The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  Seshua’s eyes flew open. His lips skinned back from his teeth. The hardwood frame of the couch cracked like a gunshot and snapped beneath his hands, and he growled, a low, questioning sound.

  Emma jacked the gun a few inches out of its holster. “Not now,” she said loudly. “I need time, just a little, just today. Do you hear me?”

  Seshua cocked his head, spilling wild black hair over his shoulder, and his hands freed the back of the broken couch. He straightened. “I hear you.” Voice so deep it was more vibration than sound. He swallowed, throat working visibly, and when he spoke next his voice was almost normal. “Are you sure about this, Emma? Because if we begin and you are not sure…”

  Emma laughed tonelessly. “I know. If I change my mind, I’d better be willing to shoot you.”

  He didn’t even smile. “I know you are under no illusion as to how far you can trust me. I will be good to you, you may be sure of that, but not even I trust myself to accept your rejection a second time, Emmalina.”

  She swallowed, mouth gone dry, but the fear that curled in her stomach was faint and weary; she was tired of the dance. If she was going to do this, she could at least save a life with it. “I get it, Seshua. I do.” She took her hand away from the gun and looked at her feet. “If you could explain to Yevgeny — I need some fresh air.” And maybe a stiff drink.

  Fern, she sent a little desperately, Get me the hell out of this house.

  17

  The house backed onto a downward sloping meadow with a small lake, landscaped gardens nearer the house blending seamlessly into wilder stands of trees. Beyond the lake, forest gradually overtook the grassy fields, but near the water there were carved stone benches to lend an odd air of civility.

  Emma and Fern sat on one of them, overlooking the edge of the lake. The sun was warm on their backs; the air smelled of grass and moisture and unfamiliar trees, and next to her, Fern emanated a subtle heat that did more to warm her than the sunshine did.

  “What’s the deal with Yevgeny’s manners?” Emma tucked her feet up on the bench and wrapped her arms around her knees. “One minute he’s like the Queen of England, and the next he’s staring me down and wolfing out on everyone.” Fern shrugged, flicked a careful look at her. She put her chin on her knees. “And the way he treats Katenka is really strange. Do the jaguars treat their kids like that?”

  Fern shifted in his seat so his arm pressed against her side. “I wouldn’t know, I’m not a jaguar.” He closed his eyes, tipped his head back. “The wolves are just different. They have complicated codes of conduct for everything — they’re hardwired to live in packs, whereas jaguars come together because of their human side.” He shrugged again. “Or the side that looks and acts human most of the time. As for how he treats Katenka, she probably wasn’t joking when she said she was almost a grown woman. If she’s twelve, and she’s supposed to go through her initiation ceremony this winter, then the wolves here are like the North American wolves — they come to sexual maturity early.”

  Emma’s jaw nearly hit the grass. “Twelve? Don’t you think that’s a bit more than early?”

  Fern cracked an eye open. “Doesn’t matter what I think, I’m not a wolf.” He opened the other eye. “Em…” A sigh. “You’ve gotta talk about it sometime.”

  The ritual. With Seshua.

  She looked away, couldn’t stand the solemn expression on his face — so gentle and unreadable. “You think I’m making a mistake.”

  He snorted. “No I don’t.”

  She turned back and scowled at him. “Why not?”

  He smiled tiredly, black eyes sparkling. In the sunlight, it was undeniable that his eyes were truly black, not the near-black brown of some of the jaguar guards. Uninterrupted, like tar, from the edge of his iris inward.

  “You want me to disapprove,” he said.

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.” She looked away again. “You’re always so levelheaded, so balanced. Why aren’t you telling me I don’t have to do this?”

  He made a rude noise. “You do have to do this — you have to. For yourself. I couldn’t talk you out of it if I tried, so I’m not trying.”

  Emma frowned. There was an off note to his voice. She pushed at his mind with gentle mental fingers and met a soft wall of resistance.

  Interesting. He couldn’t truly shield his thoughts from her — the Enam-Vesh was one hell of an unfair metaphysical bond, in that she could block him out at will, but to her he was an open book — but he could make her work for it. She never dug around in his mind without permission though, which meant if she wanted in, she had to do it the traditional way, by talking.

  She was just about to prod him for more when she heard the rustle of feet in the grass. She twisted in her seat and saw one of the maidens padding toward them. Impossible to tell at first who it was, and then the scowl on her face became apparent. It was Rish.

  Red ankle length wrap swishing, Rish stopped a few feet from the bench. “Yevgeny wanted you to know they’re doing lunch soon,” she said flatly.

  Emma arched a brow. “Did they make you come down here to tell me?” Emma knew how much Rish hated any form of servitude — she couldn’t imagine the maiden being happy with running errands for royalty.

  Rish looked slightly taken aback that Emma would even care. “No,” she said with an amused little twist of her mouth. “They were arguing over who to send, and when it came down to Ivan or Anton, I decided to shut them all up and volunteer myself.” She crossed her arms. “Men will make anything a chore.” She sniffed. “Besides, I did not think you would want to see either of those two.”

  Fern turned around as well to look at her. She gave him a cursory glance and turned her attention back to Emma, opened her mouth, paused. Then, “Be careful of Seshua.” Her face turned sharp. “To go through with the ritual is more than I had expected of you.” She looked away, spoke quickly. “You have my respect and therefore my warning: he may treat you well, as he treated us all when we were his maidens, but he is still a man.” She shrugged her shoulders stiffly as though shaking something off. “I will tell Yevgeny not to expect you soon.” With that, she turned to go.

  “Rish, wait.” The maiden looked over her shoulder, copper hair cascading and rippling in the light wind, sunshine turning the color of it to fire. Emma searched for the right words and came up blank. “Thank you. For the compliment. And for sparing me a visit from the boys.”

  Rish didn’t say anything, just left, her hair and dress whipping and snapping like flames in the breeze.

  Scooting around to face the lake again, Emma chewed her lip. “She’s always so angry. I thought she was just cruel, but she’s angry, isn’t she?”

  Fern’s eyes roved over the still water of the lake. “Always has been.” The corners of his mouth turned down. “For a long time, much longer than I’ve been alive, she was considered one of the most beautiful of the maidens.”

  It took Emma a few seconds to glean the meaning of those words, and when she did, she didn’t let herself open her mouth. She’d only swear unintelligibly. She remembered something Felani said before they all left for Russia: I spent almost two thousand years killing for the jaguar kingdom — killing, and other things, before Seshua’s father decreed we were not to be touched.

  And here she was, resigned to giving herself up to the jaguar king. “This is a shitty life, Fern.” A lump rose in her throat.

  He threaded his arm through hers, took her hand, enveloped it in his. “It’s also wondrous.”

  She sighed. “You’re not okay with me doing this, are you? Completing the…” She stopped; somebody had to damn well say it. “Sleeping with Seshua.”

  Fern’s hand clenched around hers. “No,” he said in a small voice. “Are you?”

  The lump in her throat threatened to suffocate her. Don’t think about it , she told herself, don’t, just don’t — but she couldn’t smother that little voice inside her head, the one that wondered if she’d still be doing this if Telly were around
to give a shit about it.

  But it didn’t matter, none of it did — because he was gone.

  Emma reached the front door and paused, Fern at her back. They had to go inside and face the music sometime. What would Seshua want to do? Were they just going to borrow a room and… Or was there some kind of ceremony, fanfare, something Seshua hadn’t bothered with the first time he’d tried to initiate the ritual?

  She was so busy worrying about what was waiting for her on the other side of the door that she didn’t even notice the knob twist under her hand — and then suddenly she was inches away from Alexi. An embarrassing little sound escaped her before she clamped her teeth shut.

  He looked down his nose at her. His face had been severe before the scars, but now he brought a whole new meaning to the word.

  “Seshua grows restless,” he said with more than his usual harshness. “He wanted me to find you.”

  Emma took a step back. “Well, consider me found. I was just heading in.” She waited for him to move, but he didn’t — and then she realized he was looking at her. Really looking.

  Heat began to rise in her cheeks before she even knew she was ashamed. She slammed her mental shields down and felt them burn, sizzle all the way into place, and only sheer force of will kept her from dropping her eyes to her toes.

  Her voice wasn’t pretty when she finally managed to speak. “Is there a problem, Alexi?”

  Cold power reached her a split second before he did. She didn’t even have time to scream; he was just there, pushing her back, body throwing frigid magic at her. His hand closed around her arm and he turned her, dragging her down the front steps and onto the gravel driveway. Shock immobilized her brain so all she could do was let him.

  He stopped and whirled her to face him, trapped her with both hands on her arms, her hair thrown into her eyes. Dimly she heard the front door close, but her body was frozen and it wasn’t just the suffocating cold of Alexi’s power swirling against her, wrapping her in the scent of ozone and water and something that stung, something hard and mineral-laden — it was the feel of his hands on her, the closeness of his eyes, the way his body arched to tower over her and put his face inches from hers.

  The corners of his mouth turned down, pulling the scars tight across his cheeks, making them gleam. “You do not know what you are doing.” His voice was edged steel and his breath tasted like rain. His molten yellow eyes flared when she didn’t respond. He shook her, hands tightening on her, shoulders vibrating from the coiled tension in his arms; he could snap her like a branch but his fingers weren’t even bruising her.

  She finally managed to take a deep enough breath to speak. “Unfortunately,” her voice was a mere thread of sound, “I do know. And I’m doing it anyway. I believe that makes me stupid, as opposed to just plain ignorant.”

  Alexi’s lip curled in a violent snarl, sound ripping from his throat. “Always sarcasm with you.” His eyes searched her face, and his mouth twisted as though disgusted with what he saw there. She knew he wanted a reply, something, but all she could think was, he’s a snake, so how is it he can growl? And then she remembered it was that very thought which got her into so much trouble with Alexi in the first place, not so long ago, but it felt like a lifetime — he would never have touched her then.

  He cocked his head, clenched his jaw, scars livid against the pale of his cheeks. Snakes do not growl, he said clearly in her head. “Men do.” Then something desperate swam through his blazing eyes. “You don’t have to do this.” He shook her again. “You do not. ”

  Finally, anger flared and penetrated the shock. Emma embraced it. “What do you care?” He flinched. “Is this about me or the jaguars, Alexi?” She tossed her head, flicking hair out of her eyes. “And what’s the alternative? Let Katenka die?” Tears threatened and she squashed them down. Damn it, why the hell did it have to be him, why was he the one telling her she didn’t have to do it? She strangled a desperate little sound and turned the full force of her anger on him, voice ragged. “What else do you suggest, Alexi? Care to take Seshua’s place?” She was breathing so hard she didn’t realize he was too, until he stopped.

  The swirling, stinging flare of his magic died in the air around them. He dropped his hands. She should have been warm, but Emma was suddenly cold, so cold, all the way down to her bones.

  He took a step away from her, face looking more scarred than it ever had. “You do not understand.” He held her eyes. “The jaguar kingdom was never meant to hold your power. It is prophesied.”

  Emma’s shoulders slumped. So it came back to this. “I thought the serpent priesthood didn’t believe in the prophecies.”

  His face didn’t change. “They don’t.”

  She couldn’t read him. “What about you?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I believe.” He looked away. “You will do as you like. You always have.”

  Emma wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold in whatever it was that wanted to tear free inside her. “I didn’t ask for this, you know.” She caught herself before her voice cracked.

  His gaze returned to her, made her mouth go dry. “I know.” His face hardened, silently blazing, as though trying to tell her something with the line of his jaw or the bridge of his nose or the darkness around his eyes. “Neither did I.” With that, he walked away, the hard whip of his hair swaying as he climbed the steps and went back inside.

  Emma stood there a long time, blinking hard, before she realized Fern was still on the doorstep. And he hadn’t intervened — not when Alexi swept her off the front porch, not when he grabbed her and shook her. But then, the mark on her hand had been silent, too. She could doubt the mark, because Telly was gone, but she couldn’t doubt Fern.

  “Why didn’t you do something?”

  He stepped out from behind the big support pillar that flanked the front door, and met her eyes. He smiled sadly. “You didn’t need my help. You never have, with him.”

  She tightened her arms around herself, feeling like she might just fall apart. “I don’t understand, Fern. I don’t understand him. Any of it.” When Fern started down the steps, she almost backed away — if he touched her, she didn’t know if she’d be able to keep it together.

  He stopped a few feet away, shoved his hands in his pockets. “We need to get inside. You’re hungry.”

  She studied his black eyes, trying to read them, but they were just as impenetrable as Alexi’s. She sighed. “I’m not hungry.”

  He smiled and held out his arm. “Yes you are. You just don’t know it yet.”

  Reluctantly, she put her hand on his arm and let him lead her up the steps. Her stomach rumbled as he pushed the front door open. She hated it when he was right like that.

  They headed for the sound of voices, toward the back of the house, but Seshua came out of what must have been the living room before they could reach it.

  He stopped Emma beneath the stairs with a hand on her arm, but looked at Fern. “If I could have a moment with Emma, please.” Fern stayed by her side until she nodded to him that it was all right, but she suspected his hesitation had less to do with being worried about her, and more to do with confusion over Seshua’s sudden change of character.

  Fern closed the door to the living room behind him and Emma turned to Seshua, gently shrugging his hand off. “Are you okay? You haven’t hit your head or something?”

  He frowned down at her, eyes turned to iridescent silver disks in the gloom of the hallway. “No. Why would you say such a thing?”

  She bit her lip. “No reason. What is it?”

  He sighed through his nostrils, massive chest heaving. She heard the clink of weapons shifting around beneath his clothes. “You requested time,” he said slowly. “I understand you may change your mind over the course of the day, but should you still desire to complete the ritual tonight…” He paused, but there was none of the heavy seduction rolling off him that Emma had come to expect. Hell, he sounded almost respectful — now she knew he really must have
hit his head. He continued, oblivious of her surprise. “All will be prepared by seven. I’ll be spending the rest of the day attending to the details, but I have spoken to Yevgeny, and he assures me his estate is adequately equipped to cater to anything you should want or need. Only ask.”

  She stared up at him, trying to read his features, but it was impossible; he had his game-face on, hard and implacable. “What do you mean, details? Last time we just —”

  “Last time,” he interrupted harshly, “Was rushed. I —” He swallowed audibly. “I wished to make you mine before anyone else could have the chance.” He sounded angry — embarrassed? “I did not treat you as I should have.”

  Emma couldn’t help herself — she laughed. It was a mistake. The warm, humid touch of Seshua’s power leaked out and buffeted her, and a thin growl escaped him.

  She forced her face to behave, tried to look serious. “I’m sorry, but even if you had courted me at the beginning, I wouldn’t have gone through with it.”

  He made a frustrated sound and the feel of his power faded, until it was just the scent of warm, wet earth and jungle perfume surrounding them. “I know. And now you are only going through with it because you feel you must, but it does not mean I can’t make it all that it could be.” Emma took a step away from him, not trusting the weight that had crept into his voice, and it was his turn to laugh. “Do not startle so, pequeña. I will not take advantage.”

  “Huh.” She crossed her arms, backing out into the light of the hallway, closer to the door to the living room. “This is you we’re talking about, Seshua. You were made to take advantage, I’ve no illusions about that.”

  This time he laughed for real, joyous and loud. With his hands on his hips, he grinned at her, teeth very white in the darkness of his face. “You may be right. But you have the rest of the day without me, and I will not crowd you. ” He went to turn away.

  “Seshua?”

  He cocked his head. “Yes?”