The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  Heat rushed to Emma’s face. “So.” She kept her voice low. “No friendship between us. Still.”

  He stared at her, eyes wide and bright, chest rising and falling in a steady enough rhythm that Emma could tell his heart was beating fast. The laces of his shirt were slipping loose of their own accord, teased free by the growing trickle of power seeping out of his skin.

  He swallowed, throat bobbing, and when he spoke his voice was hoarse. “I am not your friend.” His yellow eyes bored into hers, blazing like twin flames, full of something dark and thick and weighty. He stared at her as though he’d crush her with the force of his gaze alone, with the force of the knowledge behind it — and Emma realized in a sudden, crisp flash of insight that he was hiding something.

  It clicked. She couldn’t read his mind, but she damn well knew there was something he didn’t want her to know. Didn’t want her to know why Telly left him here to guard her, when it would have made more sense for him to search for the captive priest. That was the reason he was insulting her — to distract her.

  Well, maybe not just that. He probably really felt that way. But he’d managed to be civil enough to her up until now, so…

  She took a step closer to him, matching him stare for stare — her plain brown eyes mightn’t pack as much punch as his, but she spent enough time around shapechangers to know that a challenge was still a challenge.

  She parted her lips to speak. He cut her off. “Your eyes are more terrible than you could know,” he said softly. “Clear as mirrors, and just as unforgiving.”

  She narrowed those eyes at him. “What’s your plan B, Alexi?”

  His cool, lilac tinted lips parted slightly. He drew back. “What?”

  “Why do you need to keep me at arm’s length? You know, aside from the fact that you’re a stubborn asshole?”

  His features hardened. “Do I need a better reason?”

  Emma took a deep breath and stepped right up to him. He pressed his back against the wall, the merest drawing in of his body.

  “No,” she said softly, “But you’ve got one.” She locked her gaze to his and refused to back down.

  Emma, come on. Fern sounded nervous. You’re just — maybe you’re just looking for a fight.

  Emma never broke Alexi’s stare. Maybe. She pushed Fern from her mind, letting his shielding slip away — and felt Alexi’s mind swirling against hers, cold, charged, like standing under an electrical tower. Wordless and raw and open. She couldn’t help herself; all the mind to mind stuff with Fern made it almost reflex. She reached for it — and touched his thoughts, because he was reading hers and his mind was holding the connection.

  He jerked and tore away, whipping past her to pace backwards into the middle of the room, firelight turning his wide eyes to golden lamps. His thoughts roiled for a moment like a nest of severed nerve endings, screeching their agony at Emma for one long second.

  She pursued him, part of her reeling, part of her unable to stop. The jaguar guards had already retreated to a safer distance; Fern and Red backed away, uncertainty creasing their brows.

  “Is that it?” Emma’s voice rose. “That’s your big failsafe?” She laughed, and it was not a funny sound. “If Seshua can’t have me, no one can, is that right?” She stalked across the expanse of floor and stopped when she met the throbbing wall of Alexi’s frigid power, lashing out like an arctic wind. Olive green and black shadows chased each other across his face, darkening his hands, the coming of the change flattening his nostrils and widening the set of his eyes. His face lengthened, lips thinning. His hair whipped free of its tie and slithered over his shoulders in a great living mass of green-black strands.

  “You should not be able to do that.” His voice was a deep, sibilant hiss.

  “If people keep saying that to me,” she ground out between her teeth, “I will literally go mad. Besides, you were projecting this time, asshole. Now get to the point — did I read what I think I just read in your mind?”

  His lips parted, and he did hiss. Emma’s chest tightened; his power, pressing at her, squeezing. She pushed right back — even though she had no power to push with, she pushed anyway. She was done with being frightened of this. Alexi’s eyes widened, nostrils flaring.

  “He would never have you killed.” He bit the words out, as though it was offensive to have to tell her.

  “Yeah?” Her mind raced. “Then what would he have you do? What did I see in your head?”

  Alexi’s chest heaved and he looked away, giving Emma his strong profile, and she got to watch as that profile became human again. When he turned his face back to her, it was still a stiff, furious mask, but all his features were in the right place.

  “If necessary,” he said, quiet, “I could take hold of your mind and shut it down. All but the most rudimentary of functions. A coma with no chance of surfacing — not until I willed it.” His gaze flicked to the others, but he remained staunch. “Unconscious, you would be incapable of accepting the pledge, but alive, the jackals may still have hope for your recovery — and we would still have hope of launching a rescue mission. In a worst case scenario, it’s our best contingency plan. Telly and Red Sun have another, but as I said — this one is worst case. The very worst.”

  Red Sun grunted and Emma held up a hand — this was so not his argument yet.

  “You mean it’s your best contingency plan,” she said to Alexi. “You and Seshua. But that makes no fricking sense — if Seshua’s willing to go to such lengths to prevent me from getting frisky with the jackals, then why were you even entertaining the possibility of forcing me to accept the pledge?”

  Alexi looked uncomfortable, and the cold electricity of his power flared in an icy sting against Emma’s skin. “I have Seshua’s orders, but I also have directives from the serpent priesthood. So long as those directives do not interfere with each other, I can do what I like — Seshua’s main concern was that you would be stolen away and then forced to accept the pledge without our protection. He wouldn’t like it, but if your acceptance ensured the safety of all of us, including my kidnapped priest, then he would just have to — how do you say — suck it up.”

  Emma resisted the urge to laugh out loud — if she started, she may never stop. “But I can’t be forced to accept the pledge. If I could, the jackals wouldn’t be wasting their time waiting for me to decide.”

  Alexi’s face tightened with some foreign emotion. His gaze drifted toward Fern. “I’m afraid you can be forced. And I’m afraid the jackals are merely being patient. What is one night to them?”

  Emma looked at Fern. He didn’t seem shocked, or surprised, or frightened. She wasn’t shocked or surprised either, even though she hadn’t thought of it before — but frightened?

  She looked at the floor but her words were for Alexi. “You thought that if I knew what you could do, I’d hate you for it. You thought that if I knew, and Fern and I fell into their hands, that I would still fight you and hate you even though if I was awake and capable they’d torture Fern to make me accept.” She raised her eyes to his guarded face. “You underestimate me, Alexi. Still. One day it will get you hurt.”

  He stared at her, eyes wide and incredulous. “Is that a threat?” Power lashed at her in stinging whips, like ice made of smoke that could suffocate her with less than a thought.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Yeah, sure it’s a threat. Little old me is threatening big, scary-ass you.” She sighed. Sarcasm really wasn’t the highest form of wit, but she didn’t know what else to say to him.

  Frown creasing her brow, she turned around, cocked an eyebrow at Red Sun. Something had just managed to penetrate the haze of hysteria and frustration.

  “So why isn’t your contingency plan the worst case scenario?”

  Red Sun smiled. “Because my contingency plan involves getting to the roof. If we can get to the roof, then at least one thing will have gone our way. Worst case scenario is, nothing goes our way, and we can’t get to the roof.”

  It stil
l wasn’t making sense to her. “Kahotep said the roof isn’t shielded magically, can’t be shielded. I can see why that would be a good reason to get to the roof.” Red nodded, cocking an eyebrow at her in return. She tried not to grind her teeth. “But still — why do we need to get to the roof?”

  Red’s smile turned into a grin — a grin in spite of all of this. “Because,” he said smugly, “I can’t dematerialize with you unless we’re on the roof.”

  Emma stared at him flatly. “Dematerialize.”

  “Yup.” He nodded. “Dematerialize.”

  Somewhere in the lower levels of the palace, where the chambers were dug out of the very bedrock of the desert itself and the air was cool and still and no torches lit the passageway walls, Ichtaca scented something foreign and sped his sleek jaguar body ahead of the others. The scent was bitter, acrid; he knew it from somewhere, a bad smell, and he had the feeling that it would give them a sorely needed clue. Paws a mere whisper against the tiled floor, he turned a corner, and slipped through the narrow gap of a door that had been left ajar.

  Too late he recognized the scent of the heavy, magic-laced sedative. Limbs already slowing, he turned to go back, and something slammed into the side of his thick skull. He didn’t even have time to open the call.

  33

  Nearby, in a damp vaulted room that was cloaked with a nine thousand year old spell, Kal stirred where he lay chained in one corner at the foot of one of two thick structural pillars that dominated the room. Sand and earth squelched against his cheek. Some wound that had crusted over on his face split open, weeping hot fluid. He cursed whatever it was that had roused him; Khai-Khaldun’s last attempt at interrogation had finally rendered him unconscious, but that wonderful oblivion hadn’t lasted long.

  Both his eyes were swollen shut. One ear — the one that lay pressed flat to the ground — was too full of blood to function very well, but his other ear worked just fine, and he could hear footsteps approaching, feel them through the floor.

  He didn’t recognize them at first, but then he realized that Tarik’s distinctive gait was merely obscured by the weight he was carrying. Dragging. Kal almost withdrew his attention, conscious of how important it was to conserve what precious energy he had, but then the door to the torture chamber opened and Kal caught a familiar scent.

  His body came alive, nerves singing a vigorous symphony of pain. His nostrils flared, mouth opening to catch the scent again, lips splitting as dry skin and old cuts were pulled taut. But it was nothing compared to the agony when Khai casually planted a sandaled foot in Kal’s ribs and flipped him onto his raw back.

  “Look, jaguar. Look what Tarik has brought me.” Khai toed Kal’s broken arm, but the jaguar refused to open his eyes, even when Khai ground the pulverized bones of his elbow beneath his heel. The arm had already tried to heal itself several times; Khai broke it again every time, before it could knit, and now it was little more than a fleshy sock full of rocks and sand. He could no longer use it, but his arms were still bound.

  He didn’t need to look to know whose fear and rage he scented beneath the magical sedative that was rapidly wearing off, flooding the oppressive chamber with the thick musk of jaguar. He peeled what was left of his tongue off the roof of his mouth — the taste of copper and bile slid down his throat — and he tried to speak.

  “If you’re not opening your mouth in order to tell me what I want to know,” said Khai conversationally, “I will cut your tongue out, cat. Again. How many times now?” Kal coughed up fluid and said nothing. He didn’t know how many times. “And how many times,” Khai said louder, probably for Ichtaca’s benefit, “Will it take before your tongue can no longer grow itself back? Ten? Twenty?” The jackal king laughed. “I know how many, but do you?”

  Kal heard somebody whimper, and couldn’t be sure if it was Ichtaca, or the woman. The one from the fight, the one who had come to their tent and foolishly been sent away by the caller of the blood. This was what happened when a human girl was permitted to run the affairs of the jaguars.

  The jackal woman had been brought in — Kal had seen them bring her, when his eyes had been open — and as far as Kal could remember, she’d been dumped in the other corner, behind the second pillar. She was bound just as thoroughly as Kal was; she fought dirty. Both of them were manacled with tempered steel sleeves with a four inch thickness and a pinbolt lock that minimized weak points in the structure of the cuffs and hinges. It was like wearing lead bricks at ankle and wrist. Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered what they were bound with if they were given enough time for the sedative to wear off completely — and Khai was sure to never give them enough time. Kal didn’t know what the stuff was, but it could be burned as incense or mixed to a paste and force fed. They’d been subjected to a combination of both.

  “Now.” Khai’s voice grew fainter; he had turned around, was moving away. “All I want is for you to answer some questions.” He must be talking to Ichtaca, the woman had ceased to speak hours and hours ago. Kal heard flesh shift against stone, naked flesh, not fur or clothing. Even with only one ear, his hearing was good.

  “Good,” said Khai. “Emma and the boy, Fern — what is it between them?”

  “I don’t —” Ichtaca screamed before he could finish. Kal heard Tarik laugh. He probably had the clamp out; Kal couldn’t smell any blood but his own, and the faint rusty residue of the woman’s.

  Khai said something in the ancient language of the Egyptian jackals. Then he said in English: “Care to try again?”

  Ichtaca whimpered. “It’s the Aranan mating bond. Their lifeforces are tied together somehow.”

  Khai made a satisfied sound. He said something else in Egyptian; Tarik replied.

  “Now, little cat…” Khai paused for a long time. “I want to know if Emma is truly the jaguar king’s possession. I want to know if she has been claimed. And I want you —” Kal heard the faint snick of the clamp opening; “To tell me —” the steel of the shears rang like a tiny bell in the silence — “The truth.”

  Kal roared. He didn’t have enough tongue to shape the word no but only an idiot could have interpreted his scream as anything else.

  Tarik’s hands touched his face, and Kal’s jaws were wedged open with a squat steel peg that tasted of Kal’s own agony. Ichtaca started to sob. The clamp touched the ruins of Kal’s tongue, and the last thing he heard before he passed out again was Ichtaca’s confession.

  From a concealed opening in the brickwork of the chamber wall, Kahotep crept away, one hand clamped over his mouth — and once he was out of range of the shielding spell, out of range of the ears of his uncle and his twisted vizier, he ran.

  He had heard everything, seen everything with his wide, wet brown eyes — everything except for Nathifa.

  34

  Felani, panting and shining with electric energy, tore through the secret entrance to the guest room and Emma’s heart tried to leap out of her chest. Fern’s mind jumped to hers, flooding it with the jarring pulse of shock and fear. She stood on rubbery legs as Mata followed and Manny loped after them, still furry, ears flat against his spotted head.

  “Where is Telly?” Felani reached the middle of the room and looked around at them all. “Where are the others?”

  “They haven’t returned yet.” Horne went to the maiden and stopped a foot shy of her. “Felani,” he said slowly, “Where is Ichtaca?”

  “Gone,” said Mata, chest heaving. “Disappeared, right under our noses.” She joined Felani and brushed an arm against the vibrating maiden. They shimmered with heat and magic, their eyes enormous and glowing like embers in their dark smoky faces. Emma had never seen them this way: afraid.

  Felani met Emma’s eyes, and she felt her heart sinking as Fern’s was. “My lady,” Felani said, accent thickening, voice gone deep with the touch of the ocelot close to the surface. “We are in trouble.”

  Emma never got to ask why — the main entrance to the chamber flew open with the scream of stone against stone and Kah
otep fell into the room. His hair hung in his face; his skirt hung from one hip, torn off its belt, and a gaping red slash oozed blood down his belly and beneath the waist of his loincloth as he gasped for air.

  “It’s all over.” His wild eyes found Emma. “He knows.” He spat something unintelligible in ancient Egyptian and shoved hair out of his face — revealing claw marks, bright and wet, the muscle of his face exposed in meaty strips.

  “What do you mean?” Emma shot a wide eyed look at Fern, caught the expressions on the faces of the guards and of Alexi and Red Sun, and moved to go to Kahotep. “He knows we’re not going ahead with the pledge?” She made it two steps before Fern’s hands clamped around her bare arms, palms burning against her skin with the electric thrum of terror.

  “Worse,” said Kahotep — and then Emma saw past him into the hall beyond, to the prone shapes of the jackal guards that had been posted at their door. “He knows you haven’t been claimed.” Kahotep’s face was stricken, and his gaze went from Emma to Red Sun, whose thick face was thunderous. “We have to get her out of here.”

  Red Sun nodded, one fist clenching at his side. “Get us to the roof, prince.”

  Kahotep was already out the door into the passageway.

  “What about Telly?” Emma jerked her arm out of Fern’s grip. “What about the others?”

  Alexi followed Kahotep and crouched at the side of a jackal guard, stripping the weapons from the unconscious man. “Telly can take care of himself,” he said without looking at her. “You know that.”

  “But —”

  He’s right, sent Fern, crowding her body with his own, forcing her to look into his eyes. We have to get to safety, Emma, now.

  She glared up at him. “We can’t leave them behind.”

  “Yes we can,” said Red Sun. He moved in close, towering over both she and Fern, the heat of his body like a wall — driving her toward the door. “We don’t have a choice. It’s time to run, Emma, while we still have a chance.”