The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  Emma had had enough practice that she could recognize his touch. Ricky was not powerful, the feel of his call never knocked her socks off like with some of the others, but the magic of his beast was familiar. She had known him so much longer than the others, known him before her world had changed. Once, he had been the only one of his kind, for her. His friendship made her feel safe. But just like the biggest comfort blanket ever, he couldn’t really protect her, not in reality. Love was not enough to protect the people you cared about. It wasn’t enough for a lot of things.

  She pushed the kitchen door open, and it hit her: the rich scent of sizzling meat, frying onions, crispy bacon. Ricky was definitely cooking.

  Selena made an appreciative noise behind her. Emma took a moment to savor not merely the scent of burgers cooking, but also the sight of her best friend grinning at her from where he manned the grill, spatula in hand.

  He was Anton’s brother, and they shared bone structure, but where Anton was dark, Ricky was light, with caramel skin and rich chestnut curls and warm, laughing amber eyes. He was also a couple inches shorter, putting him closer to Emma’s height than anybody else, save for Telly.

  The thought of the walking god dampened Emma’s mood considerably. Ricky saw it in her face and a small frown creased his brow, but his smile stayed in place. “Figured you’d be hungry. Y’know, not having eaten for twenty four hours, just in case Seshua put tranquillizers in the food or something.”

  Selena laughed out loud and quickly smothered it. Emma moved so they could all take a seat at the kitchen table, but David and Brom preferred to stand, making themselves unobtrusive, Brom against the wall near the grill, David near the window next to the back door. Guarding the entrances.

  Emma sat and finally noticed the half dozen bowls of various salads, potato chips, tortilla chips and guacamole presently attempting to crush the table beneath their combined weight. At the big flat grill, Ricky was tending to at least a half dozen burgers.

  “Where’s everyone else?”

  Ricky flipped the burgers two at a time, raked a heap of bacon off the grill, and replaced it with more rashers. “Working on the dorm, have been since before dawn.”

  “Everyone?” Emma tried to sound casual. “Even Telly?”

  Ricky didn’t miss a beat. “Yep. Everyone wants it done fast. When Seshua called last night, he mentioned he’d be beefing up security here, sending a few more jags in a week or so — something about tribe business raising your profile, so he wants more protection.” Ricky gave her a meaningful look as he plated the cooked bacon and wrapped it with foil. “Didn’t say why.”

  Emma edged back in her seat so he could put the bacon on the table. “We’re going to Russia.”

  Ricky blinked. “Uh…”

  “I’ll explain everything later Ricky, I promise.” She begged him with her eyes not to push it, and he backed down.

  “Help yourself,” Ricky said to Selena. He smiled when she beamed at him and started helping herself to the potato salad, but a little of the sparkle had gone out of his eyes. And there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn’t save everyone’s feelings all the time. But it’d sure as hell be nice if she could save somebody’s feelings even a little of the time. It never seemed to happen.

  Emma figured she didn’t need an invitation to eat, and she’d skipped breakfast. She hooked the bowl of tortilla chips with one finger and dragged it closer, turning to Selena.

  “You were going to tell me about Rain,” she said before crunching down on a chip.

  “Ah. Yes.” Selena chewed thoughtfully for a moment, and then turned wary dark eyes to Emma. “Rain is very special.” Emma nodded, but Selena shook her head. “You do not know how special. No-one here does.” The sounds of Ricky flipping burgers filled Selena’s silence. By the time she seemed ready to speak again, Ricky had added the burger buns to the grill to toast, and was searching for the ketchup in the walk-in pantry.

  “A little over two months ago, Rain’s pack was slaughtered. Somebody — a group, and an organized one at that — waged a tactical assault on the pack, stormed their sanctuary, and shot them all. There was evidence of torture; the alpha pair, a few betas.” Selena’s big, dark eyes were hard and sad at the same time.

  The tortilla chips suddenly seemed much less appealing to Emma.

  Heedless of the effect she was having on Emma’s appetite, Selena went on. “Rain is, as far as I know, the sole survivor. He was also an heir to the office of alpha. He had brothers and sisters, he must have, because wolves often conceive litters, unlike the big cats,” she waved her hand around to indicate the majority population at the ranch. “The wolves live in big family groups, many relatives.” Selena sighed. “Somebody killed them all. Now there is only Rain.”

  With a flourish, Ricky plated a couple of burgers and served them to Emma and Selena, but he didn’t smile while he did it. Dutifully, Emma piled salad and ketchup on her burger because Ricky had made it, though she no longer wanted to eat. But her stomach had other ideas; it caught a whiff of the burger and growled, and Emma conceded.

  “So, Rain is special because he’s the sole survivor of this pack —”

  “No.” Selena licked mayo off the side of her finger. “Rain is special because he is the sole survivor of the Zimayi pack, whose royal blood is tens of thousands of years old, and if they are all truly dead, then he is the last to carry the bloodline — and he bears the mark of it. Like Seshua.”

  Emma stopped chewing. She was conscious of Ricky, who had stopped moving about the kitchen, and was now still as only a cat could be, one hip propped against the oven.

  Emma swallowed thickly. “What do you mean, like Seshua?”

  Selena sat back in her chair, burger untouched. “Rain’s hair. Salt and pepper — or, as they call it in Eastern Europe, storm and snow. There is only one origin for the bloodline whose mark is such a coloring, and only one pack living in the Americas descended of the line. Or there was. Not anymore. This is how I know who Rain is, what he is, where he comes from.”

  The click of claws on the back porch signaled Bruce’s arrival, and Ricky moved off to let the dog in. “But why didn’t anybody else see this?” Ricky asked, holding the door open.

  Selena shifted in her seat, rubbing the small of her back. “They were just one wolf pack among hundreds in North America alone, not to mention the few who reside in Mexico. The jaguars have had little use for the wolves over the centuries; different parts of the world, different territories. The wolves made no moves to expand into the south, and the jaguars are content with their vast lands — stolen from kingdoms such as mine.” Her face held no malice or hate, only tired contempt. “The jaguars never negotiated any farther than Mexico when it came to wolves, and the wolves have no representatives at the jaguar court. I wouldn’t expect any of the jaguars to recognize the archaic breeding of one pack of wolves.”

  Bruce ducked under the table and sat politely on Emma’s feet. “But you recognized him. Without having to even speak a word to him.”

  Selena nodded. “I am an immigrant to North America. I consider it good diplomacy to have as much contact with neighboring kingdoms as I can. My kingdom also functions as sanctuary to many — I need to know what is going on in the world, unlike the jaguars, who seem not to care.” Her face became dark, broody, but not because of mentioning the jags. “Rain would not speak to me. Anton and the human man had hoped I would be feminine enough, soft enough to draw him out.” She laced her fingers and rested them on her stomach, fingers slender and dark against the white of her linen blouse — and Emma noticed for the first time the roundness of the woman’s belly.

  More than mere curves.

  Emma fed a piece of bacon to Bruce, not sure if it was polite to ask what she wanted to ask. “How…uh…”

  “How far along?” Selena smiled, arching a brow at Emma’s hesitation. “Only four months. I shouldn’t even be showing yet, but I eat a lot. ” She grinned and finally picked up Ricky’s hamburge
r, taking a huge bite and savoring it.

  “But that means…” Emma tried not to be horrified. “That means you were pregnant at the Roadhouse. Selena, the gunfight. ”

  Selena nodded. “At the time, I only suspected. Can you imagine how mortified Rigo would have been if he’d known?” She shook her head, smiling to herself, and took another bite of hamburger.

  Rigo: Emma vaguely remembered him from the Roadhouse. So he was the father? “What does your, um…what does the father think of you visiting us on such short notice?”

  Selena chuckled, wiping grease from her chin with a paper napkin. “Oh, Rigo thinks he’s going to have a stern talk to me when he gets back from Mexico.” Selena continued to chuckle as though this really tickled her.

  Finally, she sobered, still cradling her belly with one hand and the burger with the other, but her face turned solemn and compassionate. “I understand Rain is very attached to Matheson.”

  Emma narrowed her eyes. “Yes. Yes he is.”

  Selena cocked her head, suddenly and for the first time reminding Emma of a bird: soft, gentle grace with sharp black eyes. “I take in many orphans, and I love them all.” She smiled up at David and Brom. “I assumed it was, in part, why I was called. Aside from Seshua’s wish to repair his reputation within my kingdom, that is.” She sniffed, delicate but eloquent.

  A couple of months ago, Seshua’s jags had kidnapped a couple of Selena’s wards in order to pressure her for information — on Emma, and how to find her, since Selena had volunteered to harbor her, like the orphans Selena spoke of. Relations between the two kingdoms were, to put it lightly, rough — which was why Selena’s apparent ease surprised her. It was either the pregnancy, or something in the water.

  Selena put her burger down. “If you need someone to take Rain in, I would do it.”

  The sound of boots on the back porch alerted them all a moment before the door that led to the back deck creaked, squealed, and opened, and everyone looked up — and found Zachariah Matheson framed by the doorway. His hands were dark with grease and there were smudges on his square, beard shadowed jaw.

  “No offense, lady,” said Zach with a voice rough from decades of hand rolled cigarettes, “But I don’t know you from a bar of soap.”

  Selena arched a perfect black brow at him. Her eyes were serious, but her mouth curved in a small, kind smile. “No offense taken. You are protective of the boy; this is a good thing.”

  He wiped his boots on the mat and closed the door, bringing the scent of cut grass and grease in with him. “Hello, Em.”

  She resisted the urge to clap and cheer. Just because she agreed with Zach’s sentiment didn’t mean she wanted to insult the harpy queen, not when Selena was being so gracious. Emma wondered if Selena was capable of being ungracious about anything. “Hey Zach. I take it Selena’s already filled you in on Rain’s past?”

  Zach went to the sink and whacked the water on high, scrubbing at his greasy hands. “Yeah, all the royal bloodline stuff. Whatever. That last part’s new, though.” He cut the water off and ran wet hands through his dark, gray-streaked hair, making it stand up in spikes.

  Emma noticed there were flecks of gray in his grizzled three-day growth; they were new. Zach had been forced to swallow a lot of tough new concepts in the past month or so, and it was taking its toll — but he still went out to work every day, and drove back to the ranch instead of to his own home near the Black Pine town center, and worked on the vehicles at the ranch because he couldn’t stand accepting their help without paying them something in return. Anton’s truck had never run so smooth, but Zach looked like his engine was about to give out.

  He fixed Selena with tired, gray-green eyes. “I don’t give a damn where Rain’s from or what he is, unless it can help me to make him better now. ” He dried his hands on a dishtowel, breaking Selena’s gaze to hang the towel on a rack to dry. His big callused hands were gentle, deft. “I might be human, but I care about him. I’m not gonna give up or get tired or wish there were an easy way out.” Zach’s gaze flicked to the window. Something on the other side of the back door made a small, scratchy sound, and Emma realized what everyone else probably knew: Rain had crept onto the back porch, likely following Zach, and was waiting there now, hiding behind the door like a mouse.

  Zach looked at Selena. “Rain is not a burden to me.”

  Selena smiled widely, hand moving in circles over her belly. She opened her mouth to say something, and then cocked her head, listening.

  She closed her mouth a second before the back door clicked, scraped, creaked open. A slim face appeared in the gap. Huge, deepset eyes, a ring of gold around the pupils bleeding to green, bound by black, framed by thick dark lashes. A floppy shock of black and silver hair. Rain was small for his age, but the lack of innocence in his face made him look far older than his fourteen years.

  “Hey Rain.” Emma feigned disinterest in him and picked up her burger, now cold, but sure to be no less tasty. “Want a burger?”

  When he didn’t answer, she glanced in his direction. “Don’t feel bad. We know you weren’t spying on us. Felani’s the only one around these parts who spies on anyone.”

  Rain edged the door open a little more.

  Zach grunted. “Ain’t that the truth? Woman won’t leave me alone.”

  Ricky slid a plate onto the bench next to Zach — with two burgers on it. “Maybe she secretly wants your body.”

  Zach sighed. “From your lips to God’s ears.”

  Selena erupted with a birdlike cackle. Ricky’s eyebrows flew up, which only made her laugh more. Her raucous laughter soon died down to a socially acceptable chuckle, and under cover of Selena’s voice, Rain crept to Zach’s side and snatched a burger off the plate. Emma noticed he was wearing a shirt pilfered from her laundry; a threadbare Def Leppard t-shirt, baggy on his bony frame. She watched with a sharp jab of melancholy as he got stuck into the burger, tearing off a chunk to offer to Bruce who accepted the morsel with quiet dignity. Then Rain glanced up at Zach with wide eyes. Zach smiled and started eating his own lunch, trying to put the boy at ease.

  Rain was three huge bites into his burger when the back door swung open, and a gust of warm air swept into the kitchen — and Emma looked up to see Telly standing in the doorway, lean and tanned and sheened with sweat, blond hair ruffled by the summer breeze.

  “So,” he said, sky-gray eyes fixed on Emma. “Russia.”

  7

  Emma’s mouth went dry. She swallowed a mouthful of burger and wiped at her face. “Yeah.” Her heart remembered how to beat, and started doing so with a vengeance. “Russia. I’ve already discussed everything with Seshua. It was my idea to go.” Shit — she already sounded defensive.

  Telly cocked his head at her, face unreadable. Hell, no wonder she was defensive — the last time she’d agreed to leave the country, Telly nearly fried her with a magical lightning bolt.

  Well, not quite, but that was how it had felt.

  “I know. Red told me.” Telly let the door swing shut behind him. The scent of summer stayed, intensifying, as Telly moved to the sink. Dry grass and the ozone tang of electrical storm, engine oil and road dust, all alive and singing. The scent of Telly’s magic. But something else curled through the room like warm smoke, something Emma didn’t recognize, just an airy tickle against her skin.

  Then she noticed the looks on the faces of Selena’s boys, David and Brom — tight and wary, glassy eyes bright.

  “Did he tell you why?” Emma slipped out of her seat and leaned her butt against the edge of the table. Rude to block Selena like that, but if David and Brom were anything like Emma’s own guards, they’d be happier if their queen wasn’t a direct target for the eyes — and aim — of someone they didn’t trust.

  Not that Telly was armed — shirtless and barefoot, not many places to hide a firearm. Nowhere comfortable, anyway.

  It made her wonder why the boys didn’t trust the walking god — but then, not many people did. Almost nobody at the
ranch did, not since Egypt.

  Telly flicked water from his hands and turned to face her. Eyes so clear. “So. The wolf princess, huh.”

  Emma nodded. “Seshua’s satisfied with security. The Russians are being pretty cooperative. They want this badly, if their ambassador was anything to go by, and they don’t have anything to use as leverage. They’re relying on our goodwill.”

  Telly chuckled, and it rolled down the bones of Emma’s spine like dominoes. “On your goodwill, you mean. Seshua doesn’t have any goodwill.”

  Emma was too distracted by the fact that he wasn’t arguing with her to laugh — but then again, it was truer than it was amusing. “Do you know anything about the Russian wolves?”

  Emma noticed Rain freeze with the last morsel of burger halfway to his mouth. Telly shook his head, tawny hair obscuring his eyes. “Nope. Didn’t even know who Rain’s ancestors were, and his pack was the only American pack descended from anywhere near there. It’s a big world.” He smiled wryly and shrugged, crossing heavily muscled forearms over his chest. Rather than the beefcake physiques of most of the jaguars, Telly was compact, on the stockier side but still lithe as a dancer, or an acrobat, full of wiry, explosive strength. His broad chest swept down into a tight, ripped waist, with a dusting of fine gold body hair that curled out of sight beneath the band of his faded blue jeans.

  He was also the shortest guy around, barely topping Emma’s height by an inch — and it didn’t make him any less intimidating.

  Selena leaned forward so she could look up at Emma. “Is it possible these Russian wolves would be forthcoming with information about Rain’s pack?”

  Emma frowned. “Like Telly said, it’s a big world. And you said they came from Siberia, over four hundred years ago. Is it likely they’ll know anything?”

  Selena gnawed her bottom lip. “They share a geographical origin, after all. They may know whether there are any living ancestors elsewhere in the world.”

  A strangled cry made Emma jump out of her skin. Rain bolted for the back door before Zach could catch him.