The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  The jolt sent pain pulsing through the wounds on her chest. She heard Seshua snarl and felt Fern’s wordless alarm; Fern’s relief that Red was alive was tempered by the fact that Red looked like maybe he was about to kill her. He was glowing white, the light burning away the blood from around his mouth and chin; his eyes were pure, liquid gold, and his teeth were still long, and his face had gone symmetrical. Emma didn’t see any recognition in his eyes, and when she touched his mind, it was dark and chaotic with his beast. She could feel him still there, somewhere; the pledge had saved him, but the system reboot wasn’t quite complete. Right now he was nothing but instinct, and the intoxication of the pledge still rode him.

  Even if she thought she was fast enough to get out from under him — and she didn’t — her legs were trapped between his. Moving was neither an option nor a good idea.

  “Don’t,” was all she could manage to say, still breathing hard and reeling with the high of the pledge, the taste of blood strong in her mouth. Thankfully Fern knew what she meant, and put a hand on Seshua’s arm. The king kept growling. Emma had to trust that Fern had it under control, because she had more pressing issues.

  Speaking of pressing issues, Red made a deep, animal sound in his throat and pressed his lower half more firmly against hers, and Emma suddenly knew a hell of a lot more about Red than she ever wanted to.

  Well, okay, there had been times when maybe she’d wanted to, but this was definitely not one of them. Not with Red mentally checked out and Fern merged with her and Seshua about to lose his shit in a major way.

  She had to revise that when Red lowered his head and licked the underside of her jaw while grinding his crotch against her again. A wave of breathless pleasure rolled through her. She gasped, and then squeezed her eyes shut in embarrassment when she remembered there were two other people mere feet away, one of whom was metaphysically sharing her mind.

  Seshua roared; Fern yelled and grabbed onto one of the king’s arms with both hands, but nothing would stop Seshua if he thought she was in true danger. Apparently Seshua was less worried about Red killing her and more worried about the other thing, which was exactly the opposite of how she felt, but she really didn’t want Seshua to kill Red when they’d just managed to save his life. She put her hands on Red’s shoulders and pushed.

  He didn’t budge, but did sweep his tongue up behind her ear and utter a long, satisfied groan that rumbled in Emma’s ear and made her breath catch. But then Red’s chest rubbed against the scratches on her breastbone, clearing her head.

  She found her voice and pushed power into it. “Red, let me go.” She shoved at his shoulders again, using her heels against the floor to try to get some leverage —

  A snarl ripped wetly from his throat and his teeth clamped down on Emma’s neck. Everyone froze. She clenched her teeth against a whimper as Red’s chest ground against hers, agony shooting through the raw flesh.

  Okay, so trying to escape triggered his beast even more. Red’s hold on her was firm but not painful, his breathing heavy, and he’d started to glow for real. If he’d lost control, it was imperative she stop him from changing, but the combination of pledge magic and residual brain injuries meant Red was too powerful for her to stop his change by force. Maybe once he’d healed, and the high of the pledge wore off, but they didn’t have time .

  She had to reach Red, find the thing that would cut through the instincts of his beast to the man underneath.

  Emma spoke to Fern via the bond: tell Seshua to defend me if Red changes, but not before. I have a plan.

  The problem with the merge was that Fern could see pretty much instantly what her plan was. You call that a plan?

  Emma closed her surface thoughts to him as much as possible given the merge, which wasn’t enough, but she was doing this anyway.

  Pretend they aren’t there, she told herself.

  Yeah, right.

  Closing her eyes, she breathed out, willing her muscles to relax and pushing aside the pain from her gouged chest. Then she arched her body against Red.

  He groaned and moved his hips, letting go of her neck so he could bury his face in her hair.

  Everything south of Emma’s navel clenched. Overwhelmed by him, pain forgotten, she was suddenly hyper aware of the scent of his skin — not the magic, or his aura or the coppery taste of his blood on her tongue, but the ordinary salty warmth of him, hot and male and alive. He was her friend; she loved him that way, and returning that friendship mattered more to her than any fleeting attraction, but the attraction was there. He would be seriously pissed off that she’d risked her safety to bring him back from death and then back from the edge, and given what had happened to her in Russia, he’d be mortified at what he’d done here when he came back to himself.

  She was counting on that to bring him back.

  But right now, he wasn’t in control.

  Right now, Emma had the power to do as she wished, and the best damn excuse in the world to do it.

  She leaned in and tasted the skin at the hollow of his throat with her tongue.

  With a growl, his head came up, golden eyes glowing, and he captured her mouth with his. His kiss was hot and bruising and possessive. Emma parted her lips on a gasp and matched the hungry intensity of him, vaguely aware of the unmistakable rhythm of his hips surging into hers, unable to think past his tongue sweeping against hers, his teeth on her lips, the divine taste of him like —

  He disappeared.

  Emma’s head hit the concrete floor of the Roadhouse with a jarring crack. She rolled to her side, feeling the way that Fern and Seshua looked — okay, maybe not exactly, but definitely surprised — and Red Sun rematerialized at the far side of the floor area, displaced air knocking chairs off tables, breathing as though he’d run a marathon.

  His eyes were brown again. For a handful of heartbeats he just stood there, chest heaving, staring at her with something close to panic in his face. Then he straightened and scrubbed at his mouth with the back of his hand, expression softening to confusion. Confusion was followed by understanding.

  Emma decided to speak before understanding turned to regret, and then horror, and then wailing and moaning and all sorts of other crap she didn’t have time for. “Are you back with us?” Sure, she already knew the answer to that, but it was still kinda hard to think.

  Red grunted. Yep, he was back.

  He took a step away from the tables and chairs he’d upended, a little unsteady on his feet. “The pledge…”

  “Is a hell of a trip,” Emma finished for him.

  Red glanced away from her, to Seshua and Fern. Fern regarded Red with his usual blank black stare; Seshua barely kept his lip from curling in a snarl.

  Red met Emma’s eyes again, swallowed, and seemed to steel himself. “I thought you said the pledge didn’t require sex to complete it.”

  For some reason she really didn’t feel like having this conversion sprawled on the ground. As soon as she thought it, Fern was by her side, and she took the hand he offered and staggered to her feet, trying not to think about the heavy heat still coiled in her pelvis or the pulses of shivery agony that thudded through her chest wounds.

  “It doesn’t,” she said. “Obviously, or you wouldn’t be standing here. But it does sort of want you to complete it with sex.” She shrugged, spreading her hands. “It’s complicated?”

  Fern snorted. Emma ignored him. “How do you feel?” she asked Red.

  His scowl was epic. “Like an asshole.”

  “Oh come on, don’t start with this, Red.” Emma put her hands on her hips. “You had brain damage and then you had a heart attack and then you made the pledge. I knew what I was doing, and I knew you wouldn’t hurt me.” That last part was a lie; she hadn’t known, she’d taken a risk, and in the end she’d been too far gone to care.

  From the look he gave her, he knew it was a lie. “I am not worth that, Emma,” he said, voice strained with misery.

  “Which part?”

  “All of it!
” His voice reverberated with power, and a few chairs fell off their tabletop perches.

  Emma touched Fern’s arm, and met Seshua’s eyes. “Can you two give us a moment, please?”

  Seshua shot Red a look that might have set a lesser man’s hair on fire, and stalked from the room, heading back to the kitchens. Fern followed, but since he was also merged with her, it didn’t exactly count.

  Maybe giving Red something else to think about would help. “Before the serpent priests’ trap hit you, did you manage to materialize at the ranch?”

  He blew a breath out through his nostrils and shook his head, the look in his eyes still wounded. “The serpent priests were gone, though. The magic they left behind was powerful enough that if they’d been there, they could have reeled me in like a fish. I don’t see why they’d pass that opportunity up, so my guess is they were long gone.” He scrubbed his hand over his short blond hair. “Emma…”

  “Do you really need me to go over this, Red? Seriously?”

  He looked at her like she was mad. “Do I need you to go over this? Em, after what happened in Russia — I understand wanting to show a brave face but —”

  “I was raped in Russia.”

  Boom. There it was.

  Red’s eyes went nearly black, and he clenched his teeth so hard his jaw looked ready to snap. Emma sighed. “I understand very well what happened to me, Red. Alan threatened someone I’d sworn to protect, in order to get what he wanted. I gave myself up, but I know what it was. What I did here has nothing to do with that, and isn’t the same. This was saving a friend whom I trust with my life.” She shrugged. “The magic of the caller of the blood really likes sex, and if anyone else can tell me why, then I’m all ears. But I used that to bring you back to yourself, Red. You didn’t try to use it to destroy me, and I never thought for a second that you would.”

  Slowly, the blazing, furious anguish drained out of Red’s face and his shoulders slumped. “You trust too easily, kiddo.”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake, Red.” He looked at her like he’d bitten into a lemon, but she didn’t care. “I’ve already been hurt, and it wasn’t because I trusted the wrong people. My trust isn’t blind. I don’t follow my whims, I follow my instincts, because I am the caller of the blood, and nobody has an instruction manual for this shit. I’m the instruction manual. It’s like you think I’m this stupid, emotional, sentimental —”

  “Em, I’ve never thought —”

  “Child, ” she finished, cutting him off. “When I’m not. I’m none of those things. I am as practical as I can be. I am always outnumbered and outclassed by you people, and I have to fight every day just to be listened to when it comes to the stuff that’s the reason for my fucking existence. I saved your life because you are my friend, Red, but you’re also my best shot at surviving the serpent priests because you can Travel and keep us ahead of them.”

  Red’s expression softened. “Convenient, but that’s not why you risked your life saving me.”

  Emma shook her head. “Don’t you understand yet? The power of the caller of the blood makes stuff convenient. It rearranges things. It changes reality, and people. Do you think I could have made it this far in your world on the power of my personality alone? I’m just not that likable. I’ve definitely never been that persuasive, yet somehow I manage to get Seshua to listen to me. If that’s not magic I don’t know what is.” She raked her hands through her hair, wincing at the pain induced by lifting her arms. “Now can we please focus on something more important than me? Can you tell if the serpent priests’ snares are still at the ranch without risking getting caught in them again?”

  Red blinked and swayed like he’d just stepped off a rollercoaster, and Fern laughed softly in Emma’s mind. That’s pretty much the look on Seshua’s face right now, he said in her mind.

  She suppressed a smile. You two can come out now.

  As they emerged from the kitchens, Red recovered his equilibrium and frowned, focusing inward. “I don’t sense anything, when I let my power Travel ahead of me,” he said, meeting Emma’s eyes. “I’m pretty sure it’s safe for me to materialize there.”

  He was still frowning. Emma knew it wasn’t worth trying, but she tried anyway. “Take me with you.”

  “No,” Seshua said, putting himself in front of her. He held his arm out when she tried to shove past him, and then snagged her as she tried to duck under his arm. He tucked her against his side. “Your injuries need to be tended, and we do not know what else waits at the ranch, pequeña . It is too dangerous.”

  She growled a little, stiff in Seshua’s hold, but she’d never really thought they’d let her go. “It’s dangerous for Red Sun,” she pointed out, trying fruitlessly to squirm out of Seshua’s grip.

  Red smiled at her, though his brow was still pinched, like he was listening to something she couldn’t hear. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I feel strong. I’ll see you soon.” His eyes flashed gold and back to brown again. There was a pop in Emma’s ears, and the world tilted, and Seshua made the most amusing high pitched noise she’d ever heard.

  Then they were standing knee deep in snow. Behind them, the burnt out shell of the house smoked and crackled. Beside them, Fern shivered and blinked. In front of them, Red stared at them like they’d each grown an extra head.

  “What the everloving fuck,” he said.

  “Guess you’ve leveled up,” said Emma. Then she saw the barn, and panic bloomed in her gut like a huge poisonous flower, and she ran as fast as the snow and her bare feet would allow.

  12

  The stables were burning.

  The fucking stables were burning. Several yards away in the snow covered pasture, the mares raced up and down the far fence line, shrieking and tossing their heads, eyes wild. Fear burst to life in Emma’s gut; the scene was her very worst nightmare brought to life.

  She’d been away from home when her parents’ farm burned down, but she’d seen the ruins, smelled the lingering smoke. This couldn’t be happening.

  Where was Sefu?

  Seshua grabbed her from behind and swung her into his arms before she could protest and without breaking stride, his body a hot and thickly muscled cage. She dug her nails into his arm. “The stables, Seshua! I have to get to Sefu!”

  “I’ve no wish to argue with you, pequeña, I merely wish to preserve your feet.” She had to admit he got them to the stables faster than she could have on her own. Seshua looked around grimly, assessing their options; one end of the stables was destroyed and blazing, and the roof of the other end was alight. Part of it had collapsed.

  Seshua opened the Call, dumping frigid power over Emma and setting all her nerve endings ringing. There was a shout from inside. Red materialized right next to them and said to Seshua, “Wait.” Then he was gone again. Seshua closed down the Call.

  When Red reappeared a moment later, Emma couldn’t make sense of the pile of bodies she was seeing at his feet. Then her brain unscrambled it and she jerked against Seshua’s hold and screamed.

  Sefu lay on his side, no longer white but red and black and gray, and the two jackal guards sprawled over him didn’t look like men or jackals anymore. Sefu’s sides heaved, but the guards had to be dead; every naked surface of their bodies was burned black and weeping with blistered flesh, and they didn’t move.

  They’d died trying to protect Sefu.

  Emma covered her mouth with both hands and screamed against her clenched teeth, helpless to stop. Then Fern stumbled to a halt next to them, black eyes wide with horror. They’re not dead.

  One of the guards cracked open his eyes and looked straight up at Emma. His lips moved. His eyes turned amber, white light bleeding out from the raw cracks in the blackened skin of his face, but then his eyes rolled back in his head and the light died.

  “He’s trying to change,” Emma said, voice hoarse and thick with tears, hands shoving against Seshua’s chest. Seshua let her tumble out of his arms. “If they could change, could they heal?”

 
“Maybe,” said Seshua.

  Maybe was good enough. The jackals were hers, bound to her through their king’s pledge, and this was what she was made for. Emma let all her shields down, stumbling to her knees. She reached out and put her hands on their heads, skin crackling beneath her palms, and they shrieked. Then she called their beasts.

  White light flashed. Two jackals collapsed boneless next to Sefu, unconscious but whole, revealing the broken off timber strut lodged in Sefu’s side.

  Emma crawled through blood and snow and ash to Sefu’s head. Red foam bubbled out of his nostrils, but his huge brown eyes were calm. Shock had set in. She covered her mouth with both hands to stop herself from touching him, not sure if he’d find her touch comforting or distressing.

  Fern crouched next to her. “You can touch him, if you want. He doesn’t have much time left, but he recognizes you and he’s glad you’re here.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. How do you know that?

  He touched her face, taking her hand and placing it on Sefu’s broad cheek. He’s attuned to you, even though you can’t feel it because he isn’t a shapechanger, but I can sense him a little through you. Horses are mostly instinct. So is my beast. Also, y’know, I spent a lot of time with the horses this past month, when no one else was around. They soothed me. He shrugged, sat down, and put his face in his hands. He was compartmentalizing his grief because he didn’t want to add to hers.

  Sefu was hot under her hand. Still felt so alive. Emma opened the Call, but she couldn’t sense Sefu’s animal, because he was an animal. Just a horse.

  Emma folded her shields back into place, cutting off her magic. She felt like she was dying with him.

  “We will stay as long as we must,” Seshua said to Red Sun, “But I should go looking for the other guards. No,” he cut in as Red opened his mouth to speak. “Stay here with them. If anything happens, take them and come back for me only if they are safe.” He disappeared in blinding white light, and a huge black jaguar — twice the size of a natural jag — twisted out of the remains of Seshua’s clothes with the ease of practice and streaked away.