What’s wrong with how you look? Their outfits were supposed to match, which Emma thought was dorky in the extreme, but she couldn’t deny they both looked good. He looked exceptional.
He cocked his head, a half grin dimpling one boyish cheek. Exceptional, huh?
Emma willed her face not to heat up, and Horne saved her the indignity of a reply by barking an unintelligible order. Andres, Raul and Anton were suddenly alert and rippling with the eerie stillness of big cats. The three big jaguar guards were clothed in black jeans and black t-shirts, black shirts unbuttoned over the top to disguise the bulge of weaponry — standard garb for them. Anton, however, hadn’t sacrificed his blue jeans and white shirt, and had gone for a leather jacket instead. His jacket almost matched Emma’s, but it hid a lot more guns than hers did.
Red Sun’s voice rumbled from somewhere at the back of the entourage. “You ready for this, kiddo?”
Emma didn’t turn to look, didn’t answer. Instead she caught Horne’s eye and nodded.
He grunted and turned to the maidens, who crowded like a small shining sea at the front of the entourage. “Okay Rish, you girls are out first.” Rish nodded, a trademark nasty glint in her eyes. Beads winked and sparkled in her hair. All the maidens were in striking traditional garb, acres of bead necklaces shifting and tinkling, slim muscular bodies clad in simple red linen sheaths. Weren’t they going to be cold? At least they weren’t wearing only the beads.
Horne waved Rish and the rest of the maidens through the hatch and turned his attention to the men. “Boys, you know what to do. Follow me and stick to our girl tighter than those jeans she’s wearing.” He vanished through the hatch before Emma could shoot him a dirty look, so she settled for leveling it at Andres instead. He just grinned and moved after Horne.
There wasn’t enough room for more than two to walk abreast down the foldout steps, and Emma ended up with Fern squeezed against her back and Raul at her left, with Red and Anton bringing up the rear. It was a brief and awkward trip down the steps, and Emma caught only the slightest glimpse of Myachkovo airport over the heads of the guards. The air smelled of fresh rain and the Russian sky was lilac velvet with dawn; the wind that buffeted them as they descended to the tarmac had teeth, and Emma was thankful for both the leather jacket and the warm bodies surrounding her.
You all right? Fern’s mental voice thrummed with tension, worry thick and roiling like motion sickness. He was not all right, but it had nothing to do with his own fear and everything to do with her. His mind hovered close to hers, pressing as though he wanted to merge, like pushing with invisible fingers at the elastic membrane of her consciousness — and he’d been doing it for the past two days solid, pushing at her like this, always there. Warm and comforting and wonderful, but there was a thin, dark undercurrent of something more, something serious. He wasn’t just worried about her.
He was waiting for her to blow. Or crumple.
Emma’s boots hit the tarmac and she paused, looking over her shoulder, the chill wind tossing her hair in her eyes. I’m not made of glass, Fern. I’m not gonna shatter. His black eyes met hers, and she knew without having to read his mind what he was thinking; hard to shatter something that was already broken.
Her stare hardened. I’m not broken, either.
Fern’s gaze moved past her, airport lights flickering like candlelight in his eyes. “Good,” he murmured. “Because you’ll want to have your shit together when you turn around.”
Too much had happened in the past couple of days. She couldn’t imagine what the hell could be waiting for her. Mouth gone dry, she turned.
A train of limousines waited across the tarmac. She recognized Marco standing by the open door of the first, Leah next to the third; somebody in the ubiquitous black on black of the jaguar guards was already wheeling a cart full of luggage toward the cars. But that wasn’t what stopped every thought in Emma’s head for one long, heavy moment.
The door to the limousine in the middle stood open, and leaning against the door frame was Alexi.
12
His hair was tied back from his angular face, the thick black mass so smooth and perfect that from the front it was hard to tell if it was tied back or cut short. The idea of Alexi’s incredible hair being cut off made Emma’s stomach turn over. She stared across the tarmac at him, unable to help herself; he stared right back, bright yellow eyes like twin points of light in the deep shadows of his face.
He crossed his arms over his chest, the brief movement making his unbuttoned dark green shirt gape, exposing the firearm in its shoulder holster. Under the shirt, he wore a tight white muscle tee, and the black leather holster stood out. Alexi didn’t appear to give a damn. Emma blinked — it was the first time she’d seen him in a t-shirt, he never seemed to care for anything so pedestrian. He was even wearing heavy boots, steel buckles glinting beneath the cuffs of his dark brown pants. It was the first time she’d ever seen him wear shoes.
Emma made her feet move, boot heels snapping against tarmac. “I thought he wasn’t going to be here,” she hissed at Fern.
Fern shrugged. “What else is new.”
No shit, she thought. Would there come a time when she was actually prepared to see Alexi? Somehow this was worse. She hadn’t expected to see him this soon, if at all. If she’d known, she wouldn’t have given him the goddamn iPod.
Fern suppressed a laugh; she felt his body and mind go tight with it. That doesn’t make any sense, Em.
She shot him a dark look. It doesn’t have to.
Raul, Horne and Andres formed a huge wall of brown muscle and black shirt in front of her, blocking everything from view but the backs of their heads and the slabs of their torsos. Andres’s long black ponytail swished, inches from her face. She smelled the familiar scent of Red Sun at her back, pine needles and leather; the fainter, cleaner smell and the warmth behind her right shoulder was Anton. Around her the percussion of boots on tarmac rose like applause, but all she could see was the sky and the lights, lilac turning to cooler frosted blue as the day brightened.
They reached the limousines and Raul and Andres moved aside while Horne remained close by Emma’s right. The maidens formed two ranks of four on either side of the limousine door, and everybody else spread out, making their group less of a compact target — not that Emma thought anybody was going to get shot, or it would have happened already. Wow, how blasé had she become about all this?
She felt anything but blasé as she looked up into Alexi’s eyes. His nostrils flared, and she got the feeling he was scrutinizing her — probably wondering what kind of idiot she was for thinking she could make peace offerings with a plastic gadget. He’d probably thrown the thing in the trash, or pulverized it under the heel of his boot, and why the hell did she care?
The limousine rocked and Emma caught movement inside a second before Seshua climbed out, a stunning monochrome demigod clad in black, hair wild and loose in tangles around his shoulders. He glanced at Emma and nodded once.
“Welcome to Russia, pequeña. ” He looked around at the guards she’d chosen. “You’ve fewer guards than I would like, given the unfortunate absence of the walking god.”
Horne had informed the king of Telly’s sudden disappearance the night it happened; maybe that was why Seshua brought Alexi on board, as a replacement heavy hitter. At Emma’s side, Horne glanced down at her, his expression dark, but Seshua hadn’t addressed him.
Emma clenched her fists. “Kinda hard to replace a god,” she managed to say evenly. “Besides, it’s not like we had any warning. He just —”
“He just left,” Alexi said with soft bitterness. Emma looked at him, digging her nails into her palms, bracing herself, but his eyes were hooded and dark and the look in them was far away. “That’s what he does.”
Before Emma could ask what that was supposed to mean, Seshua grunted and pushed past Alexi, unholstering his gun. “I told you the walking god cannot be trusted, pequeña. Come now.”
Undaunted by her glar
e, he moved to her side with liquid grace, sweeping her under the huge curve of his arm and into the humid aura of his body, and she scowled up at him, dragging up anger from the bottom of her stomach to combat the flash of fear and heat that arced through her nerve endings.
He arched a brow. “Don’t give me that look. We are about to execute a simple plan of evasion for your protection, and it is necessary I touch you, if only for a moment.” His voice dropped down into a lower register than Emma thought should be possible in human speech. “I know how much you detest my touch, but you will have to endure. I won’t be with you very long.” The soft seduction of his mouth turned hard for a moment, and Emma saw the echo of the jaguar in his thickset face. His eyes slid from her to the jaguar guards at her back. “I want you to crowd the door.” Horne, Andres, Raul and Anton all stepped forward — Anton’s face carefully blank, bodyguard blank. Seshua nodded. “Irena, Inga,” he called. “Now.”
Emma watched in confusion as two girls stepped out of the limousine, dark eyes wide when they looked at her. They looked away quickly and seemed to melt into the guards as though camouflaging themselves.
“What…” Emma closed her mouth with an audible clack as Seshua moved away from her, leaving her shoulders cold, only to be replaced with someone else’s arm. She looked up into Horne’s face, but he watched Seshua.
Seshua slid close to Raul, who sheltered one of the girls with his big body, and Emma watched with dawning comprehension as Seshua wrapped his arms around the girl. Andres did the same thing with other girl.
“You’re doing a swap,” Emma hissed at Seshua. “What the hell is the point of that?”
Seshua looked down his nose at her, tucking the Russian girl under his arm. The girl had dark eyes, dark hair, stood about as tall as Emma. Her face was unreadable.
“Let your guards get you into the car — and choose who you want in your car with you, because everyone else has to split up.” Like that, he’d dismissed her, and time was ticking away — would she dig her heels in and argue, or save it for later?
Hell, where was the fun in saving things for later? “I won’t ask again, Seshua: what is the fucking point of this? Anyone watching is going to know there are three girls, they’ll know it’s a decoy.” She resisted the urge to call him stupid — there were some things men didn’t get over fast.
“Well, the longer we stand around, Emmalina, the more chance there is of anyone noticing. And the point is not to trick them, merely to confuse them. If a potential enemy isn’t sure of your location, they may not move to attack.”
Emma suppressed a little scream of frustration. “If someone were to attack, you’ve put two innocent people in the way.” She clenched her fists, fingers suddenly itchy for the Beretta. She didn’t want to shoot him, she just wanted something hard and heavy to hit him with.
Alexi laughed, and she glanced at him. Genuine mirth seemed to dance in his bright, canary-yellow eyes for just a moment. Shit — he was reading her goddamn mind, wasn’t he? She noticed the scars all over again, and couldn’t believe she’d overlooked them. They were shining and angry and very hard to miss, but she’d barely even noticed they were there.
Seshua growled, the sound reaching down into Emma’s guts and rattling things that shouldn’t be rattled. “They are shapechangers,” he bit out, looming over her, neck arched and muscles standing out in corded bunches. “They will survive car crashes, car bombings, and gunshot wounds much better than you will — not that we are expecting anything of the sort, but if such were to occur, then you would be the one riding my ass for not providing better security, so I suggest you get your own sweet little behind into the goddamn limousine before I do it for you.” His eyes snapped with blue fire and he set his jaw, jerking the girl in his possession against his body. “We are going. Raul, you come with me. Andres, you go in the last car.” He moved away, calling to Rish, “Send three of your maidens with Emma and the rest split up. Everyone else with Alexi.” Then he was gone, with the Russian girl tucked under his arm and Raul behind him, two maidens trailing after them as Rish snapped out orders in an ancient tongue Emma would never understand. Andres slid away from her, and the warmth that replaced him smelled of dead pine leaves and leather, and made something low in her body twist.
She had to move. Alexi stepped out of the way and held her eyes as she ducked down into the limousine’s interior, something like a smile playing on his cold, cruel mouth.
Emma fell into a seat and blinked in the gloom, tossing hair out of her eyes. “This sucks.” Horne sat heavily beside her. “You don’t approve of this, do you?”
He shrugged, leaning back as Fern clambered over them to claim the seat on the other side of Emma. “I think Seshua’s being cautious, and I don’t blame him. He’s right you know. You would ride his ass if something went wrong.”
Emma set her jaw and crossed her arms. “Well thanks, oh loyal subject.” The jibe sounded flat to her own ears, but Horne gave her an obliging smirk.
“Anytime, chica. I aim to please.”
As everyone climbed into the limousine, Emma bit her lip to keep her mouth shut, thinking about those two girls, wawkalaki probably, their wide dark eyes staring at her. Just staring. Seshua didn’t care about their lives, only cared about their usefulness. Ruthless bastard. Every time she began to think there was something about him worth liking, he pulled shit like this to remind her of the truth.
Sure, Seshua held a certain appeal — but it wasn’t his stellar personality.
The door slammed shut, and Alexi folded himself into the seat opposite Emma. The limousine was big enough that their knees didn’t touch, but it was close.
Horne shifted in his seat, making more room for Red Sun, who was jammed against the window next to him. “Sorry Emma,” Horne murmured, and promptly pinched a good chunk of her thigh beneath his.
She stifled a cry and wriggled away, knocking Alexi’s knee with her own. She froze, eyes on his face, but his expression betrayed nothing. He managed to look relaxed whilst being jammed in between Rish and Toleni on one side, and Fezesh on the other. At the far end of the seat, Anton sat staring out the tinted window, one hand inside his jacket. Emma couldn’t tell if he expected the trouble to come from outside or in.
The limousine purred to life and began to roll, and Alexi slipped a phone from his shirt pocket. Hitting speed dial, he held the thing to his face, his hand dwarfing it. “Seshua.” A pause. “Yes. No.” His gaze darted to the window, cheeks tightening, pulling at the scars. The muscles beneath them all seemed to function, but then, Alexi was not a man of animated expression. Alexi had two settings: cold and cruel, not mutually exclusive. No matter what he was doing or saying, whether he meant you harm or good, always the mask.
He hung up and slipped the phone into his pocket with a small flourish of nimble fingers, and caught her staring.
She groped mentally for something to cover it, anything to keep her mind and mouth moving so he couldn’t pick her thoughts out of the air like insects. “Seshua didn’t say you’d be here. I thought, since you’d only just come back from Egypt, I don’t know…” She trailed off, concentrating hard on not looking at the scars; not because they grossed her out — she knew how scary Alexi could really be, and scars barely added to the overall effect — but because if he saw her glance down at them, he might think she thought him disfigured or something ridiculous like that.
His upper lip lifted a fraction, nostril’s flaring. “Seshua insisted.”
“Oh.” Emma nodded, hands fidgeting at the hem of her leather jacket. Nobody else volunteered to fill the silence.
She tried to move her legs a fraction without bumping into his. “So, uh, where exactly are we going?”
Alexi’s left eyebrow ticked. “The wolf king’s sanctuary is on the outskirts of Rozhdestvenka. Quiet, isolated, surrounded by forest. We should arrive in just under two hours, given traffic.”
Dear Lord. Two hours in a crowded car with Alexi, not to mention Red Sun’s subtle
scent bleeding into the air, raising gooseflesh on her chest, and Anton’s sullen blank stare howling silently out the window. This was going to be interesting.
Alexi must have read the look on her face — or the thoughts behind it. His chin tilted. “There’s a media center built into the shelf behind you,” he said dryly, “If you can’t stand the interminable boredom of such a trip without entertainment.”
Emma narrowed her eyes at him. His eyes mirrored hers, and silence stretched between them.
Finally she bit her lip, gesturing with a sharp tip of her head. “Anything good back there?”
Uncertainty crept into Alexi’s expression, along with something Emma didn’t dare call amusement. A muscle in his scarred face twitched, and his nostrils flared wide, drawing breath, but if he’d been about to speak then Anton interrupted him.
“So what’s the security situation at Ioannovich’s place?”
The look Alexi gave him wasn’t friendly. Thankfully, Andres’s bulk was in the way, and Anton didn’t see it.
Alexi settled in his seat with a slow, coiled movement, and when he spoke the first words were edged with a sibilant hiss. “Yevgeny’s mansion is gated, patrolled by a minimum of twelve guards, bumped up to twenty five for the duration of our stay. The mansion itself is a tactical nightmare; four floors, two wraparound balconies, twelve sets of bay windows and a cellar with outdoor access.” He made a disgusted sound. “Yevgeny assures us his kingdom is peaceful, but I’ll believe that when I’ve shed my last skin.” His lip curled in that eloquent sneer. “There are no peaceful kingdoms.”
“Only blind rulers,” Rish finished for him, staring straight ahead. Alexi didn’t look down at her or acknowledge the comment, but Toleni turned and put her mouth against Rish’s ear, whispering in a foreign tongue. Rish listened with a neutral expression on her sour little face; she was the only one of the maidens who failed to look ceaselessly radiant.
The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04 Page 85