The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  Ashai came around the corner of the barn and said from a safe distance, “Sometimes it seems you share your mind with Sefu, too.”

  “Nope,” Emma said. “Maybe if I did, I could’ve prevented this hissy fit.” Sefu jostled her, then took a few steps and bent his head down to nip the cuff of her jeans, which incidentally put his ass next to her face. She couldn’t help but think it was a comment on her choice of words. She slid her hand up his hind leg to scratch his rump and looked up at Ashai. The poor guy looked harried. “He gave you hell, of course.”

  He shook his head, and it made his black braids sway. “No my lady.” He smiled back at her, teeth bright in his beautiful brown face. “A little. He knew you were out here.”

  Ashai had known too, of course. Jackals had astonishing hearing. Then again, anyone at the ranch would’ve been able to hear her from inside the stables — anyone but Zach. Probably there were some guards in the woods who had heard — or even seen — Emma having her moment around the side of the stables, but she’d learned a while ago not to dwell on who might be watching when she thought she was alone. There was only so much you could worry about before going completely nuts.

  “Come on,” she said to Sefu, and headed for the jackal guard, knowing the stallion would follow. “We still have time for a ride.”

  “It will snow later though, my lady,” Ashai said as he fell into step beside her. “I hope you will have returned from your trip into town by then.”

  Emma knew she looked nonplussed at his comment, and not because of his assertion that it was going to snow. This was closer than any of the jackals had come to actually speaking their mind to her as though they were her equals. It was progress. He was super reserved, just like the other jackals on loan from Egypt — she refused to think of them as “gifts,” and although their king was on board with her preferences, the jackal guards themselves found it challenging. In their defense, they’d spent hundreds of years under an insane, evil dictator and usurper of the Jackal Crown.

  Well, maybe Ashai hadn’t personally been alive hundreds of years. Only way to know though, was to ask, and sometimes the shapechangers were touchy about their age.

  “You can’t be serious about snow,” she said as they rounded the other side of the stables and went through the big double doors. “It’s the first week of October. Rain and hail, maybe, but we’ll be lucky to get snow by November, even at this elevation. Still a drought here.” The scent of hay and leather and horses made her take a deep, grateful breath, all shreds of the panic attack gone now.

  Ashai’s reply was drowned out by Sefu trumpeting a greeting to the two mares tethered in the central tack area. The mares were Sefu’s herd, also from Egypt. They had finer features than their stallion, better manners, and almost laconic personalities. Unless apples were involved; the dark bay mare could mess your shit up if there were apples involved. Sefu himself never deigned to get excited about treats, and the mares never deigned to get excited about him.

  Emma greeted the mares in her own much quieter way, stroking their sleek necks. “One of you will go into season one of these days, and then you’ll be a lot more excited about his majesty over there.” And then maybe there’d be foals in the spring, which wouldn’t suck. His majesty went to investigate the bay’s rear end and almost got a sharp hoof to the eye for his efforts. Still managed to look pleased with himself somehow.

  They set about tacking the horses up, which didn’t take long, since Emma rode Sefu with just a halter and reins. Never a full bridle — he’d never been trained to one — and no saddle today since they were just doing an easy endurance walk, long and slow, to keep the horses in shape. Ashai rode with nothing at all; both the jackal guards were master horsemen. They’d been too shy at first to accept Emma’s request for riding lessons, but lately they had both been correcting her and giving gentle feedback on her technique. Hopefully lessons would happen before they went back to Egypt — whenever that was supposed to be. Did either of them have family they were pining for back home? Emma made a mental note to ask Kahotep the next time she spoke to him.

  Ashai left the halter and lead on the bay, so he could keep her with the group while riding the chestnut. Usually two guards accompanied Emma — not always the jackals — both mounted, in case of a riding accident, but the guards had decided by committee that it was time to relax those safety precautions.

  Their decision might have had something to do with Emma threatening to outfit the cabin quarters with a fuchsia theme if they didn’t start trusting her riding abilities.

  When they were ready to ride out, Emma grabbed a footstool and used it to help herself vault up onto Sefu’s back, before Ashai could volunteer to help her. He, of course, didn’t need the help himself — the mares were a little shorter, but he was grace in motion no matter the height of the horse. With one hand on the chestnut’s shoulder, he sprang lightly and swung a leg over her back as though gravity didn’t apply to him.

  Not that Emma was envious or anything. Nope.

  Excitement and relief washed over her now that she was seated on Sefu’s warm, broad back. He shivered and tossed his head, ears cocked forward. Then he shook himself, from head to tail, and relaxed beneath her, and it was as though he’d become a part of her and she a part of him. She threaded her fingers through his mane, the reins looped through one hand.

  This was peace.

  The next two hours, ambling through California redwood forest with the crisp autumn air redolent of undergrowth and the bright morning sun muted and dappled through the canopy, were like a transfusion of sanity Emma needed more than air itself.

  Later, much later, Emma would think of that ride through the woods as though they had been suspended in time. As a last gift from some benevolent force that knew what was coming but was powerless to stop it.

  Because when they got back to the ranch, the shit hit the fan.

  4

  The ranch was swarming with guards, and three of the massive gray Escalades were parked right up at the front entrance to the guard’s cabins. Big dudes in black tactical gear jogged back and forth making preparations. For what?

  Ashai was with her, and he could obviously hear what was going on, what they were saying to each other. Damn shapechanger senses.

  His face closed down and his eyes turned gold. He held an arm behind her, not touching her but herding her. “Inside, my lady.”

  “That’s where we were going anyway.” She took the back porch steps two at a time. “What’s going on?”

  Before she could pull open the back door, a massive black jaguar shouldered it open for her and prowled out onto the deck. Her breath only caught for a moment. She stepped aside to let the guard pass, which was pointless, since he leaped over the deck railing instead, landed on the lawn beyond and loped away without breaking stride.

  She didn’t know who it was, but she knew it was a “he.” No female black jaguar guards at the ranch. Not many female guards at all.

  They went inside. Kitchen was dark and deserted, but Em could hear people from farther inside the house, and moving about upstairs. “Ashai, I asked you a question.”

  He flinched and Emma felt guilty, but that closed down look was still in his eyes. “I do not know exactly what is going on, my lady. Only that the guards are driving out to the airport to meet more guards. My lady.”

  “More guards? From where? And Ashai, please, stop with —”

  “You know there’s no use telling him to stop,” said Katenka from the kitchen doorway. Her Russian accent was getting fainter by the day. “He is too accustomed to the royal court not to address you so.”

  Ashai inclined his head at the princess and greeted her without the slightest trace of irony. “My lady.”

  Katenka grinned, winked at him, then turned her attention back to Emma. “The Jaguar King called while you were out with the horses. His newest private jet is touching down at the town airstrip in twenty minutes.”

  It seemed hotter inside the house
all of a sudden, so Emma stripped off her jacket and hung it over a chair. “Is Seshua on that plane too?”

  The princess shook her head. “Things are too bad in Central America right now for him to leave.”

  “Shit. I mean, sorry Katenka.”

  “I’m not a child, Emma, you may use your speech freely with me. Come on,” she gestured with a toss of her head. “Kal and Anton want to talk to you.”

  Em sighed and followed her out of the kitchen. At fourteen years old, Katenka was a child, but she was also Russian wakalak — werewolf — royalty, and had lived her whole life up until meeting Emma certain she was going to die of the shapechanger equivalent of terminal cancer before she could turn fifteen. Both circumstances had aged her spirit.

  And, as heir to the Russian wolf kingdom, she was considered an adult from the onset of her first menses, which Emma thought was super icky and completely irrelevant. But now was not the time to bring that up again.

  The sound of voices and footsteps got louder as they followed Katenka through the house. As they passed through the dim hall, Emma felt the skin tighten across her shoulder blades, and then Fern appeared at the first floor landing. He came down the stairs seeming unsurprised that she was there, but then his senses were sharper than hers, and not just the physical ones.

  Katenka glanced up at him. “How is he?”

  Fern joined them, quiet tension following him like a shadow. “He’s coping. He’d be better if Zach were here. Bruce is with him, which seems to help.”

  Bruce was the big shaggy gray mutt Emma had accidentally adopted just over five months ago, but they were talking about Rain, their social anxiety stricken, orphaned werewolf. Emma touched Katenka on the arm, making an effort not to stare at Fern. “Is it the guards?”

  Katenka nodded. “He doesn’t like it when they’re all here at the house.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “He’ll have to learn to cope better if we’re going to have even more of them in less than an hour.”

  “I think I’m going to have to learn to cope better. I don’t even know how we can accommodate more guards here.” Emma made herself glance at Fern, then at Ashai and back to Katenka. “Anyone wanna tell me why we’re being invaded?”

  Fern looked away, but not before Emma saw the worry in his dark eyes. Katenka made the kind of “you’re screwed” face that only a teenager could pull off and said, “I think you had better talk to Kal and Anton.”

  “Fine.” Emma squared her shoulders and strode for the living room at the end of the hall. “Traitors.”

  A snort of laughter from Katenka. “I heard that.”

  Deadpan, Ashai said, “I didn’t, my lady.” So that Emma was smiling when she pushed open the door to the living room and came face to face with Kal, one of the biggest guards in the jaguar king’s employ.

  Also one of the highest ranking, and not happy to be assigned here to Emma’s protection rather than the king’s. But he was a consummate professional, so he’d been a good sport about it since getting sent here after Russia.

  Emma sighed. After Russia, after Russia, after Russia. Always back to that.

  Kal misinterpreted her sigh. “Somewhere you’d rather be, Ms Chase?”

  Well, he’d been a good sport about it so far.

  Beyond Kal, several conversations died and an expectant hush fell over the room, but Emma couldn’t see past Kal’s epic upper body.

  She looked up at him, remembering a time when he scared the bejeezus out of her, with his flat gaze and features so stern and ancient he looked like an Aztec statue come to life for the sole purpose of making her life a living hell. He’d cut the dreadlocks off, now sported a buzzcut; his eyes were a brown so deep they were almost red, and his skin was much the same. He was jaguar, and he had the huge jaw to match.

  Emma put her hands on her hips. “Kal, I enjoy being babysat just about as much as you enjoy doing the babysitting, and now I’m told I’ll have even more babysitters in less than an hour. What’s going on?”

  A look of faint, begrudging respect softened his expression and he crossed his arms, stepping out of her way. Emma noted Anton standing with a group of guards near the front door, all of them armed — he stood out with his lighter olive skin and slighter build — all their faces bearing similar looks of “let’s get this shit done.” She was about to lift a hand in greeting to Anton, forcing herself to take a deep breath and relax, but then Kal spoke and his words froze her.

  “The serpent priesthood is moving against the Jaguar Kingdom, and you are the jewel of the Jaguar Kingdom’s crown, so the king wants your protection reinforced. That’s what is going on.”

  Emma didn’t need to ask what he meant by “moving against” the Jaguar Kingdom. She turned to Kal. “The serpent priesthood.” Alexi. “The whole priesthood?” She swallowed, hated how small her voice sounded. “All of them?”

  Kal’s face was stony again. “We don’t know.”

  Behind him, Katenka lingered in the doorway, Fern at her side. Their gazes wavered between her and Kal. Emma was aware of all the other eyes and ears on her, the guards anxious to go but waiting to see if they were needed here — waiting to see what Emma would do. Her mouth went dry, and for a second she couldn’t take another breath, not with everyone watching her, wondering what was going through her head, wondering if she was going to just lose it completely.

  The way they’d all been waiting for her to lose it — crack up, break down, collapse. Since Russia. Since Russia. Since —

  “Get Seshua on the phone for me,” she barked at Kal. Turned to Anton. “Where is Red Sun?”

  “Red’s covering the perimeter, so we can spare the guards for pickup. And for house reinforcements.” Reading her face, he added, “He has a radio on him.”

  She nodded. “Good. Can you patch him before you go? I need him here by the time you get back, and the electronics can’t travel with him, not his way.” He’d have to head back the old fashioned way. “Could take him a while depending on his location.”

  “Sure.” Anton’s green eyes dark with unspoken things. “Em…”

  One of the other guards cut him off. “We gotta go. Jet touches down in fifteen.”

  Anton’s mouth hardened. “Fine.” He inclined his head to Emma as he grabbed the radio from his belt, sketched a little wave to her in the air with it, then marched out the open door bracketed front and back by the other guards. Emma heard the crackle of the radio before the door slammed shut behind them all; then the engines waking, muttering, roaring to life and away down the gravel drive.

  When she turned around, Kal was there, cordless landline phone in hand. He handed it over without a word, without a bitch about running her errands or taking her orders, and that was when Emma began to be scared.

  Emma wanted to be outside, needed the air before she could speak without freaking out, so she cradled the phone to her chest and made a beeline for the back porch. Katenka was nowhere in sight, perhaps gone back upstairs to Rain; Ricky and Fern sat at the bottom of the stairs, ocelot maidens ranged behind them on the ascending steps. The advantage of preternatural hearing was you could stay out of the way and still listen in. Yet another reason to take the phone outside.

  Good grief, it was cold outside, and she hadn’t thought to grab her jacket. Her breath misted and her skin went rough with gooseflesh. Screw it.

  “Seshua, talk to me.”

  Thunderous silence on the other end of the line.

  “I know you’re there, Seshua. Even if I can’t hear your breathing. How do you do that, anyway?”

  The silence continued long enough that she started trying to come up with another witty quip to provoke him and cover her mounting sense of dread, but before she could get it out, he sighed quietly.

  “Pequeña ,” he said in a voice she almost didn’t recognize. Voice still painfully deep as always, as though his beast was caged just behind his teeth, but so tired. “I am here. The serpent priests are staging an uprising against Alexi, who now rules them,
though for how long yet remains to be seen.”

  Confusion and relief made Emma’s legs feel funny, but she managed to engineer a controlled descent onto the bench beneath the kitchen window. “Alexi rules the serpent priesthood. How? What — how? And why wasn’t I told?”

  “Which question would you have me answer first, Emmalina, bearing in mind none of them matter?”

  Emma’s heart jumped just a fraction faster; he only called her Emmalina when he was angry, and his anger was a palpable thing even with thousands of miles separating them. Of course, he was the Jaguar King, one of the most powerful and pure-blooded shapechangers alive — whether he was out to scare you or seduce you, you sure as hell felt it.

  She gritted her teeth and shivered against the cold, letting it chase away her doubts. It did matter that she hadn’t been told, because she was the Caller of the Blood. Seshua’s kingdom was bound to her, as were the kingdoms of the Egyptian Jackals and the Russian wawkalak, and Alexi was one of Seshua’s principal allies.

  Not to mention the tie between Alexi and Emma herself. But since she didn’t know how that worked, and hadn’t told a single soul about it, it was a trump card she couldn’t use. Besides, then Seshua might argue Alexi should have told her about it himself, and Emma already knew why Alexi hadn’t told her: because he was Alexi.

  “Fine,” she said. “Then tell me what the uprising means, and why you feel we need more guards up here in spite of the fact that the ranch is pretty much a mystical black hole.”

  Seshua breathed out heavily, and Emma could picture him — his strong, almost hawkish nose, nostrils flaring wide. Black mane of hair, severe brow; dark blue eyes and dusky blue skin. Cobalt, really, but warm and vital, a mark of his bloodline and his power. Seshua was jaguar, but looked like a storm god in human skin.

  “You,” he said, “Are my most powerful asset, and so I will not take chances with your safety in times of political crisis.”

  “I’m an ally, Seshua, not an asset.” He might look like a god, but he was still a jerk. “But what does that have to do with —”