He dragged her to her feet and the power reacted. Heat pulsed beneath the bruising press of his hands and pressure began to build, sucking at her skin, pulling at her bones, the power straining towards him. She met his eyes. He was everything she had ever been afraid of, harsh and fierce and wild, beautiful, face narrow with fury, skin bleeding gray-green light, scales shining like smears of rainbow on his high cheekbones. For a moment that felt like forever there was only his gaze, yellow and stark; then from somewhere far away Emma heard Katenka squeal.
She turned, vision swimming, and without thinking about it pushed power down the bond with the princess. Katenka’s white fur was streaked red, and Alan parried Katenka’s wolf jaws, his face gray and haggard and his eyes paler than ever.
Alexi let go of Emma and the cold backwash of his power crashed over her. She swayed and he grabbed her arm again. “We have to get out of here,” he said and started towards Katenka.
Katenka, Emma thought, Come to me.
The princess feinted, whirled and shot away from Alan, tongue lolling, front legs drenched with blood. Alan staggered and clapped both hands to his chest, holding in his flapping ribs and lungs and heart, and he met Emma’s eyes and the look hit her like a blow.
We are not finished, he said clearly in Emma’s mind, the weight of him pressing at her, vast as an ocean.
Alexi tightened his grip on Emma and jerked her to face him. Her head lolled as she struggled to focus on him.
Can you run? Uncertainty pulled his scars tight. Emma nodded, blinked against rainbow smears of power running across her vision.
She didn’t think she could fall down, let alone run, but she would try.
Good enough, Alexi said in her mind, and then they ran.
28
Everywhere destruction: hallways smoked and billowed with dust, debris rained down from open ceilings, glass crunched under the pounding of Alexi’s boots. Katenka loped ahead, as Emma skidded on bleeding feet and Alexi hauled her up, didn’t stop, because both of them knew she couldn’t feel the pain. The magic of the ritual pumped through her and she was numb to everything but Alexi’s fingers biting into her arm, Alexi’s mind hovering in hers, hers fused to his, the power pumping out of her in a flood that wouldn’t ebb and didn’t stop. Twice she stumbled and bent double, retched, the world swimming and running with mad colors, her breath fast and thick, her heartbeat suffocating as magic rode her body, and behind it all she could still feel Alan. Feel him raging, dying, healing, feel his body wrenching itself back together, feel his fury like a wall at her back.
She would go mad. She was going mad. She couldn’t remember what anything else felt like, anything but raw power, electricity made flesh, her blood turned to lava and her mind cut loose of the tether of her body and everything shining and hard and bright —
Machine gun fire filled the demolished corridor a split second before Alexi slammed her against the wall, shielding her body with his own. She felt his mind draw itself in, felt it suck at her heart, felt him brace himself. She saw two figures coming at them through the dust, heard Katenka’s harsh howl, and then Alexi let whatever magic he was holding go.
The soldier’s heads exploded in twin welters of gore. Alexi’s lean triumph pulsed through Emma’s mind, smooth and remorseless, and then they were running again — except her legs refused to work. She stumbled, tried to push herself up but her knees were jelly and her ankles buckled. Alexi stopped in time to prevent her from being dragged, hauled her up against his chest — then took one look at her face and swung her into his arms and sprinted with blurring speed.
His mental voice was grim. Are you hurt?
Hurt? She felt like she was drowning, every breath drawing more and more magic into her lungs, filling her up, she wanted to scream or vomit or pass out but she just couldn’t , she begged and wished and pleaded for it to stop but it wouldn’t. She wasn’t going to make it, couldn’t survive her — mind was going to shatter —
Give it to me, Alexi said.
Not an option. No. It was the last thing he’d want, the last thing he needed. The power was hers even if it killed her, she didn’t know why there was so much or what to do with it, how it could possibly work, but she knew —
Just give it to me, you stubborn woman, do it now! And just like that, Alexi’s anger settled over her, harsh and bitter and familiar — and suddenly she could breathe again.
She dragged her head back to look at him, his hair flying thick and black, skin shining with pale green light, mouth hard and strained and lilac blue. His butter-yellow eyes glanced down at her, only a second, but it was enough.
All right, she said. She hesitated. What if —
Alexi didn’t wait for her second thoughts — his mind rolled over her, into her, her vision disappeared and warmth engulfed her. Dimly she heard something nearby explode but she couldn’t drag her eyes open; exhaustion swam into the mute darkness inside her, the place where the magic and the power had roared only seconds ago. Blessed relief, peace, only the ebb and gentle pulse of Alexi doing whatever he was doing, drawing it out of her. She smelled ozone, felt cool power buffet her, tasted rain…
Oh, sweet Jesus.
Storm.
Emma’s eyes flew open. Smoke billowed and orange emergency lights flickered; somebody screamed. Alexi ducked a falling chunk of ceiling pipe without missing a step.
She clutched at his shoulder. “Stop! We have to stop! We have to go back!” Her nails bit into his flesh. He shook his head like a horse shaking off a fly. “Alexi listen to me, we have to go back, the vampires have Rain’s brother we can’t leave him we have to —”
The wall to their left exploded. Flames whooshed out with a dull, massive crump of displaced air. A low shape Emma almost recognized darted out of the fire; Katenka reared up, white fur singeing, jaws snapping, and a huge brown bear the size of a small elephant solidified out of the shadows with its ears laid back and its muzzle wrinkled in a snarl.
Alexi staggered to a halt, turned away from the flames and did something Emma didn’t know he could do — he flowed into her mind, gathered up the power that sang through her body, riffled through it with mental fingers made of smoke and silk and latched onto the connection Emma had forged with Katenka. Then he threw his mind down that pathway and spoke to the wolf princess with the voice of Emma’s power and the strength of his own telepathy combined.
Turn away, Katenka, the bear is one of ours.
The effect was instant: Katenka’s hackles smoothed and her ears came forward and she looked with crystalline green eyes to Alexi, awaiting command.
Something in Emma bristled. She shoved meekly at Alexi’s chest and reached out to Katenka, the power throbbing dimly now but still there.
The princess looked to her and spoke and there was fierce laughter in her mental voice. You are still mistress and savior, my lady. The voice was older than Katenka, yet unmistakably hers. But let us follow the priest. He knows the way.
Alexi grunted and started forward. Talking at a time like —
Another explosion rocked the corridor and suddenly Emma could see sky beyond roiling smoke. Her heart leapt. Alexi swore and hunched over, dwarfing Emma in his arms, protecting her from burning bits of debris whipping through the air.
Head turned to the side, face inches from hers but eyes scanning ahead of them, he shouted, “Red Sun, what in the fuck are they trying to do, kill us as well as the fucking hell-born vampires?”
Red? What — it didn’t matter — they had to go back for Storm, damn it, Emma tilted her head back and met Alexi’s eyes. We have to go back.
Alexi turned a shoulder into the smoke and strode through. No.
Emma dragged air into her lungs, coughed, choked, eyes stinging until power gusted out from Alexi’s skin and suddenly the air was breathable again. Alexi, stop — Alexi — something nearby let out a painful metallic shriek, Emma heard the distant whoomp of explosions. She struggled in Alexi’s arms. Alexi, I PROMISED HIM! I PROMISED!
Alexi snarled and looked down at her, scars twisting his mouth into something frightful and alien. He let out a string of curses in a harsh and lyrical tongue that sent licks of gooseflesh up Emma’s spine — and then he turned around.
“Red,” he shouted. “Get the princess out of here!” Smoke rolled out of the demolished corridor they’d just run down, like a thick gray wall. Behind them the bear roared. Katenka darted ahead of them, her determination to protect Emma solid as steel in Emma’s mind. Alexi swore again and strode forward. Damn you all. His arms tightened around Emma, power pushing at her skin like smooth, cool hands. Where are they holding the wolf?
Emma lifted her head, took a deep breath and almost passed out. There’s a holding area somewhere behind the room where — where — Dear God. Her mind shied away. She swallowed thickly and tried to push the words out: “Behind the cell where they put Katenka, while I was — when —” her voice broke.
Emma felt more than heard the creak of Alexi’s jaw as he clenched his teeth. The hum of his mind in hers amplified, and she felt him digging through her thoughts, like her brain was made of clay — the same way Fern might probe her mind, but stronger, firmer, no hesitation — and then his aura tightened around them both like a cold vise.
Finally he spoke, mental voice clipped. There will be other experiments, not just Storm. I don’t know how —
But whatever else he had to say was drowned out by the scream of gunfire. Emma caught a glimpse of muzzle flare through the roiling smoke before Alexi dropped, smacking her back onto the debris-strewn floor with his body hunched over hers, bullets whizzing and pinging above them. His mind flared out and hers went with it, and they both met a wall of cold vampire telepathy. It speared at them and thrust and jabbed, drove a sound from Emma’s throat and made her squeeze her eyes shut. It felt like her ears were being drilled. Abruptly it stopped — because Alexi was shielding it from her. Slicing pain went through him and she caught it like an echo.
A second later Alexi gathered that strange power to himself again and then let it go like a whip, and Emma heard several simultaneous splatters, but the gunfire didn’t stop — and then Alexi uttered a short, surprised shout of pain. His entire body went rigid around her and echoes of telepathic assault rang in her ears — they were under attack and she couldn’t feel it, he was shielding too hard.
But she could feel something else: Alan’s presence moving like a stormbank towards them through the complex, brackish and heavy and seething with single-minded intent. He would have her at his side. She was his. And he was sucking at the mind of every last vampire in the complex, power building like a black tsunami, enough power to wipe them out.
The knowledge traveled lightning-fast from her to Alexi and he snarled. I will not risk this, not for anything, he said, his mental voice so solid with resolve that it clanged in Emma’s head like a bell. We cannot save them if we are dead. Then he crushed her to his chest with only one arm, pushed himself up with the other, and launched himself down the smoking, ruined corridor — away from Alan and the guns and the vampires — towards freedom.
Cold night air hit her along with the sounds of battle: the dark sky flared orange and white with explosions, and gunfire stuttered and boomed all around them. She clung to Alexi with all the strength she had left as he carried her at a run, high metal walls rising either side of them, some kind of holding bay — an armored vehicle to the right, bodies to the left, or parts of bodies.
Don’t look, said Alexi.
I can handle a few dead bodies, Emma answered.
There are more, he countered. Many more.
All Emma could think was, good, and couldn’t find it in her to be ashamed.
They turned a corner; something whistled through the air behind them and an explosion huge enough to make Alexi stumble rocked the night, but he didn’t look back. Heat buffeted them, singed Alexi’s hair. Emma watched over his shoulder as the blasted-out entrance to the complex was obliterated by a towering wall of flame — and the pressure beating at her from inside the complex ceased. She remembered Katenka, gasped —
But Katenka paced beside them. Her mind touched Emma’s, but one thought was swiftly overtaking the princess’s concerns for Emma’s safety. Katenka’s excitement curled through Emma’s breast like adrenalin, but all Emma had the energy to do was breathe . She slumped in Alexi’s arms and tried to focus ahead. A muddy field stretched out before them. Emma registered the sight of slope and trees rising to her right and vehicles up ahead; she heard shouts. Katenka whined.
Just keep breathing , she told herself. Just — but — it was getting so damn hard …
Alexi’s mental voice rubbed against her like warm muscle. With me, Emma, with me now. For a second she had no idea what he —
And then her heart skipped a beat, stuttered, and started to thud with slow and steady sureness. Her lungs filled impossibly, she sighed out and couldn’t stop herself from whimpering. Sweet, clean oxygen, the taste of the air so loud on her tongue, but beneath the relief swam something quiet and terrible. It twisted Emma’s stomach, throbbed just below the surface of exhaustion and the damped tide of the magic of the ritual — and Alexi didn’t know how to take it from her, not like he was doing with the power.
Something dawned on her, penetrated the milky fog of trauma. She rolled her head to look up into Alexi’s face. That’s only the second time you’ve called me that.
He slowed to a jog, eyes scanning ahead, almost ignoring her. What?
She took another deep breath. Emma. My name.
He looked down at her and stopped. The lights from fires and explosions danced in his yellow eyes. Far away, vampires screamed, a wolf barked — and then right beside them, Katenka threw her head back and howled, and a figure ran out of the smoke ahead, and Katenka launched herself into a flat out gallop.
Emma couldn’t help herself; she watched, with Katenka’s joy beating at her mind like frantic wings, as Yevgeny went down naked on both knees and opened his arms for his daughter.
More shapes moved out of the smoke, not all of them human. There were shouts, snarls. Alexi got moving.
Emma closed her eyes and fought back a wave of nausea. “What —” she started to ask, but talking out loud made the nausea worse, made her head feel disconnected from her body. What the hell happened out here, Alexi?
He didn’t glance down at her. We rescued you.
She heard a familiar voice scream her name, her full name. Seshua. He sounded hoarse and broken.
Emma opened her eyes and looked into Alexi’s face. You rescued me.
He still wouldn’t look at her. Yes.
She pressed a hand against his chest, felt his heartbeat pulsing through her entire body. What did you do?
Finally he looked down, and something painful filled his face, thinned it down, pulled his mouth down at the corners. His nostrils flared wide. His eyes shone. It doesn’t matter.
Before she could argue, a blast of hot magic hit them both, and Emma turned her head as Seshua charged toward them like a giant carved of midnight, hair matted and flying. Emma’s pulse leapt into her throat for no logical reason at all. Alexi stopped and braced with his feet wide, tightening his arms around Emma.
Seshua dragged the strap of his gun over his head and tossed the thing away. Emma couldn’t see his face, just the huge hulk of his silhouette as he strode forward, but the air before him vibrated with heat and the lush green scent of jungle — and beneath it, the acrid burn of rage, Emma could taste it. Without thinking she reached out to it, instinctively tried to soothe it, and Seshua stopped dead. Energy swirled off him and through Emma like a warm, wet wind, and it carried the murmur of his thoughts, Emma knew it as sure as she had ever known anything.
He breathed hard, chest heaving. “Priest?”
Alexi shuddered, just once. “She is come unto power,” Alexi said.
Seshua just stood there for a moment, nothing but the rise and fall of his massive chest. Emma watched him, didn’t bother tr
ying to speak, not when his rage and bitter grief whispered to her like moth-wings at a window, flickering and dipping as he fought for control. She couldn’t imagine how she must look to him: bruised, blood-drenched, covered in gore and dirt and — and other things. Hell, never mind how she looked — how she must smell…
Others were coming; dimly Emma recognized the smaller shapes of the maidens. They were shouting, but they sounded farther away than they should have. Finally Seshua reached out, fingers hovering near Emma’s face, and he bent close enough she could feel the warmth of his skin beneath the aura, smell the blood and desperation on his breath.
A thin, high sound vibrated deep in his throat and died there. In the most human voice she’d ever heard him use, he said, “Pequeña. I would have given anything, everything, for it to happen some other way.” He rested his forehead against hers a moment. Then he turned away, walked a few paces, and roared as though it had been his heart Alexi almost tore out, not Alan’s.
The sound was awful, but it was the sharp mental twist of anguish and failure and self-hatred that shot through Emma and deafened her, blinded her, bowed her back and made her clutch at Alexi.
Sleep. Alexi’s mental voice shook, all the strength of his telepathy bearing down on her, forcing her mind into submission. Some part of her fought, even though she knew it was sleep or go mad.
Where’s Fern? I can’t feel him, Alexi, I need to —
Alexi cut her off. He’s safe Emma, damn it, SLEEP.
Emma’s eyes rolled back in her head, her mind barely whispered the rest: Why can’t I feel him?
Alexi swore, and some emotion Emma didn’t recognize slid through him, buffeted her. He had to be sedated, with magic. He — when you — he would have hurt himself. But he is safe. Now for the last fucking time, SLEEP!
She did.
29
Emma woke up when someone tried to lift her out of Alexi’s arms, and she woke up screaming. She could smell smoke and char and gasoline and pine. Alexi was stepping awkwardly into the back of an SUV with her body cradled to his chest, but there were hands on her and her skin burned and jolted and her head swam.
The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04 Page 103