The Jackal Prince (Caller of the Blood - Book 2)

by McIlwraith, Anna

  You’ve never ridden a horse before, she finally sent.

  Nope, said Fern, totally unworried at having his mind probed by her. But you have.

  Emma’s mind balked. A long time ago. She’d grown up on a horse farm — her parents bred American Quarter-Horses — but lost it all in one of the worst forest fires of that decade. The blaze took the horses and her parents.

  She was eleven, and visiting with her Aunt Chase in Oregon when it happened. She’d spent the next seven years under Aunt Chase’s care; the first three went by in a fog of shame and guilt that she hadn’t died with them, then came anger that they’d been too stupid not to flee to safety, but by the time she was eighteen she’d managed to accept it. After all, she’d loved the horses, too. The difference was she had been a child — her parents had been adults, and they didn’t just love the horses, but were responsible for them. It was still a stupid death, but Emma couldn’t say she would have done anything different in their shoes.

  Fern sent her a warm wave of comfort, but thankfully didn’t say what he wanted to say. She hated it when he apologized for things that weren’t his fault.

  She rounded the front of the house and stopped. The maidens were unloading Anton’s truck — all of the maidens, all thirteen of them. The front porch was piled with boxes and the maidens were still going — how much stuff had Telly managed to cram in?

  One of the petite golden-skinned women saw her and waved her over. Emma approached reluctantly; she couldn’t remember the maiden’s name. She hated that. It was Tikki, or Talia, or something. But “something” wasn’t good enough.

  “Caller of the Blood,” the maiden said in greeting with a long, gracious blink of her copper-fringed eyes.

  “I wish you wouldn’t call me that.” Emma hated the title. Not the least of which because she didn’t even know what it meant. Not exactly. And what she did know, she didn’t like. Being able to call forth the essence of a shapechanger’s life force was not the super-power Emma would have voted for, if given the choice. But she hadn’t been given a choice. It was a fate thing, or so everybody kept telling her.

  The maiden cocked her head, regarding Emma with a puzzled, smoke-colored gaze. “It is nothing to be ashamed of, my lady.”

  Emma sighed. “I’m not ashamed.” She was afraid; there was a difference. “And ‘my lady’ is just as bad. Can’t you stick to Emma?”

  The maiden shrugged, an awkward movement. The maidens weren’t the most human-looking breed of shapechanger. “Very well, Emma. You have many possessions.” The maiden padded back toward the truck and Emma followed. “We are putting them all in the living room, so that you can decide where to put everything later.”

  Emma just nodded. She had no intention of unpacking anything, so deciding where to put it all would mostly involve piling all those boxes behind a couch in the living room. The only reason her stuff was here at all was because she’d had to give her apartment up. To say it stung was a vast understatement. She wasn’t the only one who had to make sacrifices — Ricky had quit his job at the restaurant, too, but didn’t seem unhappy about it.

  Emma eyed the maiden, watching as more stuff came off the bed of the truck. The maiden looked perplexed.

  “You guys don’t have anything of your own, do you?” Emma asked. “I mean, other than the clothes you’ve bought since we came here.”

  The maiden looked up at her. Blinked. Twice. “No. Everything we had at our disposal whilst in the service of the jaguar king was inherited. I suppose it was ours, but we cared for none of it.”

  Emma could understand that. She didn’t much care for anything the jaguar king could offer her.

  “Almost ready to go?” Telly called out. He and Felani were coming across the lawn with Andres at their back.

  Telly had put a shirt on, but it was obviously too much effort to have buttoned it up. The white made his skin look darker, smoother. Didn’t any of these men ever wear anything that might make them look unattractive? It was a question still plaguing Emma.

  Felani had changed into a more normal-looking pair of denim cut-offs, and one of Emma’s older, smaller black tank tops. Emma had given it to the maiden when they first arrived at the ranch, before the maidens had gone shopping for themselves. Felani had knotted the bottom of it so that it sat just below her breasts, and she wore it lop-sided because the straps were too wide for her. Big, black sunglasses hid her incredible eyes.

  Emma looked down at her own running shorts, beat-up Chucks and threadbare Def Leppard t-shirt, and wished she were someone else. Or at least wished she’d changed out of her usual workout gear. Which, admittedly, only would’ve swapped the running shorts for ripped black jeans, but still.

  The maiden next to Emma called back over her shoulder. “Last boxes coming off now. We’ll put them inside when you’re gone.” She headed over to the truck to help the others with the last of it.

  Felani stepped up to Emma’s side. “Tarissa,” she said quietly. Emma looked down at her. “Her name.” Felani gave a tiny nudge of her chin in the direction of the maiden Emma had been talking to.

  “Okay,” called Tarissa. “All yours.”

  Emma went to get in the truck, only to have Andres step into her path. “Sorry, I gotta take shotgun.”

  “Why,” Emma snorted. “Were you deprived as a child or something?”

  Telly walked around to get to the driver’s side and stopped behind Emma, putting a hand at the small of her back. The center of her right palm tingled in response, along with the skin all the way up her spine. “He’s doing his job, Emma. Being your bodyguard.”

  “Oh.” Her cheeks were going red, she could feel it, but it wasn’t from embarrassment. “Sorry Andres.” Andres half-smiled at her, gave Telly a cooler look, and wedged himself into the front seat alongside Felani.

  Telly came around to face Emma, brows knit. She swallowed.

  “The mark’s been acting up more,” she said, answering the question in his sky-blue eyes.

  He nodded absently. “But you haven’t been knocking anybody off their feet by accident, have you?”

  “No. Not even in training sessions. It’s dead when I train.” She looked down at her right hand. Maybe she should have thought of wrapping it before rushing off to town. The black scorch mark covered most of her palm, its starburst points reaching down toward the heel of her hand and out toward her fingers, resembling a tattoo. But not many people had solid black palm tattoos, so it kinda made her stand out.

  Telly answered the note of anxiety in her voice. “That’s only because you don’t feel threatened during training, Em. Anton would never hurt you, and you know it, even if he does intimidate you.” He shrugged. “So the mark doesn’t flare up. It doesn’t mean you can’t fight.”

  Damn it. Was she that transparent to everybody?

  Telly grinned. “Not everybody.”

  She gave Telly a little shove. “I hate it when you do that.” He just laughed and headed for the driver’s side.

  Emma opened the door to the back and almost had a heart-attack when a jaguar the size of a small motorbike leapt past her and into the passenger seat. Emma clung to the door, letting the adrenaline ride her for a moment.

  “Damn, Ricky,” she said shakily. Ricky’s jaguar was big enough that he had to hold his head down, huge shoulder-blades brushing the ceiling. He blinked solid amber eyes at her and yawned, whiskers fanning.

  “I suppose you think you’re funny.” She climbed in next to him and pushed his broad head out of the way so she could buckle up. “Stop head-butting me, I can’t get the thingie in. Why did you change, anyway?”

  Telly turned the key in the ignition, eliciting a belching cough from the pickup truck. “He’s our teeth and claws, since it would be too conspicuous for one of us to change out in the open if anything happened. Of course,” Telly gunned the engine and it finally grumbled amicably for him, “We all know the truth is he just wants to hang his head out the window along the highway.”

  Ric
ky coughed. Affirmative. Emma smiled, relaxing just a fraction — the fact that Telly had brought Ricky along as their furry backup plan told her Telly expected zero threat on this trip.

  Telly turned the truck around in the front yard and headed down the long, pine-flanked driveway that led eventually to the highway. Emma braced against a tiny thrill of excitement — and fear.

  This was the first time she’d been off the ranch since they arrived just over three weeks ago.

  “Pretty conspicuous having a three-hundred pound jaguar in the truck,” Emma said, buffing Ricky between his half-closed eyes.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Telly said, meeting her eyes in the rear view mirror. “So long as nobody sees anybody change. Besides,” his voice lost a little warmth. “Nothing’s gonna happen.”

  Andres shifted in the front seat, looking across Felani at Telly. “Does that mean you found the enemy?” The tone in his deep voice was all bodyguard.

  Telly didn’t smile. “Yes and no. The aneshtevannir have fled. I found their traces — houses up for sale, shell companies handling it all — but their real location’s gonna need a lot more research. Manpower. Firepower.”

  Andres nodded. Emma leaned forward, one arm around Ricky’s thick jaguar neck. “Can’t you just call them vampires? It’s a lot easier to pronounce for someone who can’t roll their r’s.”

  All three in the front seat answered in unison: “They’re not vampires.”

  Emma flopped back against the seat. “Close enough.” Ricky laid his head in her lap, and she scratched between his ears. “Ouch! No claws, Ricky.” She pried a claw out of her knee and gave him a stern look. He twitched his whiskers at her, closed his eyes.

  Telly took the turn out of the drive too fast; Ricky’s claws sank in even further. Emma stifled a squeal. Telly seemed not to notice.

  “I think they’ll be regrouping after the fight at the Roadhouse. They’re vicious, but they’ll wait, and think, and plan. After how badly it went for them, they won’t take a risk like that again. Not since it nearly killed Alan.”

  Alan was Emma’s ex-boyfriend — and, she had recently discovered, alpha male of a tribe of aneshtevannir — soul-eaters — the ancient race that apparently inspired the vampire legend. Something she hadn’t known when they were dating.

  “You didn’t have time to check out the Vegas stuff I told you about?” Emma had known of a couple of properties Alan owned. The Vegas place was the only other location she’d known for sure.

  “Yeah I did,” said Telly. “That’s up for sale too, but just like the others, it can’t be traced past a certain point. We need a bigger team if we’re gonna investigate it.” He met Emma’s eyes in the rear view mirror. “I don’t think we’ll find them. Alan doesn’t want to be found, and who knows how many centuries he’s had to get good at hiding.”

  Great. That was just great.

  4

  The town of Black Pine was small, but busy with tourists and families finishing up their Fourth of July weekend vacations. With all the out-of-towners, Emma and her entourage didn’t stick out too much. Ricky couldn’t exactly blend, so he lay down along the backseat of the truck and they parked in the shade so he wouldn’t get too hot and left a window all the way down — not just for air, but for an exit, in the unlikely event he was needed as backup. A bit of mental cloaking from Telly ensured nobody would peek into the truck and see a jaguar taking up the entire backseat.

  Felani went ahead, padding silently up the steps of the general store on bare feet. Telly followed her, bare toes poking out from the cuffs of his loose-fitting jeans. Emma was pretty sure that of everyone on the ranch, only she and the guards actually wore shoes.

  Andres gestured for Emma to go ahead of him; everyone was acting normal, but they were still on edge. Hell, she was on edge — so edgy she’d forgotten her stupid purse.

  Once they were inside the big store Emma caught up to Felani, hating what she was about to say. “Felani…” The maiden looked up at her. Andres stopped a few paces behind them. Emma cleared her throat. “Could I grab some things and put it with the house stuff? I’ll pay you back when we get home, I just —”

  Felani tutted at her. “You know the jaguar king’s money is yours.”

  Ugh. “I know. But I want to use my own.” At least until she ran out of her own. She had decent savings, a lot more than most people her age struggling with rent and bills and debt, but it wouldn’t last forever. Not with her student loan repayments coming out of it. It was something Emma tried her best not to think about — multiple times a day. Every day.

  Felani shrugged and sauntered over to the front counter, where Telly was waiting for her with a young, ruddy-faced clerk giving him the eye. As soon as the clerk saw Felani coming, the expression on his face turned to sheer hormonal terror. The accompanying shade of beetroot was very flattering. Emma smothered a laugh and headed down the aisles, not really intending to buy anything — everything she needed she bought online, and one of the men picked it up from the postal office — it was simply a pleasure just to walk around and look at stuff in real life.

  She ended up buying four blocks of chocolate, two hard-cover blank writing journals, and a packet of pens.

  Felani paid with one of the credit cards that the guards had originally presented to Emma — she’d promptly given them all to the leader of the maidens, resisting the urge to cut them up instead. It wouldn’t have been fair; the maidens deserved the king’s wealth, even if Emma thought it stank.

  “I’ll just get you a trolley,” the clerk mumbled in Felani’s vague direction.

  “No need,” said Felani, her rich voice evidently going through the clerk like an electric shock. And then she crouched in front of a stack of sacks — flour, sugar, and rice — and lifted them in her arms, oblivious to the clerk’s jaw hitting the counter. Together, the stack had to weigh at least ninety pounds.

  Telly’s eyebrows rose, and then he shrugged at Emma, picked up a crate of milk cartons in each hand, and followed the maiden out the door.

  Emma turned to the clerk. “They work out,” she said. “A lot.” Feeling like the weeks of physical training had all been for nothing, she grabbed a box that held about ten dozen eggs, put her stuff on the top, and headed for the truck, Andres’s heavy footsteps a few paces behind her.

  They emerged onto the shaded front stoop only to find Felani arguing with a tall, dark-haired, rough-looking man. Adrenalin fizzed through Emma until she realized what was obvious; he was human. A step closer and she changed her estimation of the guy; rough, but nice. Attractive under the stubble and the dirty work clothes.

  “Fel-” Emma stopped herself from saying the maiden’s name, amazed that she’d even had the presence of mind for that much caution. “Everything okay here?”

  The man looked up, glanced briefly at Andres before turning his attention to Emma, and managed to keep his frown and smile at the same time. Felani’s expression was a lot darker. “He’s trying to steal our groceries!”

  “Lady, I am not.” The man’s voice was deep and gravelly, and his gray-green eyes went back to Felani, but the smile stayed put. “I just wanted to help, okay?” Felani’s face said it was not okay at all. The man shook his head. “Just tryin to be friendly. I haven’t seen you in town before, that’s all. You looked like you could use a hand.” He eyed the sacks in Felani’s arms, looking like he was afraid she’d drop them and bury herself.

  Felani sniffed, nostrils flaring, and her over-sized sunglasses started to slide down the bridge of her pert nose. “I didn’t look like I needed a hand,” she said hotly. “You thought I needed a hand because I’m —” That was when her sunglasses tumbled off and clattered to the wooden stoop. Emma lunged for them but couldn’t spare a hand to catch them, and the rough-looking man crouched to pick them up.

  “Here — uh — here.” He held them up between himself and Felani, forgotten. Her molten eyes blazed at him like setting suns, daring him to say something. He stared, swallowing audibly, h
eat rising in his cheeks. Emma noticed there was gray in his stubble, but none in his hair — yet.

  Felani snatched the sunglasses up and walked away from him.

  He looked at Emma, and his eyes were a little glassy.

  She shrugged at him. “She’s stronger than she looks.” He stared at her. She set the box of eggs down and stuck out her hand. “I’m…Amelia,” she lied at the last minute, when Andres poked her in the back. She wasn’t even sure why she felt the need to introduce herself. Maybe because he was the first human she’d spoken to in over three weeks, since she’d had to call Aunt Chase.

  He recovered and took her hand, his grip warm and hard. His fingers were thick and there was dirt under the nails, but his palms were dry.

  He offered her the smile without the frown, and it blew her away a little. “Zachariah Matheson,” he said, thankfully giving too much eye contact to notice the mark on her hand. “I run Matheson mechanics, down the road. So,” he cocked an eyebrow at Andres, then turned it on Emma. “What do you do? What brings you to Black Pine?”

  Andres poked her in the back again. “Um, uh…” Emma stammered, while Zachariah’s eyebrows rose even further. “I’m a vet. I’m volunteering, for a friend. At her wildlife refuge. It’s pretty far from here actually.” She swallowed, fighting to look calm even if she sounded nuts. “I’ll be leaving soon.”

  “Uh-huh,” Zachariah said real slow.

  Emma nodded and gave him a sunny smile, inwardly cursing herself.

  “That your truck out there?” Zachariah gestured over his shoulder; Telly was strapping down the supplies, shooting Emma some serious side-eye, with Felani at his side giving Zachariah Matheson the same look.

  “Yeah. I mean, not mine, but I’m with them.” Emma watched Telly start back toward the general store steps, and gave Zachariah an apologetic smile. “I better get this stuff in, but it was nice meeting you, Zachariah.”