The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04
Table of Contents
Contents
The Jaguar King
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Myth
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
Epilogue
Thanks so much for reading
Copyright © 2015 Anna McIlwraith
The Jackal Prince
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2
3
4
5
6
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9
10
11
12
13
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15
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19
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22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
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34
35
36
37
38
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40
41
42
Thanks for reading
Copyright © 2015 Anna McIlwraith
The Wolf's Heir
Myth
Prophecy
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2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
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21
22
23
24
25
26
27
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29
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31
32
33
Thanks for reading
Copyright © 2015 Anna McIlwraith
The Serpent Priest
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2
3
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5
6
7
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21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
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31
32
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37
38
39
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41
Thanks for reading
Copyright © 2016 Anna McIlwraith
Book One
The Jaguar King
Prologue
San Cristobal de la Casas, Mexico
Eleven years earlier
Night rolled over the city like smoke, and to Beata Salcedo, the air seemed to burn with the restless taste of prophecy. Blood and road-dust, and the iron spice of a coming storm.
As darkness fell, fireworks lit the valley, bustling streets surging with Holy Week marchers and elaborate parades; the scent of good food and gasoline and humanity welcomed Beata home, but beneath it ran a thin red murmur of discord. It whispered to her bones, urged her to hurry, much as she was able; boot heels clicking an uneven beat up the narrow street. The wind pulled her white hair out of its loose chignon, coaxed it about her bare, brown shoulders. The shapeless black shift she wore billowed like sails, and beneath it her skin sparked to the touch of the chill breeze. It felt like a wordless plea for speed.
She rounded the corner, lit out for the end of the quieter street she called home, and ground to a halt. Her bad knee juddered once.
There was a stranger’s truck parked across the gate of her house.
She melted into the shadows of an abandoned shop front, eyes like fiery green jewels in the twilight. The lights were on in the house. Who was in there with the boys? Who would come while she was gone? What stranger knew she made San Cristobal her home?
None. Only enemies.
She had to get to the boys, and in a form to fight. Fast, she stripped the cotton shift down her body, underwear with it — and with a flash of wicked white light, Beata called the change.
There was no one around to see the dappled black and golden thing dart across the road with more speed and grace than its bulk suggested — and if any had, they would never believe their own eyes. Unseen, she slunk beneath the truck — Ford crew cab, Nevada plates — couldn’t detangle the myriad scents that clung to the warm steel. Her round ears flicked back, forth, detected no one nearby on the street. So she shot out from beneath the truck, jumped the crumbling seven foot high brick wall with one powerful movement of muscled haunches, landed cat quiet on the paved garden path and launched herself straight at the front door.
The flimsy latch gave way as one hundred and fifty pounds of jaguar hit it. Beata’s claws shrieked on timber as the door flew out of her way, she shot into the hall and through the archway to her left; her paws touched linoleum and she heard the stranger’s footsteps coming toward the kitchen.
She leapt.
Too late she saw the two empty cups on the table, realized she smelled not death nor violence but only coffee, too late recognition flared. She managed to sheathe her claws less than a second before the blond man stepped into the kitchen.
He caught her, and they both went down together in a thundercrack of splintering chair and smashing crockery.
He’d broken her fall, which was completely unnecessary. With a huff, Beata twisted out of the muscled strength of his arms, and the blond man sat up in the remains of the chair they’d landed on, dusting splinters from his shirt.
His hair bristled, sun bleached like late summer wheat, contrasting with smooth skin and a golden tan that never faded. His features were lean and foxlike, and his sharp chin and wide mouth disqualified him from ever being thought of as conventionally attractive. He had more earrings than the last time they’d met, and he looked older, but his eyes were still crisp winter blue and no matter how many long years it had been since she had seen him, those eyes were unmistakable.
They sparkled at her. “Still spry, Beata,” he said in Spanish.
She coughed low in her throat and blinded him with the light of her change, standing as she did so. Naked, she put her hands on her lean old hips and glared down at him, white hair streaming over her arms and breasts. She answered in Zapotec. “You know better than to show up unannounced.” Then, in Spanish she added, “And call me Betty, you dog.”
He grinned. “Only if you call me baby.”
From the arched kitchen doorway there came a helpless noise of disgust. “Ah, Telly, come on. That’s my mother you’re talking to.”
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bsp; They both looked up. Antonio’s emerald green eyes danced with mirth, but they sobered when he met the solid gaze of his mother. He flicked dark curls out of his eyes. “Can I get you something, ma?”
She arched a brow, ignoring Telly’s soft snort of laughter. “Across the street. I ditched a perfectly good shift dress and my best boots. See if they’re still there?”
He nodded and turned to go.
“Antonio?”
He turned back, both eyebrows raised, and for a moment he looked so much like his father that Beata’s throat ached, jawbones cold with the memory of grief. She smiled at her son. “Happy birthday.”
On the back porch, beneath a starless night sky heavy with storm clouds, surrounded by the good smell of sage and rosemary and the distant sound of chanting crowds drifting up from the plaza, the man who called himself Telly sat with Beata, and listened as she spoke to him of prophecy and death.
“When my time comes, Antonio will shoulder the burden of my life’s mission. He’ll do it gladly, for he is a good son, but he will need help. He’s still young.”
Telly narrowed faded blue eyes at her, studying her. She was lean, white haired and old, but her skin was smooth and her body thrummed with fierce life. Hard to believe she had little time left. But if she said so, it was true.
He looked away from the hard acceptance in her emerald gaze. “You don’t know what you ask of me.”
She laughed, rich and cracked like the bray of a raven. “Don’t be so vain, you silly old man.” She patted him on the hand. “I know enough. I was not the king’s oracle because I was fair of face and form. Ha.”
Telly watched her grin and rock back and forth in the rickety chair. “You were not fair,” he said. “You were exquisite. And still are.”
She ignored that. “Will you do it?”
He ran a hand through his shock of golden hair. “Betty…” He sighed. “You have truly Seen her?”
Beata stilled. The strengthening wind stirred her hair, lifted it away from her face. She was still beautiful, even with her hair all white now; Telly remembered her young and soft, green eyes shocking against the sepia of her complexion. Fiery with magic, courage and conviction, all the long years had forged in her a hardness no less lovely.
“I have Seen her,” she said softly. “I cannot see where she is, or how to find her, and I doubt I ever will. I think that is for Antonio to uncover, much as it pains me. Or maybe Ricky. There’s a chance he inherited my gift, though sometimes I’m not sure if it’s true or just the delusions of an old woman.” Telly scoffed and she shot him a sidelong smile before sobering once more. “This much is not a delusion: I have Seen her. Not much older than Ricky. She is strong, Telly. With you, and the help of my boys, she might just survive.”
In Telly’s experience, although humans were the most adaptable species on the face of the earth, they were inconveniently fragile on an individual basis. He made a noncommittal sound and turned his attention to what concerned him there and then. “How long do you have?”
Beata stood, paced out into the yard between the rows of herbs and chillies, held her arms out to the storm laden wind. Her shift now was white; she looked carved of the absent moon, pale enough to light the sky herself. “Three years,” she said, almost too low to hear.
Three years. She who had arrived on the shores of the Americas a human slave on the ships of the conquistadors, escaped into the wilderness and survived, bargained for her life when the king of the jaguars found her. For a light-forged shapechanger, five hundred years was a gift. To someone as old as she was, it must seem like a handful of heartbeats separated her from death.
To someone as old as Telly, it felt as though she were dust already.
“I will do it,” he said. “I’ll help your boys, when the time comes. But I cannot stay to watch your last —” he couldn’t say it, not out loud, which only confirmed what he had known some time now. “I have walked too long in the land of men, Betty,” he said quietly. “I must Travel. But I will be back for your boys. I give you my word, for what it’s worth.”
She turned to look at him and smiled. “Your word is surer than death, old fox.”
He stood, went down to her, cupped her face in his rough hands. Gazed into her eyes as the wind pulled at them both. “The truck is for Anton. Where I’m going, I won’t be needing it. Journey well, Beata.” He leaned down, brushed her cheek with his lips — and with a white, electric flash, the storm broke, lightning arced down, Beata’s hair crackled with heat and magic, and Telly was gone.
Returning from his trip into town, Ricky heard a stranger’s voice and paused in the alley that ran behind the back fence, going cat quiet and listening. With heightened senses he heard every word. He was only twelve, and he did not understand all that was said. But three years later, when his mother was gunned down in Venezuela, he remembered enough to understand that the man called Telly — who was not a man at all — had known his mother was going to die, and did nothing to stop it.
Worse, she had known she was going to die, and done nothing to stop it.
The night of her funeral, he ran away from everything he knew, and never looked back.
1
At the vet clinic where Emma worked as a kennel technician, the shit had hit the fan.
Pamela stood just inside the doorway with an animal control pole in one hand and half a hotdog in the other; chairs lay overturned, a display rack of pet toys had been knocked on its face, and bottles of shampoo still rolled across the linoleum. Emma smelled wet fur, and the ripe warmth of sewage, but the culprit was nowhere in sight. Lucky it was after hours, or there’d be terrified old ladies and miniature poodles to deal with too.
The door clicked closed behind Emma, and Pam turned to her with a bemused smile on her plump face. “Why, you look incredible! Don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a dress. Or heels!” Smile still in place, she pointed with the hotdog and said, “The pooch ran out the back again.”
Emma surveyed the damage. “Can’t wear jeans and sneakers to a fancy restaurant.” Unfortunately. “Not that I’m going to make it to this date tonight anyway.” Eight thirty was six minutes away, the restaurant twice that, and the chances of her getting out before a quarter to ten were slim to none. Since she was going to miss dinner, Emma plucked the hotdog from Pam’s hand and took a bite, leaning forward to avoid mustard drips on the black dress.
“So,” she said around the mouthful of food. “This stray that doc Ormond picked up this evening. What breed is he?”
Pam sighed. “Not sure what breed. But he’s big! Must weigh more than he looks, too, don’t see how he could’ve busted out of his kennel. He was secure when Ormond left.” From somewhere out back of the reception area, in the direction of the exam rooms, the sound of metal clanging echoed off the clinic walls, followed by the scrape of claws on linoleum. Pam’s excitement soured a little. “He’s not happy, though. That’s why I called you. You’re always so good with the aggressive ones.”
“You probably should have called Pete,” Emma said gently. Pete was their local animal control guy.
Pam’s face crumpled. “Oh dear, I’m so sorry. But I thought, maybe… Well, if you work your magic, I might be able to find a home for him. Without sending him to the pound.”
Emma sighed. Pam was the clinic’s office manager, and she had a good heart. After several years working with Emma, she also knew about Emma’s knack.
Emma shrugged her shoulder bag off and took out her phone. “Go and get on with your night while I take care of the pooch.”
Pam cried out in protest. “Nonsense! I’ll stay, I can’t call you out like this and not stay, and it’s dangerous, and I’d be a terrible woman if I —”
“Pam,” Emma interjected. “It’s better if it’s just me, you know that. Now get gone, finish your hot dog, and eat some popcorn for me. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
Pam let Emma sweep her out the door. “But this was supposed to be your week off!”
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sp; “Yeah well, I’ll be here.” Better at the clinic than at her fancy date — or home studying for exams. Emma took the pole from Pam and stepped back from the door. “Goodnight Pam.”
Emma closed the door and listened. Silence. Poor dog was probably hiding under a table somewhere.
But before she went after the dog, she had a call to make. She thumbed through to the number she wanted, and couldn’t help the little hitch in her breath when Alan answered on the third ring.
“This cannot be good news, of that I’m sure.”
How could such a simple thing as an English accent make everything sound so dire? Emma swallowed hard.“I’m at the clinic. Pam called with an emergency. I’m really, really sorry,” she added, pushing genuine regret into her voice. She was sorry — mostly.
“Must we cancel the entire evening?”
Damn. “Unless you wanna come patch up a wet, dirty dog, and then watch me monitor his vitals for a couple of hours, then yeah, the entire evening.” Emma heard another muffled noise from out the back of the clinic, and tried not to wriggle on the spot with impatience.
Alan made a thoughtful noise, and she froze. Then he said, “Very well. You can make it up to me sometime.”
Was that a smile in his voice? Alan wasn’t big on smiling. Or innuendo. But they’d been dating three months, and hadn’t slept together, and even though they’d talked about it and he knew how she felt —
“You’ve been silent a while now, Emma. I did not mean to put you on the spot. Only that I am disappointed not to see you.”
She let a relieved sigh escape through her nose. “It’s not that. I’m disappointed too. Maybe tomorrow night?”
“Ah. No. I leave on business tomorrow, well before dawn.”
Damn again. She’d already known that. “Sorry,” she winced. “I forgot.”
“No need to apologize,” he said before she could speak again. “I understand. I will let you go. We’ll talk soon.”
Emma said goodbye, and they hung up, and she decided it was official: dating was her worst thing.
Thankfully, handling animals happened to be her best thing, because there was one hell of a scary looking dog standing in the doorway that led from the reception area to the exam rooms.
The dog lowered its head, ears flat to its long skull. Mismatched eyes fixed on Emma: one blue, one brown, but it didn’t look like a breed prone to mismatching, like huskies. Short, shaggy gray-brown coat — matted and dripping something thicker than water — long legs, huge paws. A long narrow muzzle, intense eyes, and pointed, mobile ears.