows, and Nathifa stepped into view. She met Emma’s eyes. Her face twisted with something brief and ugly and painful, and then she turned, throwing herself into the dance.
Emma turned back to Kahotep, about to demand he explain what he meant about blood, but the words died in her throat when she saw his face.
He stared past her, jaw clamped so tight the muscles stood out in his neck, eyes frozen, nostrils quivering. Emma followed his gaze, heart plummeting to her stomach, caught a flash of brown hair a shade darker than her own as the dancers spun.
Shit. It all slammed into place. She remembered the look in his eyes as he offered the pledge: shoulders shaking, spirit screaming — she remembered the hatred in Nathifa’s green gaze.
It changed everything, everything.
She shook him. “Look at me,” she said harshly. His gaze snapped to hers, something ugly and hopeless roiling in it, something he didn’t think she could see. “Follow.” She pulled them into line and practically ran with the others, twirling just enough to look like she knew what she was doing, Kahotep shadowing her. By the time they slowed he had schooled his face into its regular mask, but his body was on fire, tension coiling in him like a great band about to snap. If it was obvious enough to her, it was obvious to Tarik — and perhaps to Khai, wherever he was — and did he know? Did either of them know?
Kahotep cocked his head at her. “What is wrong?” He was all wide eyed innocence — and fear. But such a good actor. How many hundreds of years had he practiced?
“Don’t play games with me,” Emma hissed. “We have to talk about this.”
“About what?” Kahotep’s gaze flicked for less than a second behind her. He wrapped an arm around her, whirled them both in a dizzying arc, lifting Emma’s feet from the ground, and came down with her bent back over his arm, her body stretched out before him, her hair sweeping the ground. The thick tail of his braid fell over his shoulder and swung past her head as he lowered his beautiful face to hers — such a performance. Emma’s heart thundered in her chest, adrenalin flooding her system, mouth going dry and stomach tightening with fear and anticipation. The mark on her hand stayed silent.
Kahotep captured her, staring her down, nose to nose. “Who plays games here? I have offered
the pledge,” he said, musical voice edged with something hard and forced. “I would have you consider it seriously.” His gaze intensified, and Emma recognized terror, sheer desperation, felt it in the steel of his arms and the raging heat of his skin; something harder than lust or desire, something that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with survival. “For my kingdom. For my people. For me, I beg you consider it. Seriously.”
Emma sucked in a breath. “I don’t want to control anyone. I only want to keep my people safe. It was your king who brought me here.”
Kahotep seemed to come to his senses. He straightened, setting her on her feet, and knelt before her. Emma was dimly aware of people around them, dancing, some stopping to watch with open fascination as Kahotep bent over her hand and held it to his face.
His lips touched her skin and Emma fought rising heat and hysteria. “I must go,” he said, brows drawn. “I am sure you are tired. I would escort you to your tent myself, but I have something I must attend.” He stood. Emma looked up at him, trying not to let it show on her face, trying to tell him with just her eyes that she knew.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Kahotep.” If Khai didn’t know about Nathifa — if they were trying to hide from him…
Kahotep ignored her. “I must,” he said simply, and melted into the crowd.
23
“I know what I saw, Horne. I’m not imagining it. He’s in love with her, and judging by the way Nathifa and I hit it off so well, she’s in love with him too. And they both think that Khai doesn’t know.”
Emma stalked out of the bathroom and shot the jaguar guard a dark look as she buttoned her thermal sweater. It was almost three in the morning and cold in the desert. She was glad to ditch the dress, and gladder still to have ditched the party — it was dying down now, revelers either heading back to their tents or settling down by the bonfires for more drinking, more eating, more of whatever merry shapechangers did. Emma and her entourage had retired. Everyone save for Red Sun, Kal, the two other jaguar guards — whose names, Emma finally learned, were Manauia — Manny for short — and Ichtaca, for which there was no shortening, and Emma couldn’t imagine one that wasn’t terribly unfortunate. Alexi was gone too. Red and the guards were just outside, but Alexi had not returned. Andres and Guillermo were scouting somewhere nearby, leaving Emma, Fern, Horn, Telly and the four maidens. The tent was crowded already, and only half their number was there.
Horne handed her a thick earthenware mug, winking at her smugly as she sipped the contents and discovered it was hot coffee. He stroked his goatee, brow furrowed.
“I don’t see what it changes, Emma,” he said gently. “Obviously it doesn’t change anything for them, if the prince is still going ahead with the pledge.”
Feeling mollified by the coffee, Emma managed to keep the heat out of her voice when she spoke next. “It changes everything for me, Horne.” She looked at Telly, and then Fern, and then at the ground because it was just safer — no way was she meeting Felani’s eyes. She knew exactly how much sympathy the maiden would have for Emma: none.
“I can’t do it,” she said. “I can’t do what the pledge…involves, knowing that they — seeing the looks on their faces, knowing how they feel.”
Telly sighed. “You don’t know how they feel. You have an idea, but you don’t know.”
Emma hadn’t spoken to Telly since their encounter earlier, and she’d been dreading facing him alone again, but she knew she had to put that aside. “Kahotep thinks that if I accept the pledge, it’ll give me complete control over him. No free will, no choice. Absolute power. Will that happen, Telly?” She raised her eyes, met his, willing him to tell her the truth.
He leaned back against one of the sturdy timber beams of the tent, exuding calm, but Emma knew the charade for what it was. She let him know with her eyes, and something about his manner changed; that casual veneer slipped away, until the tension of his body was a visible thing, an aura. If Emma looked away, it shimmered at the corner of her eye.
“I can’t be certain, Emma, but I would expect nothing less.”
She hadn’t wanted him to say that. “Nothing less than absolute power?”
He nodded, a sharp jerk of his sharp chin. Emma squared her shoulders.
“Well, you know what they say about absolute power. I won’t do it. We have to find another way.” She dropped her voice. “Find the serpent priest and, I don’t know, bust out of here somehow.”
One of the maidens yelped. Telly laughed. “That’s what I’ve been thinking we should do from the very start.” He flashed her a wide smile, but his eyes glittered hard above it. “Besides,” he said, voice dropping low. “If Kahotep knows about the power the pledge will give you over him, then his uncle knows, too — and isn’t willing to risk his own hide for the privilege of being your chosen.”
Emma was confused again. “What do you mean?”
“He means,” said Fern, smoothing out a thick down comforter before sitting with his legs folded beneath him, on a sleeping pallet next to the one the maidens currently shared, “That Khai-Khaldun is a bastard and he’s plotting against us.”
Emma pinched the bridge of her nose; her head throbbed, right behind the eyes.
“Okay,” she said slowly, trying to gather her brains together into something useful. “So if Khai isn’t willing to risk the pledge, and doesn’t want for himself what he’s supposedly giving to his nephew, then what does he want?”
Silence met this. Heavy, suffocating silence. Emma took her hand away from her face, resisting the urge to squint at them all.
Fern touched her mind, fear and warmth all bundled up together. She didn’t pick the answer out of his mind. She didn’t need to.
“He wants me,” she said. “He wants me, and not the pledge, which means he’s either going to hold me to ransom the way he did the priest…”
“Or,” said Telly, “It means he suspects you never completed the ritual with Seshua, and you’re fair game.”
Emma stared at him. “Fair game.”
Telly smiled tightly. “I think it threw him, when you won the fight with Nathifa, so now he’s not sure. But it is possible he suspects.”
Fabulous, Emma thought a split second before pain lanced her temples, slamming her eyes shut and making her grit her teeth involuntarily. She steadied herself against a table as her head spun, trying to look as though she was just thinking, but fooling a room full of shapechangers was not her forte.
Telly was suddenly at her side. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Everything. “Just a headache, I’m not going to pass out or anything.”
He lifted a hand as though to touch her. She flinched, couldn’t help it. He dropped his hand. “Probably backlash from all the magic tricks you’ve pulled tonight,” he said, backing up. “Sleep would be a good thing right about now.”
Bedtime. Fern’s body crowded hers protectively, but he didn’t touch her, didn’t try to help her walk. Smart man. She could walk just fine — it was her brain that needed help, not her legs.
You’ve been awake for more hours than any of us can remember, he sent gently. He’s right, you need sleep.
Emma snorted, padding over to the sleeping pallets. What about everyone else? What about you? She let Felani take her arm and lead her to one of the pallets farthest from the entrance to the tent. The beds were low to the ground and spread out in a haphazard semi circle. It made Emma think of a boudoir or something equally absurd, adding to her conviction that shapechangers certainly appreciated their raunchy sleeping quarters. The jaguar king’s own bed could comfortably sleep an entire harem — not that sleeping was what he did there, she was sure.
We’re not as durable as we look, Fern sent. Everyone will just be happy you’ve gone to bed — it gives us all an excuse to get some sleep too.
Though not everyone. When Felani turned the lamps down and curled herself around the already dozing Tarissa, Mata and Rish, Horne took up position by the entrance, and
only Kal and Red Sun came in to catch some sleep before they relieved watch. Emma was falling into a warm stupor of exhaustion by the time she heard Andres and Guillermo return. They exchanged a few words with Horne, and then she heard them throw themselves down on the beds. Red and the guards would be taking the night watch in shifts, and Telly — Emma didn’t know what he did when everyone else was sleeping. Maybe he slept too. She heard him moving around, the sound of his footfalls familiar to her now — but now she didn’t know if that was because she’d lived with him for the past several weeks, or if it was that the mark bound them far tighter than she’d previously thought.
Fern reached for her mind, sleepy; his sleeping pallet was next to hers, but lay facing away at a slight angle. His breath was deepening, and Emma wasn’t sure if she could hear it, or if it was just in her head. She brushed his mind with a wordless farewell, and then she fell asleep.
“Fern? Where are you? Fern!” Emma’s voice reverberated throughout the long, dark stone corridor, an airless echo in the blanketing silence. The torches set into the walls didn’t flicker or jump in the stillness, but the flames were dying. Darkness was coming.
She ran back the way she had come. Fern had to be here somewhere. He’d been right behind her a second ago. Where was he? They had to get out of the jaguar king’s sanctuary and into the Roadhouse above before Seshua killed Alan.
Emma turned a corner. This wasn’t right. She’d done this before: Alan was anmorkai, vampire; their whole relationship had been a lie, so why was she trying to save him?
Fern’s prone body came into view and she forgot the answer to that question. She ran to him, threw herself down beside him.
“Wake up.” She grabbed one bony shoulder and shook him. “Wake up, Fern, I need you. It’s getting dark.”
His eyelids fluttered, and when he spoke his voice slurred. “Cann…way-gup.” Can’t wake up. This had not happened before. He wasn’t touching her mind. Speaking to her with words, but not touching her mind.
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