Felani’s mouth opened and closed, but no words came out; she could be argumentative as hell, but Emma’s rule was the only one she respected. It just sucked that Emma had needed to use it.
“Tarissa, Tikira, Lirita,” Emma said. All three maidens cocked their heads in unison. “You stay behind with Felani. The rest of you —” Emma had to pause, think, say their names very slowly — “Rish, Iztanita, Fezesh, Latesh, Fiza, Toleni, Shala, Makena — you’re all my maidens for this trip.”
Each maiden’s small, dusky face lit up, all except Rish, and Emma was thankful she’d made the effort to remember their names. It had taken her two months and a list pinned to the wall by her bed, but damn it, she’d done it.
“Felani, I want you to have four guards with you, and I want you to pick them, because I’m done.” Emma resisted the urge to scrub at her eyes. “Figure it out amongst yourselves and come to me with your decision later tonight, okay? Horne, when do we leave?”
“By five, Friday morning.”
Shit. That was less than thirty six hours away. So much for Seshua giving them time to relax at home. “All right.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache coming on, and tried to sound a little less ready to keel over and die. “Thanks everybody. This briefing is dismissed, or whatever.” Horne and Andres nodded, both looking like they knew something she didn’t, and moved off in the direction of the half built addition to the house. Emma doubted they’d get much more done before the rain came down; the skies looked black with clouds and close enough to touch.
“My lady.” Ashai’s voice startled her. She turned around and looked up at the tall, golden-skinned jackal guard. The chocolate-black of his eyes reminded her of the jackal king — the real one, the one she’d helped to reclaim the throne.
“Yeah?” She raised her eyebrows expectantly at him, and he frowned. Oops. “What is it, Ashai?” The jackals sometimes had trouble with English — not the words, the usage.
“If we are all dismissed, then Teremun and I will get back to work on the buildings. There is still time before true dark, and before evening meal.”
Emma stared up into his solemn face and despaired of ever getting him to loosen up. “Dinner, Ashai. You can call it dinner. Sure, go ahead, the other guys’ll appreciate the help.” He nodded and stepped past her with a deferential duck of his head. Teremun winked at her as he followed, but Emma was too tired to be cheered by it.
She watched them go, and then her gaze slid to Telly and Red Sun, heads bent together. Red’s lips moved, but Emma couldn’t hear what he was saying, and he stopped when he noticed her watching.
Telly jumped down off the railing and landed with a lighter sound than Emma expected, avoiding Emma’s stare. Red Sun clapped him on the back and smiled tightly at Emma. “You did good, chicken.”
She put her hands on her hips, but couldn’t think of a witty retort to save her life. She just didn’t have it in her. Fern stirred restlessly beside her; tension drew his lean body taut, and she could sense him trying to gauge her mood. She couldn’t find the energy to reassure him.
Red Sun’s smile died. His blue gaze narrowed. “Come on, my man,” he said to Telly. “Come on.” They headed down the porch steps, in the direction the jackals had, but Emma doubted they were planning to help out with the construction.
Telly and Red Sun spent a lot of time together lately, talking — arguing, sometimes, though what they argued about, Emma didn’t know. For some reason it nagged at her now.
Ricky said her name and she nearly leapt into the air. He was right beside her, arms crossed over his chest, and Anton stood a few paces behind him. She never noticed them come up — come to think of it, she hadn’t paid any attention to Ricky at all throughout the briefing.
Oh, damn. Ricky’s eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth but never got the chance to defend herself.
“I’m not gonna argue to come to Russia.” Emma closed her mouth with an audible clack. Ricky smiled ruefully. “I won’t pretend to like it, but I don’t wanna be another obstacle for you. You got problems enough.”
Emma could hardly believe her ears. She felt relieved, and then painfully ashamed; she’d neglected him, and instead of punishing her, he was cutting her a break.
She didn’t know what to say.
“You don’t…” She tried again. “If you’d wanted, if you’d pushed, I don’t know… This is different from Egypt. If you change your mind.” What was she saying? “I don’t want you endangered, but I don’t deserve for you to be so cool about this.”
Ricky frowned, amber eyes wide and concerned. He reached out and brushed a few strands of hair from her eyes. “I’m your friend, Em. I love you, and I want to protect you and be there for you. It’s not my job to push.” His gaze flickered upward, and Emma knew he was looking at Fern. He focused on her again. “You’ve gotta have people who won’t push, Em. I realize that now.”
Suddenly she found it hard to breathe. Damn him and his compassion. There was a lump in her throat the size of a basketball and tears burned behind her eyes. She stared hard at Ricky’s chest.
He tipped her chin up with one finger. “Besides,” he said, “What are Zach and Rain gonna eat if I’m not around?”
“Pastrami sandwiches and peanut butter straight out of the jar,” Fern murmured, almost to himself. “Respectively.”
Emma laughed, but it felt shaky. Ricky put his arm around her and pulled her into a rough hug, wrapping her in his warmth. She inhaled; Ricky’s scent was so familiar that she couldn’t describe it, couldn’t pick the notes out. The closest she could come was that it reminded her of caramel, with something lush and grassy beneath it, but it was more than that. It was Ricky .
His old flannel shirt rasped against her cheek. “Red Sun was right,” he whispered against her hair. “You did good.”
Emma clung to him for a moment and fought the urge to scream. She didn’t want everyone’s sympathy and compassion and understanding, she didn’t want their forgiveness for all her human shortcomings. Half the time she felt she didn’t deserve it, and the rest of the time it was just plain condescending. What was wrong with her? Everyone thought she was dealing so well, when inside she was just a bundle of breakdowns waiting to happen.
She moved away. His scent was making her homesick for a home she didn’t have any more, a life no longer hers, and the only way to deal with homesickness was to not think about it.
He let her go and ruffled her hair, eyes worried. “Speaking of food, if I don’t get in there, Selena’s gonna finish the whole dinner and I’ll be out of a job.” He kissed her forehead and slipped past her into the kitchen. She felt cold and somehow shakier for all the comfort he’d tried to give her.
Anton cleared his throat. She lifted her eyes and couldn’t keep the wariness out of the look she gave him. “What now?”
He cocked an eyebrow, green eyes cool. “We still have a training session to get through.”
Something in Emma’s chest eased. Physical punishment, she could handle. A minute ago she’d been ready to fall over and crawl into a hole and never get up, but right now, the prospect of a little personal training hell seemed somehow appealing.
Anton got delayed on the way to the barn by Horne, who wanted to talk tactics, so she went on ahead by herself to warm up. The solitude was therapeutic — or maybe it was drilling kicks at the heavy bag that was therapeutic. Either way, by the time Anton found her in the converted barn, she was sweaty and limber and well on her way to shelving a whole lot of emotional baggage she’d rather not unpack any time this century.
His broad shouldered form appeared in the doorway. He leaned against the door jamb, crossing his arms, gave her a small smile. “Haven’t you been kicking enough ass lately?”
Emma straightened and caught the bag as it swung to her, flicking sweaty hair out of her eyes. “I don’t think I could kick enough ass if I kicked it all day. There’s an awful lot of ass to go around.”
Anton unfolded himself with
a lazy, languid movement and padded into the workout room. “I think you mean there are a lot of assholes to go around.”
Emma grinned in spite of herself. Anton grinned back at her, but it didn’t reach his rainforest-green eyes. He crossed the room to the weightlifting equipment. “You warm enough? Done your mobility stuff?”
She nodded. The heavy bag work had warmed her up, but before that she’d gone through her daily round of stretches and self-massage with the weird bendy stick — which sounded a hell of a lot more fun than it actually was — to keep her left shoulder healthy and prevent her fresh scar tissue from stiffening up and fusing over her ribs. Back in Egypt she’d had the arm dislocated and been run through with a spear. The spear had grazed her bottom rib on the left side; the scar was a messy triangle, still very red and shiny, and there was more scarring below the surface, in the muscles and connective tissues themselves. When the weather changed, the scar itched deeply, and that was something Emma hadn’t known actually happened in real life, just in stories.
Emma padded over and watched as Anton adjusted the weight on the bench press to something that wasn’t ten times Emma’s own bodyweight — one of the guards had been in here last. Anton’s arms and shoulders bulged as he slid the heavier plates off the bar and set them on the rack to the side. He’d been working out a lot — all the guards did — but it was harder to notice with Anton. He was so well proportioned that sometimes, she just didn’t see how muscular he really was — but she was seeing it now.
She straddled the bench. “You’ve bulked up.”
Anton’s gaze flicked from the bar to her, and a wary but very male expression stole over his face. He probably thought he looked nonchalant. “You think?”
Emma nodded, then noticed how much weight he’d put on the bar for her.
She blew out a breath. “Have I ever benched that much before?”
“Don’t get too excited. You’re only doing one set.”
Excited, right. Well, Anton said she wouldn’t gain significant strength without challenging herself. And sometimes doing only what you knew you were capable of wasn’t as satisfying.
Or painful. Was she starting to like the pain? Now there was a theory she didn’t want to apply to the rest of her life right now.
She lay down, gripped the bar, waited for Anton to stabilize it. Sucked her abdominal muscles in, lifted the bar away from the rack, locked her elbows, and rested with the weight of it pushing down through her arms. Heavier than she was used to.
She brought it down, slowly, breathing in as she kept it from touching her chest, more than enough weight to make her concentrate, keep her from thinking too hard, keep her from remembering that look on Telly’s face.
Yeah, right.
The bar wobbled; Anton told her not to shrug the bar toward her neck, keep it at chest level. Her wrists started to bend and she concentrated on keeping them strong, more focus, breath sawing out of her throat as she pushed up.
Emma hadn’t been unfit before — she’d had six months of basic muay Thai classes a few times a week, with drills and cardio to keep in shape. She’d discovered that was negligible when it came to real training. Anton had introduced her to a whole new world of sore joints, fatigued muscles, and rolling out of bed in the morning feeling ninety years old — all in the name of being stronger. Harder to hurt.
She finished her sixth rep, breath coming faster now. Anton caught the bar and settled it home in the rack, and she sat up, rolling her shoulders.
He came around to her side of the bench. “You good?”
She tilted her head back to look up the long, very toned line of his body. She blinked at him, breathing hard, and shook her head. “No.”
He frowned, green eyes flaring with worry. “No?” He crouched in front of her, gaze flicking up and down her body in a clinical assessment. “Is something —”
“Nothing’s wrong.” Emma sighed, wishing she hadn’t let her mouth skip ahead of her brain. “I’m fine, Anton. I’m just not good, and I’m not likely to be good anytime soon, so let’s move on. What next?”
“It’s me, isn’t it.” His face was level with hers, the bare skin of his arms where they rested on his knees close enough for her to feel his warmth, but his nearness didn’t bother her — the direction their conversation was headed did.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She tried for a laugh and failed, feeling suddenly uncomfortable; it was just the two of them in the barn, the only noise the restless sigh of the wind outside. No place to hide from the questions in Anton’s eyes.
He leaned back and settled his weight on his heels. “Why did you pick me?”
For a second, Emma had no idea what he was asking. Then her brain started working again. “You don’t have to come to Russia if you don’t want to.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t say I don’t want to. I asked why me.” His eyes were impossibly dark in the dim light of the barn, even the overhead fluorescents couldn’t penetrate the jungle of his eyes. “If you did it because you didn’t want to —” He paused, the words sticking in his throat. “If you didn’t want to hurt my feelings, Em, that’s a bad reason.”
She resisted the urge to scream. “That wasn’t the reason.” She looked around, anywhere but his eyes; her mouth wouldn’t work if she was looking at his eyes. “I hadn’t decided who to take, and Fern suggested you.” She looked down at her hands, dwarfed by her leather workout gloves. “He reminded me you’re good with guns. You were the one who came to my rescue after all. In the beginning.” The beginning — less than three months ago. Seemed more like years.
He grunted. “Fern suggested it.”
Emma met his eyes. He didn’t look mollified. “Well, yeah.”
Anton raked a hand through his dark curls. “Would you have chosen me if it were up to you?”
For a moment she just stared at him. Then anger heated her cheeks, made her clench her fists, rising up through her body like a slow, scalding wave. The leather of her gloves creaked. “It was up to me, Anton.” Her voice was hard. “It’s my fucking party, remember?”
He had the good grace to look sheepish, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “Sorry.” He ducked his head, looking hard at his hands where they rested on his thighs. Emma was too angry to tell him it was all right.
Suddenly his head came up, but he wasn’t looking at her. His nostrils flared wide and he cocked his head as though listening. “Storm’s gonna break soon,” he said.
She blinked at him, wondering how the hell he could tell that from a whiff of the air, wondering harder at how he’d switched topics from her decision-making abilities to the weather. “So?”
His green eyes lit up with something fierce and wild, and for a moment he was so handsome it made her chest ache. “So, let’s skip the training session and go out to greet it.” He stood and offered her his hand.
“You mean, get rained on?” She arched a brow at him.
He grinned. “Yes.”
She shook her head. He had a funny way of apologizing for being a jerk.
10
True dusk had descended, purple stormlight gathering like mist beneath the lowering banks of clouds. Anton, with his superior night vision, led Emma along an unerring route away from the converted barn, approaching the back of the house indirectly, as though trying to avoid bumping into anyone as they crept along the side of the half built addition to the house. The structure hulked like ruins, deserted now that nightfall and the threat of heavy rain had driven the men inside.
The ranch house itself, though, glowed with candied orange light filtered through thick drapes, and the scent of cooking food rode the ozone laden air. Thunder grumbled in the distance, as though rolling over in its sleep.
Anton pulled her closer to him, and she caught a faint taste of body heat and jaguar on the back of her tongue. It sent a skitter of inexplicable nervousness up her spine. “Anton, where are we going?”
Anton’s hand tightened around hers, enough to hurt, enou
gh to remind her that he could break her bones like kindling. She managed not to yelp.
His grip eased. “Sorry.” His voice was less than a whisper. He turned, looking down at her, just a smudge of face framed by tousled hair. His breath was warm against the top of her head, body warmer against the rest of her. “I figured we’d head to the front pasture, the one that flanks the drive. The horses haven’t used it yet. Grass is still long.” He tensed. “We follow the back of the house around to the corrals and head out from there, we can maybe avoid the maidens hounding you, right? Or the guards. Or whoever.” Far away, the sky flashed with soft gray light.
The thought of avoiding more questions about Russia was appealing, but fear and anticipation lodged in her throat. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” she whispered back. She ducked beneath a windowsill, mimicking Anton. “Maybe tomorrow would be better.”
Breath huffed through his nostrils. “Afraid of a little rain?” He tilted his head, and light from a nearby curtained bedroom window turned his dark eyes to shining green disks.
The shine of his eyes reminded Emma he wasn’t human, never would be. The fact that she needed to be reminded was even more disturbing than the predatory gleam of his reflective eyes. “I think there’s going to be more than a little rain,” Emma murmured. Far away but closer than last time, thunder mumbled its lazy agreement.
Anton faced her, eyes still shining. “If you don’t want to, we don’t have to.” The stubborn tone was gone. He radiated heat but that was all, no subtle breath of magic leaking from his skin like with the other men, the older ones, the scarier ones, no give-away. No otherworldly push from him.
“What about you, Anton?” She moved past him, hand still trapped in his, her arm like a leash. She came to the end of it. “What do you want?”
She felt him go still behind her. She turned to him and searched his shadowed face, backlit by the dim glow from the distant window. “Anton,” she said, nervous now. “Why are we really out here?”
His breath huffed out against her face, and the edge of a growl followed it, barely more than a vibration in his chest, the air between them thrumming like a plucked string. Wind gusted at them out of nowhere, but it was just wind, just the restless storm waking up. Not power.
The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04 Page 82