Leah stepped in close to Emma, her eyes gone yellow with the jaguar. “You mean to say Emma is capable of creating new vampires. And controlling them with something similar to the shapechanger bonds, but far more powerful?”
Emma’s panic crested as Summer nodded. Fern let her slide to her feet, but didn’t let her go — his arms stayed around her and his mind was wedged against hers, his pulse beating for her, steadying her as the world fell away beneath her. Her head pounded and all she could really feel was the merge; she suspected if she tried to focus on anything else, she’d lose her grip on her sanity and start screaming and not be able to stop.
“How do you know?” Fern said, looking from Summer to Ifrah and Keti. “How can you be so sure?”
As Ifrah began to shake her head, Summer uttered a sound that Emma had never before heard a living creature make and never wanted to again — a soft, keening growl of warning that dissolved into a series of insectile clicks that made Emma’s guts contract. Ifrah and Keti froze, and the rest of the maidens cringed down, eyes going black.
“You will tell them what you are able,” Summer said, voice deep and wavering with the force of her fury.
“Fine,” Keti spat. “What we are able.” He looked at Emma, surprising her with the sympathy and regret in his eyes. “We know because we have seen it. The last Caller of the Blood was… forced, into the ritual with an aneshtevanne male.”
Arima. Emma closed her eyes, opened them again when she’d fought back the tears. “What happened to her?”
“More to the point,” Red growled, “If completing the ritual that way is such a catastrophic event, why didn’t the world end? We’re all here, aren’t we?”
Ifrah made a small noise. “She was —”
“Killed,” Keti said harshly. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, couldn’t meet anyone’s gaze. “We tried to protect her, prevent the ritual.” His throat worked as he searched for words. “We were too late.”
Summer laughed with such derision and banked rage it could’ve peeled paint. Her face had gone long and alien, the bones too pronounced, and as she paced, her gaze stayed locked to Keti so she looked for all the world like a bird of prey marking its target. “Too late, yes, that’s certainly one way of putting it. Gods fucking damn us all.” Finally she managed to tear her gaze away and turned her back on them, stalking to one of the altars, shoulders hunched.
Into the silence, Emma took her first real breath in too long. “There was a male,” she said, flinching as all eyes went to her. “Someone who cared for her. He was some sort of feline shapechanger — when we found out the Brotherhood had something to do with the resident snow-leopard population, I assumed that’s what he was. Who was he?”
Ifrah sobbed, once, dry and abrupt — and then she backed away, shaking her head, eyes swimming with apology, before she turned and fled the chamber. The rest of the maidens rushed after her, only a couple casting quick glances back in Emma’s direction. Summer acted as though she’d ceased to hear anyone, and Keti’s stony expression had turned fragile as glass.
“How do you know of him?” Keti asked.
Emma ignored Red’s warning growl rumbling through their telepathic link. “I had a vision when I completed the ritual. Of her.” Emma stopped short of explaining it all — she couldn’t tell them how Arima and the cowled shapechanger male had dragged her into the river beneath the river, shielded her from the awful thing that was happening to her, and sent her back to the material plane with the knowledge that the ritual hadn’t bound her fully to Alan, so she could fight back.
But things were starting to make sense now. “Arima told me the ritual didn’t tie my power to Alan’s the way it was supposed to,” Emma said, feeling a little more solid on her feet. “I think because Seshua — the jaguar king,” she added at Keti’s frown — “He initiated the ritual, but we never went through with it. He ended up half bound to me. If completing the ritual with Alan was supposed to trigger this failsafe — but didn’t — then maybe that’s why. The power isn’t bound fully to anyone.” Emma’s pulse quickened. “Maybe that means there is no vampire wellspring. Maybe the fangs are just a glitch.”
Keti’s face softened a fraction with pity. Emma had to admit that last part sounded flimsy even to her ears. Then his gaze hardened. “What else did she say?”
Emma thought of the second vision, the dream she’d had as she slept beside Alexi, when it was all over. Both visions felt like private moments, sacred moments, but the second vision had also held joy, and Emma had no more wish to share that than she had her trauma. “She didn’t say anything else. She was just there.”
Keti grunted. Emma noticed Summer had her head slightly turned to them — not ignoring them as thoroughly as she feigned. “Who was he?” Emma asked again. “The male by her side. He must have been someone important to her when she was alive.”
After a long moment, Keti said quietly, “He was my brother. He died trying to protect her.”
“I’m sorry.”
He gave her a hard look. “It was seven thousand years ago. My grief has long since passed.”
The only polite response to a lie like that was silence, so Emma leaned back against Fern and looked at her boots. Her feet ached so badly she could no longer flex her toes, not without sending arcs of red-hot lightning shooting up her shins. Every inch of her body itched with dried sweat. Adrenaline had kept her hunger and thirst at bay, but she was coming down, and she was not in good shape.
“Come on,” Summer said, turning and giving a toss of her head, sending her thick hair cascading over her shoulder. “Ifrah’s sending food and drink and clean robes to the baths. We can continue this discussion later.” She headed for the far archway without another look.
I didn’t even feel her in my head, Emma sent to Fern, swallowing hard as panic washed over her.
Red Sun turned and held out his hand. Sometimes they really are just reading your face, he said mind to mind, his brown eyes shining gold in the firelight. Let’s go.
The baths were deep in the monastery, down a winding series of passageways, some of which looked natural and others that were clearly carved out of the mountain itself. There was a steady downhill slope to them, and in a few places, carved stone steps took them even farther down. Emma gave up trying to memorize each twist and turn; pretty much every other one of her people would be doing it, and doing a far better job than she could’ve hoped to. She was just glad she was making it there on her own two feet in spite of the throbbing pain. When Fern asked wordlessly if she wanted to be carried, she clenched her teeth and moved faster.
It turned out they weren’t baths, they were hot springs. A huge stone slab rolled aside as Summer flipped a steel lever as though it were a light switch, revealing soft, golden light and drifts of steam and delicious heat. A wide, sunken pool occupied half the chamber, water steaming and fizzing, and a smaller pool that didn’t seem to be heated lay almost hidden beneath a rock shelf. The steady murmur of water running over rock bounced off the walls; the domed ceiling of the chamber was festooned with stalactites and natural crystal formations, so that the light from the wall sconces threw myriad shadows and softened everything it touched.
It was beautiful, and Emma was not going in there with the vampire.
Thankfully Ifrah showed up before the argument could get interesting. The maiden looked tired and fragile, but she had an armful of towels and at least half the other maidens trailing behind her, and she barked at Summer in a language Emma didn’t recognize as she bustled past, expecting to be obeyed.
Summer said something in that strange language that made Ifrah turn sharply. Her eyes flared molten copper. She hissed a single unrecognizable word, then switched to English. “You will do as my lady wishes, Summer.” All trace of the fragile maiden was gone, humanity bleeding out of her face.
Summer looked from Ifrah to Emma and swallowed whatever she wanted to say next. “My lady,” she said instead, and then was just gone with a sigh
of displaced air.
Emma moved into the bath chamber, and then it was her turn to argue with her own people as everyone moved with her. She turned around and held her hands up. “I’m sorry guys, I cannot take a bath with you all in here. I’m happy to wait my turn outside and we can do it in shifts, but —”
“You’re going first,” Leah snapped. “Fatima and I will come in with you.” Fatima nodded and moved to Emma’s side. The jackal priestess looked perfect, as though she hadn’t spent the day and most of the night hiking and climbing and scrabbling over rocks. Leah looked much the same. Emma wondered why the hell being Caller of the Blood didn’t come with those perks.
How do you know it doesn’t? Red said in her mind, eyes crinkling in a smile as her gaze flew to his. You’re tired and projecting, he added. Get cleaned up so you can get some rest. And take Fern with you.
Fern tensed and took a breath to protest, not wanting her to be uncomfortable, but she grabbed his wrist before he could move. It’s okay, she sent. Don’t think I can handle you being on the other side of a wall right now.
He looked down at her with amusement in his black eyes, but also weariness. That’s never really worked out for us, has it?
Emma shook her head. With what we’ve been through before, I’m considering having us surgically attached just to be on the safe side. When we get home — damn it. All the laughter left her in an instant. There was no home to go to. They’d been focused on getting to the Brotherhood — and now they were here, where the hell did they go next?
Fern caught her fingers in his. We can’t think about that now. It can all wait until we’ve regrouped.
Emma nodded, took a deep breath. “Okay.” She watched as Red waved the others out and then followed — Horne, Shadi, Ivan — noted the way their eyes stayed on her until they were out of sight. Red’s parting grin was quick and feral, and somehow reassuring. It really was okay. They were her home. The others were still out there somewhere; Ricky, Anton, Felani and the rest of the maidens. Seshua and Alexi. Even if they weren’t with her, they were out there somewhere, and they were her home. It was a good thought. It helped to anchor her in the eerie, hushed strangeness of the monastery’s caves.
And it didn’t even hurt now, to remember that there was one person who was neither with her nor out there in the world somewhere, but likely just gone, gone from the world and never to return, walking between worlds and concerning himself with whatever gods like him did to pass the time.
Maybe he had forgotten her. Or forgotten time itself.
It didn’t matter now. Emma watched the massive slab of stone door roll back into place and let Fern catch her as her legs gave out again.
There were stone benches near the pool’s edge, and he carried her to one so she could sit while he undid her laces and slipped her boots and socks off. Her own fingers were red and swollen from cold and then heat exposure, and wouldn’t have been up to the task. Her feet felt like they’d been pounded with a mallet and looked — traitorous things — just fine. As Fern massaged some feeling back into them, the maidens brought water and broth in earthenware cups, and Emma was careful to sip slowly in spite of the urge to gulp everything down at once. There was a bad moment when nausea rose fast and hard, and she had to hold her mouth and breathe carefully to keep the liquids down, but it passed.
Red’s mental touch was gentle. You okay, flower?
I’m fine. Now get out of my head, I’m about to take a bath.
There was a curt mental huff from him. No need to be that way, little dragon.
Was he serious? Red, not again, I can’t handle another nickname —
Be good Em, I’m signing off.
Don’t sound so cheerful, you big —
Ivan and Shadi are going to go stash some of our gear and do a bit of recon, but Horne and I are still out here if you need us. Rub-a-dub, kiddo. With that he was gone, and Emma had to hide her face in her hair before Fern saw how bright her cheeks had turned. There was plenty of hair to hide in. It had unraveled from its braid finally, and clouded around her face and in the collar of her parka like bracken.
“If I didn’t think it’d all grow back overnight, I’d suggest shaving it off,” she said to Fern, yanking fistfuls of hair out from beneath her parka, which was not a great strategy. It was stuck in her zip.
“It doesn’t seem to have grown any longer though.” Fern grasped her hands to stop her from ripping anything and went to work on getting her parka off. “That’s a good thing.” Once she was free of the parka, Fern started combing her hair out with his fingers, but stilled when Ifrah approached.
“Here.” The maiden held out a brush. It looked like an antique, with big, stiff bristles, and it was effective. When Fern was done, Emma’s hair hung around her in a thick, wavy curtain that pooled on the ground behind the bench she sat on. Leah uttered a low whistle. Ifrah seemed disturbed and fascinated at the same time, her dark gaze darting from Emma’s face to her hair and back again, as though trying to find something — maybe the truth of what Emma was.
“It started growing like this a day or two before the fangs did,” Emma told Ifrah, sweeping it first behind one shoulder and then the other. It was heavy but almost springy, too, as though it had a life of its own. She frowned as Fern intentionally blanked his mind, and looked up at him. “Fern,” she warned.
He crouched in front of her, sighing, and handed the brush back to Ifrah. “Your hair was moving this morning, when we broke camp. Moving on its own.”
“It is just the magic,” Ifrah said.
“Just the magic. Right.”
“You should have a little more soup,” the maiden suggested gently. “Both of you. Then bathe.”
“Ah, I’ll wait until you’re done in there,” Fern told Emma, handing her the broth and reaching for his own cup. He paused with it halfway to his mouth when Ifrah cleared her throat.
“You are truly not mated then?”
Emma sputtered into her cup. Fern took a sip of his soup to cover his reaction. “No,” he said casually. “We’re not mated.”
Ifrah looked from Fern to Emma, delicate features pinched in a frown, a wary look in her eyes. “But you share the bond. You are merged.”
Emma put her cup down. “How do you know that?”
“I can see his aura.” Ifrah nodded at Fern. “Not yours,” she looked at Emma. “You are the Caller of the Blood, and your power hides in plain sight, so that you appear human, to me at least. But I read the Enam-Vesh in his energy signature. It is a bond reserved for mates, I know that much. That is why I thought you had completed the ritual with him.” Ifrah wrung her small hands together. “I thought, if you were mated, surely you would not have chosen another to go through it with.”
“Well that’s not how it turned out.” Emma stood, catching Fatima’s eye. “Will you help me get undressed and into the water please.” She hadn’t meant it to sound so clipped, like an order, but Fatima didn’t seem offended. She handed her semiautomatic off to Leah and crossed to Emma’s side.
As Fatima passed Ifrah, her eyes bled to yellow and her upper lip lifted in a silent snarl.
Fern looked Ifrah full in the face and spoke with the same calm, guileless honesty he always did. “I forced the bond on her because I thought having a tie to her would give my people power in the jaguar king’s court.”
Ifrah’s eyes widened. Before either one of them could say anything more, Emma cut in. “He didn’t do it of his own free will,” she said, shooting him a quelling look. “I have no regrets except for that. And besides, the merge is the only thing preventing Alan from linking with me telepathically, so —”
Ifrah made a strangled sound. “The merge is what ?”
Emma frowned at the maiden. “The merge is keeping me safe. When the ritual was complete, Alan was too badly injured to try to assume control of me via that bond.” She refrained from mentioning how Alexi had shielded her from Alan and helped her take the massive overflow of power from the bungled ritual. “A
few days ago, we realized he’s been trying to establish telepathic contact. My natural shields are stronger now and he couldn’t get through, but keeping him out was draining both me and Fern, and staying merged keeps him out without draining either of us.”
“I see.” Ifrah was pale. “The merge is all that keeps Alan from claiming you.”
“Alan will never claim me,” Emma said, voice flat. “Whether he manages to establish that telepathic link or not.”
Into the awkward silence that ensued, Fatima spoke. “I will come in with you, my lady,” she said, voice like honey. “You are still unsteady.”
With unhurried efficiency, Fatima kicked off her boots and stripped down to matching black boyleg shorts and sports bra. Even tired and on the edge of a temper tantrum, Emma could appreciate the compact muscularity of Fatima’s body — Emma herself had fought hard to gain muscle and strength in the gym the past five months, to cultivate even a fraction of the athleticism she was up against every time she faced one of the shapechangers. She didn’t build muscle easily; her boobs shrank readily enough with all the exercise, but it didn’t seem to result in bigger biceps. Also, Fatima’s skin was smooth and without scars, where Emma still bore the evidence of what had happened when Alan held her captive, along with the other scars.
She’d just have to suck it up though, because she was getting in that pool, inferiority complex or no. Fatima helped pull her hair free as she took off the sweat-crusted gray ribbed thermal, the tanktop underneath peeling away with it. Like Fatima, she left her underwear and sports bra on, although while Fatima was likely doing so for the sake of Emma’s human modesty, Emma was simply unwilling to be completely vulnerable in the water. Which was stupid, but true. When she was free of her pants, Fatima held out a hand, and Emma took it as the jackal priestess led the way down the shallow steps into the pool.
Utter. Bliss.
Hot water welcomed her, fizzing against her skin, the warmth penetrating her muscles right to her very bones and turning her to jelly. Emma let herself sink in up to her chin, sighing. It shouldn’t have been possible for anything to feel so good. She flexed her toes, finally working the cramps out of them, and ducked her head back to soak her hair and scalp. Fatima kept one hand on Emma’s shoulder, but the pool wasn’t deep near the edge, and the water supported Emma when her own muscles were shaky with fatigue.
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