The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  She bit her lip, tasting rain and magic. “Will you stay with me?”

  He scooped her up, and pressed his forehead to hers, closing his eyes as though in pain. “I will.”

  32

  “Emma,” a female voice whispered. “Emma, wake up. There’s something we need to tell you.”

  Emma flexed her jaw, coughed, couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes. She was bloody exhausted. It must be one of the maidens. Damn it.

  “Not now,” she said. Or that’s what she tried to say. What came out was, “Nnnnn.”

  “Emmalina.” A male voice this time. Deep. And she didn’t recognize it.

  Her eyes flew open and she saw — more darkness. Shadows. Wait, that light…

  The instant she thought about the light, the mark on her hand flared to life and bathed the cavern in a fitful crimson glow. Oh, no, Emma thought. No no —

  “It’s all right. We only want to tell you —”

  Emma whirled. Arima stood before her, plain and beautiful.

  “Tell me what?”

  The hooded man was suddenly just there, behind Arima. His voice rumbled around the cavern like displaced earth. “What went wrong.”

  Arima turned to the robed figure. “It didn’t go wrong.” She frowned. “Actually, it went very well, better than we hoped.” She turned back to Emma. “When you completed the ritual, the power swamped you. There was too much of it for you to hold. We don’t know what it would have done to you — it may have driven you mad. Or you may have done much harm to many, to people you consider friends.”

  Emma gave Arima a dry look. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Arima reached out a hand behind her, and the hooded man took it, enfolding it in his own — and the hand that slipped out from the wide sleeve of his robe was clawed, and furred with black and silver rosettes.

  “Because Alan offered his half of the ritual without love,” said Arima, “Without friendship, without the true heart’s desire to be protector and caretaker, without true commitment of any kind, he forfeited the power inherent in the ancient words. He cannot be your commander; the ritual words forbade it, but the physical part of the ritual was mutually completed. Because you said yes, and offered yourself with the true desire to sacrifice yourself in exchange for the power to save another, you were granted that power. All of it.”

  Emma didn’t know how she was supposed to react. “Alan can’t control me? Even though he’s supposed to be able to?”

  Arima nodded, eyes glittering in the red light. “You will forever be connected, but he cannot command you, in any way. Neither can the serpent priest.”

  “Wait a minute.” Emma tried to backtrack; she was getting this sinking feeling in her chest, and it battled the frantic, nervous flutter of her heartbeat. “What do you mean, the serpent priest?”

  Arima eyes grew wet and deep with sorrow — yet her mouth curved in a smile like sunrise. “Who took the power for you, when it became too much?”

  Emma’s mouth went dry. The light from her marked hand flared impossibly bright, like the last molten flare of the sun before it dipped beneath the horizon. Even if she had known what to say, she never got the chance; the world tilted, darkness descended, and the last thing she heard was Arima’s soft laughter as —

  She rolled, got a face full of velvet duvet, and then opened her eyes in time to see Alexi’s bare and perfect ass striding out of her line of sight.

  She hadn’t known she could move so fast; she was just suddenly across the bed with her hand locked around his wrist. He looked down at her with a comical expression of surprise stamped all over his face. His incredibly handsome face. Lips bruised-looking and slightly swollen, scars silver on his cheeks and eyes bright as buttercups, hair messy and swinging in glossy tangles down his back —

  She blinked rapidly and tried to focus. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  He turned and crouched by the bed. “Seshua is at the door,” he said quietly. “He says he has urgent news.” His mouth pulled down at the corners. “For me. From Brazil.”

  Emma was struggling to get her brain working again after the brief glimpse she’d gotten of Alexi in full frontal glory. “Brazil?”

  Alexi’s eyes darkened and his expression hardened. “Yes. Well. I must go to the door.” The look on his face softened. A muscle twitched in his jaw, beneath the scar. “You may want to cover up.”

  Emma froze. Yep, the towel she’d fallen asleep in was a tangled pile beneath her. She was naked on her knees on the bed, with one hand on Alexi’s wrist.

  She cleared her throat. “I might just do that.”

  His gaze never left her face. “I’ll be back.” There was heat in his voice, but the stark look in his eyes was all promise, and not the kinky kind. It tightened things in her chest and made her drag the duvet up to her chin. She burrowed into the covers and watched him step into his jeans, resisting the urge to tell him not to go.

  He opened the door just enough to angle his body through; Emma heard Seshua’s voice, and then Alexi closed the door. And then she heard Seshua’s voice again, louder.

  That couldn’t be good.

  By the time he got back Emma was sitting on the end of the bed, hair brushed and robe held closed. Alexi shut the door behind him and moved into the room, back stiff, hands in fists at his sides. His face was like marble. Emma wanted to touch him, but it seemed all her boldness had disappeared and she couldn’t make herself do it.

  Even though his yellow eyes, in all that marbled countenance, stared out at her like he wanted her to do it. Desperate and angry. And deep down, afraid. Maybe it was just the mind connection thing, augmenting what she could read in his eyes, but then he’d always been terrible at schooling his face.

  “You’re leaving,” she said.

  A muscle jumped in his cheek. “I have to.” His voice was hoarse. “I’ve done things. Terrible, irreversible things.”

  “So you could save me.”

  He looked away first, gave her the arrogant line of his profile. “Yes.”

  “When do you go?”

  He turned back to her. “Red Sun will take me there. I should go as soon as possible.”

  She laughed, but it didn’t feel very funny. Red Sun, taking someone else away from her.

  Alexi caught that thought. “We are bound,” he said with quiet fire, spreading his hands.

  Emma looked away from him. “And that terrifies you.”

  The cold blast of his anger was brief but intense, strong enough to make her look at him again. “It does. But not the way you think.” The look he leveled at her dared her to challenge him, dared her not to believe him. Then she felt his power whispering along her skin, cool and fizzy like champagne. Goosebumps broke out all over her body. And just like that, the connection between them was there, heavy and real, swelling in her chest as the coiled steel of Alexi’s mind brushed hers.

  I don’t know what it means, this connection. His mental voice held his beast, vast and muscular and inexorable. I don’t know how it affects your power, or mine. But I do not regret it. His eyes darkened. I regret many things, but not that.

  Emma took a deep, shaky breath. I had a dream — a vision, I think —

  “I know,” he said softly — and with a trace of embarrassment. “I could hear it.”

  Emma felt anything but embarrassed — more like relieved she wasn’t going crazy. “I think it means you anchor my power —”

  “Rather than controlling it,” he finished. He took a step toward the bed, then seemed to think better of it and crossed his arms instead. “We are bound,” he said again, voice rough. “But the serpent priesthood cannot know. When I leave you, I must shield the connection between us. Shut you out.”

  In the back of Emma’s mind, a cold, mean voice whispered that she was getting the metaphysical equivalent of a brush-off. But Alexi’s gaze on her was so intense it almost burned, and he wasn’t shielding from her now. His anxiety filled the space between th
em, made the air harder to breathe, made it heavy and electric. When Emma stood, his hands tightened on his biceps, knuckles going white.

  Emma looked him straight in the eye. What did you do, Alexi?

  He blinked slowly, his thick, dark lashes sweeping down, then up again to reveal the vibrant yellow of his eyes. So beautiful.

  Focus, Emma, he said, mental voice holding the ghost of a smile.

  She sighed. “Okay. So you have to shield our connection. No mind to mind chit-chat once you’re gone. I get it.”

  He took another step toward her. “If your life is in danger, this does not apply, do you understand?” His brow knit, and he searched her face as though he couldn’t read her thoughts.

  “You’re doing your scary face right now, you know that?”

  His brow smoothed out, nostrils flaring as he rocked back on his heels. “Is this better.”

  Emma shrugged. “I like your scary face.” His eyes widened but she didn’t give him a chance to respond. “What if I’m not in danger.”

  He cocked his head. “If you are not in danger?”

  She nodded.

  A strange, thoughtful look filled his eyes for a moment, then was gone too fast for Emma to read the meaning in his mind. He clenched his teeth, making the scars either side of his mouth pull tight, making Emma want to reach up and trace them with her fingertips -

  He turned away so fast Emma jumped, and he only turned around again when he’d put several feet of distance between them, but when he faced her his gaze was hot — and not with anger.

  He cleared his throat. “I will call you.”

  “Call me?”

  Slowly, he smiled, and it was like the sun rising, sudden and beautiful and breathtaking. “Yes,” he said simply. He held her eyes. But I have to go now, or I never will. And with more strength than either of them alone possessed, Alexi turned away, and walked out the door.

  She felt it the moment he clasped Red’s arm. Felt him disappear.

  Felt it like a part of her disappeared, too.

  But there was another part of her elsewhere in the hotel, waking slowly from a magic-induced sleep, and she had to go to him.

  Fern took longer than they expected to surface completely, so Emma got to shower and even dress in real clothes, though the brushed wool sweater was a little tight, and the waist of the jeans was too high. At least both were black, so it was hard to tell. She walked out of the hotel room with her hair wet, her head held high, and her chin set — and every step of the way she fought the urge to run back, clutch the pillows to her face, and breathe in Alexi’s fading scent from the bedclothes.

  She reached out with her mind — not for Alexi, but for Fern. What she got was not what she ordered. His mind was a mess, muffled and confused, but above all else, dark somehow — like a part of him just hadn’t surfaced from the sleep they put him under. Emma came to the open door of his room on the second floor and paused there, looking in, unsure what she’d find.

  He was a pale smudge in a sea of green and antique bronze brocade bedding. His mind stirred against hers, stronger now, but still strange. Still missing something. He struggled to sit up as she walked into the room, but he didn’t say anything.

  The covers pooled in his lap. He was terribly thin, all ribs and shoulders and cheekbones, but he still smelled of clean, warm sheets and body heat and sleep, a sweet and simple smell. The scent of home. The light from the room’s one lamp glittered in his eyes like stars, and the look he turned to her was haunted. Just haunted.

  She slid into the bed with him. She put her arms around him. Skeletal, his own arms snaked around her waist, and he buried his face in the crook of her neck and shook, and Emma fought not to shake right along with him. She fought to be strong.

  Eventually, Fern slept again, a shallow, healthy sleep. But Emma didn’t.

  33

  They stayed in the hotel one more night, then drove to the nearest airfield, where Yevgeny chartered a plane to fly them direct to Kolomna. From there they went back to his estate; only a few rooms were truly gutted by the firebombing at the hands of Alan’s soldiers, and Yevgeny had no intention of leaving. The observatory, however — Katenka’s mother’s room — was lost.

  Though Yevgeny never said anything, Katenka told Emma that though he was sad about the room, it was a chance for him to rebuild, and not just the fire damage. She had arched one fine white brow meaningfully in Nadya’s direction at the time.

  Emma and Katenka walked together. The ground was wet from an overnight downpour, but the morning had been mild, though the moisture was still dripping off the naked branches of the apple trees in Yevgeny’s private orchard. Sunlight turned Katenka’s white-blond hair to pale fire, brought out the spring green of her eyes. Her cheeks were pink in the cold air. She smiled constantly, fiercely, and every now and then, Emma thought of a white wolf with its teeth bared and blood soaking its front — saw it very clearly in her mind’s eye, as the wolf princess leaped through cascading shards of glass and lunged without hesitation at Emma’s one true mortal enemy.

  It was a good thought.

  “…I was saying,” Katenka said, her thickly accented voice warm with laughter as Emma startled back into the here and now. She’d been doing that a lot. “Papa put his best wolves on the case, but none can find this Zimayi bloodline that your wolf cub’s pack was descended from. It looks like he is out of luck.”

  Emma stopped and looked down at the princess. “Damn.”

  Katenka nodded. “Yes, but they say my papa’s pack is next best thing.”

  Emma studied Katenka’s face. There was a sly glint to those jade eyes. “The next best thing? What do you mean?”

  Katenka grinned. “I mean, if Rain needs pack to survive, like all wawkalaki do, then one of us would do nicely.”

  She couldn’t be serious. Emma put her hands on her hips. “Spit it out, princess, I don’t have all day.” Actually, since they weren’t leaving until tomorrow, she did. But hey.

  “Well…” Katenka turned around and started walking backwards, beckoning Emma with a lift of her eyebrows to follow. Her eyes flashed bright, excited green in the sunshine. “I could come with you, to America.”

  “What?” Emma laughed, until she saw Katenka wasn’t laughing with her. “You can’t do that. What about your dad? What about your pack? You’ve been sick your whole life, and now you’re better, you wanna pack up and —”

  “Hush.” Katenka held up a hand and stopped. Her face grew older, serious, in a matter of mere heartbeats. “My father has not lived while there was a chance I could die. If I stay, he will not know what to do with me — or himself.” The princess shrugged. “Besides, I would be safer with you than here in Russia. Do you know how many assassination attempts there will be, now the surrounding packs know I am not going to simply expire and my father die of grief along with me?”

  Emma didn’t know what to say to that. Katenka softened her tone until she sounded more her age. “Papa can handle himself, and I think he will handle himself better if I am not here for him to fret over for a whole new collection of reasons. Where else would I be safer than your sanctuary? You, the caller of the blood?” She smiled. “Think about it, but think quickly.” Katenka’s eyes sparked with true childlike glee. “I’ll want as much time as possible to pack!”

  The princess turned and skipped ahead — then paused and came back, digging in her pocket. All the bouncing preadolescent energy was gone from her face as she held her hand out to Emma.

  “My father said they took this off you. In the car. After you were rescued.” Katenka gazed up at Emma, eyes wide, not opening her fist, and Emma’s heart began a slow and heavy drop. “Ivan melted the metal down to slag, destroying the blood trace, and they were going to get rid of the stone too, but Ivan thought you might want to have it. I don’t know why. I can give it back to him to destroy if you —”

  “No.” Emma held out her trembling right hand, and after a long moment, Katenka dropped the diamond into it
. Black as the diamond was, and roughly the size of the lump of scar tissue, it seemed it had been destined to sit just so, like a dull, myopic eye, dead and resting in the heart of Telly’s mark.

  Forty two hours later, Emma was alone in the kitchen at the ranch, head hanging between her shoulders, the heels of her hands resting on the edge of the sink. Her stomach was full of Ricky’s famous fish tacos and the television murmured from the living room. From elsewhere, the sounds of home drifted to her: water running, guards arguing in deep bass voices, the slap and smack of parried blows as Anton and someone else sparred in the corrals outside, a training session as sunset wore on into dusk. Less a training session, more catharsis. Sefu brayed, calling to his mares — calling to Emma, calling for one last ride before dusk turned to true night.

  She would be there. She would. But first she had something she needed to finish.

  In one of the kitchen drawers she found a hammer. Good old fashioned workmanship, heavy, made for a man’s hand. She hefted it in her right, felt the bullet scar sit snug against the handle.

  She went to the screen door that led to the porch and flipped on the outside lights. Anton and his sparring partner paused, looked up as she came down the porch steps. There was an ancient tree stump near the porch railing, for chopping wood or sitting with a beer or a burger if you wanted a little privacy away from the hubbub of the house; it stood about two and a half feet high, and hit Emma at about mid thigh.

  She unfolded her left hand and put the black diamond on the stump. She set her feet wide. She thought of Alan, his face when he said the first ritual words, and she called up the power of the mark on her hand by sheer force of will alone. And when it was hot against the handle of the hammer, she closed one eye, sighted down the length of her arm, and swung for all she was worth.

  The diamond shattered, taking out a chunk of the near-petrified stump with it. Emma cried out like she was the only one there, a falcon’s shriek of triumph. She heard concerned shouts, saw Anton start to come over and think better of it, and she took a tissue out of her pocket and swept up the remains of the diamond, folded it up, and balled it in her fist.