The jackal king shifted in his seat. Somebody behind Emma was sobbing. Emma heard her own breath heaving, but could do nothing to slow it.
Khai-Khaldun turned, leaning down from his throne to speak to one of the guards. “Examine Nathifa for wounds. She lives, but if Emma has won this fight unfairly, we need to know.” His gaze slid back to Emma, narrow, suspicious. But he didn’t really believe she’d fought unfairly. Emma could see it on his face; defeat. She’d bested him, and it was probably her first mistake of many.
The guard went to Nathifa’s side and turned her over. She was either dead or unconscious. Shapechangers healed fast, and bruises were fading, minor cuts and grazes no longer visible. Only one huge, black bruise was spreading like a stain across her chin and jaw and wasn’t going away.
The jackal guard ran his hands over her, stopping to turn her head from side to side, hands pausing on the slender column of her throat. He said something rapid in Egyptian. Khai-Khaldun’s jaw worked, a muscle twitching in his cheek.
He stood. “Nathifa lives,” he said, voice dangerously deep, “And the fight has been won with no major wounds or lethal blows.” His eyes found Emma, expressionless. “Caller of the blood, you are victorious. You have two nights in our kingdom to consider prince Kahotep’s pledge.” Emma felt relief flood through her, but it wasn’t her own.
She stole a glance at Kahotep. His face was beautiful and blank, and when he looked at her, a faint smile touched his mouth, but his eyes were wide and glassy. Emma wasn’t sure who scared her the most.
Wait — yes she was. The jackal king came down the steps of the dais, moving closer to Emma than he had yet been. He loomed, firelight reflecting off the perfect mocha of his skin, turning his eyes into blind golden disks. Emma did not cower, but only because she didn’t have the strength to move.
He spread his arms wide. “Everyone in my kingdom has gathered to celebrate your presence.” His tone made Emma’s gut clench; menace, a promise of retaliation. “This night you and your company will lodge in our camp, to better enjoy the hospitality of my people. Tomorrow, for your own safety, you will lodge in my sanctuary.” He lifted his head to look beyond Emma, and Emma felt the impact of his eyes as they fixed on Telly’s, felt Telly’s beast swirl to the surface in response. So close, immediate, the bristle of fur as though it lay only a breath away from his skin.
She felt its body stir as though it were her own, but the thoughts that came with it were like nothing she had ever encountered before: alien, unfathomable, a song in a language long since dead, whispered by a voice like sand running through fingers. Something in Telly rubbed up against Emma, something that was not the beast or the man or the form in between — something else. It turned toward her, reaching for her, searching her out with a gaze as old and black as the night sky; ancient, elemental, a mind that echoed with memories of a time when humans were a far-away dream, and the world belonged to the dark and the chaos of creation.
A mind that remembered every single moment ever since.
Emma’s mind jack-knifed out of the merge, and she passed out.
20
Somewhere in the blissful darkness, Emma heard Fern call her name. She ignored him.
He sounded desperate, panicked, upset, and it made her heart ache, but she would not come back — not when she knew what awaited her. A dislocated shoulder, concussion, bruises, probably a cracked rib or several, not to mention split lips, black eyes, and some frightfully bad hair. Nope. No way. It was sleepy-time.
I heard that! You’re awake, Emma, you have to wake up and open your eyes and get —
Damn it.
Emma do NOT go back to sleep, please don’t, you could die, you mightn’t wake up, open your eyes Emma OPEN YOUR —
She opened her eyes, consciousness swimming up, and pain hit her like a truck, so tremendous she couldn’t even scream. She was on her back in the sand, surrounded by people. Fern hunched over her, thick chunks of spiky black hair falling down over his brow, slim face completely transformed into a grim, slashing mask of fear and relief and fury. Emma blinked, glancing away, unable to stand the grief in his black eyes, the grief that said “near-miss” all too plainly.
The jaguar guards loomed. Felani crawled between their legs, huge dark eyes finding Emma’s face. She sobbed.
“You look terrible!” Her little hands hovered over Emma like butterflies.
“Thanks,” Emma croaked.
“She is exaggerating,” said Horne, hunkering down beside her and placing two fingers against her neck. “You do not look terrible. You look as though you’ve been run over by a stampede of elephants, but you do not look terrible.” He flashed her a tight smile and stood, and Emma had to close her eyes; watching him shoot up like that made her dizzy.
“Don’t close your eyes!” Felani grabbed Emma’s wrist and shook.
Her eyes popped open again. “I’m not —” Emma coughed, sand grating against the back of her throat. “I’m not going back to sleep.” She tried to do a mental inventory of her injuries. Her face and jawbone hurt — a solid, pulsating wall of pain encompassing her chin and one side of her face. Her sternum felt like she’d been hit with a baseball bat. Every time she took a deep breath, her chest felt tight and stiff, tiny needles stabbing into her lungs. The rest of her body hurt, but she couldn’t pinpoint anything else.
“Why can’t I feel my shoulder?” Or her left wrist, for that matter.
I’m blocking some of the pain. I can’t block everything; the shoulder and the arm are the worst. Fern gazed down at her, brows furrowed so hard it looked painful, heart in his black eyes. The jackals are bringing their healer. You’ll be fine. He smiled at her, but his mind didn’t echo it.
“Let’s clear some fuckin’ room here, okay?” Red Sun’s voice boomed out a second before his large head came into view. He peered down at Emma. “Healer’s here,” he grunted, and pushed Felani out of the way so he could crouch by Emma and sweep her into a sitting position with his one thick arm. The man’s bicep had to be almost as big around as Emma’s thigh — and her thighs were not small. He cushioned her body with the solid wall of his, dwarfing her, wrapping her in his scent — pine forest, warm leather, that faint clove scent. He smelled like autumn.
He kept his touch neutral but heat flooded her body, a perfectly natural and very embarrassing heat. She groaned inwardly. Fern snorted a laugh before he could help himself.
I’m injured. This isn’t funny.
Fern’s eyes danced. It is a little funny.
Before Emma could reply, a small woman elbowed her way into the circle formed by the jaguar guards and stopped a couple of feet away from her. She was wrapped in so many robes her head barely peeked through the top of them, with so much thick wavy hair her face was lost in it. Pale hazel eyes with an astonishing ring of black around the iris pinned Emma. The woman frowned shrewdly, deep brown face dissolving into creases. She sank to the ground at Emma’s side.
“My name is Olufemi.” Her English was heavily accented, and she sounded younger than she looked. She took Emma’s left hand, drawing it into her lap, fingers probing gently up her arm. They hovered over Emma’s left shoulder.
Olufemi looked back toward where Khai-Khaldun sat on his throne, watching the proceedings as though they were a great source of entertainment. Her leathery little face became pinched, hazel eyes narrowing. She barked something harsh at him in Egyptian, tone laced with scorn. He didn’t react.
The healer turned to Fern. “Let go of her. It is harder to heal with you in her mind.”
“I’m blocking the pain,” Fern whispered. The healer’s expression didn’t change.
“Let go.”
Do it Fern. Emma nodded at him; she couldn’t fake a smile, knowing what was coming. Fern glanced up at Red Sun.
“I’ve got her,” Red said. His voice vibrated through Emma’s back, sending a delicious and horrifying shiver up her spine.
Fern laced his fingers with hers, and squeezed her hand as he dropp
ed the link between them.
Fire leapt into the twisted socket of Emma’s shoulder, flooded her brain, and she could only gasp in response, heels digging into the sand to anchor her against the tide.
Olufemi murmured something, leaning forward, dark hair tumbling down to hide her face. She bent so low over Emma’s body that her cloud of hair brushed Emma’s cheek, lips hovering above her shoulder joint, whispering in a lilting, sing-song tone that gave Emma the impression she was coaxing her shoulder to cooperate.
Without warning the healer wrenched the arm back into place. The fire in the joint subsided, leaving behind a solid ache. Olufemi’s hand lingered, soothing warmth rolling out of her touch, until the hard ache was just a dull throb. Olufemi smoothed her hand down the arm, that same warmth spreading to repair the bruising to Emma’s forearm and wrist from blocking Nathifa’s blows.
Her hands moved to Emma’s sternum, and the healer pressed three fingertips into the bruised bone, warmth spilling out like liquid and seeping beneath Emma’s skin. Emma watched with wide eyes, trying to take it all in stride. She looked at Fern. Can many shapechangers heal like this?
He shrugged. It’s not common. She seems ancient; she’s probably dedicated hundreds of years to the practice, and would have been born gifted to begin with. This kind of healing doesn’t come easy. There were images in his mind — people, shapechangers, who had all been healers. Healers who had been cherished by their kingdom or tribe, some who were kept as prisoners, others who had died trying to save people, died too early to ever become as brilliant as Olufemi was. Emma studied the small woman and wondered which category she fell into: treasure or captive.
Emma flinched when Olufemi raised a hand to her face. “Your face is black and swollen,” said the healer patiently. “Allow me to repair it.”
Emma nodded, suddenly thankful that she would never get to see just how hideous she looked. The healer placed a hand either side of Emma’s face, and Emma fought to stay conscious — it was not that it hurt, but that Olufemi’s touch was soothing to the point of sedation, and with the constant heat of Red’s chest at her back, she was ready to pass out all over again. Add drooling to the mental image of how terrible she looked right now.
You look fine. Fern grinned at her. Maybe in need of a shower and a change of clothes, though. Emma looked down at her body and winced. Her tank top was gray and brown with dust, streaked with sweat, and her jeans hadn’t fared much better. Every inch of bare skin was covered in a muddy layer of combined sweat and dirt, and sand caked her knees, feet, hands and elbows. She could only imagine the horror that was her hair.
“Ew,” she said, voice harsh and throaty. “I think a shower is going to be hard to find around here.”
Olufemi took her hands from Emma’s face and folded them in her lap. “You will be able to bathe.” The healer narrowed her eyes. “You will not, I suspect, be able to rest as you should though.” She craned her head around, turning her shrewd gaze up to the guards who loomed over them. “She must retire at a reasonable hour. Her wounds are healed, but her body is taxed by them all the same.” She looked again at Emma. “No doubt you will be called upon to take part in the night’s festivities, but no more than an hour or two, do you understand?”
Emma laughed. “You don’t need to convince me.” She tried to sit forward, put some distance between herself and the hard wall of hotness at her back. Now that she felt better, Red Sun’s presence was making her all kinds of uncomfortable.
“No, you don’t.” Red’s strong left arm captured her against his side, dragging her up his body, and before she even knew what he was doing he was snaking his arm beneath her backside and she was lifted into the air with no choice but to hook her legs around his waist. She ended up cradled against his hip like a baby, reminded that shapechangers had no manners when it came to personal space.
She was all of a sudden above everyone. She blinked, confronted with the harsh and worried faces of the jaguar guards, the maidens, Telly and Fern — and beyond them, the king and the prince, and Tarik — seething fury lighting his face — the jackal army, and the silent crowd. But the crowd was not silent for long.
A roar went up when they caught sight of her. Drums began a fast, rolling beat, and the jackal guards shifted, nervous, hands tightening on their weapons.
Khai-Khaldun stood, tall on the dais. His voice boomed out, pitched to reach the farthest edges of the throng. “The caller of the blood has fought and won, a spectacle worthy of tonight’s celebrations! The Eye triumphs against her foes!” The roar of the crowd swelled, but the king’s voice carried above it. “She may now walk among you all.”
Music erupted, shouts, cheers, as the people scattered. Dancing broke out, beautiful women and men with dark skin whirling and leaping, the crowd a blur of rich colors and glittering jewels and fire, fire everywhere. Emma’s vision swam.
“Red,” she said, refusing to look at him as he turned slightly, putting his scarred face close to hers, tempting her to reach out and trace those hard planes. “Get me to that bath. Like, now.”
He obliged her.
21
At Red Sun’s command, one of the jackal guards led them on a winding path through the village of billowing white tents, passing clearings filled with people dancing, juggling, fire-breathing, playing boisterous music and eating and drinking.
The illusion of picturesque perfection, a beautiful and exotic night festival, was almost flawless — but animal shapes darted through the shadows between tents, glimpsed throughout the seas of people, too many furtive and purposeful shapes with firelight reflecting too much golden intelligence in their eyes.
The distance was short, but it nonetheless turned their journey into a procession. People whooped and clapped as Emma and her entourage passed, but none of them accosted her, all keeping their distance. Whether it was out of respect or because they were just gathered at the jackal king’s sanctuary for the revelry, Emma didn’t much care, and she cared even less by the time they entered the huge, many-roomed pavilion tent that sprawled like a silken temple on the edge of the village, close to the long grasses and wilder-looking palms that stretched out into the rolling slope of the valley oasis.
There was a small, rudimentary permanent dwelling located close by their extensive camp, where there was a surprisingly clean toilet — Emma couldn’t help but think of it as a “privy,” since it seemed like something you might have found in a Victorian-era home — and a huge hearth with a cast-iron cauldron for heating bath water. The bath water had to carried from the small dwelling to the pavilion tent, where the jackals had seen fit to appoint a bathroom chamber with a round, claw-footed tub. When Emma asked why they couldn’t just move the bath back to the hut and save everyone having to carry water, Horne just shook his head. Fern explained for her: the hut was dangerous, because they could be trapped in it in the event of a stealth attack.
The bath was not hot, but warm enough to dislodge the dirt and sweat, and Emma felt a brief pang of guilt for using it first. She was by far the filthiest of their group — nobody else had been called upon to wrestle a jackal warrior in the sand — and the water was useless once she climbed out. If anyone else wanted a bath, they had to do the whole thing over again. She really wished they could’ve left the tub at the hut.
She wrapped a towel around her stiff, aching body and leaned over the tub, squeezing water out of her hair. It was past her shoulders now, and she needed a haircut, but since she’d practically been under house arrest at the ranch, she’d had to go without. She had a feeling Felani wasn’t going to let her cut her hair anyway — the maiden already thought Emma was too boyish.
Perhaps just to be cruel, the jackals had supplied Emma’s tent-bathroom with a mirror. The bruises on her jaw and chin were mere shadows, thanks to Olufemi, but the healer had not been able to do anything about the dark circles underneath Emma’s eyes, or the hollow look of her cheeks — nope, that was all jet-lag and sheer terror-driven exhaustion. Her lips were a
little swollen, too, maybe from a stray slap during the fight, or perhaps from having her face smashed into the ground.
She scrubbed at her dark eyes, blinking hard at herself. She was not about to fall over. She could do this. She survived Nathifa. People were depending on her, and they all had a hell of a lot further to go before they could turn for home.
She shook herself and reached down to unzip her backpack, but she barely got her hand inside before the curtain flapped and Felani darted inside. Emma froze, dread grabbing hold of her heart.
“That better not be what I think it is,” she said.
Felani, defiant, held up the slim garment-bag and flashed molten eyes at Emma. “You must be dressed appropriately, Emma.” Her tone was brittle and slightly panicked. Emma sighed.
“Fine.” She held out her hand. Felani’s eyes widened to comic proportions. “Whatever it is, let’s put it on me. I don’t care anymore.” The sooner they got this whole mingling thing over with, the sooner she could go to bed and worry about everyone’s lives in the morning. Or afternoon. Or whenever she managed to resurrect herself.
Felani looked uncertain, eying her armful of clothing and eying Emma as though both were suspect. She seemed to gather herself and paint a humble expression onto her haughty features. “It is not a tasteless garment.” She approached Emma’s bag. “But it will need the right underwear. Unless you prefer to go without,” the maiden added over her shoulder with a gleam in her eye.
“Felani,” Emma said flatly, “I’m shocked that you of all people would suggest such a thing.” She took the undergarments Felani held out to her. Seamless microfiber underwear and a convertible bra with halter straps — both in black. Plain and comfortable, but fashionable, and they went with almost anything.
Felani turned away, and Emma slipped into her underwear. “Okay, hit me with this dress,” Emma said. Felani faced her, and from her hands cascaded an impossibly beautiful swathe of silky fabric that looked like midnight and moonlight woven into something you could wear. Charcoal grays and blues bled to inky black and shadowy purple; the sheath hit the ground in a spill of layers, but was designed to hug the hips and waist before exposing a mile of cleavage and linking behind the neck in a slender halter strap.
The Jackal Prince (Caller of the Blood - Book 2) Page 17