The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  She was looking around for Sefu when, inside the house, the phone rang.

  It was Ricky who came to the screen door with the dog by his side and said, cautiously, “It’s for you.”

  Emma smiled.

  Thanks so much for reading!

  If you enjoyed THE WOLF’S HEIR, please consider leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads to help others discover the series.

  For freebies, giveaways and exclusive offers, plus the chance to receive advance review copies of upcoming releases, join ANNA’S AWESOME MAILING LIST!

  annamc.com/news

  (No spam, just cool stuff.)

  Copyright © 2016 Anna McIlwraith. All rights reserved.

  www.annamcilwraith.com

  Book Four

  The Serpent Priest

  1

  The open handed blow lifted Emma off her feet, spun her like a leaf in a strong breeze, and dumped her facedown in the cold dirt of the training yard before she even had time to feel the pain. That would come later, but there wouldn’t be much — Red was usually gentle enough with her. The breath left her in a rush that misted in the frigid air and something in her ribcage gave a surprising twang.

  Maybe not so gentle after all.

  Still, he was better than the others. At least he fought her. And he knew not to try to help her up unless she asked.

  Rolling onto her back, Emma saw that the predawn sky was not as dark now. Sun coming up meant combat training was over for the morning, and although they had maybe another ten minutes until full light stirred the rest of the ranch to life, her ribcage told her it was time to quit.

  She heard the leather of Red’s boots creak. Knew he’d sunk into an easy crouch.

  “You okay, princess?”

  That made her smile in spite of herself. She rolled to her right, propped herself up on her elbow, ignoring the bite of her left lower ribs, and met Red Sun’s eyes.

  They were brown and deep and young, in a leonine face that was lined from a lifetime outdoors and marked up with scars both small and large. One crooked pale line croggled over his chin, another through a dark blond eyebrow and across the bridge of a nose that had been broken too many times to be straight anymore. The other scars were so faint and so many they couldn’t be counted, and Emma had ceased to see them, the same way she’d stopped noticing that he was missing his right arm — that was just his body, and the scars were his face.

  One of the best faces she knew. He’d let his beard grow out a little, and the thick stubble was a more reddish blond than his hair; it made him look like the Scot that he was, though his accent was almost nonexistent. Emma didn’t know how long he’d been away from his homeland, didn’t know much about him really, but that was okay.

  He cocked his head and smiled at her with just his eyes.

  She kept her breath careful and shallow as she answered his question. “Yep. I’m okay. I’m —” she had to stop to swallow against the broad, grabbing ache that claimed her left side. “I’m cool.” She’d been sweating in the freezing early morning air for an hour, and now that she’d stopped moving, steam clouded from her still hot skin like a living aura. Like smoke.

  It was a bad thought. A shiver squirmed its way up her damp back, and she squared her shoulders against it. But when she looked back up at Red he was watching her, smile gone, preternatural stillness in its place. He didn’t ask again if she was okay, but he didn’t need to. He knew. He knew and didn’t ask, and she loved him for it.

  She hitched herself up to sitting and grimaced at the pain. “Come on, you weirdo, help me up.”

  Red unfolded to his full six feet and eleven inches and crossed the remaining space between them. He was built like a pile of rocks, but had the grace of a mountain lion, which she envied with weary acceptance — envied the grace, that was, not the build. She was used to being slower and clumsier than everyone else at the ranch, but at least she was not the smallest.

  Crouching in front of her, Red said, “You’re better than you used to be.”

  A faint memory stirred, someone else saying much the same thing after a training session that ended with her in the dirt.

  Em put a steadying hand on Red’s shoulder and ignored the soft hum of him beneath her palm, readying herself to stand. “So you can read minds then.”

  He put his arm around her back — then moved too fast for her to track, and somehow he was standing with her sitting hitched on his left hip like a child, her arms around his neck, his hand supporting her thigh just a few inches south of her rump. Red was ancient — just how ancient, Emma had no idea — and he’d been without the right arm since before he was changed. He’d had a lot of practice getting around without it.

  “Nope,” he said. “Can’t read your mind. Just your face.”

  “That’s what Telly used to say when —” she stopped. “Whenever he read my mind.” She was flustered — he’d moved fast, his hand was on her — and the words had tumbled out at first, without her knowing she was about to say them. Say that name.

  She’d referred to Telly in past tense, and when she looked up into Red’s eyes, she saw he knew it too.

  Red’s accent, usually faint, thickened a touch when he spoke next. “He’s not dead, kiddo.”

  Nope, she thought, just gone. She was surprised to realize she hadn’t thought about him in — how long? A whole week. Longer maybe. She didn’t know. “Doesn’t matter, Red. Really it doesn’t. Let’s go inside.”

  He sighed. Then he popped his chin on top of her head and rubbed his grizzled jaw in her hair before heading across the training yard to the big farm house. Em allowed herself to rest her forehead on his shoulder for a moment, taking in his scent, trying to be subtle about it. He smelled of leather and pine and heat, and faintly of the tobacco he almost never used.

  Red Sun dwarfed her; she wasn’t one of the smallest at the ranch, but he was one of the biggest. It was less like sitting in someone’s arms and more like riding a rhinoceros. Not that she’d done that — yet. Never say never. Nonetheless, the size difference did make it feel a little less awkward to have her legs wrapped around his torso while his rolling gait carried them both into the house.

  She still didn’t like to be carried, but what was the point in being stubborn about it anymore? At least when Red carried her, she was upright and not reclining like a damsel in a swoon. Or a princess.

  There was already one princess at the ranch, and it wasn’t Emma. Thankfully.

  Red didn’t affect her the way he used to, before she changed — the way he still affected almost anyone capable of being attracted to him — but physical contact was interesting. He buzzed like a battery against her, and it no longer stole her breath or clouded her thoughts or made her stare at his mouth — instead she felt a sunny warmth pulse through her, and got the urge to yawn and stretch.

  During training she could ignore it, the moments of contact were brief; no point training in more advanced close quarter techniques like wrestling or grappling. With the strength disparity between Emma and her enemies, she needed to focus on tactics to avoid a close quarter scenario where she couldn’t possibly win.

  Although if anyone else would train seriously with her, maybe she could find out whether that strength disparity was any less now. Hard to tell training with just Red Sun — he was too good at matching his effort perfectly to hers. For someone who looked so ungainly, he had exquisite sensitivity. Probably all those untold years spent watching people’s reactions to his presence and getting around with only one arm in a world that was built for people with two.

  He said she was getting better; she thought it might be more, and was almost certain he thought so too. They didn’t talk a lot, but they’d trained together every morning for the last few weeks. He noticed things, and so did she.

  It was a different kind of intimacy than she was used to. It didn’t quite fill the cold, echoing spaces inside her, but it made them easier to bear.

  Red hit the back porch steps, taking them in two
strides, and they were at the screen door. Emma felt the shift in her cells that told her Fern had just woken up, his presence rising in her awareness like the moon in the night sky. She let herself hope — maybe today — as she did every morning since they’d returned home from Russia.

  Just like every other morning since, he did not reach out via the bond.

  A lot of things were different now.

  2

  The back porch door led straight into the kitchen, where the lights were still off, and Red ducked through it at the same time that Felani came through the opposite door that led off into the dining room. Felani was four feet five inches of bronze skin and knee-length copper hair, dressed in her usual denim cutoffs and bikini top in spite of the morning chill, and when she flicked on the kitchen light her eyes flared gold as the pupils shrank. They adjusted, and Felani’s gaze went back to normal — “normal” being dark, huge, and glittering. Then she saw Emma, and her elfin little face turned thunderous.

  “She is injured?”

  “I’m right here, Fel. Please don’t talk about me in the third person.”

  Felani’s gaze flicked to Emma. She frowned. “We are three persons.”

  Red Sun laughed without making a sound. Emma sighed; Felani still had problems with English syntax sometimes. “Never mind. I just need a hot shower and a compression bandage. I’m fine.”

  “I know what fine means, my lady. It does not mean fine. ” Well. Not that much of a problem with English, apparently. Felani planted her hands on her hips and glared at Red. “I thought you were being careful with her. No injuries for three weeks. What happened?”

  Emma patted Red Sun’s shoulder and spoke quietly. “Put me down, Red.” He loosened his grip so she could slide her legs down, but kept his arm around her as her bare feet touched the kitchen tiles.

  He pitched his voice low when he answered Felani. “She’s getting better, that’s what happened. Faster. Didn’t have time to check myself, hit her in the side too hard.”

  He still had his arm around her, and it tightened when she made a move to step away. Odd. He was looking at Felani, so Emma couldn’t read his face, but she stayed put. Trusted him. He continued. “You don’t think that’s interesting, Fel? No injuries for three weeks? Not even a scratch?”

  Felani turned her head to the side, still regarding Red. Then her gaze shifted to Emma. Went down, then back up to her face. Felani’s nostrils flared wide.

  Red and Felani were having the same unspoken conversation that he and Emma had been having for the last couple of weeks. Things were different, but there was no real way to know exactly how. Emma was different.

  And not “different” in the way everyone thought she was, after Russia.

  Red looked past Felani, to the darkness beyond the dining room. Voice impossibly low when he spoke. “She’s hurt, but she will be fine. In less time than she should be, I think.”

  There was no time to contemplate that — Emma felt Fern coming through the dining room mere seconds before his slim form appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  He made no sound as he moved around Felani to the sink, and gave no indication that he was aware of the three of them watching him as he poured a glass of water from the tap.

  His black hair was still mussed from bed, sticking up in tufts, and a long section at the front hung over one eye, covering most of his face. His throat worked as he drank the water from the glass, Adam’s apple pronounced, collarbones stark. His white t-shirt hung on him.

  Last week, Emma had gone shopping online, ordered a bunch of sweats and tights from a place that specialized in workout gear for male ballet dancers — Fern had lost too much weight for regular sizes, but was too tall for juniors. Right now he wore Levi’s that were new enough they stayed up, but that would change. Em was hoping there’d be a delivery waiting at the mail office in town today.

  Fern put his glass down on the counter and looked out through the kitchen window above the sink. It was dark enough outside to see his reflection, a spectral boy with pale skin and a weary set to his shoulders. Now more than ever, Em thought of him as a boy, even though he was older than that, older than her — much older. And looking it.

  “The guards will be changing shifts soon,” he said to his own reflection in the window. “I’m going to make breakfast. Any requests?”

  Emma stepped away from Red, and his hand stayed on her elbow, gentle but insistent contact. She cleared her throat. “Can I help?”

  Fern turned to the kitchen drawers, started getting out utensils. “Anton and Ricky already volunteered. They’ll be along soon.” Now he looked around, looked at her. His eyes, solid black, reflected the kitchen lights but otherwise were dull as bruises in a face that was sharp as a knife from the weight loss. Nothing had changed, then; the mornings were still the worst time for him.

  He noticed Red’s hand on her arm, looked slowly up at Red’s face, blinked. Then he turned back to the sink and started filling the electric kettle.

  Okay, Emma thought. Today was the same. Okay. She shrugged Red’s hand off her arm. “I’m going to take a shower.” And when she came back, the guards would be taking up space in the kitchen and dining room, filling the place with their noise and their bulk, and for a little while she wouldn’t have to feel the sucking void between her and Fern. She broke away from Red, took a few steps, and felt something in her ribcage twist. Then there was no air in her chest, and she tried to breathe, but the breath struck a wall of glass inside her and shattered.

  She grabbed the edge of the small kitchen table, taking shallow little gasps. Felani made a feline sound of dismay and put her hands on Emma’s back.

  “She’s okay!” Red lowered his voice. “She’s okay, she’s okay. It’s her ribs. Em?”

  She looked up at him, still not breathing too deep. She nodded at him. “Tylenol,” she told Felani in a thin voice. “Then help me shower. Please.” Emma reached out without thinking for the glass Fern handed her, took a tentative sip while she waited for the Tylenol, then froze with the water held in her mouth.

  Fern’s mind was touching hers, on purpose, for the first time since Russia.

  She hadn’t seen Fern hand her the glass, she’d felt it. Just a light mental brush, so light she almost hadn’t noticed it. She wanted to weep, but instead she filled her mind with nothing, with a blank waiting emptiness — focus on the Tylenol, on the pain. She swallowed her mouthful of water and winced at the pinch behind her left breast as those muscles worked.

  When they slept, their minds reached out across the bond of the Enam-Vesh, there was no helping that, and they were still in close physical proximity every day, so neither of them had gone mad — yet. For Emma that was debatable. She didn’t know how long he could keep her out of his mind, or how long he could last staying out of hers. They were bound. It had only been five months since Fern used the venom unique to his kind to bind them together for all time, but it felt like forever, and this had never happened before.

  She knew she could end it, if she forced him; that was how the bond worked. When he first withdrew, the thought was abhorrent: forcing him, breaking him. Unacceptable. She’d started to wonder though — how long before she was tempted? Before she couldn’t take it anymore?

  Could she do it? Would she?

  Would he hate her for it if she did?

  She heard him moving around behind her, pans and crockery clinking. Resisted the urge to turn around and look at him.

  Couldn’t force him. Not after what happened to her in Russia.

  Felani handed her six Tylenol, and Emma took two. The very old —ancient — shapechangers didn’t quite understand human meds. Fern’s touch faded from Emma’s mind, but it didn’t matter. She could almost breathe again.

  Emma showered with Felani standing outside the stall in case something happened, but it was just a precaution. The Tylenol and the heat did their work, and by the time she stepped out and into the towel Felani held up for her, breathing didn’t suck and it no longer
felt like she had a safety pin stuck under her boob. She had some impressive bruises though.

  Months spent living with shapechangers and sleeping in a giant pile of them every night had pretty much done away with her modesty. Mostly. She was comfortable with Felani and the rest of the maidens, at least, seeing her naked, seeing her scars. She’d come back from Russia with shiny pink claw-marks that wrapped unevenly around her midsection — four on the left, three on the right — each between five and ten inches long, ragged and not at all sexy, guaranteeing Emma wasn’t going to be flaunting a two-piece swimsuit for a long, long time.

  She felt nothing but sympathy and hopeless despair for the poor creature that had done the damage, but the way she’d been healed — and the reason she hadn’t died of blood loss and organ rupture — was what sometimes gave her nightmares and made memories chuckle darkly at the edges of her sanity when she looked down at her own body and caught sight of them.

  Those scars had healed cleaner than the one she was left with after being speared in Egypt, but they all itched when the weather turned. The fresh scars also served to remind her of her purpose now: to find Storm and the others, the shapechangers who had been stolen and tortured and turned into monsters against their will. Unfortunately Emma and her people had come up with very little to go on so far.

  Felani examined the superficial wounds from Emma’s morning training session while Emma faced the mirror, toweling her dark shoulder-length hair, steam clouding around them both — they’d left the water on so they could talk. “I have little sympathy for him,” Felani said. Talking about Fern. “You know that.”