The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  His warm eyes darkened. “It’s been a while, okay?”

  “The maidens are lesbians! Mostly,” Emma added. Red groaned and covered his face with his hand, and Emma sighed. “Are you all right though? Will those heal?” She moved forward and reached for his hand, taking it away from his face so she could look at the scratches. They were already healing, but then she’d known they would be.

  His hand captured hers and squeezed. “I’ll be fine, flower. What about you?”

  She frowned up at him. “What about? Oh.” She tugged her hand out of his grip and crossed her arms, chewing her bottom lip. Why did she have such a problem with Seshua going with Alexi? “Logically I know it’s better for Alexi to have Seshua with him. If anything happened to Alexi…but that’s less likely if Seshua’s with him. I still, I don’t know.” She turned away from both Red Sun’s stare and Fern’s hooded gaze. It was stupid. It made no sense. She would have given anything to stop Alexi from going back to the serpent priests and risking his life in whatever crazy fucking scheme he’d cooked up, and if Seshua was with him, he’d be safer. But she still hadn’t wanted Seshua to go, either.

  Red spoke softly. “You got a bad feeling about it, don’t you babe.”

  She shook her head and started toward the stairs. “Yes. No. Maybe, I don’t know.”

  Em? Fern’s concern brushed against her insides like fur.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” she called without looking back as she climbed the stairs. “Feel like I’ve needed to pee for about a million years already.”

  And that guaranteed they wouldn’t try to follow her.

  It was also true.

  In a house full of shapechangers, Emma had come to realize, an upstairs bathroom was always the better choice. True, most of the men and women she lived with had better things to do with their ears than tune in while she relieved herself, but a little privacy went a long way when it came to preserving the illusion that she hadn’t surrendered control of her entire life. Besides, she’d also learned that the bathroom was the one place most men wouldn’t follow her.

  The upstairs bathroom was almost the size of Emma’s old apartment and done in marble with lavender wallpaper and brass fixtures so old and burnished that they glowed under the chandelier lights. Why a bathroom needed a chandelier — or a couch — Emma didn’t know, but she was grateful all the same. She freshened up, spending way too much time washing her hands; her nails had gotten too long, and there was still blood under them from when she’d held Sefu as he died. For a moment she was overcome with grief. Braced with her hands on the edge of the sink and her head hanging, she took great gasping sobs of air until the pain passed, and then splashed her face with cold water.

  She watched the water swirl away down the drain, holding her unraveling braid back. Shadi’s deep brown eyes were Sefu’s eyes; Sefu’s shadow seemed to cling to the tall, handsome Saracen somehow. Sefu was here, and Sefu was gone. Seshua was gone, and Alexi was gone. Telly had been gone long enough that Emma had begun to forget what he looked like, his features and his many forms blurring in her mind’s eye until he really was something out of myth or legend — a man with the head and shoulders of a fox, a giant red fox with eyes the blue of a winter sky, a god with bones that glowed and a shadow sliding like a leviathan behind his gaze.

  A massive jerk.

  Shaking those thoughts off, Emma looked up at her reflection in the vanity, and almost screamed. Her eyes were black. Not from lid to lid, just the irises — but that wasn’t all. She peered closer, half expecting her reflection not to move with her but to assume a life of its own and jeer at her, or maybe reach through the glass and try to strangle her. None of that happened. Of course.

  The claw marks on her chest were shiny and pink, as though she’d had them weeks instead of hours. Her face seemed different somehow but she couldn’t figure it out. Maybe it was just her eyes — which began to bleed back to hazel as she stared at herself, wide eyed and shaken.

  Nope, not just the eyes then.

  There were no dark circles under her eyes in spite of the harrowing twenty four hours she’d had. Her nose and jaw looked sharper, but her cheeks were more filled out too. She touched her face. Skin was too bright. Fingernails too long. She leaned forward even farther, and her braid hit the counter, and she looked down at it with mounting horror.

  Felani had cut her hair to shoulder length just a few weeks ago.

  No wonder her braid was unraveling — her hair had grown down to her waist in the space of a few hours.

  Fern’s mental voice was like a bucket of cold water, dousing her panic. You’re still human, Em, he sent sharply.

  She shook her head at her reflection. How can you know?

  What do you think a doctor would find if they tested you? If a lab got hold of your blood?

  Emma almost panicked again. I don’t know!

  Fern’s touch via the merge was gentle, but the merge meant she felt just how exasperated he was as well. You’re immune to vampire blood and you’re immune to the light of the change. You can’t be anything but human. A magical human, sure, but a human all the same.

  A magical human. Is that what I am?

  She felt Fern grasp at several responses and then settle on the equivalent of a mental shrug. I guess. You’re still you.

  Studying her reflection, Emma wasn’t so sure of that, but she let Fern’s comfort wrap around her via the merge all the same. He didn’t think it mattered, because they were bound, and he loved her. He would love her — and follow her — no matter what she was.

  It hadn’t mattered to her either, until now. For all the magic and prophecies and visions and encounters with gods — not to mention trips to alternate layers of reality — being the Caller of the Blood was kind of like being a politician. One that could magically cure cancer. Emma was important for reasons that made no sense to her but were indisputable, and she had power, both because the shapechanging races gave it to her and because she could do things that affected their existence, whether they liked it or not. She had accepted that she could do things she never thought possible. She’d struggled with her conscience over a lot of those things, worried she was becoming someone else, thought herself secure now — like Fern — in the knowledge that she was still Emma .

  She didn’t know if she could handle becoming something else. Especially not knowing what manner of thing she might become.

  We might be able to find the answer to that, Fern sent, If we go through the research from Egypt.

  Emma nodded, knowing he could feel her gratitude. Something to focus on would help.

  She caught the long tail of her half-undone braid and removed the tie, shaking her hair out, and it slid over her shoulders and down her back in waves that were glossier than could reasonably be expected given she’d rinsed it with no shampoo or conditioner and no brush. She had to resist the urge to wash her hands again after touching it. Her eyes were their normal hazel color, at least.

  Shrugging off her borrowed jacket, she reached for the bathroom door handle just as it turned beneath her fingers. She jumped back. “Uh, sorry, I was just — oh.”

  Ivan, one of Yevgeny’s wolves, stood in the doorway. Human shaped, but given the look in his eyes, his shape was the only human thing about him. When Emma first came to Russia, Yevgeny had told her that Ivan was damaged — his mind and his spirit — and he was a part of the royal Russian pack because otherwise he was marked for execution. Pack bonds were unique and powerful, and Yevgeny was one of the oldest and most powerful royals in Europe.

  Only Yevgeny could control Ivan. He didn’t appear to like him.

  Ivan regarded her with no expression in his gray eyes. Or on his ravaged face. To Emma, most shapechangers looked so youthful and shining that their age was indeterminate, but Ivan reminded her of a guy she’d known in college who’d had too many years of late nights and hard drugs and booze — he looked fifteen years older than he should. Harsh lines around his mouth, deep bruised shadows un
der his eyes, hollow cheeks. And those empty eyes.

  He said something in Russian. “I don’t speak Russian, sorry,” Emma said. “Can I please get past?”

  He cocked his head, first one way and then the other, and Emma’s hackles rose. “Caller of the Blood,” he said, voice heavily accented.

  “Yes.” Emma resisted the urge to move, instead keeping her feet planted and her hands by her sides, trying to look like she didn’t feel threatened.

  “I cannot hear your men coming to your aid. Why have you not called them to you?”

  Fear chimed its first discordant note in Emma’s heart, and Fern’s response was wordless and instant. Emma kept her voice calm. “Didn’t think I needed to. Was I wrong?”

  His gaze left her for a moment, gray and unfocused, and he tilted his head. Then his eyes met hers again and he bared his teeth. “They are coming now. That is good.”

  With no more warning than that, he attacked.

  Emma got her right arm up in front of her face as he lunged forward, and his teeth — sharper, longer than they should be — sank into her forearm as his arms locked around her waist and they both went down on the bathroom floor. He was heavier than he had a right to be and taller than Emma had given him credit for; he trapped her easily beneath his lean body with the kind of preternatural strength it was too easy to forget his kind had.

  She clamped her teeth on a scream of pain, and the sound turned into a roar of anger as Ivan laughed deep in his throat, releasing her arm. Blood smeared his teeth and mouth and his grin was wild and terrifying, but his eyes were still empty, dead as they gazed down at her.

  “They’re going to kill me for this,” he said. Footsteps pounded in the hallway outside. Ivan closed his eyes, his whole face going slack. When he opened his eyes again, they weren’t dead, but alive with desolation and fear — for a moment. Then peace stole over his features, there and gone, before the bathroom door slammed open in a shower of splinters and Ivan turned and snarled.

  There was a wolf the size of a lion standing in the doorway. Emma had never seen Yevgeny in wolf form but recognized him, his coat the same tricolor shade as his hair, eyes lambent gold, muzzle wrinkled in a silent snarl. His ears were forward and even Emma could feel the psychic pull of his hold over Ivan tugging at the base of her skull.

  Confusion flashed in Yevgeny’s lupine eyes when Ivan laughed at the attempt.

  Ivan said something in Russian that Emma didn’t need to be able to understand — Yevgeny’s reaction was enough. He sprang.

  “Stop!” Emma cried.

  Yevgeny’s jaws snapped inches from Ivan’s face. Shaking, his gold gaze slid from Ivan to Emma, and she could see nothing human in his eyes, but at least he’d stopped.

  Ivan growled. His fingers dug into Emma’s sides, and she could feel claws. His empty gray eyes searched her face. “Fine,” he hissed, and looked at Yevgeny. “I’ll kill her in front of you if you want to watch.” He wrapped one hand around Emma’s throat, lips peeled back and blood dripping from his chin.

  Emma put her marked hand on his face and opened the Call.

  Power turned the air to electricity, cold and snapping against Emma’s skin, tethering the wolves to her. While she had the Call open, they’d pay attention, which was good.

  “You’re not going to kill me,” she said to Ivan. “That’s why Yevgeny can’t control you. And why my mark didn’t flare. Because you have no intention of harming me.”

  Leah made a sound of outrage. “My lady, your arm. ”

  “Hurt isn’t the same as harm,” Emma said, keeping her heart rate steady. “Magic can be weirdly specific sometimes.” She reached with her mind and someplace far lower, someplace in her guts, for Ivan’s beast, and tugged at the metaphysical tether of the Call. Ivan’s eyes bled to amber. There was despair as well as fear in his face, confirming Emma’s suspicions.

  “I don’t want to do this with everyone watching,” she said. “Yevgeny, please leave us.”

  The Russian wolf king’s drawn out growl sounded almost like actual words.

  “All of you.” Emma glanced up at Leah and Red Sun; she could sense Fern, but he could sense her too, and he hadn’t tried to crowd the doorway. He understood what the others didn’t: this was what Emma knew how to do.

  Red clenched his fist and grimaced, torn between protecting her and giving her his trust. Leah looked like she wasn’t going anywhere.

  “No!” Ivan’s voice deepened, teeth bigger now and smeared pink with Emma’s blood, white light seeping from his pores. “She needs to die, Yevgeny, she endangers all the pack by leading the serpent priesthood to us! I will do it if you are too much a coward.”

  Yevgeny blinked his round eyes and his hackles flattened out, whole body losing its springloaded tension. “Too late Ivan,” Emma said softly. “You needed him to attack without thinking, before he could realize just how much sense your plan doesn’t make. Killing me endangers Katenka, because of our bond, and your ties to the pack mean you’re incapable of doing anything to put her safety in jeopardy. That means you’re incapable of killing me, either.” He shook, his face white and eyes desolate. “See,” Emma said. “You can all go now.”

  Shadi jostled into the doorway. “Your wounds milady…”

  “Will heal,” Emma said, managing not to clench her teeth as she did so. She had to sound as though she was fine. She would be fine.

  With a low whine, Yevgeny backed away, then turned and padded out the door. There was a flash of white light. “She speaks the truth,” he said, voice subdued. “And she knows better than I what to do with him. Leave them be.”

  Leah glared daggers at Ivan as she retreated, but Red’s look was more resigned. I’m right here if you need me, flower, he sent via their link. Not that you will.

  The rest left with Red and finally the door closed. Emma tightened her hold on Ivan’s beast, because she wasn’t stupid. “I’d like to sit up now,” she said mildly. “Can we do that?”

  Ivan’s shoulders slumped and he rolled to the side. Emma sat up, wincing at the way her pulse burned in her torn arm. She refused to look at it, but through the Call she could feel Ivan’s attention riveted to it, and knew the only thing keeping him calm was her power. Well, it wasn’t the only thing: he was also in the grip of suicidal despair, which was stronger than any blood lust.

  “So,” she said. “How long have you wanted to die?”

  21

  The air was still thick with tension and magic, but Emma didn’t dare close the Call and let go of Ivan’s beast; she had no wish to find out if he was willing to try his death-by-wolf-king stunt a second time.

  She doubted it — he sat with his knees up in front of him, head in his hands, and he radiated defeat — but it was better to be safe than eaten by a werewolf. With her arm torn open and slick with blood, didn’t seem wise to take chances. The wound throbbed, a deep ache that made Emma want to grab her wrist and squeeze, but she didn’t touch it.

  Ivan lifted his head but didn’t meet Emma’s eyes, staring instead at the bathroom wall, his face still streaked with her blood. “You are little more than a girl. You could not possibly understand what it is like.”

  Emma pinched the bridge of her nose. “That’s the kind of unimaginative crap that the ancient ones tend to say.” His head snapped around and the look in his gray eyes was sharp as a blade. Emma gave him a bland look back. “How old are you?”

  He narrowed his eyes, but then seemed to think better of arguing and looked away from her once more. “I can’t remember.”

  “Ballpark figure?” He frowned and Emma rephrased. “Can you guess?”

  A sigh. “Nine centuries. Ten. Somewhere between.” He shoved both hands through his white blond hair, making it stand up in thick spikes. He was older than Yevgeny, but Yevgeny was pureblooded, like Seshua, which was probably why Yevgeny was powerful enough to control Ivan. There were other factors though, that might influence how powerful — and unhinged — a shapechanger could become with
age. Each race had its own native magic. The serpent priests had telepathy and a few other tricks that seemed too powerful to allow them to stay sane; the Aranan had the Enam-Vesh, which was a venom that forged a metaphysical bond unbreakable by anything but death, meant exclusively for life-mates. It could save your soul or make you lose your mind. The jackals had a history of ancestor worship that was tinged with necromancy. The ocelot maidens could induce neural blind spots that made them invisible to anyone in range; Emma was also convinced that their magic conferred the ability to be preternaturally persuasive, given how little willpower she had in the face of Felani’s demands.

  And the wolves had the pack.

  “So why are you suicidally depressed if pack magic’s meant to keep you sane?” she asked him.

  He uttered a hopeless laugh and hung his head. “Suicidally depressed. This is what you think is wrong with me.”

  “Well, right now, yeah. It is. You tried to get yourself killed.”

  “I tried to do what was necessary,” he hissed, turning a stark look on Emma. “The pack bonds will fail soon, and Yevgeny is too blind and soft to see it.”

  Emma frowned. “Doesn’t seem soft to me.”

  “Pah.” Ivan grimaced. “Ever since you saved his daughter and went off to America with her. He will mate Nadhezda, you know. And now the princess has come home, there is too much risk. I asked him to finish me, but he refused.” Ivan’s pale gaze met hers, and Emma couldn’t believe the lack of emotion in his eyes as he spoke so casually of asking to be executed. “Yevgeny believes the princess’s pledge bond will save me and I know it won’t. It is too late. Yevgeny can keep me in check because he is king and I am blood-oathed to him, but I was a lone wolf for too long, and pack magic cannot hold me forever.”

  Emma really needed to quiz Yevgeny on how wolf magic worked — it sounded an awful lot like her magic. But it would have to wait. “That’s what’s wrong with you?” She said. Ivan grunted in response. Emma struggled to stay focused in spite of the intensifying pain from her arm. “Why don’t you just leave, if you’re so worried about hurting someone?”