He grinned and gave her a look she didn’t know what to make of. “I’m Telly.”
Emma gave him a dry stare. “Telly. Right. That short for something?”
The grin widened. “Aristoteles. Y’know, Aristotle.”
In front, Anton groaned faintly. Emma didn’t risk taking her eyes off Telly. “You got a last name?”
He blinked at her — and then threw his head back and laughed, and Emma’s cheeks flushed as she stifled the urge to laugh with him. He was mocking her, but the sound was joyous and masculine and infectious.
“He’s here to help,” said Anton, turning his head to catch Emma’s eye.
“Eyes on the road, for Gods’ sake!” Emma’s voice climbed embarrassingly high. Anton ignored her. A car horn blasted somewhere off to their right and Anton swung back around in his seat, twisting the wheel to avoid a car merging onto the freeway.
Emma turned her anger on mister blond and — well, Telly. Whatever. “If you’re here to help, then tell me what the hell is going on.” His laughter faded to a grin. “Why are these people hunting me?”
He slouched against the door of the truck, one elbow resting on the frame of the open window. Smug, relaxed. Wind ruffled his hair. He stared at her, blue-gray eyes steady and unnerving, wide mouth curved in a mocking smile. “It’s not my job to tell you what’s going on.”
Emma narrowed her eyes. “Not your job? You work for Anton, like a bodyguard or something?” She flicked her gaze down the length of his body and up again, and then wished she hadn’t. Telly’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes went cold, the blue dropping out and leaving only a gray like clouds on an overcast day. He put a hand on Bruce’s shoulder, scratched him absently. Fingernails thick, hands wide and rough. Bruce groaned and leaned into the touch. Little traitor, she thought again, suppressing an involuntary shiver.
Anton spoke up from the front seat. “I didn’t hire Telly.” He sounded nervous. He shook his head. “He’s right Emma, it’s my job to tell you. It should have been Ricky’s, but now it’s mine.”
Emma frowned. Ricky shifted in his seat. “Ricky, what does he mean?” She glared at the back of his head as a heavy feeling claimed her insides.
The answering silence was loaded.
She leaned forward. “Ricky…”
He flinched. Emma didn’t know who he was talking to when he said, low, “I didn’t know.”
Anton stifled a growl and turned to stare at his brother. His face was stormy. Ricky pointedly ignored him, crossed his arms and stared out the window.
“Those people following us, they’re the ones who attacked Ricky,” Emma said, trying to work some answers out of them. “What do they have to do with this?”
“I told you,” Ricky said, sounding tired. “They’re the king’s servants.”
“But you didn’t tell me why they were after you.” Emma paused. “After me.”
“That’s because I didn’t know,” said Ricky.
“Mother of God,” Anton murmured hotly. He turned to the road. “Emma.” Anton’s tone was reluctant and still tinged with something — anger maybe — directed at Ricky. “It doesn’t matter if you believe what I’m going to tell you, so long as you know that my people — Ricky’s people — believe it. So long as you know this is why the king wants you in his possession.” Emma leaned forward, anchoring herself on the edge of her seat, waiting for Anton to continue. He paused so long she thought he wasn’t going to, but then he took a deep breath and spoke again.
“For as long as the kingdom of the jaguar can remember, for as far back as the oral traditions stretch, and for as long as any other race of shapechangers can recall, there has been a prophecy.” Anton glanced at Emma, caught the expression on her face, and hurried on. “Every race has foretold of a human, a female, one who bridges the divide. One who is not of us, but meant for us. Meant to come when we have need — one who is human but whose power calls to us. A human woman destined to command the magic of all shapechanging races.”
Oh.
My.
God.
Emma laughed nervously. “Wow, okay, this is super awkward. If I’d known this was the reason you wanted us to come with you I’d never have said yes. This is some bugshit, delusional woo you got going here, Anton, so if you could just take the next exit —”
“Emma, I’m serious —”
“I have no doubt of that Anton, you and the rest of the Illuminati conspiracy fanboys.” She ignored Telly’s coughing fit. “Next exit please.”
“Emma. ” Anton’s snarl reverberated throughout the cabin. As every hair on Emma’s body stood to attention and the bottom of her stomach dropped out, she met his gaze in the rearview mirror. Unmistakable certainty in his hard green eyes.
“You seriously believe this. You think I’m your girl,” she said, shaking her head. “Why?”
Anton’s hands tightened and flexed on the steering wheel. “Twenty four years of psychic detective work, that’s why.”
“Psychic detective work,” Emma repeated slowly. “Errr…”
Anton made a frustrated sound. “Ricky, you explained to her about magic, right? Something? Don’t tell me she’s completely clueless.”
“Hey,” Emma started. Would have said more if Ricky hadn’t shot a guilty look at her over his shoulder.
“Mother of God,” Anton hissed. “All right look. The jaguar king’s people have powerful oracles. Psychics. So does every other tribe in every other part of the world; just luck, or coincidence, or fortune eventually led the jaguars to you first.” Anton shot a look at Ricky, but his words were still for Emma. “Your existence has been a puzzle our races have been trying to figure out since the moment you were born. My mother —” he glanced at Ricky. “Our mother, was an oracle for the jaguar kingdom until she defected when we were young boys.”
Emma sat back in her seat. She might have laughed again if she couldn’t sense Ricky’s tension and discomfort. Above all else, that told her this was not a joke.
She took a deep breath, steeled herself with a hand on Bruce’s flank. “Ricky?”
Ricky flinched. Slowly, he twisted around in his seat until he could look at her, his big hands gripping the edge of his seat, face half hidden by the headrest. His amber eyes were wary and fragile looking.
“Em,” he said in a very low voice, the tone you’d use to coax an angry dog. “It’s not…” He looked down. “I ran from them because I didn’t want to find you. That’s why I left, why I’ve been hiding from them ever since. I didn’t want to be part of it. Mother died. ” His voice cracked; he swallowed and was silent a moment before he went on. “I didn’t want to be responsible for taking somebody’s life away from them, just because of the goddamn prophecy. I ran away. And ran straight to you.” He gave Emma one last pleading, pained look, and then turned an angrier version of it on Anton. “Can’t you see why I convinced myself it really was just a coincidence, that my instinct was wrong, that she couldn’t be the one even though I felt it in my guts? What are the odds? What are the fucking odds on that?”
“It’s not about odds, Ricky,” said Telly. His voice was a shock; dry and quiet. One corner of his mouth twitched in a boyish half smile, but it made him look old as dirt. “It’s not about odds,” he said again, with a glance at Emma. “It’s about prophecy. Prophecy doesn’t dick around with coincidence.”
“Yeah, well it still took you eight years to find us,” said Ricky hotly. “To find me.”
“And we might never have found you at all, if the two of you hadn’t been together,” Anton snapped. The steering wheel creaked in his grip. “It was the two of you together that gave the king’s oracles the final fucking piece of the puzzle. And I only know that much because it’s all I could buy. Information from behind the king’s walls doesn’t come cheap.”
“I can’t believe this,” Emma said, mostly to give her mouth something to do while her brain tried to accept it and failed.
“You don’t have to, if it’s eas
ier for you,” said Anton. “I told you, all you have to know is we believe it, our people, and our people have been around a hell of a lot longer than yours. The prophecy I speak of is hundreds of thousands of years old. There have always been prophecies, but this one is common to us all, every race of shapechangers, every continent, every part of the world. This one has been with us since the dawn of our existence. It is irrefutable.”
Emma dug her fingernails into the vinyl of the seat. “Irrefutable’s a big word, Anton.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Telly look at her, but stayed focused on Anton. “So a bunch of psychics point their finger at me, and that’s it?” Silence. She tried again. “Whose side are you even on?”
Anton made a deep, frustrated sound low in his throat. “We’re not on their side. This is one thing my brother and I agreed on, before he left — we don’t want to see you delivered into the hands of our people. Not those who rule our people, anyway. Where our opinions differ is on the matter of how to keep you safe. Ricky here favors denial, whereas I’m more for accepting what can’t be changed and trying to fix what can.”
Emma narrowed her eyes at his reflection in the rearview, just to let him know the dig at Ricky hadn’t gone unnoticed, but she had to pick her fights. “And what can’t be changed?”
“I can’t change what they know. They know who you are, where you live. You can’t get away from them. Your life will never be the same. Nobody can change that, but I can try to deliver you into the hands of somebody who can protect you, who can make it easier. We can try.”
Ricky lifted his head abruptly. He looked terribly young for a moment, but very angry. “Bullshit.” He spat the word at Anton. “You’re just gonna throw her in a different kind of cage.” Breathing hard, Ricky looked like he was about to say more before he blinked and seemed to remember Emma was sitting right there in the backseat. His gaze slid to her as he went still. “Em, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean —”
“It’s okay.” Emma held his fraught amber eyes with her own. “You said what you meant to say.” She sounded perfectly reasonable to her own ears; good for her.
Anton flicked a glance at her over his shoulder. He sounded uncomfortable when he said, “It’s more complicated than that.”
Telly’s snort of laughter surprised Emma. She looked at him and found him staring out the window, wearing a tight expression that wasn’t a smile. It left his eyes as indifferent as the sky. His chest expanded with a deep breath, like he wanted to say something, but he only sighed.
The dog lay down with his head and chest in Emma’s lap, heavy and warm, and closed his mismatched eyes. But she wasn’t fooled; his ears flicked back and forth. Emma spared a glance for Anton. His jaw worked, his knuckles were white on the wheel.
She looked sideways at Telly. “Don’t you have an opinion?”
For a second he didn’t respond. Then he turned to her. He narrowed those blue eyes, cruel and unnerving. “You don’t want my opinion.”
Emma turned in her seat so she faced him and forced herself to meet his clear eyes dead on. Simply, she said, “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I want.”
His grin stayed in place for a second more, then slid from his face like a mask. For the first time, Emma realized he could be attractive. Oh, he was striking, and intimidating, and he had a body to die for — compact, hard like a dancer’s — but it was all too much, it almost hurt the eye. For a moment though, Emma saw without distraction the sweep of one high cheekbone to jawline to chin, and it made something in her chest kick.
Then he leaned forward and ruined it. Emma jumped. His eyes lit with a grim glint, a sheaf of hair fell over his brow like cut wheat and made Emma think of a predator peering through grass. But his voice was low and gentle.
“I don’t have an opinion on this,” he said. “I’m just along for the ride. But I can tell you it’s not a cage you’re headed for.” His voice dropped and he held her eyes. The cruel light in his gaze was sparkling and serious and deep. “It’s worse than that. Cages can be broken. To liberate you will take much more cunning.” He sat back, blinked slowly, and looked out the window once more. “In this, Anton is correct; it’s complicated.”
Emma clenched her jaw and prayed for her face to stay neutral, because any second now, what he’d just said would sink in. The seriousness in his eyes as he’d said it. The inescapable feeling inside, as she’d looked into his face, her heart telling her he was right, it was true, this was not a joke, this was shit getting real. Very real.
Anton made a pained sound. “You got a real way with the civilians, Telly.”
Telly snorted. “Baby, you know it’s true.”
Emma said, “Pull over.”
Anton and Ricky spoke in unison. “Emma —”
“Stop the car.” She reached to unclip her safety belt, found she wasn’t wearing it. “Do it now, Anton. Stop the fucking car or I’ll jump.”
Telly looked at her now. Anton held her eyes in the rear view mirror; she looked away, covered her face with her hands. “There’s no need for this,” Anton said. “We can talk —”
“I don’t want to talk about it, I want you to pull over, I want you to pull the fuck over and let me out.” Her voice got higher but it didn’t crack; something cold and quick and electric washed through her, and she knew it was fear, but she couldn’t stop it. “If you just fucking let me out I’ll be fine, we can talk about it then.” But she had no intention of talking about it, no idea what she was going to do, only knew she couldn’t handle it a moment longer — she was trapped and she needed to run and —
“This is my fault,” said Telly. Emma took her hands from her eyes and looked at him. One corner of his mouth turned down and he sighed, the blue of his eyes bleeding to gray. “Time to take a nap, honey.”
Emma heard Ricky cry out, and then the world went black.
6
Emma woke slowly, cushioned against a hard, warm chest, with her neck at a bad angle and her right ass cheek numb but somehow cramping at the same time.
She recognized Ricky’s scent. Sandalwood and citrus, the aftershave balm she’d bought him for Christmas, mingled with sweat and iodine and body-heated shirt fabric. Beneath it, the scent of dog overlaid with her own shampoo.
Then she realized two things: the truck was silent, save for the ticking of the cooling engine, and she desperately needed to pee. She opened her eyes, blinking against bright sunlight, peeled her tongue off the sandy roof of her mouth, trying to get some saliva happening — and found Telly in the front passenger seat, looking at her over his shoulder.
He and Ricky had swapped seats while she was out cold. Thank God for small mercies.
Ricky said, tentatively, “Hey there.” Bruce lifted his head from Ricky’s knee, ears cocked.
“We’ve stopped,” Emma said. Her voice cracked. She licked her lips, feeling more awake and unhappy with every second, and regarded Telly from the dubious position of being half cradled in Ricky’s lap. “Don’t ever. Fucking. Do that to me again.”
One sandy eyebrow came up. “Or what?”
Emma sighed. “I don’t know, Kevin Bacon. I don’t fucking know.”
Telly’s eyes went comically round and then narrowed in suspicion. “Who’s this Bacon guy?”
Emma felt Ricky stifle a snort of laughter, but she had no such luck — she cracked up.
Telly’s face sharpened and he wrenched his door open, stalking out across the parking lot towards a door marked RECEPTION at the far end of the L shaped building, blond hair bristling like a mane in the hot breeze, his deep tan gleaming in the sunlight. Long bare feet poked out of threadbare cuffs; his jeans were dirty but so faded they were almost white, and the seat of his jeans was so ripped they barely qualified as clothing, flashing generous glimpses of muscular, dusky flesh. That settled it: no way was he human. Only something of indeterminate supernatural origin could have a body like that.
Emma wiped tears from her eyes, feeling a million times better than when she’d
first woken up. “Where the hell are we?” she asked Ricky.
He shifted his weight away from her so she could sit up, and she had to catch her oversized t-shirt before it slid all the way off her shoulder and down to her elbow. She really wasn’t dressed for a road trip.
“We’re about sixty miles away from Phoenix,” said Ricky. “It’s a safe place, only the good guys know we’re here.”
“Good guys? Wait. Phoenix? How long was I — never mind.” Long enough. Good lord.
Ricky nodded and uncurled his arm from Emma’s shoulders. Bruce sat up, arched his shaggy neck in a stretch and whined faintly. “Anton’s contacts are supposed to meet us here and escort us somewhere we can rest up properly, sort this whole thing out,” said Ricky.
Yeah. Right.
Emma looked around, bladder complaining as she stretched. They were in the parking lot of an old budget chain motel, dusty and jaundiced, one of those places the world had forgotten. Off white stucco, brown rooftops and yellowing Yucca ferns flanking each end of the L, and the parking lot. A glance out at the road confirmed they were Nowhere In Particular.
There were only a couple of other cars in the parking lot. No curtains twitched in the windows of the tiny rooms as Anton unscrewed the plates of the truck and affixed the new ones he’d fished out of the lockbox in the truck’s tray.
Emma climbed out of the truck and breathed deep, trying not to freak out. She chaperoned Bruce as he did his business on a strip of dead yellow grass near the curb, Ricky by her side, Anton failing to be subtle about watching her as he worked on changing the truck’s plates.
Telly returned a few minutes later with a set of keys, and led them past a plain, sweaty motel clerk who didn’t even glance up from his laptop screen. Emma wasn’t surprised — she was rapidly losing the ability to be shocked — just faintly pleased they hadn’t walked in to find him slumped in his chair with eyes like saucers and a line of drool hanging from his lip. Whatever Telly had done, at least it hadn’t involved magically knocking out the clerk’s lights. Unlike what he’d done to her. She glared at the back of Telly’s head as he led them down the narrow motel corridor.
The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04 Page 6
