The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  She untangled herself from his arms and looked into his face. “I am different.”

  He smiled sadly. “That’s okay.”

  She nodded. It wasn’t okay.

  It’s close enough though, Fern sent as he walked past her with their bags over each shoulder. His black eyes met hers, but he said nothing aloud, didn’t dare take Ricky’s moment away.

  “Come on,” she said to Ricky. “Let’s get inside before the others catch up to us.” She could hear the rumble of Raul’s SUV coming up the drive and didn’t want to face Seshua until she’d had a cup of coffee, and maybe donned some titanium plated armor. She’d done a lot of thinking on the way home, and there were things she and the jaguar king needed to discuss.

  They stepped through the front door and Zachariah Matheson stood up from one of the armchairs, unshaven and tired-eyed. Emma blinked at him until she remembered who he was.

  He ran a hand through his unkempt hair. “I’ll, uh…” he coughed to clear his gravelly throat. “I’ll go check on Rain, let you settle in.” Emma just stared at him as he headed for the hall. He seemed so — well, he seemed like he’d been on a bender.

  Ricky nudged her on. “He’s been here since you left. Had some problems with the wolf.”

  Ricky didn’t sound happy about it, but there was an edge of sympathy in his voice. “Problems?” Emma reached out with her mind as she crossed the living room into the hall, found Fern in her bedroom putting her things away. “Rain’s legs didn’t heal,” she said suddenly, heart sinking.

  Ricky didn’t get a chance to reply; they walked past the closed door of one of the guest rooms and it vibrated with sudden impact. Snarls erupted and dissolved into whining yelps. Emma jumped and Ricky’s hands closed over her shoulders.

  “It’s okay, he hasn’t hurt anyone.”

  “Is Zach —”

  “Zach isn’t hurting him, no. And he isn’t hurting Zach. He’s hurting himself, trying to get out.”

  “But he’s still in wolf form. Have his legs healed?”

  Fern stepped out of Emma’s room and bumped into Ricky. Fern quickly plastered himself to the wall, eyes down, as a thin growl escaped Ricky.

  “Ricky,” Emma warned softly. “Not now. Not anymore.”

  He looked at her, eyes shining in the dim light of the hallway. His nostrils flared and his eyes searched her face.

  Some of the tension went out of him. “Sorry, Fern.”

  Fern’s gaze came up. “No problem. Why is Zach still here?”

  Emma silently thanked him as Ricky seized the opportunity to save face. “It was my idea. Rain’s legs healed perfectly, thanks to you, but there’s something else wrong with him. He won’t change.”

  Emma didn’t need the meaningful look Ricky was giving her to know it meant bad news. “He’s young,” she said softly. “Really young. How long does he have in animal form before it’s hard for him to get back?”

  Ricky glanced up the hall. The sound of Zach’s rough voice, murmuring soothing nothings, could be heard through the door to the guest room. Beyond that, Emma heard the slam of car doors, the deep cadence of male voices, heavy steps on the front stoop.

  “About a day or two more. He’s been in wolf form since last Saturday.”

  Emma pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to get her tired brain to work around time zones. “And today is?”

  “Saturday. It’s been a week. He doesn’t have much longer.”

  The front door opened and the voices got louder. She could hear Andres, Red Sun. She could almost feel Seshua’s presence, through the walls, getting closer.

  Screw it, she thought, and headed for the guest room with Fern and Ricky on her heels. She knocked softly on the door, but Rain responded with snarls and yelps all the same, and when Zach called out for them to come in they opened the door to find him with his beefy arms wrapped around the wolf and sweat shining on his brow. His cheek was pressed to the top of Rain’s head, and the lean wolf’s lips were pulled back from his teeth. His claws scrabbled at Zach, tearing the denim of his jeans and leaving behind thin red lines.

  Emma pressed herself to the wall at the foot of the bed and just stared. The room was dark; the window was boarded up, and a few small bits of broken glass around the top of the frame told her it had been broken out and replaced with the heavy timber slats. The mattress on the bed was torn to shreds, but there was still a blanket and pillow atop it, and a jacket that could only belong to Zach. Scratches marked the walls and carpet. Emma’s nose curled at the overpowering smell of animal and urine; she couldn’t see any bodily wastes lying around, so they had been cleaning the room out, but it was obvious Rain had been locked up.

  “Why?” Emma looked at Ricky. His eyes were glossy with sympathy.

  “He tried to run while his legs were still healing. Broke the window. We moved him to another room, but he tried again, so we just boarded the window up and put him back in here. We’ve been taking care of him, Emma, but he has to change back to finish healing, and at his age he shouldn’t be in animal form this long for any reason.”

  “I can’t get through to him.” Zach’s voice was low. His gray-green eyes were dull with hopelessness. “Hell, I didn’t even know he had to change back, or that he couldn’t stay in one form too long, not until your friends told me.” The wolf shuddered in his arms, and his hands stroked at Rain’s fur; his forearms were covered with welts. “He won’t talk to me. I think he means to run away and never come back.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  Zach looked up at Emma. “He lost everything he knew and here he almost died. I figure it’s too much for him,” Zach said softly, as though to the wolf. “Haven’t you ever wanted to run away from everything, give it all up, never come back?”

  Emma gazed at Rain, mind far away. She stepped forward and crouched and waited for the wolf to look at her. He did, and deep down in his amber-green eyes, something human was dying.

  “Yes,” she said to Rain. “I’ve wanted that.” And she hated how much she meant it.

  Recognition flared in Rain’s eyes, just a glimmer, but it was all Emma needed — the connection. You needed a connection to call the change — unless you were the caller of the blood in full power. Her powers weren’t full, but she was still the caller of the blood, and she was learning just how close to power she was coming. Close enough for this.

  Somebody knocked on the door; they’d finally realized where she was. She ignored them knowing Ricky and Fern would do the same. The lock would keep them out a little while longer.

  “Give me your hand, Zach.” He obeyed, fear in his eyes, but his grip was firm. Rain started to struggle again and Emma put her hand on him.

  “Rain,” she whispered, bending her head, reaching out with her mind for Fern and calling to him to merge with her, to open the call. “Come to me, Rain. Change.”

  Fern’s mind merged with hers, with nothing to block it, nothing to hold him back. The call broke over her, strange and freezing and good; the darkness of Fern’s beast filled her up, smoky and pure, and she embraced it — limbs unfurling inside of her — and then she reached further.

  The mark on her hand burst into warm life against Rain’s shoulder. She heard somebody outside the room shout in surprise and knew it was Telly.

  Rain started whining, a high pitched keening; Emma’s vision clouded, her head spun, her blood roared in her ears. And then with a sonic boom the power broke over her hands, the power of the change like freezing, fizzing, sparkling water rushing, in a loop like the blood in the wolf’s body — pumped in lightning-quick electric pulses, a tiny rhythm, so fragile, so fast.

  The sound in Rain’s chest climbed, became deeper. Emma’s breath came faster and she fought the howl building in her own throat. She caught the pulse of Rain’s lifeforce, the power of the change, and willed it to come.

  White light flashed. Zach yelled in pain. Fur disappeared beneath Emma’s hands before Ricky dragged her backwards, and she saw stars and heard
wood splintering and then the fluorescent spots in her vision cleared.

  A teenage boy with strange salt and pepper hair that brushed his shoulders lay curled in Zach’s arms, breathing hard and shivering despite the warm flush of his cheeks. His skinny shins bore pink and white striations of scarring from the trap, but the rest of his naked body was covered with similar marks — probably not from trap wounds, but most of them just as fierce.

  Emma’s mind boggled; some of the guards didn’t have that many scars.

  Zach looked up from the miracle in his arms and regarded Emma with careful awe. “Your eyes.” His voice was flat. “For a minute there, they went blacker than the bottom of a well.”

  Rain turned his face to Zach’s throat, trying to hide his face without cowering. He looked older than fourteen — and the look in his green-amber eyes was far older. It wasn’t until he spoke that Emma believed he was as young as Zach had said he was.

  “Zach?”

  “Yeah?” Zach’s voice was rough enough to hurt, and Emma finally noticed the angry red color his hands and forearms had turned.

  “I’m sorry,” said Rain in a small voice, and proceeded to cry with silent and frightening intensity.

  The door smashed open as Emma got to her feet, and she found herself face to face with Seshua in all his furious cobalt blue glory.

  He towered, stooping, too tall for the door frame — just as huge as Emma remembered him. She had managed to avoid being at close quarters with him the whole time he was in Egypt — she was resting and healing most of the time, and then they had been preparing to leave, and then she’d feigned sleep most of the plane ride home — but now he was painfully near. Now she was staring up at him, mere feet away from his strange smoky-indigo skin, his mane of wild black hair, the humid heat of his aura — lush and rich as rainforest. And she felt exactly as she had the first time she ever stood before him; outraged, and drawn to his heat and strength in spite of herself.

  “Emmalina,” he said in a reasonable voice so deep it made her sternum vibrate. “What in the name of the gods is going on here?”

  Emma swallowed against the flare of his power, magnetic warmth lapping at her in waves. Her fingers itched with the urge to reach out to it, to him, and that was very bad, because he could tell. He could always tell. Arrogance crept into his incredible blue eyes — eyes such thick, pure, uninterrupted blue that you could lose yourself in them, dive into them like pools. Eyes that could hypnotize.

  “Don’t look so smug, Seshua. You and I have things to discuss, before you leave.”

  His thick brows climbed his forehead. “This discussion would not happen to include an explanation of why there is a human male in your safehouse, would it?”

  Emma looked over her shoulder at Zach, who had his arms wrapped protectively around Rain. Both of them stared with wide, terrified eyes at Seshua, who probably looked the closest thing to a real live god that they had ever seen. He might be wearing perfectly normal black jeans and a white dress shirt, but that was the only normal thing about him.

  “That’s not the discussion I had in mind,” she said, narrowing her eyes in challenge. He cocked his head, eyes boring into her. “But since you asked…” She stalked up to him, braving his aura, nails digging into her palm. “The boy needed help. The human male is his sole guardian, since his own family abandoned him, so I’d appreciate it if you could treat him like a person and not a meal. I was just doing my job, Seshua. I’m caller of the blood after all.”

  Seshua bent his head, nostrils flaring wide, and suddenly Emma was the one who felt like she was being sized up as his next meal. “And what did your ‘job’ entail, pequeña? ”

  Shit. Why did she feel like the tables had just been turned on her? “I called his change.”

  Seshua’s face slowly shut down, until there was no reading it. “I see,” he said softly. “Now there, you are wrong. I think this has much to do with whatever you have to discuss with me.”

  Emma clenched her teeth. Unfortunately, he was right.

  42

  Emma wrapped her hands around the steaming, delicious smelling mug of coffee and rested her elbows on the railing of the back porch, and tried not to laugh at the absurdity of watching Seshua do the same beside her. The mug disappeared in his huge hands, and the railing groaned.

  Emma took a deep breath of evening air that smelled like dinner; fried onion and cooking meat told her Ricky was in the kitchen. She could hear voices and the clink of crockery. Felani bickered at somebody, probably Zach. It almost felt like home.

  “If I have to accept that I can’t go back to my old life, then you have to accept responsibility for this life I’m going to have instead.” She stared out at the last edges of the sun setting over the treetops, not willing to look at Seshua. “If I can’t be a vet, then you have to give me what I need for my life to be here. To be this. I have to do what I can with it, but I need your help.”

  He looked at her, and the warmth of his power bled out and caressed her, and she couldn’t help but look back. His eyes were almost navy blue in the twilight.

  “As satisfying as I find it to hear you ask me for anything instead of demanding it, I fail to see what I stand to gain by giving in to your wishes, pequeña. I am ancient, and king. Not only are my concerns many, but my power is more than enough to deal with all of them without pandering to your human whims.”

  Emma’s mouth fell open before she realized he was deliberately baiting her. She narrowed her eyes and took a begrudging sip of coffee.

  She swallowed and said casually, “Like you dealt with Fern’s sister?” He went rigid with indignation. “Come on, Seshua. I can make this stuff go smoother for you, you know that, but I’m not going to sweep the Aranan’s problems under the rug. Look what that got you with the jackals. You don’t like it, but this is my job now — alliances, power, politics, whatever you call it, that’s what I’m for. And unless you meet me halfway, what happened these past few days is going to seem like a trip to Disneyland compared to what could happen next. How many more kingdoms will feel jilted when I don’t come to play? How many will threaten you?”

  “I can deal with threats,” he said evenly.

  “But you can’t deal with kidnappings and magical bribery, and they’re the next step up. We almost died, Seshua.” She leaned toward him; he refused to look at her. The set of his jaw was stony and he vibrated with tension. “Some of us did die, Seshua. I won’t do it again. We either do this my way, or we don’t do it at all.”

  He turned to her. “That is a threat. But how do you intend to back it up, Emmalina?”

  She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to, only needed to let him think about it.

  Finally he swore under his breath. “The walking god.”

  She could barely make his features out in the growing darkness, but he sounded like he was grinding his teeth. “I would never make war between you two, but I wouldn’t have to. If I think you’re going to tyrannize me, I will just leave, Seshua. Forever.”

  He swore again and the mug cracked in his hand. He took his hands away from it, flicking cooled coffee from his fingers. Emma bit down on a sigh of relief; she’d bluffed, and he had bought it. One day she wouldn’t be able to bluff her way out of things with him, but that day had not yet come.

  “Fine,” he said curtly. “What do you need?”

  She never gave him a chance to reconsider. “More guards. A permanent base. A chance to live normally.” She paused, remembering something Telly had said last week after he returned from investigating the trail of the vampires who had tried to steal her away. It felt like a lifetime ago — both the attempted kidnapping, and last week. “We need the resources to pursue the vampires.” Seshua made a low confused sound. “Fine, the aneshtevannir , whatever. Alan’s covering his tracks. We need more money, more manpower, everything. On top of that, you keep me informed of palace business and agree to give me and my decisions some weight. Zach and Rain stay here, and you give me the resou
rces to find his people, or somebody who knows something about them, anything, because he’s just a kid and his family left him and I’m guessing he’s got some serious issues now. It’s why he wouldn’t change.” She took a breath. “You don’t care about this stuff, but I do. It’s what I’m meant to do. If I can accept that now, then you have to.”

  Seshua was silent a long time. She tentatively moved closer to him.

  “You asked me what you stand to gain by giving in to me,” she said quietly. “This goes both ways. I’m offering to take up a place at your side. Not full time,” she added quickly as he made an interested sound. “But I’d be at your palace, or kingdom, or whatever, on a regular basis. I’m bound to you and the jaguars whether I like it or not, Felani made me realize that.”

  Seshua grunted. “Felani is very wise. There’s a reason she leads the maidens.”

  “Yeah, well, now I lead the maidens, so you’d better start listening to me too.”

  He laughed, a rich, touchable sound that made Emma think of drums. “Really?” His laughter died down to a throaty chuckle. “At my side, yes?”

  “Don’t even think about it. That’s not what I meant.” She paused, thinking. “I can call the change without my full powers. The bond with Fern, Telly’s mark — it’s like I can borrow their power. Kahotep and I made the pledge without sex, and everyone was pretty convinced that for it to work, we had to have sex. Of course, if I’d known before going into all this that you guys don’t even have any actual records of the prophecies you all seem so obsessed with -”

  “It is a curiously human thing,” Seshua interrupted darkly. “The need to have everything written down. The prophecies existed for hundreds of thousands of years before ever being committed to record. Besides, the jaguar kingdom had access to a much more accurate source where the prophecies were concerned. Our beliefs concerning the Sacrifice and the Pledge are not idle.”

  “Yeah?” When Seshua just gazed at her, she tapped her foot. “Why should I believe you?”

  His sigh was long, deep and satisfied. “No need to believe me. Ask your walking god.”