The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  Emma shrugged. “It’s just as sexist to act stoic because you’re afraid of acting like a girl.” Nadya glanced up at her, chin tilted, brow furrowed. Zero comprehension. Oh well. “Besides, you’re not the only woman here. There are plenty of female guards, and there’s me.”

  Nadya scoffed. “Guards, not the same. Plenty of female guards, yes, plenty of female officials, no.” Her accent thickened when she was speaking conversationally. “Unless this here today is just skewed example.” She shrugged, then seemed to realize how casual she was being and stiffened.

  “No,” said Emma. “Not just a skewed example. You’re right. But it’s not like this everywhere, is it?” Frowning, she turned to Horne. He’d been with her in Egypt just over a month ago. “The jackals have female leaders. Their Pharaohs are traditionally women, and ascension follows the female line.”

  Horne reached up and stroked his goatee. “True, but Khai-Khaldun killed most of the women in power when he stole the throne, remember?”

  Emma inwardly winced; this was not the best subject to have brought up. She turned her attention back to Nadya. “Seshua told you the news, right?”

  She blinked at Emma, maybe unsure of how to proceed, being addressed so casually. Finally she breathed a deep lungful of the freshening air, seeming to take strength from it. “We have been informed of your decision to come to Russia on provisional basis.”

  It was Emma’s turn to blink. But of course, Seshua would never have committed to anything if he had a choice and thought there was risk to Emma — and he was probably still plotting ways to prevent Emma from actually doing anything helpful once she got there. They would just have to cross that bridge when they came to it. Nadya looked satisfied enough with the outcome. Not surprising, since Seshua all but rejected the Russian’s plea only minutes before.

  Nadya looked past Emma and Emma followed her gaze, saw Seshua coming toward them. His face was a smooth, stony mask, betraying none of the feverish anger and heat of their earlier exchange.

  Seshua came to stand beside Emma, dwarfing her. She was just over five and a half feet tall, not short for a woman, but she didn’t even reach his shoulder — and Nadya didn’t do much better. Seshua looked down at the other woman.

  “This is a hefty thing we have agreed to do for your people. I trust you understand the risk involved for the Caller of the Blood.” He put his arm around Emma, no doubt hoping she would be too polite to shrug it off. She ducked her shoulder and stepped away, smaller size for once coming in handy.

  Nadya watched them with a wary expression in her frosty blue eyes. “Of course.” She dipped her head in a nod. “Every precaution will be taken with her safety, and every detail made available for your scrutiny.” Nadya’s gaze kept flicking away from Seshua’s face but coming back to it, as though trying to avoid the challenge of meeting his eyes, but unable to help herself.

  Seshua was unforgiving of Nadya’s particular problem with the challenge of eye contact. His stare was cat steady, fixed. Emma knew from experience that Seshua’s stare could make you feel like an onion being slowly peeled apart, and she felt sorry for the Russian.

  “Your guards have informed me you’ll be staying with us and accompanying us on the journey to your homeland,” said Seshua.

  Nadya nodded, just a jerk of her chin. “For your peace of mind. We heard of your recent… difficulties, with Egypt.” Nadya finally dropped her eyes.

  “Yes,” Seshua rumbled. “Difficulties.” He turned to Emma, gazing down at her with memories darkening his eyes to dangerous, stormcloud navy blue, but when he spoke his words were still for Nadya — and his voice was velvet soft. “I trust, also, that you heard what we did to those in Egypt responsible for endangering Emma so.”

  Nadya looked at him. His hair had begun to come loose from the bone pins that held it back from his face, long black strands with a mind of their own tangling about his face and shoulders, coming alive in the warm jungle breeze — but beneath the fragrant air, promising rain, was the thicker, prickling scent of Seshua’s power.

  It would have been impressive if it weren’t for the sudden wash of dark, smoky heat that rushed into Emma’s mind. Fern , not just brushing at her thoughts but flowing into them, merging, pushing at her with grim urgency. Goosebumps seized her.

  We have a problem, Emma. She felt him moving, backing away from something, even as he poured thoughts and information at her through the bond.

  Emma grabbed Seshua’s arm. “We gotta go.”

  He peered down at her. “Pequeña? ”

  She dragged him with her only because he let her, toward the steps that led to the palace. “It’s Fern’s sister,” she said, voice grim. “Our appointment with Cara’s been rescheduled.”

  If Fern hadn’t stayed merged with her as she and Seshua sprinted through the courtyards and into the palace proper, Emma would have expected to come through the chamber door to the sight of a tarantula the size of a bus: the sound of furniture crashing and splintering, and the crunchy explosions of glass and crystal as ornaments were destroyed suggested the presence of something far larger than the petite, pale, black haired woman who stood in the midst of the flying chaos that had moments before been a sumptuously furnished room.

  Chairs and lounges reduced to kindling slammed from one wall to the other, disintegrating into splinters as though some invisible, raging hand batted them back and forth. Woven wall hangings flapped and snapped from their fixtures like wings; shards of multicolored glass whirled in a tornado of deadly, horizontal rain, and in the eye of the storm was Cara, Fern’s psychic sister, black eyes blazing in a thin, white face that bore only a passing physical resemblance to her brother’s. Where Fern inherited their father’s Latino features if not his skin tone, Cara’s perfect round doll face was clearly all from their German mother.

  Cara was the older sibling — but right now she looked like a small demon child in a Satanic fit of temper, right down to the oldfashioned lacy white dress that whipped about her ankles with the force of her anger.

  You never told me she was telekinetic. Emma shot Fern a look that could have withered a rose on the stem.

  Pressed against the wall near the entrance, his face was nonetheless calm. I guess it slipped my mind.

  Seshua growled behind Emma, but she wasn’t listening. She looked harder at Fern, noticing his ripped t-shirt and the slash marks that now graced the thighs of his faded jeans.

  Fern, what did she do to you? Emma tried to keep the anger out of her mental voice.

  Fern glanced at her. Lurid red scratches marred the side of his face that she hadn’t been able to see.

  Emma’s cheeks flared with heat, and she felt reason slipping away from her. What the hell is her problem?

  Fern began to inch toward her. She felt that after weeks of waiting, you should be talking to her first, not the Russians. A votive candle holder hit the wall mere inches from Fern’s cheek and erupted in a fine spray of red glass. Little chips lodged in Fern’s face, making an even job of his injuries. They were minor, and he would heal, but Emma’s temper flashed without warning.

  Stay where you are. I mean it.

  He said nothing. She’d given him a direct order, and she really did mean it; he could do nothing but obey.

  Oh, unless it’s safer for you to move, Emma added sheepishly. Only then. Fern just gave an inward, long suffering sigh.

  “Seshua.” Emma turned around, faced him. His rich blue eyes blazed fury at Cara, but the anger folded away as he focused on Emma. “I need you to back off a little. Please.”

  He glowered. “I was thinking of going in there and knocking her unconscious.”

  “No. She’ll have to wake up eventually, and she’ll be in this exact same mood. Please Seshua, just do what I ask this once without an argument.”

  Because the man was capable of learning, he grunted and stepped back from the doorway.

  Emma touched his arm lightly with the tips of her fingers. “Thanks.” She felt a brief pang of
amusement as surprise smoothed his features out, and then before Seshua or her jackal guards could stop her, Emma strode into the room, picked up the intact bottom half of an antique chair that looked far too European to be sitting in a forgotten temple in the wilds of Nicaragua, set it on its legs a few feet from the tornado of demolished furniture and antiques and sat on it.

  Seshua shouted out and started into the room with Red Sun at his back, but something made of stone flew into the lintel of the entrance to the chamber and disintegrated. They froze, Seshua’s face thunderous, plaster dust in their hair. Red didn’t look too concerned, just pissed.

  Fern didn’t bother warning Emma. He knew as she did that Cara wouldn’t harm her.

  Emma crossed her legs. Debris whirled past her; fine things, one of a kind, all destroyed.

  Cara angled her head to pin Emma with what was supposed to be a piercing, frightening stare, but Emma rubbed shoulders daily with twelve ancient ocelot maidens who could almost set you on fire with one disdainful glance, and a giant shapechanging fox who happened to be a god. Emma was much harder to scare these days.

  Emma smiled at Cara, but it didn’t feel pretty.

  Five seconds later, the airborne contents of the room fell to the floor and silence descended.

  Another fifteen seconds of silence passed before Cara’s lovely, shaking voice broke it. “How dare you?”

  Emma frowned at Cara, squinting, feigning confusion. “Pardon?”

  Cara’s slim face was strained with fury. “You snub me in favor of foreign royalty.” Two spots of color darkened Cara’s cheeks, made her look even more like a terrifying doll, and the unidentifiable scraps and lumps of furniture on the floor jittered like restless bones.

  Emma… Fern sent, voice a whisper against the surface of her mind.

  Emma brought her chin up and fixed Cara with a frightening stare of her own. “Don’t even think about it, cupcake. The instant you do, I’m letting him in here,” she jabbed a finger in Seshua’s direction, “And I’m giving him permission to knock you so flat you won’t wake up for a week, by which time I will have locked you in a lead lined box and dropped you in the middle of the goddamn Caribbean.”

  Cara’s mouth dropped open. Her hands clenched into fists. Her voice wavered, accented with a slight lilt as Fern’s was not. “You were supposed to be our savior.”

  Emma stood, crossing her arms. “Why?”

  Cara stared, chest fluttering. “Because Fern bound you to us. The Enam-Vesh. ”

  “Why didn’t you do it in his place?”

  Cara’s face seemed to close down. The tilt of her chin turned arrogant. “I am an Aranan matriarch. Only the male carries the venom that triggers the bond, which surely you must already know.”

  “Yeah, I know, but the way you’re acting, I thought you must’ve forgotten that he’s the one who gave up his autonomy for you and your people.” Emma dug her nails into her arms as anger swept through her in a scalding wave, threatening to drag her under. “Tell me, have you always abused Fern, or was this bullshit today just for my benefit?”

  Cara froze.

  Emma… Fern sounded weary, sad, and not surprised.

  Cara made a strangled sound. “You are stalling. I don’t see what these questions have to do with —”

  “They have everything to do with it, Cara, with whatever you planned to talk to me about today. I’m not going to give you what you want just because Fern’s your brother and we’re bound by magic and you’ve got some bitter, twisted sense of self importance.”

  Cara’s face screwed up, pert nose wrinkling, lips a thin white line. She looked like she wanted to either scream or burst. Finally, she blurted in a broken voice: “Why do you hate me!” She dragged in a ragged breath.

  Emma took a deep breath, let it out slow.

  “I don’t hate you,” she said. “But I do not need to talk to you, Cara. If I want to help your people, I can do it with Fern. Your people would still get the help they need, yet somehow, I don’t think that’s enough for you — and that’s why I don’t like you. Because it’s more about you than anything else. Because your stupid, selfish tantrums cost people their lives in Egypt — because if Seshua had been with us instead of here, pandering to you, maybe people wouldn’t have died.”

  Emma didn’t realize she’d started to cry until she felt the hot tears spill down her face. It would be undignified to wipe at them with her fists like a child, but it was what she wanted to do. She was saved the dilemma of either standing there leaking like a busted faucet or blowing her nose on her tanktop when she heard footsteps behind her and then smelled the telltale scent of leather and pine as Red Sun came up behind her, put his arm around her, and turned her away from Cara. Through her tears, Emma saw Seshua looking at her with an expression she couldn’t recall seeing on his face before: humility.

  “Come on, spitfire,” Red said gently. “I think you’ve vanquished the wicked witch good and proper.”

  “Wait.” She pushed away from Red, although his awkward, sexually magnetic aura meant that already she was feeling better, warmer than she did a minute ago — for all the wrong reasons. Not for the first time this past month, she observed that her life was too strange for words.

  Cara still stood in the middle of the room, shaking in her silly white dress. Emma couldn’t bring herself to sound sympathetic, but she did manage to keep her voice under control when she spoke to the Aranan woman.

  “I want you to make a list and give it to one of the guards.” Cara blinked at her. “A committee made up of your people. Names and numbers. If there are things you need to explain in more detail, note them down and we can talk if you think you’re capable of not breaking things. Otherwise, Fern and I will discuss it and do as we see fit.”

  Cara looked starkly mortified, stricken. “This is my cause. I lead the Aranan.”

  Fern stirred, coming away from the wall. “No you don’t. You herd them. The Aranan are not yet strong enough to choose to follow.”

  In Fern’s words, Emma heard the echo of the philosophy that Fern lived by, which she, up until now, had never quite understood. Strong enough to choose to follow. How many times had she lamented the way he seemed to put such blind faith in her, trusting her, following her lead seemingly without reason and against all good judgment?

  Emma tore her gaze from him. If she looked too long at the cuts and scratches, she’d get angry all over again. To Cara, she said, “If saving your people really is your cause, then get an attitude adjustment, and maybe we’ll talk.”

  With that, they left her.

  4

  Emma told Seshua that if he or any of his guards harmed a hair on Cara’s head without provocation, she wasn’t coming to dinner. Red Sun thought she was being too generous, but the way Emma saw it, no amount of generosity could atone for the humiliation she’d just meted out. It left a nasty taste in her mouth.

  Seshua also agreed to leave her and her people alone until it was time to gather for dinner. He had Russians to talk security with, anyway, in preparation for the trip. The very idea made Emma tired.

  At Emma’s rooms, the ocelot maidens were waiting, most of their requisitioning done with. Emma hadn’t realized the maidens had been mostly sorting through weapons. A vast and eclectic collection was arrayed along one wall of Emma’s quarters.

  “I thought you were looking for, I don’t know, treasure or something.” The bed was covered in clothes and suitcases, so Emma slung herself down on one of many piles of cushions strewn throughout the chamber. She reached to take her boots off, discovered she couldn’t be bothered with the laces, and slumped back again.

  “With all due respect, my lady,” said Felani, the most outspoken of the maidens and therefore their leader, her voice a rich, accented melody, “We couldn’t give a good goddamn about Seshua’s wealth.”

  “Where did you find that phrase?” Emma blinked up at the tiny woman. Felani blinked her huge, dark eyes back at Emma.

  “Red Sun is where we
found it,” Felani said sweetly. “Along with other little gems, such as fuck it all to blazes and shit a brick.” The maiden ducked out of the way, coppery hair flying, when Red Sun came past and swiped at her with his one meaty fist.

  The maidens were almost all lesbians, with the exception of a couple who swung both ways, so for the most part they weren’t affected by Red Sun’s curse. He didn’t talk about it, and she’d never asked, but she’d spent enough time with him now to understand this much: he was cursed to be irresistible to anyone capable of being attracted to him, the hollowness of indiscriminate lust slowly wearing him down year after year. After long enough, any kind of love, physical or otherwise, would be bitter indeed if you couldn’t know whether or not it was genuine. But Emma couldn’t believe that nobody would ever want Red Sun just the way he was; he might be scarred, beefy, grizzled and maimed, but he wasn’t Hannibal Lecter.

  She realized Felani was chattering, and the chatter was aimed at her. “Felani, I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that.”

  Felani was unfazed. “I was saying, it is not just the weapons we retrieved, but also much furniture — all needed, due to the guest quarter extensions — and various accessories which would be troublesome to acquire ourselves. Rugs, cushions, furs, that sort of —”

  Emma did a doubletake. “Furs? Felani, I can’t let you bring furs into my house.”

  Felani opened her mouth, closed it with a clack. She looked like she wanted to argue, but instead she frowned and said with a sigh, “I will strike them from the lists, then.” With the air of someone hard done by, Felani sauntered off, presumably to either cross furs off her lists or dream up ways of getting them on the plane and into the farmhouse back in California without Emma’s knowledge.

  Fern settled in the cushions beside her and, without a word, began untying her shoelaces. Suddenly Emma found the energy to sit up and do it herself.

  “You’re not my maid, Fern.” She shooed his hands away, then rewound her brain and listened to what she’d said and how she said it. “I’m sorry.” She looked up at him. “That was rude. You were just trying to be nice.”