The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  “Do you think they’re telling the truth about healing the waste? That Katenka’s safe?”

  Red met her eyes, frown lines making his scarred face even craggier. “Don’t see why she wouldn’t be. I think these Brotherhood people have some funny ideas. Prophecy, sweetheart. Drives people nuts.”

  Emma didn’t bother dignifying that with a response; he may as well have written “I wouldn’t have a clue” across his forehead.

  I heard that, Red growled in her mind.

  I wasn’t shielding, she sent back crisply. She could only hope the Brotherhood were telling the truth, and that they’d explain everything — or at least something — when they weren’t so freaked out.

  But why were they so freaked out? Because she’d gone through the ritual?

  Consequences. Terrible consequences.

  You can’t be sure they have any idea what they’re talking about, Fern sent.

  She looked from Red Sun to Fern. Fern’s face was smooth and pale once more, his beast withdrawing so she could see the whites of his eyes again. She reached up and brushed hair off his forehead; a thick lock of it had fallen forward to cover one eye and prominent cheekbone completely. Your hair’s growing faster too.

  He smiled down at her. Then looked up, smile evaporating, as Keti and Ifrah returned.

  Jonin and Nadir were gone.

  Leah and Horne appeared in front of Emma and Fern with a blur of speed, guns out and up. Ifrah’s expression was apologetic. “Please, there is no cause for violence. Our brothers have gone to consult our records. We could never have anticipated this, my lady, you must give us time.”

  “She doesn’t owe you jack shit,” Red said conversationally. “And aren’t those twins of yours blind? How’re they supposed to consult your records, if that’s really what they’re doing.” Ifrah’s cheeks turned pink and her eyes flared like hot coals.

  Red, stop it. To Ifrah she said, “Give you time to what?”

  Three loud footsteps were all the warning they had before a voice rang out in answer from the far reaches of the cavern. “Time to adjust to the idea of the world not ending,” came a female voice a split-second before the shadows parted and she came striding into the light, boot heels snapping against the cavern floor.

  Surprise lit Ifrah’s features, but Keti didn’t look happy to see the other female — which just confirmed that he belonged to Ifrah, because the other female was breathtaking. Brown-leather clad legs that went on for days, full hips that turned walking into a predatory, sexual prowl; a wild tangle of hair as black as the knee length leather duster she wore, and a face so beautiful it was almost alien, with slashing gray eyes under full, dark brows and a sullen mouth already curling in a smirk. Beneath the duster she wore a bizarre red and green striped knit sweater that did nothing to detract from what were probably perfect breasts, and —

  Emma snapped her shields back in place. Fern, Red, what the fuck guys? Get your shit together!

  Guilt and embarrassment flared through the bonds to the both of them. Then laughter. Then fear. Emma knew the moment they realized it.

  She’s a vampire.

  Emma took a deep breath. “What the hell did she just say about the end of the world?”

  Keti snarled with bared teeth as the vampire breezed up beside him. She didn’t deign to look at him. “I said it wasn’t going to happen, if everything I just overheard is true.” Those wild gray eyes roved over Emma, glittering and bright and subtly wrong, and Emma wanted to crawl out of Fern’s arms and back into the tunnel through the mountains — except then she’d be in the dark, with the walls close around her and a vampire at her back.

  “Mind yourself, Summer,” Keti said, voice so deep it was almost unintelligible. “This is not a game. She is the one, and we must be —”

  “Yes yes, Keti, do spare me.” The vampire waved him off, stalking forward. Leah and Horne put their shoulders together, leveling their guns at her, and she stopped, but not as though she was worried. If anything, she looked…relieved?

  “You can meet my eyes, Caller of the Blood. I doubt I’m strong enough to bespell you, if your aura’s anything to go by.”

  Emma clamped down on her shields and, against her own better judgment, lifted her gaze to the vampire’s. “My aura?”

  Summer’s sensual mouth widened in a smile that was a little too long to be human. “Yep.” Those gray eyes flashed. “All green and gold and hot with power. Juicy.” That too-wide smile broke, exposing fangs. “But don’t worry,” she whispered loudly, leaning forward. “I’m not hungry. I just ate.”

  Emma clenched her teeth and swore to herself she wouldn’t scream as memories rose like leviathans from the deep of her mind, memories of teeth and blood, and eyes that held the same glittering madness as Summer’s eyes did. Fern’s arms tightened as Red stepped in front of them, a growl rolling lazily in his chest like thunder.

  Summer held up her hands in mock retreat. “Don’t mind me.” She laughed, once, and spun away in a swirl of leather coat tails and cascading black hair. “I am, as these relics will tell you, too bored for my own good. Please carry on with the pomp and circumstance,” she added, turning again to sweep a deep bow towards Ifrah and Keti, who watched her with the hopeless distaste of disapproving family members.

  Emma pushed at Fern’s arms until he let her feet slide to the ground. Her mouth was dry and her knees didn’t work, but that didn’t matter. “I want to know what you meant,” she said loudly. “About the world ending.”

  Summer looked her full in the face, firelight dancing in her eyes and turning her skin to glowing copper when it didn’t do that to anyone else. “I meant what I said.” Summer cocked her head, opened her mouth, and touched her tongue to her teeth, taking a deep breath. “If what you say is true, and you’ve completed the ritual without setting certain events in motion, then everything we’ve believed for more than six thousand years is not, in fact, destined to come to pass. The world is safe. In theory.”

  “Summer…” Ifrah sounded halfway between furious and hopeful, eyes full of apprehension and naked doubt.

  Summer huffed out a sigh and opened her arms. “Ladies and gentlemen, let it be known that prophecy is bullshit.” She let her arms drop; the cadence of the movement was strange, a perfect study of teenage don’t-give-a-fuck that sent a skitter of goosebumps all the way down Emma’s spine.

  “Except she’s here, isn’t she,” Keti said. “She exists. And her existence is prophecy.”

  Summer shot him a sidelong look. “Whatever.”

  “If someone doesn’t explain what the fuck is going on,” Red said quietly, so quiet his voice caressed the walls of the cavern in an unnatural echo, “We will leave this place, and you will never see the Caller of the Blood again.”

  Ifrah and Keti both looked at Red as though seeing him for the first time. Summer gave a low whistle. “Your aura, now, is positively delectable. Peaches and lightning.” Her gaze turned speculative. “Mmm, I could —”

  “There is a prophecy,” Ifrah blurted, gaze swinging wildly between Summer and Red Sun. “Since the Brotherhood’s very beginnings we have had cause to believe that for the powers of the Caller of the Blood to be awakened there would be consequences.” Ifrah dipped her head. “Consequences so catastrophic they would spell the destruction of the world as we know it.” She looked up at Keti, as though for strength. “But the Brotherhood, we…” she searched Keti’s face, then turned to Emma. “We possess a failsafe, if you will.” The maiden flinched. “This failsafe is triggered by the magic of the ritual that awakens your power. If you have completed the ritual, but the failsafe remains intact, then somehow, you have changed the course of destiny.”

  “Or it was never our destiny to begin with,” Summer said, rolling her eyes. Ifrah and Keti both shot her a withering look. She held up her hands. “Don’t give me that look. You know I’ve been just as committed to preventing the great catastrophe as you and the twins are. I don’t want the world to end. I happen to li
ke cell phones and shoes and Netflix and all the other things that the apocalypse tends to put a damper on. I also happen to think that prophecy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” Summer crossed her arms, her entire demeanor going from petulant teenager to implacable calm, as her voice dropped an octave and the thin semblance of humanity fled her face. “I believe there was always a chance to change the course of destiny, and where there’s chance, there is no destiny. Chance and destiny are theoretically, diametrically opposed concepts which cannot coexist.”

  Fern’s mind stirred in Emma’s. She reminds me a little of you.

  Emma shot him a quelling look. She’s a vampire.

  Leah took a step forward. “What is this failsafe of yours?”

  Summer’s lip curled, but she said nothing. Ifrah looked scared, and Keti’s jaw ticked. “We cannot tell you.”

  “He means that literally,” Summer said, gaze on Emma. “There are some secrets that we of the Brotherhood have sacrificed more than blood to keep, for the good of the many.”

  Fern asked the question in Emma’s mind. “More than blood?”

  Summer’s gray gaze settled over Fern like a shadow. “Free will, Aranan. You’d know.” She shrugged. “I’m the black sheep here, so believe me, I’d tell you if I could.” At that, Keti growled, and Summer turned a look on him that was bland as milk, except that her eyes had started to shine silver. “Don’t give me that, Keti. We both know you’d gladly sell the Brotherhood out if you could, if it meant saving Ifrah.” As the maiden in question flushed with anger, Summer cocked her head. “And she knows it too. Mayhap that’s the source of your domestic unrest of late. She cares about her sisters, you couldn’t care less about anything but her. Not pretty, Keti.”

  As Keti fumed silently, Emma had to admit she was well and truly lost. What the hell had happened? One of the members of the Brotherhood was a vampire. Part of her was scared to even wonder what that meant. Keti and Ifrah seemed comfortable with her — bored, exasperated, annoyed and even angry, but not terrified.

  Not like they should be, that cold voice at the back of Emma’s mind whispered.

  Except the vampire was the only one trying to tell them anything useful.

  Suddenly Ifrah seemed to go dim with weariness. She shook her head and turned eyes full of unshed tears to Emma. “I am sorry, my lady. None of this matters to you and yours. There are things we cannot tell you, and things that we simply do not know how to explain, for we have been what we are for a long time. I pray you forgive us, and let us provide for you before we talk any further.”

  Before Emma could protest, Ivan leaned in to her and spoke almost too quietly to hear. “You are beyond endurance, devotchka . Perhaps we should rest. Regroup.”

  Surprised, Emma looked into his eyes and felt him through the pledge bond. She couldn’t sense what he wanted — but there was something, Ivan wasn’t the solicitous type. He’d watched her sit and argue with him for a good half hour after he’d mauled her arm to pieces, and he’d seen how fast she was healing — he wasn’t concerned about her. But he wanted something. And she trusted him.

  Slowly, she nodded. “Yeah, okay. Let’s do that.” Fern, carry me again?

  As Ifrah sighed with relief and turned with a gesture for them to follow, Fern folded Emma into his arms again, but this time she felt the shudder as he straightened. I’ll make it wherever we’re going, he sent hastily. Just tired. And you’re heavy, he added with a playful mental nudge. When she rolled her eyes he shook his head. Seriously, you’re a lot heavier than you look. Heavier than you really should be, even if the accelerated healing’s bumped up your muscle mass.

  “Great,” she murmured against his chest. “Running will be even more fun now.”

  Fern just laughed softly.

  Leah and Horne took point, following Ifrah and Keti across the vast expanse of cavern toward several high, wide archways that seemed to branch off the large chamber in different directions. Fern and Emma were surrounded on all sides, flanked by Shadi and Fatima with Red Sun and Ivan bringing up the rear. Everyone stopped in unison, however, when Summer moved to accompany them.

  The vampire turned to look at them for a moment, eyes plain gray again, and sighed. “And here I was hoping to get some quality time with your bear here,” she purred, gaze sliding in Red’s direction. For a moment Emma was too busy suppressing a hiss of jealousy to notice the vampire had sensed Red’s beast — or remember that she was just responding to his curse.

  When no one said a word, Summer blinked once and moved on, hips swaying. Which really didn’t help with the jealousy. No need to defend my honor, flower, Red laughed in her mind. That one’s just stirring up trouble for the sake of it.

  Emma was mortified — and glad her face was hidden against Fern’s shoulder. She had a moment to compose herself as they followed the three members of the Brotherhood through a wide archway and into a smaller, much brighter chamber where several altars lined the walls, piled with what looked like offerings of incense, jewelry and other small things of value. Thick woven rugs cushioned their feet from the cool stone underneath. Leah and Horne fanned out slightly as Ifrah slowed, making a small gesture to one of the altars and stepping aside for a moment.

  She’s a vampire, Em finally replied to Red. Her version of stirring up trouble includes killing people and drinking their blood and otherwise generally lacking a soul. Excuse me while I trust her as far as I can throw her, which in my current state is not at all.

  Red made a thoughtful noise behind her. Grammatically, I don’t think that works.

  She glared at him over Fern’s shoulder. “Get stuffed, Red.”

  “Only if you’re doing the stuffing,” he shot back casually, and she laughed out loud like an idiot, the tension of the past several days breaking in an instant as he caught her off guard. He grinned at her, totally unrepentant, and she couldn’t help but grin back.

  Then the crash of breaking glass shattered the moment. Ifrah stood with her back to an altar, a votive holder smashed at her feet, hands shaking in front of her and Keti hovering over her looking confused — but the maiden’s stricken gaze was fixed on Emma.

  “You have them,” the maiden said, and then moaned in horror, her molten eyes blazing. “You have the marks.”

  Keti straightened. Then he went pale. Summer looked at them with her mouth a grim, too-long line and her eyes gone flat gleaming silver.

  Red Sun advanced one step towards them, subtly shifting his body in front of Emma’s. “What marks.”

  Ifrah didn’t even look at him. “The fangs,” she whispered. “The mark of the aneshtevanne wellspring. Oh, gods, we are all doomed.” Then she began to cry.

  33

  “What the fuck are you wailing about, woman?” Red took another step forward, air around him shimmering. “They’re just teeth, for chrissakes, do you have any idea what being the Caller of the Blood actually means? Do you know how the Pledge is made? Of course she’s got fangs.”

  Sounded reasonable enough to Emma — so why was her heart lodged in her throat now, pulse like a trapped bird beating at her temples to escape? She pushed at Fern’s chest to be let down, but he ignored her. His voice was dark with his beast when he spoke. “What is the aneshtevanne wellspring?”

  “Good question,” Emma said, mouth dry. She pushed at Fern’s chest again. “Maybe if you put me down — oh my god.” She forgot her struggles as a pack of maidens poured into the smaller chamber like water, silent and shining, all of them robed as Ifrah was. There had to be almost twenty of them. They streamed to Ifrah, surrounding her, pressing against one another and making small noises of distress — and then they all looked in Emma’s direction at once.

  Almost twenty small, perfect faces, gazes empty and magic bleeding from their skin like mist, turned on Emma. She felt their regard like a blade against her throat.

  “She has the marks,” Ifrah whispered for the benefit of the other maidens — or maybe simply because she couldn’t believe it. In the blink
of an eye the maidens lost all semblance of humanity; chins sharpened, eyes blazed molten gold and deep wine, their faces seemed to glow so the architecture of their skulls pulsed into the visible spectrum. “When you told us your powers were awake,” Ifrah said, spreading her arms out to hold the maidens back, “I wanted to believe it was possible the prophecy was wrong. We assumed you had completed the ritual with someone else — the Aranan seemed most likely, since you are mated to him. But now…”

  “We’re not mated,” Emma blurted.

  “And what do you mean by someone else ,” Fern said, slow, mounting apprehension clouding the merge.

  A collective ripple of fear went through the maidens, Ifrah included. Keti put a hand on her shoulder. “We should go,” he said. “Speak with Jonin and Archi. Let your sisters show them to the baths.”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Summer cried. “If it’s done it’s done, and they deserve to know.” She crossed her arms, gaze sweeping Emma and her people, eyes liquid silver now. “The secret prophecy foretold a time when the Caller of the Blood would be woken by an aneshtevanne .” Emma went cold, suddenly unable to feel Fern’s arms around her. Summer met her eyes. “When that happens, a wellspring is struck. A being capable of forging a bond with any new aneshtevannir they create, similar to the bond that ties the shapechangers to their wellspring. That being would hold great power over their fledgling aneshtevannir , and any others those offspring create, and consequently, over a potentially infinite number of humanity’s only true natural predator.”

  Jesus Christ. Emma dug her fingernails into her palm. “I made Alan the wellspring, didn’t I?”

  Summer laughed, high and wild and terrifying. “Alan? Oh my stars. Christos.” She laughed again, doubling over. “Adamu, yeah? You woke the power with Adamu?”

  Emma convulsed and bit down on the rising panic attack. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Yeah.”

  Flipping hair out of her face, Summer shook her head, pressing one hand to her chin. “No child. It’s not Adamu. It’s you. You are the wellspring. That is what the fangs mean.”