The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  Yevgeny inclined his head, and the guards — jaguar, jackal, and wolf — all came to attention, readying to leave, but Shadi was not a guard. He put his hand on his bow and Emma braced for an argument. His eyes filled with dark challenge, but then he looked at Emma and eased his hand off his weapon.

  “My lady,” he said, managing to look as though he was bowing when he wasn’t at all. “This is as you wish?”

  She nodded, for a moment missing Ricky and Anton and their twenty first century normalcy so much her chest ached. “It’s safe to go, Shadi,” she said. “I’ll be safe.”

  When Yevgeny, Shadi and the guards had all filed out, Fern and Red Sun were still there with no intention of leaving. Red dropped into the largest armchair with a grunt. “No point trying to get rid of us too,” he told Alexi. “We’re on the need to know list.”

  Alexi’s hands tightened on the back of the chair he was standing behind, but his face didn’t change. “I never said you didn’t need to know. I said that I would speak to Seshua and Emma.” He turned to Seshua. “Do you have many of your people remaining in Central America?”

  “Most have gone to ground,” he said. “Why?”

  “Any powerful enough to risk taking a stand against a serpent priest?”

  Seshua began pacing. Every time he turned back toward the low fire, the embers lit his eyes with amber lights. “Perhaps. A few.” He glanced at Fern. “Cara refused to stray far from the palace, and she has Aranan with her, maybe half a dozen. Travel would be the only real challenge.” Seshua came to a stop in front of Alexi. “Cara would be a good choice, should Fern allow it.”

  Emma was almost shocked; Seshua never made concessions to Fern. Most of the royals treated him like he didn’t even exist, or like a pet that Emma was eccentric enough to have adopted.

  “Cara rules herself,” Fern said. “She doesn’t need my permission to fight. She’ll probably do it too, just for kicks. Seshua’s right, she’s a good choice.”

  “Fine then,” Alexi said, addressing Seshua. “Give me rough coordinates and my people can find her, and anyone else you think of that may be of use.”

  Emma pressed against Fern to keep her heart rate steady before she spoke. “Of use for what?”

  Alexi looked at Emma, face severe even in the forgiving lamplight. After a long moment he put his hands on his hips and turned away to face the dying fire. “I have a plan,” he said quietly. “But to execute it, there is something I need, and the majority of the serpent priesthood now guards it. It won’t be like the last time, when there were merely rudimentary guards set to watch the Anchor,” he added, glancing over his shoulder at Red. “This will require… something more.”

  “Something more than me?” said Red, tone thick with disbelief.

  “You are needed,” Alexi said, turning around again. “With her.” His mouth twisted as he met Emma’s eyes, then he wrestled his expression back to neutral as he faced Red Sun again. “You are what stands between Emma and the priesthood. We cannot risk you in battle.” He paused. “No matter how much untapped power you may have gained from making the pledge.”

  Red grunted. Emma tried to look like she wasn’t experiencing a dozen different shades of guilt, shame and confusion over Red having made the pledge and Alexi knowing about it, and prayed that having Fern front and center in her head through the merge made it harder for Alexi to read her mind if she didn’t want him to. If he knew what she was thinking, or was listening in, he didn’t show it.

  “Pretty sure the pledge isn’t gonna throw me any more surprises,” Red said. “And I want Emma safe as much as — as much as anyone here,” he caught himself. “But the serpent priesthood is the threat. If there’s a chance to take them out…”

  Alexi shook his head once. “There isn’t. Not in a fight. There is a chance that with the right tactics, I might — might — have a shot at ending this another way. Your place is with her. ”

  Aaaand there was the brush of Alexi’s power, cold and dry and menacing, uncoiling like invisible, muscled lightning. Emma clenched her teeth against the feel of it — unnerving and exquisite, it did something to her insides she was pretty sure wasn’t intentional. As Red opened his mouth and got a bullish look in his eyes that said an argument was about to go down, Emma cleared her throat to cover up her shaking voice and spoke before Red could.

  “You aren’t telling us what you’re actually going to do.” Alexi looked her full in the face, with the force of his power still buffeting her, and she swayed.

  He reined his aura in, and some of the warmth returned to the room. His face softened, which meant it went from downright harsh to plain indifferent, but Emma didn’t let that bother her.

  “I cannot tell you,” he said, voice hard but pitched low. “There is a contingency of serpent priests scouring the globe, looking for you. If they were to catch one of your guards unawares, there is no end to what they could torture out of them. Yet more reason for Red Sun to never let you out of his sight.”

  “She’s not helpless you know, serpent priest.” Red Sun moved away from where he’d bene leaning against the arm of the couch, unfolding to his impressive height. Alexi was a couple of inches shorter and built like a blade, not a hammer, but he wasn’t fazed.

  “I know she isn’t,” Alexi said with a snarl that turned his scarred face into something from a horror movie. “I know it better than you, better than anyone here, except maybe for the wolf princess. It still won’t be enough. If you can find something, anything, based off whatever is in that trunk of Kahotep’s in order to make her stronger, then do it, but I will not risk —”

  “I’m right here,” Emma said, stepping away from Fern’s warmth. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here. The only person allowed to do that is Felani, and I don’t know where the hell she is, so don’t. Please.”

  Seshua stirred as though he would go to her. “Pequeña… ”

  “Leave us, all of you,” Alexi said in a tone that brooked no argument.

  Seshua’s upper lip curled back to reveal large incisors, and his hair rippled in a breeze that wasn’t there. Red looked apt to dig his heels in, and only Fern seemed to understand that sometimes, discretion was the better part of valor. Emma was trying to figure out how to tell them to cut it out without hurting their big manly feelings when Fern spoke.

  “All right,” he said to Emma as though responding to something she’d said. He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her on the top of her head. “I know you can take care of yourself. We’ll only be a moment away, after all.” Flashing her a brilliant smile, he turned and went to the door, opened it, and stood there looking at Seshua and Red Sun expectantly.

  Emma had to fight not to grin. Fern had bamboozled them. Neither of the big men could put their foot down and demand to stay now without looking like a petty, immature asshole, and they knew it. Sighing his frustration, Seshua stalked past and left without a word; Red’s pace was more sedate, and he winked at her on his way out. Fern’s black eyes glinted with amusement as he followed them, and then the door clicked shut, and Emma was alone with Alexi.

  19

  All trace of his power was gone from the air. As much as he could ever be — which wasn’t a whole lot — he was just a man, standing across the room from Emma, hands at his sides and gaze calm. The low light made his eyes look carved out of shadows, his lips bruised, and his hair had started to unravel from its braid, strands curling at the nape of his neck. His hair never stayed neat for long. Not that Emma had seen, anyway — but she didn’t really know him, did she?

  They were connected by the link forged when Emma’s powers were awakened and he’d helped to contain them, to redirect them like a flooding river, without which she might have gone mad. Or simply been destroyed, mind or body, maybe both. But before that, before she’d even known who he was, part of her spirit had grasped for him in spite of all logic or thought or good sense. It still did. But she didn’t know him.

  “That is fair,” he said. �
�Not true, but fair.”

  Her voice came out husky and tired. “Why are you really here? If you can’t tell us your plan, and you won’t let Red Sun help —”

  “I am here for you,” he said. Emma shut her mouth so hard her teeth banged together. Alexi moved to stand in front of the fireplace, where the coals still glowed. “I know you. If I had not come, you would have sought me out until you could see with your own two eyes that I was alive and unharmed, and you would have bent the will of every single one of them,” he gestured with a jerk of his chin, indicating the door but somehow encompassing all of the shapechangers or otherwise immortal beings in the building, “to do so. I have no doubt of it.” He hunkered down in front of the fire, pulled a poker from the rack, and set about stoking the coals.

  “That’s not fair,” Emma said, finding the courage to move closer. “I’m the one who’s been saying we have to stay as far away from you and the serpent priesthood as possible. If the rest of the priesthood can track me through the link to you, then it would be suicide to try to get to you. Yet you’re here. That wasn’t my doing.”

  Alexi threw a cord of wood onto the raked coals. He snorted a laugh, and it wasn’t an amused sound. “Not fair, but true,” he said, standing up and dusting his hands off. “You would have stayed away for as long as you could convince yourself I was safe. The moment you thought I was not, you would have come.” He gazed at her with utter certainty in his canary-yellow eyes, his beautiful mouth turned down. He didn’t look happy. Certain, yes, but not happy. She traced the path of his scars with her eyes, remembering the gutwrenching horror of seeing him with half his face torn off and a spear through his chest, and had to admit that he was right.

  Emma exhaled noisily. “Not fair, but true. Fine.” He just looked at her. She frowned at him. “Is that the only reason you’re here? To see me?”

  He lowered his lids, gaze moving to her mouth. “No.”

  It was stupid, but part of her was disappointed. She swallowed past it. “Okay. Well then we’d better call Seshua and Red back in here, so Seshua can give you Cara’s coordinates, because we don’t have very much time here and —”

  “I came to beg you not to come to me,” he interrupted her, voice harsh. “I am afraid that in spite of my efforts, you will find out what I’m going to do anyway, and you will try to come to me.” He closed his eyes and turned his face away from her, fists clenched, and when he turned back his eyes were too far apart and the pupils weren’t human. Colors shifted beneath his skin in diamond patterns, beckoning Emma’s touch, but the power of his beast coiled between them and it wasn’t interested in anything of the sort. “You cannot,” he said with a snarl. “I beg you not to.”

  Gone suddenly cold, and not because of the touch of Alexi’s power, Emma wrapped her arms around herself. “Just how dangerous is this thing you’re going to do?”

  He didn’t say anything, just stared at her, fists clenched and chest rising and falling as though he were doing a lot more than standing still. Emma felt the moment stretch, felt him being eclipsed by his beast, felt her own power responding and shoved it down.

  She tossed her head and put her hands on her hips, willing herself to breathe. “This sounds less like begging and more like an ultimatum, and I’ve honestly had enough of —”

  A sound that was equal parts despair and rage boiled up behind Alexi’s clenched teeth and he advanced on her, eyes wild. She instinctively backed away, but he kept coming, chest heaving and nostrils flaring. His anger cracked through the air like a whip, and it unraveled his braid until his hair fell over his shoulders like a cloak and writhed in the pulse of his power.

  She’d misjudged. She’d thought she could talk him down, evoke a little outrage to combat the deep sense of hopelessness he was throwing off, and instead she’d pushed him over the edge. His skin pulsed olive green and brown with the marks of the boa constrictor, eyes lengthening, bones shining beneath his face as his jaw changed shape — deadly and hypnotizing. Stunning.

  The backs of Emma’s knees hit the couch and she landed on her rump, thumping her head against the backrest. Alexi fell to his knees and leaned forward, still taller than her, and put his hands on the backrest either side of her head, pinning her legs against his and caging her with his arms.

  “This is not a joke, Emma,” he hissed. “You have no idea what it will cost me…” he turned his head to the side, closed his eyes, and when he faced her again his eyes were the right distance apart. “If something happens to you.”

  Emma flexed her feet, testing how much wriggle room she had. Enough. “I think I’ve got some idea,” she said, breathless and almost so overwhelmed by him she couldn’t remember what words were. “That’s basically how I feel about you, so.”

  His eyes filled with something so dark and primal that Emma’s heartbeat thudded sickeningly in her chest. When he spoke again, his voice held an almost subsonic growl that pulled at her insides. “You have no idea how I feel about you.”

  She put her hands on his chest, suppressing a groan at the contact. “You really are being a jerk, you know that?” She was about to add some more choice words to that when Alexi made a harsh sound deep in his throat, dropped his forehead to hers, and began to shake. The hard ridges of his pectoral muscles trembled beneath her palms, but not in a good way. In a small voice this time, she said, “Alexi?”

  The sound he made was definitely a sob. Hard and dry and hopeless. “I was a fool,” he whispered. “To think I could change you. Change your mind.”

  Heart breaking, Emma bit her lip to stop herself from promising him anything, everything — the world, if it would make him stop shaking. “You weren’t a fool,” she said. “Just, like, super ambitious, that’s all.”

  He laughed tiredly against her hair, just a sigh, and the urge to comfort him became too strong to resist. She popped her knees apart, hooked her legs around Alexi’s thighs and her hands behind his neck, and closed the rest of the distance between them.

  His arms went around her as he buried his face in her hair. He took fistfuls of her jacket in his hands as though he wanted to tear it off, or like he thought she might slip through his fingers — a painful irony considering he was the one trying to disappear, to make sure she wouldn’t find him. His entire body still vibrated with some emotion too intense to name — bigger than fear for her, sharper than despair, harder and less human than just the wish to keep her safe. He had the telepathic link between them locked down tight as ever, so she couldn’t read him, but one thought pulsed through Emma like blood: mine, mine, mine.

  His hold got tighter, his touch thrumming with possession. I would never cage you, he said, but I cannot abide the thought of you challenging the serpent priests. They have everything at stake, Emma, and you can’t know how much that is.

  And he wouldn’t tell her. She took his scent deep into her lungs: rain and rock and jungle, and up this close, the rich scent of woodsmoke. His flesh was hot, and his pulse flickered at the base of his throat, strong and sure. Emma wished she had some way of making him promise not to risk his life, to make him abandon whatever it was he planned to do, wished she knew what to do. But she didn’t, and she didn’t want to cage him, either.

  She wanted him. She didn’t know how it could work or if it was even possible, but she wanted him — some part of her snarled that he was hers, and she was his, and they were bound. But he had been bound by vows, and by power, and by silence for so long that Emma shoved all those thoughts aside and told him what he needed to hear.

  “I promise I won’t try to find you,” she said. He jerked back in surprise. Before she could think about what she’d just done, she fisted her hands in his hair and dragged his mouth down to hers.

  There was no hesitation this time; they came together and detonated. His tongue swept against hers, his hot mouth devouring her, swallowing the helpless sound of pleasure she made low in her throat. Fingers tunneling through her hair to tip her head back and give him better access, lips humming
with power and barely checked strength, he nipped at that sensitive spot just under Emma’s upper lip, and as she gasped he took the opportunity to run his tongue along one corner of her mouth, laughing wickedly when she whimpered.

  With a growl, she retaliated. Grasping his shoulders, she hooked her ankles behind his legs and arched into him, crushing the front of her body against his, and tasted his pulse where it thumped at the base of his throat. The sound he made stole Emma’s breath and caused her entire lower half to clench with need; she’d had no idea you could actually feel horny all the way down to your toes before, but now she knew, and she was never going to forget. She traced a sure path up Alexi’s throat with her tongue, marveling at the feel of his strong, corded muscles beneath her hands, the heat of his flesh against her lips. Then she shifted position so she could get to his earlobe, and felt the massive press of his erection against the crotch of her jeans and had to bury her face against his neck to stifle a cry.

  Suddenly he was gone. Then his hands were on her arms and she was on her feet, blinking and bereft and trying to catch her breath as she looked up at him and couldn’t make sense of the expression on his face.

  His mouth twisted, scars tightening and jaw clenching, even as his chest heaved and his breath still came unsteadily. “Are you all right?”

  “Am I all right?” Emma rubbed at her lips, still raw with arousal. “No, I’m not all right. What did I do?”

  Confusion flashed in his eyes before surprise replaced it. “What did you — you cried out,” he said. “I thought…”

  Emma couldn’t believe it, and neither could her aching, frustrated body. “You can read my mind!”