The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  He kissed her so hard she couldn’t breathe, his mouth like hot, wet velvet, and when she thought she would drown he pulled away with one hand fisted in her hair and ate up the sight of her with his eyes, gaze lingering on her mouth. She sucked in a breath and tasted rain. Seshua’s gaze locked with hers, his eyes pure bottomless pools of blue, and she could think of nothing but his eyes — the taste of his lips — the heat of his smooth cobalt flesh against hers. Arousal twisted through her body, turned her limbs to jelly, speared with a physical pain through her core.

  She reached for his mouth and he held her back. She squirmed, growling low in her throat, and dragged her body up and down against his, skin on hot skin. He was so warm, so huge, so safe and alive and unbreakable, she wanted to roll in him and mark herself with him, make herself his —

  Why did she want that?

  “Hush, pequeña ,” Seshua murmured. “Soon.” He turned and walked them both towards the bed, his eyes never leaving hers. He lay her down, covering her body, enormous thighs straddling her and pinning her in place.

  She gasped as the heat of him fell across her, and it ceased to matter why she wanted anything. His thick black hair tumbled down around their faces like a curtain, beads sparkling in it like tiny stars, falling as he braced himself and lowered his face to her throat. His powerful shoulders bunched beneath her hands; so strong, vibrating with energy, his skin like electrified velvet. He pressed her down into the plush black furs, from knee to bellybutton, and she almost screamed at the feel of it — safety, home, always held and cherished and worshiped, his skin against hers promised all that and so much more. Then his chest came down on hers and he leaned into her throat, pressing his soft, hot lips to her ear.

  “Emmalina Alexandra Chase, caller of the blood, I acknowledge thee.” Time seemed to pause, and then the words struck her like a bell, and the inside of her head sang in response. His voice was a warm, husky caress, body close and hard and heavy on hers. “As king and as claimant to thy body and thy power, I offer myself as altar to your sacrifice. I offer myself as worthy vessel, as keeper, as caretaker, as commander. Do you accept?” He rubbed his cheek against hers, his breath trailing a hot line from her throat to the corner of her mouth. His tongue lapped slowly at her lips, a languorous exploration, a question. An invitation. His eyes inches from hers, holding her in thrall.

  “Yes,” she whispered against his lips. “God, yes.” She shifted beneath him, her body straining for more.

  Seshua’s eyes lit with fierce triumph, the blue of them drowning the black to pinpricks, like tropical whirlpools, liquid and hypnotic. “And do you offer yourself as sacrifice, your blood upon the altar of my body, your spirit upon the altar of my being?” He ground his hips against hers, and she cried out wordlessly, the sound captured by Seshua’s mouth as he kissed her again. She whimpered as he pulled away, and he whispered into her hair: “Your innocence, in exchange for wisdom, for power.” He breathed into her ear, nipped her earlobe. Shudders racked her body as the feel of his tongue on her ear seemed to stroke her insides.

  He ran his hands up her arms, pressing them onto the bed, pinning her hands high and stroking the insides of her wrists. He waited.

  And waited.

  Finally he pulled back, and looked Emma in the eyes.

  Her breath came faster and faster, and it wasn’t just lust now.

  “Pequeña —”

  “No.” Her voice shook.

  “Come now —”

  “NO.” She started to struggle, and Seshua held her down.

  “Tell me yes,” he demanded on a groan. “Emma, tell me —”

  “NO!”

  “Yes, ” Seshua hissed, and with one hand in her hair, he bared her throat and wet his lips, and she saw the intent in his eyes as he prepared to seduce the fight out of her.

  Fear seized her heart like a giant fist, and it kicked the mark on her hand into life; the starburst flared red hot and burned up the last shreds of hypnotic desire and suddenly she was cold and suffocating. She bucked with a strength she didn’t know she had and yanked her right arm out of Seshua’s grip. She had surprise on her side; he didn’t expect her to fight in earnest. Her hand slipped through his and she brought it to her chest, palm up, with just enough room to punch upwards between their bodies and smack him open palmed beneath his jaw.

  She hit him with more force than was physically possible, her marked hand like a metaphysical sledgehammer. He reeled off her, roared with the voice of his beast and rolled, snarled, scrambling at the bedcovers. She twisted off the side of the bed and stumbled a few steps backward, legs jelly. Fern pushed at her mind, an incoherent voice in her head, wordless, questing; he’d felt the pulse of her fear, fat lot of good it did her now. She brushed his mind with hers but couldn’t form a reply. She gasped a breath, desperately trying to rally her senses.

  Her hand burned, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off Seshua to look at the mark. He crouched on the far side of the huge bed on all fours, head lowered, chest heaving. His teeth were bared and they were so much bigger than they were meant to be. His blue eyes burned into hers with animal intensity. And his skin was mottling, darkening from cobalt charcoal to black at his hands, feet and eyes, and down the length of his spine in a stripe. His beast spread out across his skin; his scent, of magic, of power, clouded the air. It smelled like fur and earth and storm, and something else rich and musky and pure cat.

  Emma watched the muscles across his broad shoulders bunch, saw his massive thighs tense beneath the denim of his jeans. He was going to leap for her. He growled, the sound trickling out, a warning. The whites of his eyes had disappeared, and all that was left was a drowning blue on black.

  He crouched almost imperceptibly lower, and then launched forwards. Emma threw her right hand out in front of her. “Don’t!”

  He fell and then caught himself on the edge of the bed, preventing himself from tumbling off altogether. She blinked in surprise. Seshua’s face darkened with anger and something animal that wasn’t as complicated; frustration, hunger, death. He snarled at her, mouth open to reveal sharp jaguar teeth. The only thing still human about his face was the shape of it, and even that was bleeding to jaguar, his nose broadening, eyes growing round, massive cheekbones growing wider.

  But he could still speak. His voice was painfully deep, but he could speak. “You can’t stand against me for long, Emma. I am king. I have faced more than a little magic in my time.”

  It sounded wrong, the human words, the animal so close. Emma had never seen Ricky so close to the change and still functioning. The king was obviously so much more powerful. But was he right? Was that all the mark was, a little magic? Would Telly have given her something so precious, only to have it fail her?

  “Do you want to bet on that, Seshua?” When all else fails, bluff . It was her new motto to live by. “Looks to me like you’re losing control. You don’t want to do something you’ll regret — I don’t think the prophecy mentions you eating me.”

  “I don’t plan to eat you,” he growled. “I plan to possess you.”

  Her heart kicked, a sickening thud in her throat, at her temples. “That’s not gonna work out, your majesty.” Not if she could help it. She looked down into her palm. The mark was black, but glowing a poker hot red around the edges, as though an ember really burned there in her hand. She flexed her hand and concentrated on it, trying to sense it from the inside rather than merely feel the mark on her skin. She heard Seshua growl low in his throat, and ignored him.

  There, like the faintest wind against her face, was the scent of dust and engine oil, a flicker of bonfire heat. The mark was a connection to Telly, a piece of him, embedded in her. Like his touch on her. And through Telly’s touch, she could resist Seshua’s magic, just as she’d resisted Alexi.

  Maybe she could do more than just resist it, though.

  As she thought it, she felt an answering tug in her hand. She looked up at Seshua. His eyes were very wide, and his fingers gripped the
edge of the bed so hard his knuckles were pale blue.

  “Pequeña .” It came out a growl, strangled, pained. None of the menace or warning now. Emma didn’t answer him. She could feel his beast, ever so faintly, could feel the energy of it thrumming in the air between them — the scent of ozone and rainforest and jungle cat, things that couldn’t possibly be. So close, so hungry. So dangerous.

  She remembered her mental link to Fern, the way she had calmed him by projecting the thought at him. So she cleared her mind and willed Seshua’s beast to retreat. As gently as she could, she projected the thought at him, like a shout that made no sound. A call.

  For a moment he stayed frozen, like a beautiful statue carved of smooth granite. Only his eyes were alive, emanating ferocity, shining with depth and hypnotic like the sea.

  Then he slumped.

  Tension drained out of his body as though someone hit a switch. Emma supposed someone had. His skin lightened, bleeding to its normal smoky gunmetal color. He let his head drop down between his shoulder blades and stayed like that, just breathing, until she thought he’d never move again.

  Finally, he looked up. “Now, Emma,” he said, breathing audibly, his voice his own again. “That little show of force was completely uncalled for.”

  “Uncalled for?” Emma gaped at him, anger flooding her face with heat. “You tried to rape me!”

  He frowned at her, silent a moment. “I did not try to rape you.”

  Emma exhaled hard. “Excuse me?”

  “You wanted me.”

  “You made me want you.”

  Seshua shrugged. “It is the same.”

  She found herself gaping at him again. “The hell it is. If you hadn’t manipulated me, I would never…” She swallowed. “I have a boyfriend.”

  He cocked his head, nostrils flaring. “You are lying. Yes,” he said, deep voice vibrating as Emma opened her mouth to protest. “I can smell that lie, Emma, as plainly as I smell the heat of your body and the longing in your —”

  “Fine, ” she said loudly through clenched teeth before he could say more. “Fine. I had a boyfriend. I haven’t technically broken up with him, but I’d decided to. So I wasn’t lying. ”

  “Only sidestepping the truth a little, yes?” He sounded angry and amused all at once, and a small voice at the back of Emma’s brain told her to run.

  She would run if she could. How the hell had she ended up here, off balance and completely lost? She opened her mouth to tell the Jaguar King to go fuck himself, then stopped.

  After a moment she realized she was searching for the truth. She shook her head. “I would have said no,” she said firmly. “The mark knew what I wanted.” She stared at him. “What I really wanted — what I would choose. It gave me a choice.”

  He stared back. Shook his head. “I do not understand you. And I do not understand why that mark took so long to come to life. I thought I had you. You were so…” He looked at her contemplatively. She felt her cheeks flame and fought to keep his gaze when all she wanted to do was crawl into a hole somewhere and never come out.

  Why had it taken so long? Trying to think back was like trying to remember a dream. She felt like she’d had about three tequilas too many. At least she didn’t have a hangover.

  “I…” She hesitated.

  Damn it.

  Damn it all. It wasn’t like she had any dignity left to preserve.

  “I wanted you,” she said quickly. “Part of me wanted you, and maybe that’s why the mark didn’t prevent you from bending my will, because it didn’t need to be bent all that far. But I didn’t want to make the sacrifice. Whatever you did to me, the ritual, whatever, I don’t know. I guess I didn’t have a problem with the first part. It was the second part that woke me up. Woke the mark up. Then I knew I was in danger, but before…” She shrugged uncomfortably.

  Seshua cocked his head, looking blank for a moment. And then a very, very male expression came over his face. Oh, great. Just great.

  “So you do want me.” His mouth curved up in an anticipatory smile. He started to stalk sideways across the bed, circling instead of coming straight at her. He headed for the end of the bed — so she couldn’t run for the other side of the room.

  “That’s not what I said.” She shuffled a few steps to the left. “I said did. Not do. Past tense, okay? Just because I’m, uh, attracted to you doesn’t mean I want to, y’know. With you.” She groaned inwardly. This was totally out of hand.

  “It’s what you meant,” said Seshua, his voice dropping wickedly, full of laughter and promise. He moved across the bed with breathtaking feline grace, his smooth flesh blue where it reflected the light, all dark shadows and shining, rippling muscle. Emma had a brief and heartstopping memory of his body laid out solidly atop hers, and her insides turned to liquid.

  “Stop it,” she said, hating the way her voice shook. “Just stop it.” She covered her eyes with her left hand and held out her right. “Please, goddamn, just stop.”

  “What is it you want me to stop, pequeña ? I don’t think I can help you. I can’t stop you from desiring me.”

  Emma spread her fingers and watched him through the gaps. He continued. “You’ve made it plain enough you find me arrogant and obnoxious, yet you would have had me anyway.” He stopped mid crawl, halfway to the end of the bed, and straightened so he was kneeling instead of crouching. “I think I have done all I can.” He spread his hands wide in a mockery of an apology. His broad chest stretched with the movement, his stomach muscles clenching as he stabilized himself against the cushiony bed.

  She let out a frustrated growl. “You hypnotized me, tried to take away my will.”

  “Yes, but you said yourself you wanted me. If you had not wanted me as a woman wants a man, the mark would have come to your rescue sooner.” His face mottled with an echo of his beast, and his eyes dropped to her right hand. “That little mark. I thought the time of gods meddling in earthly affairs was over. I see it is not, not quite.” His tone was thoughtful, but the look in his eyes smoldered with lazy fury.

  Emma frowned. “What the hell is it with you two anyway?” Whatever it was, it was her rotten luck getting caught in the middle of it.

  His brows knit over the thick bridge of his nose. “Who?”

  “You know who. Telly.”

  If possible, the look in Seshua’s eyes burned even hotter, turning their vivid blue to violet. Emma almost regretted bringing it up.

  But he sighed heavily through his nostrils and sat back on his heels. “He used to be an ally of the jaguar kingdom. I only barely remember that much. His quarrel with the kingdom of the jaguar began when I was tiny.”

  Emma almost didn’t believe Seshua ever could have been tiny, but she didn’t say it out loud. His ego was bad enough already. “Why do you call him trickster?” she asked, eyes narrowed at the king.

  Seshua shrugged, looking almost relaxed. “Because his other names are too powerful.”

  “What, Aristotelis?”

  Seshua’s expression turned wry. “That is not his name.”

  Emma opened her mouth to retort, but then she remembered something. In that underground place — that place between worlds — the goddess had called Telly something else. Tel-hesh something?

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “But why do you call him trickster specifically.”

  “So many questions.” Seshua snorted. Shrugged again. “He is the walking god. His power while earthbound is limited, but he still manages to be a royal fucking pain in my ass.”

  “My god, a joke. I’m impressed.”

  He smiled broadly. “I can be even more impressive, pequeña , if you’ll only let me show you how.”

  “Oh for god’s sake.” She fisted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Give it up.”

  “Give what up?” He started stalking towards the end of the bed again. Lucky it was such a big bed, or he would have reached the end of it already.

  She tried for a change of subject. “You know, for such a fe
arsome ruler, there seems to be a lot of unrest in your court.”

  Seshua’s face went stony. He stopped mid crawl. “Mind your tongue, little one.”

  “It was just an observation.” She looked away and crossed her arms over her chest. She shivered in spite of the warmth of the rooms. The air was a good temperature, but she wore hardly more than underwear, and the bikini hadn’t fared well; the dried blood had ruined it. Lucky the cup size was generous, or she would have fallen out of it by now. She tried not to remember rubbing herself up and down Seshua’s body, the feel of his skin on hers, hot and overwhelming…but worse was the way it had made her feel, not physically, but inside, in her secret heart.

  What the hell was that? It was wrong, and dangerous, and sad and cruel and —

  Seshua jumped off the end of the bed without warning and landed on his feet. Emma swallowed a squeal and stepped backwards; if worse came to worst, she could hide in the walk in closet. But he walked away from her, rounding the opposite side of the bed.

  He opened a large wooden trunk, pulled something from it, and then balled it up in his hands. “Here,” he said, and pitched it at her.

  It was fabric, so it didn’t hurt when she caught it. She shook it out. It was a black brushed cotton robe, soft, and smelled freshly laundered. She put it on and almost burst into tears. The fabric was warm and light and wonderful, the hem hitting her at mid thigh; comfortable, but it wouldn’t get in her way if she had to run. She felt clothed for the first time in what felt like forever. Belting it up tightly around her waist, she met Seshua’s eyes.

  “Thank you,” she said, staring at him across the bed. “But why are you being nice to me now?”

  He stared back at her, his dark, severe features impassive. Then he frowned. Then he stared at her like he was seeing her for the first time and he didn’t much like what he saw. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. He glanced around, eyes narrowing. “I don’t know why I’m answering all your ridiculous questions, either.” His nostrils flared. “What have you done?”