What kind of cat could she be?
Emma was aware of Keti moving towards the maiden and her blind warriors, but she couldn’t tear her gaze from the maiden. The maiden seemed just as transfixed. Hush descended, a pregnant silence Emma couldn’t bring herself to break. The maiden’s mouth was a grim line, her chin trembling, breath just fast enough for Emma to notice.
“What do you see?” The maiden asked in a low, apprehensive whisper.
Emma never wondered who the question was for. Both flaxen heads tipped down toward the maiden in acknowledgment. The warrior on the right lifted his chin first; his eyes were fixed on nothing, but his nostrils flared and his throat worked, and Emma felt his attention like a heavy hand on the back of her neck.
“It is her,” he said, voice so deep it made Emma’s mouth go dry with anxiety. “She is strange,” he added, brow furrowing. “But it is her. And she is whole.”
The maiden pressed the back of one hand to her mouth and sobbed, once, dry and harsh, never taking her eyes off Emma. Keti went to her with an outstretched hand but she halted him with a flick of her wrist. She took a few steps forward, huge eyes liquid with unshed tears.
“There were rumors,” she said, voice musical though rough with emotion. “But there have always been rumors. Then there was nothing. And now you are here.” The maiden shook her head, silver hair moving like water over her narrow shoulders. “Are you truly real? Do you know what you are?” Before Emma could answer, the maiden glanced around as though noticing the others for the first time. “Of course you do.”
Keti took a step to follow her. “Ifrah,” he said gently.
She held up a hand, then let it fall. Keti stayed where he was. Her nostrils flared, throat flickering, one hand moving to press against her sternum, and a question darkened her eyes as she took them all in. “How did you find us?”
“You mean before we found him?” Leah said with a jerk of her chin in Keti’s direction.
The maiden just looked at Leah. Emma cleared her throat. “Were we not meant to find you?”
Silver brows shot up as the maiden’s eyes went wide. “My lady, you should not have had to. We should have found you.”
Emma’s legs started to give out, and she hung onto Fern as Red’s arms went around her waist, feeling the tension singing through them both. “Well,” Emma said, trying not to sound out of breath from the simple act of staying upright. “I have been in hiding, pretty much, so it’s not your fault.”
Red growled softly. “You do not need to apologize to these people, Emma.”
“He is right,” the maiden said, mouth grim. Then she tilted her head. “Emma.”
Emma nodded. “Emmalina Chase.”
The maiden’s lips moved silently over the name, brow creased with seriousness. “I am Ifrah,” she said then, forehead smoothing out and eyes turning up at the edges with the beginning of a smile, before turning to gesture toward the two blond males. “My brothers, Jonin and Nadir. And Keti.” She looked down, then back up, gaze straying to the others.
They’re together, aren’t they? Emma murmured in Fern’s mind.
Keti and Ifrah? I’d say so. And have been for a long time.
“Is this it?” Emma looked around. “The Brotherhood?”
Ifrah’s nostrils flared in wariness. “There are others. And there are the uninitiated, here to further their own spiritual paths, some of whom are human.” Ifrah bowed her head, then looked up to meet Emma’s eyes directly. “They assist with the keep of the monastery, but know nothing of this. Of us. And they will not question your presence here. You are safe with us.”
Safe enough, Emma thought, not wanting to believe the maiden, just because there was a hole in Emma’s heart where Felani and the rest were supposed to be.
She took a steadying breath. “This is Fern,” Emma introduced him to Ifrah, including the brothers and Keti with a quick glance.
“Red Sun,” Red said, tightening his hold on Emma. “Shadi, and Fatima,” he indicated with a nod.
“I’m Leah,” the jaguar guard said. “And this is Horne.”
“And Ivan,” Emma finished, meeting Ivan’s empty gray eyes and getting nothing from the bond. He turned to Ifrah and nodded once.
Ifrah regarded them all with open curiosity and a little confusion. “These are your allies?” Keti took another step forward, which Ifrah ignored. “All of them?”
“They’re my friends,” Emma said firmly. “All of them. I wouldn’t be here without them.” She hesitated, and when neither Fern nor Red Sun cautioned her not to speak, she went on. “I do have allies in the Jackal Kingdom of Egypt, though, and that’s how we found you. Well, it’s how we knew where to look. The current jackal king’s father once tried to find the Caller of the Blood, and his search almost took him to the Brotherhood, although he never made it.”
The silent twin — Jonin — spoke up now. “I remember.” His deep voice sounded as though he were stirring from a long and fathomless sleep. “It was a long time ago. He came as far as he could, but only the Caller of the Blood could ever find us.”
Because of the compulsion.
Emma tightened her grip on Fern. “You knew he was searching for you? For answers? And you did nothing?”
Jonin tilted his head, sending several braids sliding over his shoulder. “The Brotherhood must stay hidden, or it is no use to the Caller of the Blood. To you. The jackal king was not searching for us; he was searching for the Caller of the Blood, and she did not yet exist. What answer could we have given him?”
Emma sighed. It didn’t matter; Kahotep’s father — and mother — were long dead, so there was no point arguing about it, no matter how protective of Kahotep she felt. Yet it bothered her. She narrowed her eyes, looking from Jonin to Keti. “What answers can you give me, then, if you didn’t even know I existed until I showed up on your doorstep?”
“We will protect you,” Ifrah said, squaring her shoulders. “As Jonin said, that is why we have stayed hidden, why we make our home here, at the edge of the world, and have since the beginning.” Pride suffused her voice. “The purpose of the Brotherhood —” she swallowed, looking to Keti, but not meeting his eyes, before turning back and lifting her liquid gaze to Emma. “Our purpose is your safekeeping. Nothing is more important than that.”
The maiden’s huge eyes and heartfelt words tugged at Emma, pulling on the pieces of her that belonged to the other maidens, her maidens. Ifrah — like the ocelot maidens — looked slight and childlike and fragile, stirring all Em’s protective instincts. But Emma didn’t know her.
And she didn’t need their protection.
“I thank you,” Emma said, calling on her last reserves, “but I don’t need your safekeeping.What I need is answers. I need to know anything you can tell me about — well, about me. What I’m supposed to be capable of. That’s why we’ve come. My friends keep me safe, so you don’t have to worry about protecting me. Although I could really use a shower,” she added, closing her eyes for a moment and resting her forehead against Fern’s arm.
She felt him stiffen and opened her eyes. Ifrah was looking at her with a mixture of confusion and regret clouding her features. “My lady…” the maiden looked lost for words, then seemed to gather herself. “Of course your needs will be tended to, we should have thought of that first.” She took a deep breath and then barked a command over her shoulder in a language Emma was certain she’d never heard. Somewhere far off, hurrying footsteps echoed. “As for why you have come, of course you have questions. We can help you. It is only natural that you would want to understand how this all came to pass. In the coming days —”
“I don’t have days.” Emma shoved off of Fern and angled herself between Shadi and Fatima, trying not to put any weight on her left foot. “I need food and a bath badly, but I don’t have that much time. I need answers, and I’m serious about this. I am the Caller of the Blood. I need something I can use. I thought you of all people would understand that.”
Ke
ti and the blind twins came to full attention, Keti with one hand on the scabbard at his hip, the twins with their heads cocked at identical angles. Ifrah’s eyes widened, first with shock, then with something like sympathy. “There is someone you wish to save, is there not? Someone or something?”
Emma forced herself not to react. “How do you know that?”
The maiden spread her hands. “I do not know anything. But I sense your desperation. We are the Brotherhood, and I wish that we could offer you more. We can help you understand your place in the world, and we can protect you, but we cannot teach you anything unless your powers have been woken.” As Emma frowned, lips parting on an inhale, Ifrah’s eyes filled with tears, even as her beautiful mouth curved in a bitter smile.
“And thank the gods that they are not.”
32
Every single one of Emma’s people went still. The kind of preternatural stillness that made the hairs on the back of Em’s neck stand to attention, and reminded her that the people she trusted and loved and laughed with were not human and never would be so, and they were ever just a breath away from this transformation — not the spectacular change with its white light and terrible beauty, but this quiet, split second drop into the kind of wildness Emma couldn’t touch. She was the Caller of the Blood, and she could command them, but she could not follow them to the final place where their humanity ended and the beast began.
Ifrah sensed the shift in them. Her nostrils flared and her ears lifted, just a tiny reflex, and she looked at Emma with a question in her eyes.
All Emma had for her was questions of her own. Heart thudding with exhaustion, she swallowed to work up enough saliva to speak. “What do you mean, thank the gods for that?” Her voice was still rough from going almost a whole day without a drop of water passing her lips, but she pressed on. “Why wouldn’t my powers be a good thing? They’re meant to heal the wasting illness. Unite the races.” Emma coughed. “Your version of peace on Earth, right?”
The blind brothers hissed in unison. Keti made a strange gesture with his hand across his chest; he wasn’t crossing himself, but it sure looked something like it. But it was the maiden’s facial expression that made Emma’s heart drop into her stomach like a stone.
Ifrah’s chin trembled, her eyes like drowning pools, but her mouth was hard. “The wasting disease is an affliction, it is true. And you are noble to want to cure it.” She drew a shaky breath. “But it must not come to pass, for there are terrible consequences.”
The stone in Emma’s stomach suddenly grew spikes. “Consequences.” She clenched her hand around Fern’s. “What consequences.”
Keti took another step forward and Ifrah held her palms out to Emma in a placating gesture, face all liquid eyes and compassion. “Truly my lady, this is a conversation for another time. You are weary and injured and we —”
“Tell me now,” Emma cut through her, voice low. When the maiden started to shake her head, Emma couldn’t help herself. She shoved away from Fern and Red, past Fatima and Shadi, until she stood between Horne and Leah. “Tell me now , damn it. What are the terrible consequences? What happens when I heal the waste?” As Ifrah’s eyes widened, Emma’s pulse went into overdrive. “Are they in danger?”
Ifrah’s eyes were saucers now. Her voice was a whisper. “Who?”
“The ones I’ve saved! Are they in danger? ”
This time Keti couldn’t contain himself. He strode forward and angled his body in front of Ifrah. “You can’t have saved anyone.” His silver gaze bored into Emma. “You don’t have the power. Because you haven’t completed the ritual.”
Emma looked from him to Ifrah. “How do you know?”
The twins spoke in unison, deep voices resonating with an unnatural echo: “We know.”
“Whatever you think you’ve done…” the maiden shook her head, one hand pressed to her chest, but Emma could see the doubt in her eyes.
Why the hell do they think my powers are still dormant? When Fern and Red both sent her grim mental shrugs, Emma balled her hands into fists, trying to push down the rising terror and the flare of power it kindled in her marked hand. Terror for Katenka.
She breathed out on a count of eight, willing her voice to sound calm and reasonable. “Ifrah,” she said, holding the maiden’s gaze. “This is important. I have to know what these consequences are, for healing the waste. What happens to —” she bit the sentence off when Ifrah simply shook her head again.
“It matters not my lady, truly, for you cannot have completed the ritual. As I said, whatever you think has happened —”
“I healed the Russian wolf princess.” Shocked hush descended. Emma looked from Ifrah to Ivan and back again. “She was dying of the wasting illness, and I accepted the pledge from her. She’d been sick her whole life —”
“I know,” Ifrah said in a shaky whisper. Her eyes were so wide now they looked like burning holes. “We know of the Russian royal wolves. The tsarina was doomed to die before her first initiation. She had never made the change.”
Emma nodded. “I hadn’t completed the ritual then, so it didn’t cure her, she still couldn’t change, but after…” Emma swallowed, closing her eyes against flashes of memory. “After it was done, she was healed. Whole. She’ll go on her first Hunt next winter.”
A handful of heartbeats passed in silence. Keti looked numb. Ifrah was shaking. The two blind twins had their faces turned toward each other, sightless eyes cast down, heads cocked as though listening. To each other? Emma guessed it was possible they were telepathic — she had no idea what they really were. Or what they were doing in the Brotherhood, but then, that was true of them all.
A wave of nausea moved through Emma just as her knees turned to jelly and she started to go down. Leah and Horne drew their weapons as Shadi and Fatima caught her arms; Shadi was big enough to go to one knee and hold her up against his body, and Fatima’s hands stayed on her, one hand finding the back of Emma’s neck, the other taking Emma’s right hand.
“Is she okay?” Leah’s voice was dark and almost masculine with her beast. Fatima made a noncommittal noise. The warrior priestess’s palms were cool, and the nausea disappeared, leaving Emma feeling uncomfortable in Shadi’s arms but too tired to do anything about it.
“I’m fine,” Emma managed to say, trying to move out of Shadi’s hold. Fatima took her hands away and then Fern was there, both hands held out to her. She took them and let him pull her to her feet, not at all minding when he kept tugging until she was against his chest and he could wrap his arms around her shoulders. She was so damn tired it felt like every muscle was vibrating with exhaustion, and all she wanted to do was scream at Ifrah and the others until they told her whether Katenka was going to be okay. If she could just get her damn breath…
Fern’s arms tightened just a touch, and then the shadow of his beast bloomed through the merge, sliding through Emma like glittering twilight. He lifted his head to look at Ifrah.
“You will answer our question,” he said in a voice Emma had never, ever heard him use before. She didn’t think he was even aware of the choice of words, referring to Emma as though he and she were one and the same — as though her question was his, because they were joined. And they were. They’d been merged for over four days now, and Emma doubted she could remember what was her own personality and what was his. Was it her fear or his that darkened his voice? Her anger?
She knew when she looked up at Ifrah and the maiden jerked back that her eyes had gone black with Fern’s beast. Fear and then realization dawned in Ifrah’s delicate face. She opened her mouth and then closed it again, before looking back at Keti, heart in her eyes.
“It could be,” she said softly, reaching out to him. His huge hands engulfed hers. “If the prophecy was wrong —”
Fern let his breath out on a hiss, and Ifrah swung back to face him. “I don’t know,” the maiden said. “What I mean is, no, there is no risk to the wolf princess. The consequences of which I spoke were…” she spread
her hands, looking cornered. “It is too much to explain. But your princess is safe. Please, just, my lady, I beg of you give us a moment.” Those small delicate hands grasped each other, entreating Emma, but Emma belonged fully to the merge, and her mind was a dark, still pool.
“Nothing’s going to happen to Katenka because I healed her?” Emma’s voice sounded too deep, but she was too tired to care.
It was Jonin who answered. “Not because you healed her, no. You have our word. Ifrah, come.”
The maiden flinched, turning her back on Emma and Fern. She went to the twins, Keti guarding her back, his gaze roving over Emma and Fern and the rest of her group. As the four of them moved back into the shadows on the other side of the cave, Fern stooped to grasp Emma behind the knees and swing her up into his arms.
“You need food and rest.” His mind was swirling with protective instincts, shadows banding across his face. His hands on her were almost as black as his eyes.
“So do you.” She let her head fall against his shoulder. “You’re grumpy.”
“We’re all a little grumpy, chica ,” Horne muttered as he and Leah fanned out a little, giving Red Sun room to stand beside Fern. Red’s dark brown eyes were on the four members of the Brotherhood where they’d retreated to the shadows, murmuring in whispers too low for even the shapechangers to catch, but Em could feel his attention fixed on her through the pledge bond.
The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04 Page 142