Honored Vow (16 page)

He nodded, put his hand over mine, and pressed my palm against his cheek as he opened his eyes. “You’re gonna be okay, right? You seem okay.”

“I’ll be fine, I promise.”

The sepat for us would begin in eight weeks, but for Logan it would start on Friday. Members of the Shu would arrive to take him to Mongolia. He would spend the next two months in grueling training that was meant to strip him of his humanity and leave only the animal. The maahes of each semel was there to interfere if a semel was close to death and report to the mate of their semel. He was also to be the one to report if the leader was killed during the preparation for the sepat. The maahes had no other function, no voice.

“The trial of the heart has more or less two parts. So when you first see me, in my werepanther form, after I’ve shifted back from panther, that’s supposed to test the bond between the semel and his household.”

I just smiled at him.

 “I’ll be a savage the next time you lay eyes on me; I’ll be altered and angry.”

“I know.”

“The priest said that there is strength training and punishment, and that you shift into panther form when you arrive and are not allowed to become human again until the day your household joins you after the trial of the heart.”

I nodded.

“I’ll be more animal than man when you see me next.”

“I know.”

He took a breath, taking both my hands in his. “The point is to test the bond even if I am not the same man you know.”

“Yuri and Mikhail and I won’t fail you.”

“I know you won’t, especially you, but you have to forgive me now for whatever I do then. It won’t be me, and you have to remember that.”

“You would never hurt me, Logan, it’s not in you.”

“But I’ll be so hungry for you by then.” He took a breath. “You have to forgive me.”

I had more faith in the man than he had in himself.

“Please, Jin, don’t abandon me, no matter what.”

“I won’t, I can’t.”

“Eight weeks without me,” he sighed, “and you leaking power. The timing is shit.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I want you to miss me because that will smother the nekhene instinct to run or to look for another.”

“You’re the only mate I’ll ever have.”

“I know that,” he said matter-of-factly, “but the wild creature that lives inside of you doesn’t.”

“Then I’ll teach it.”

“I
will
educate the nekhene cat,” he promised, bending to kiss me.

It was not gentle; he ground his mouth down over mine and ravaged my lips, put his hands on me until I was writhing in his arms, pressing against him, whimpering with need. When he shoved me back, I yelled at him.

“You see that,” he told me, his voice low and sultry. “I’m what you want, only me. Don’t forget it.”

He turned and walked away, and I had a tremendous urge to follow, but my desire died a second later when Crane poked his head out of the kitchen and said he was ready to drive to Reno. The need to nurture and protect drowned all else, but still, I needed my mate too. It would have to be a shorter trip than what I had originally planned. I didn’t want to miss spending any time I could with Logan.

Chapter Ten

T
HE
priest had told Logan a week, but when Crane and I returned home, I found out that the priest had purposely lied, part of the sepat to catch us off balance. Yuri explained, haltingly, that my mate was gone, along with my maahes. They had come for them both, and all I had to hold me was the kiss I had given my mate when I was leaving.

“I’m so sorry you weren’t here,” Crane whispered.

“It’s not your fault,” I told him even though my heart hurt.

“We need to concentrate on getting ready for the sepat,” Mikhail told me and Yuri and everyone else, including Danny, in the living room. “Jin, you need to tell us everything you know.”

I explained about the challenges and asked Danny to please chime in if I missed anything. He seemed pleased at being included.

The first test, the one of blood, was for the sheseru. Yuri would be placed in a locked cage with between five and ten shifted panthers that he had never met or even seen before, and with only the strength of his station, he would have to make them submit to him. They would have to roll over and present their stomachs, their midlines, and only then would Yuri be allowed from the locked cell.

“Am I in panther form?” he asked me.

“No, you’re you.”

His brows furrowed. “Jin, they’ll tear me to shreds.”

“Not if you’re stronger than they are,” Danny told him. “You have to show your panther blood in human form. It’s hard.”

“No shit,” he growled, annoyed by the obvious.

“You’ll do it,” Mikhail told him. “I’ve seen you.”

Yuri shook his head. “Don’t you remember when Jin was attacked in the kitchen by those cats last summer? If I was so strong—”

“That was before Sobek,” Mikhail reminded him, “and before Jin was discovered to be a nekhene cat. He’s different, and so are you because you’ve had to adapt to him.”

I watched them stare at each other.

“You’ll do it.”

Yuri nodded. Always Mikhail was the voice of reason, and because he made sense, Yuri heard him and absorbed his words.

The second test, or trial, was that of law. Mikhail would recite any law that he was asked for and have to interpret it and defend it.

“And the last test?” Crane asked me.

“It’s heart,” I told him, turning. “Logan will be tied down or shackled, or, I dunno, but he won’t be able to move, and other khatyu led by someone will try and get through me, and you, and Domin, and one other.”

“Me?” he asked.

“You’re beset of a reah,” I reminded him. “You stand with me. We just have to decide who, along with you and me and Domin, will be in the pit.”

“Domin.”

We all turned to look at Koren. All the color had drained from his face.

“I thought the only reason he was going was to watch over Logan until the sepat.”

“No.” Danny shook his head. “Domin is in the pit with Logan and Jin. If the semel is killed, then, in essence, his household dies but not his house. The mate is put to death, and the maahes, because the new semel would want to choose both for himself.”

“I—”

“At least that’s the logic behind it,” I told him. “You would only be able to claim whoever else was at the sepat—Crane, Yuri, and Mikhail.”

“But if Logan is killed,” Danny told Koren, “then Jin and Domin are killed immediately after.”

Koren took a breath, and I saw his eyes bleed to the dark olive green that normally only his iris was. “You’re telling me that that man walked out of here, without a word to me, knowing that he might never, ever see me again?”

“Yeah,” Yuri said flippantly. “But why the fuck would you care?”

“I care!” he roared at Yuri, and we all saw, finally, some passion from him where Domin Thorne was concerned. “I care more than you—”

“He was not allowed to tell you he was leaving.” Danny tried to soften it for Koren. “Just like Logan was not allowed to call Jin. They just have to leave.”

“They both yelled at me from downstairs,” Yuri snapped at Koren. “Logan called me.” He took a breath. “And so did Domin.”

“But you were in the house, I was out.”

Clearly Yuri was too disgusted to say another word to Koren and stalked over to the fireplace. He was brooding and silent, and I wasn’t sure why.

“Does Domin know?” I asked softly, stepping in closer to Logan’s younger brother, “or does he still think that you’re holding open auditions for the love of your life when it’s obvious to all of us that the man’s been right in front of your face this whole entire time?”

“I—he—”

“Oh,” Crane said, nodding. “You broke up with Domin. I wasn’t here for that. What the fuck for, man? How are you doing better, heir of the tribe of Mafdet, than the prince of the tribe of Mafdet?”

“Oh.” Danny sounded so sad.

“What?” Koren snarled at him.

“No, just—if Domin Thorne were your mate, maahes or no, he would not have been allowed to attend the sepat. Mate to the heir trumps maahes.”

And I remembered that. “Shit,” I groaned, my eyes on Koren.

He was shaking just a little. “You’re saying if I’d just claimed him, he would have had to stay.”

“Yes,” Danny assured him. “The mate of the heir is bound to your side just as is the mate of the semel bound to his.”

“Fuck!” Koren yelled, the fury rolling over all of us as he charged across the room, striding to the window, staring out at the falling snow.

After a minute I joined him. It took many more for him to speak.

“I’m an idiot.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

“He’s perfect for me, he’s everything I’m not, dangerous and strong and loyal…. God, Jin, I really fucked this up this time.”

I was silent, letting him work it out and talk to me.

“And I don’t think I should try and fix it, but I want to so bad.”

He was ready to pull Domin back into the tornado with him, and no one wanted that for our maahes, not any of us.

“The shit of it is,” he said as he turned to look at me, “even now, I still don’t know what I want.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that I want him, but I don’t know if it’s love. And it’s not fair to be with him until something or someone I want more comes along.”

No, it wasn’t.

“God, this is such a mess.”

I looked at his profile, which was so close to Logan’s and yet so different. The intense regal bearing that his brother had was not present in Koren. Logan was strength and power and heat, and just his presence in a room made the air spark and sizzle with vibrant electricity. Koren had none of that, and I was beginning to wonder what it was that Domin saw in him at all. Maybe the maahes of my tribe had been infatuated and now, finally, after easily four years of their back-and-forth bullshit, which had started way before I had even arrived, it was waning. And so maybe he had not punished Koren with a silent departure, but it had simply not crossed his mind to even gift the man with a goodbye. Last night in the hall, perhaps he had missed Koren’s invitation because he had not been looking for it.

“Someone else will want him, Koren, and whoever that is, you have to step aside.”

“I know.”

“It’s a mistake, I’m telling you. You’re gonna grieve for the rest of your life when somebody else, some other panther, claims him.”

“Or I won’t,” he told me, turning to me, looking pained. “And that’s the problem, right?”

Never in my life had I been the indecisive sort, and sometimes it had been bad. I always did something, and a lot of times those choices were selfish, but Koren was not even that guy, not even me, thorns and all. Koren was the waffling guy, and because we were so different, I was having trouble wrapping my brain around who he was.

“I figured you wanted him,” I said, looking for the man I thought I knew. “Before the feast of the valley, before I was kidnapped… didn’t you?”

“He gave me an ultimatum.” He sighed deeply, raking his fingers through the same thick blond hair that he shared with his brothers. “He said, ‘choose or leave me the fuck alone.’ I wasn’t ready to let him go, so… but being with him, I look at other people.”

“But when you’re with other people you think about him,” I said, because I knew it was the truth.

“Yes.”

“And then you want to go on the prowl the minute he’s back in your bed.”

“Yes,” he groaned. “And I know that makes me seem like a total shit.”

“It’s honest, and until you find the one person that makes you forget everyone else, you have to keep looking. I understand it, but it’s not fair to Domin, and he’s too important to the rest of us. We’re too invested in his happiness to watch you dick him around. It’s time to cut him loose, Koren.”

“I already did.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am.”

“It stopped going back and forth?”

“Yeah. We haven’t reconciled since the last time.” He sounded so sad. “He won’t let me, and now, as you saw the other night, he doesn’t really even see me. He’s over me.”

“Which is killing you.”

“Fuck yeah.” He exhaled, carding his fingers through his hair. “Because I want him back and I want to make him promises and…. But the minute I do, the minute he’s there in my bed….”

He would want someone else. “Sure.”

“You think I’m an idiot.”

I did and didn’t. “You can’t make your heart want something just because you think you should. I get that.”

“I thought when we were together when you were all away at the feast of the valley… fuck, Jin, I thought that was it. I thought I was done looking anywhere but at him.”

But he wasn’t, and Domin knew that, and his earlier ultimatum had changed to resignation. Koren would never be his, and at some point he had stopped caring. The problem was, without anyone to love him… what did Domin Thorne have for an anchor?

I studied Koren’s face for a minute before I walked back to the others.

“I have a question.” Artem said.

We all turned to look at him.

“Besides Crane,” he said, his eyes on mine, “who else goes into the pit with you and Domin when you defend Logan?”