The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  He put his head back in his hands and sighed, managing to communicate with that one simple sound just how stupid he feared Emma was. “Yevgeny truly told you nothing of me, did he.”

  “No.”

  “Well.” Ivan’s fingers tightened on his scalp, the tips darkening as his nails turned to claws. White light pulsed through his hands and Emma felt his beast stir, heard its snarl rattle against the inside of her head, and she breathed out and tightened her hold on him through the Call. He looked up, letting his hands fall and turning a humorless smile on her.

  “If I leave Yevgeny,” Ivan said reasonably, “I will leave a trail of bodies so far and so wide that news of the resulting manhunt would spread across the globe within days, and then the whole world would discover that it was not a man but a monster ravaging the entire European continent, and then Yevgeny would come for me and likely be exposed to the same authorities hunting me. The existence of werewolves would be confirmed before all the world, Yevgeny would be compromised, and thousands would already be dead at my hands.” He stared into the middle distance, expressionless. “Thousands.”

  Emma believed him, but she had to ask. “Why?”

  Ivan’s gaze slid to hers. “Why?”

  “Why would that happen? What is it that causes you to do that sort of thing?”

  He seemed at a loss for words. Finally he cocked his head at her, and the first flicker of real interest lit his eyes. “You are not nervous to be here with me, knowing what manner of monster I am.”

  She shook her head. “Not nervous. Tired, in pain, and ready to kick your ass if you so much as even blink wrong, but not nervous. And you’re not a monster. You are a person with a very serious problem that has never been dealt with properly, that’s all — it’s just that the nature of your problem is unique to someone who can change into a three hundred pound wolf at will. You’re looking at me like I’m the crazy one now, and yes I know you’ve killed and killed and ruined lives, I get that, but you are more than a killer.” Emma shrugged. “If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to get killed yourself.”

  Face shutting down, he looked away from her, down at his hands. “You are an idealist.”

  “I’m a frustrated biology student, that’s what I am,” she said. “And I worked as a kennel technician for almost five years. I wrote my honors thesis on wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone national park. There’s no such thing as a monster wolf, or a killer dog. There’s always a rational explanation for any behavioral condition in canids.” Ivan refused to look at her again, but she could feel his sudden tension, and she pressed on. “You’re not a serial killer — human monsters do exist, but you’re not one of them, are you?”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Emma suppressed a sigh. “All right, correct me if I’m wrong. You don’t keep trophies or mementos of your victims. You don’t rely on killing to achieve sexual satisfaction. Your behavior came on suddenly, whereas most psychopaths begin with less extreme exploratory behavior, like torturing and killing animals, which then escalates over time. Most importantly, you don’t choose your victims, and you don’t obsess or plan your next kill. Like I said, stop me if I’m —”

  He cut her off with a harsh bark of laughter that sounded equally like a growl. “I thought you said you were a biologist.”

  “There’s this little thing called the Internet. Also, podcasts.” At his blank expression, she shrugged. “Five months ago I had to pack up and move in with a bunch of shapechangers, most of whom are ancient, some of whom are actually immortal, all of whom have killed and will kill again and won’t lose sleep over it. It scared me. It still scares me, but for different reasons. Anyway, I had to find some way to understand what I was dealing with, to be able to live with it. To live with them. So I did my research.”

  Ivan’s gray eyes narrowed. “And so now you think there is no such thing as monsters.”

  “I never said that.” Emma looked away from him, grateful then for the pain of the bite on her arm; pain usually kept the flashbacks away, blocked the memories from surfacing.

  “I’m sorry,” Ivan said harshly, putting his head back in his hands. “I did not think. Of course you know what a monster is.”

  “It’s all right, Ivan,” she said quietly, and let the silence between them stretch. Then something occurred to her. “You were the one who dismantled the necklace that the aneshtevannir used to track me.” He lifted his head, meeting her eyes, and she forced herself not to flinch. “Why did you save the diamond for me?”

  He held her gaze for several moments, a muscle in his jaw working, before finally speaking. “You did not want to take it?”

  She shook her head. “I took it.”

  “And what did you do with it,” he asked softly.

  She swallowed, refusing to look away from Ivan’s gray, snowstorm eyes. “I destroyed it.”

  She’d used all the power in her marked hand she could summon, all her rage and grief channeled through the mark and into a common household hammer. She didn’t think she’d be able to repeat that stunt; when she went back outside the next morning, she’d found the hammer lying in the grass, its wooden handle charred black, the steel head cracked in two. How it had survived the surge of her magic, channeled it long enough to smash a diamond, Emma had no idea — magic was a funny thing.

  “How did you know?” she asked. He raised both eyebrows. “That it would help,” she added.

  “Ah.” He broke eye contact. “It matters not.” He unfolded to his feet and held out his hand. “I must return you to your many caretakers,” he said. “Your wound needs tending to.”

  It sure as hell mattered; there was a story behind Ivan’s words, behind the seemingly small gesture that had allowed Emma to feel a little peace, a little closure, but Ivan wasn’t hers and he didn’t owe her anything.

  So she reached for his hand and let him pull her up. With the Call still open, touching his hand felt like grabbing a livewire, and Emma waited until she was standing and could let go to change the subject. “You bit me. Wasn’t that a risk?” Cradling her arm, she searched his face. “Weren’t you afraid of losing control?”

  He looked down his slim blade of a nose at her, pale eyes blank again. “I did not mean to bite you, only to look like I was going to harm you when Yevgeny arrived.” He shrugged. “But your reflexes are very good. For a human girl. Prey that fights back makes the bloodlust worse.”

  She thought for a second he was going to apologize, but he just stared at her. “And blood itself?” she asked. “What kind of response should that trigger?”

  A frown creased his forehead, narrowing his deeply shadowed eyes. “Your blood is different. It does not taste… right.” He scrubbed the back of one hand across his mouth, wiping away the blood in question, as though remembering for the first time that he had the stuff all over him.

  Emma wasn’t sure what to do with that revelation. She settled on being mildly offended, opened the bathroom door, and closed the Call. Which was when the pain from her torn up arm descended on her, and it was all she could do to keep from crying.

  Emma had been mortally injured twice in the past five months, and healed with magic both times by wildly different methods. The bite to her arm wasn’t life threatening, which was good, but power healers were rare — Yevgeny informed her that he knew of only two in Europe, and neither were part of any of the wawkalaki clans — and Emma refused to go back to Egypt and put the jackals in jeopardy just for the sake of a flesh wound.

  Which was how she found herself in Yevgeny’s family kitchen — as distinct from the commercial kitchen that took up one huge wing of the mansion on the other side of the dining room — discovering first hand that local anesthetic did not work the way it ought to on forearm and hand injuries.

  Nadya worked as fast as she could, but stitches took time. “There is simply not enough muscle in the forearm and hand for the anesthetic to act on effectively, so there must be some pain. I am sorry, my lady,” she s
aid for the fourth time already.

  Emma tightened her grip on Fern’s hand. “It’s fine,” she said in a voice that sounded almost normal. “Stop apologizing Nadya. You’re very fast, I’ll be okay.”

  Nadya’s nostrils flared, and one eyelid twitched with suspicion. “Natalya, prep another shot, quickly.”

  The redheaded girl worked fast, but Emma was swearing under her breath by the time Nadya injected the fourth hypodermic and started stitching again. Glancing up at Emma’s face, she swore too. “If I did not know better,” she said, hands moving swift and sure, “I would say you are metabolizing the anesthetic faster than a human should. Some pain is normal, but it is more than some, isn’t it?”

  Emma squeezed her eyes shut and made a high pitched noise that seemed to satisfy Nadya’s query. “Fern,” Nadya snapped, “You are bound to her. Take control of her autonomic functions please, as many as you can.”

  Anger flashed through the merge, dark and hot, but his voice was calm. “I do nothing that she does not will.”

  Emma laughed in spite of everything. “You talk funny when you get all bondy, you know that?”

  Open your eyes, Em , he sent. She did, still wincing against the throb of deep, sharp agony in her arm, and looked up into Fern’s eyes. They were black from rim to rim, his beast responding to her pain. “She wants me to assume control of your heart rate, blood pressure, and adrenal system so that I can slow them down and allow the local anesthetic to work on you.”

  “You can do that?” When he nodded, she turned to Nadya. “You knew he could do that?”

  She pressed her lips together and blinked at Emma over the rims of her glasses. “Most magical bonds intended for mated pairs can be used in such a way, though for you two I assume it is not reciprocal as only one of you is a shapechanger. You are saying you have never done anything like what I suggest?”

  Emma and Fern shared a look. How to answer that question? There was that one time when they first went to Egypt and Khai Kaldun tried to have her killed by making her fight Nathifa, and Telly and Fern had used their respective links to her to animate her like a puppet — a puppet that actually knew how to kick someone’s ass. But that was only possible because of Telly. Then there was the time they were attacked when Em and Katenka were abducted from the Russian estate, and she and Fern had done something so terrible neither of them had spoken of it until the blowup outside the Roadhouse earlier that day.

  Regret flashed through the bond, but because they were merged, Emma couldn’t tell if it was his emotion or hers. They both felt it. She squeezed his hand as he closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were as human as they ever got.

  “He can do it,” Emma said to Nadya.

  She held the surgical stitching needle poised, brows raised above her glasses. Her gaze slid to Fern. “Is he sure?”

  Fern squeezed Emma’s hand. “I got this.” Nadya motioned for Natalya to prep another shot of anesthetic, eyes on Emma.

  Emma looked at Fern. She opened her mouth to ask when he was going to do it. Then a wave of lethargy rolled over her, so strong she struggled to keep her head upright and her eyes open. Fern moved to stand behind her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, and she let her head fall back against his chest.

  Thudud. Her heartbeat slowed and trundled in time with Fern’s. Black spots dotted her vision, and then Fern sensed it and brought her pulse up just a touch, and her blood pressure followed, chasing the darkness away. She looked down to find Nadya had already administered the anesthetic and was swiftly stitching away.

  Can’t believe you never told me you could do this, Emma sent via the bond, thoughts fuzzy but lucid. Must make a ton of stuff easier for you guys when you’re mated, right? Childbirth, erectile dysfunction, trips to the dentist.

  Okay, maybe she wasn’t all that lucid. She felt Fern’s embarrassment cloud the merge, along with a tinge of sadness she couldn’t make sense of, and tipped her head back to look up at him. Her eyes refused to focus, so he was just a pretty blur. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. This is why I don’t drink.

  Warmth flushed through her via the merge. It’s not that, he sent gently. I never told you because I didn’t want to scare you.

  Emma let her eyelids drift closed. Scare me how?

  He sighed, a smile in his mental voice. I’ll explain when we’re finished up here.

  But he didn’t need to explain. Emma realized the implications as soon as Nadya finished sewing her up and Fern relinquished control of her biological systems, restoring her mental processes to full working order. She gritted her teeth against the broad ache in her arm and tried to figure out what to say.

  You’re right, she sent, sliding off the kitchen stool and turning to face him. In the beginning, it would have scared me to know how much power the bond gave you. But it doesn’t scare me now. I trust you.

  He looked away from her, shoving both hands through his hair, black eyes bright with pain. How can you, after what happened this morning. The argument. He dropped his hands and schooled his expression as Natalya approached, interest in her cool blue eyes as though she could tell they’d been communicating silently. She held gauze and bandages.

  “Here,” Fern said to her. “I’ll do it. Thanks.” He took them from her, oblivious to the speculative once-over Natalya gave him along with the dressings. It was more than the argument, Fern resumed. I mean, yes, I said some…awful things. He grimaced, looking down at the roll of bandage in his hand. But before that, I betrayed you. You trusted me and I used that to trick you into letting Red Sun jump us off the ranch.

  Emma held her arm out for him. After a moment, he took it and started arranging the gauze over her stitches, avoiding her gaze.

  Would you do things differently now? Emma asked.

  He worked on her arm a while longer without speaking, thoughts turning over and over, trying to find a way out of the maze he’d fallen into. The trouble was, they were merged, so he had to tell the truth. Finally he sighed. I’d probably try to reason with you, waste time and put us both in more danger, and then trick you anyway and hope you forgave me.

  He secured the bandage on Emma’s arm and looked her in the eye, expression wary. She raised both brows. You think I haven’t forgiven you?

  Fern’s mouth twisted. Why should you? You trusted me —

  “And you made a judgment call,” she interrupted him. “I don’t blame you for it.” It was an impossible situation, she continued, circling his wrist with her left hand so he wouldn’t turn away. I wasn’t exactly thinking straight either. I don’t know if I would have regretted using our power to kill again, but I was wrong to assume you felt the same way. And, she squeezed his wrist, feeling the corded strength in him, If you’d tried to reason with me, I probably would have listened.

  The look he gave her was skeptical. You weren’t listening to anyone else.

  She dropped his wrist. They weren’t you.

  Before he could reply, Nadya came over to them, folding a large square of fabric into a sling as her heels snapped against the tiled kitchen floor. “Yevgeny and the others are waiting for us in the library,” she said, gesturing for Emma to hold her arm out. She had the sling looped and secured with expert efficiency. “If there is nothing more you need here…”

  “Food,” Emma and Fern both said at the same time.

  Nadya didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “Of course. I will have some sent up. Go on ahead, if you please.” With that she inclined her head and left them to find their own way to the library.

  It was on the third floor of Yevgeniy’s mansion, and had been rebuilt since the attack a month ago, the changes so extensive Emma didn’t recognize the interior. According to Katenka, the princess’s mother had spent a lot of time there before she died, and the place had seemed to be a sort of shrine,quiet and sad. But it had suffered damage from gunfire and grenades, and Yevgeny had taken the opportunity to bring the room to life once more. Peeling wallpaper had been replaced with a clean coat
of buttercream-colored paint, and the wooden bookshelves and display cabinets glowed and glittered with polish, with bright reading lamps and potted ferns gracing end tables and cabinet tops instead of dust and broken picture frames. He’d also moved his personal study there; the large, masculine desk with its leather blotter stood near the French doors that led to the balcony Katenka’s mother had used as an observatory. Old fashioned filing cabinets sat either side of the doors, and a laptop was open on the desk, with Yevgeni, Leah, and Red Sun hunched over it.

  Shadi and Fatima were in similar positions, seated in matching armchairs and poring over a pile of handwritten note pages. Everyone looked up as Emma walked in with Fern close behind her.

  “So,” Emma said. “How’s the Last Crusade going?”

  Leah was the only one who smiled. “I think this is a little more Ark of the Covenant, my lady.”

  Yevgeny frowned, looking from Emma to Leah. “But the Ark was recovered decades ago. How is it relevant to our inquiries today?”

  Leah managed to keep a straight face as she opened her mouth to answer the wolf king, and Emma might have held it together too, except then Shadi spoke up. “I may have been a horse for the past eight hundred years,” he said, serious yet somehow peevish too, “But I do know the Crusades are well and truly over.”

  Emma and Leah looked at each other and cracked up. When finally they pulled themselves together, Leah wiping tears from her eyes and Emma pressing a hand to her mouth, the look Yevgeny gave Shadi almost set them off again.

  “Okay okay, okay,” Leah nodded, exhaling hard enough to puff her cheeks out. “Okay. Listen up. We found something.” She motioned Emma over to the laptop. For her part, Emma made the effort to keep calm and not look at Yevgeny or Shadi again until she knew she could control herself. She leaned over and peered at the screen. There was a scanned image of the sketch Emma had seen — she thought it might have been done in charcoal stick — plus other images open in background windows.