Honored Vow (32 page)

Besides Logan and me, the only other humans in the room were the priest, Crane, Yuri, Domin, Mikhail, Andrian, and Taj. Everyone else, phocal, semel, maahes, yareah, sheseru, sylvan—it didn’t matter. They had all been turned to panthers.

“You’re like the goddess Circe,” Crane said, chuckling. “You turn men to beasts.”

But I didn’t want to be compared to a witch. I would have argued with him, but the priest was speaking.

“It is unusual for us to judge a winner when the trial has not concluded, but as every panther in the pit was rendered immobile, pinned to the floor in pain, it could not go on. As a result, the semel of the tribe of Reshep may now challenge Logan Church to one-on-one combat to determine who will face the semel-aten.”

I turned to look for Hiroshi and found him gasping, trying to rise from the fetal position he had obviously been locked in for several minutes. He was attempting to rise up off the ground. I saw, too, that there was only his yareah with him; the three other khatyu of his household were dead. On the other side, Gavin Medina, his yareah, and all in his household lay mutilated. It was why there were more panthers on us so fast; they had not been able to keep the marauders from their semel and were simply overrun and killed. I had no idea how quickly they had fallen, but it had to have been fast.

A high-pitched scream turned my attention, and I saw that Hiroshi Narae had shifted back to his werepanther form, probably to give him strength, and was now attacking his own yareah. Yusuke was being held down by several panthers, other members of her tribe who had rushed to the pit, as her semel mauled her.

“No!” I screamed, and Logan jolted in my arms, lifting his head.

The panthers, Hiroshi’s sylvan and sheseru among them, stepped in front of their frenzied semel, shielding his actions from our eyes, even though we knew he was biting and scratching and tearing at his mate.

“Yuri,” Logan roared, his voice carrying like it always did, the embodiment of power and strength even in his weakened state. “Bring me the yareah!”

“Stay back!” the priest warned Yuri and Mikhail and Domin as they moved toward the cluster of the tribe of Reshep. “The semel will not kill his yareah, only mark her as apophi. We all saw her hesitate to attack Jin when she had the chance before he let loose with his power.”

“No,” I rasped, struggling to rise, to go to her.

“Listen,” my mate coughed out and pulled me back to look at his face. “He’s not killing her, Jin; he’s giving her the mark of apophi.”

Marking her? “Why? She did not disgrace herself,” I whined, struggling to get free, so tired but needing to get to her, to save her.

“Stop,” he whispered. “You can’t do anything. This is the law. She had a chance to kill you, I saw it—she was close. I turned my head and saw her maybe twelve feet away, but her mate screamed and she ran back to defend him.”

He blurred as my eyes filled with tears. “He’s marking her as a disgrace because she chose to protect him instead of kill me.”

“He might have been able to take care of himself, and so he feels her duty was to attack and kill you before going to his aid.”

“Domin!” I screamed for my maahes.

“No!” the priest yelled over me from above. “Call no aid for her, Jin Rayne!”

“You can’t,” Logan told me, tightening his grip on me. “Baby, you can’t. It’s his right, just as it would be mine to mark you.”

My eyes locked on the shining amber ones in front of me. “You would never, ever mark me.”

“Not like that,” he agreed, hands on my face. “But I’m not him.”

I was exhausted, overwrought, and the soul-rending screams of the terrified and wounded and heartbroken yareah were eating me alive. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I began to shake. Logan was in pain, too, excruciating pain, but he grabbed me anyway, as he had his strength as a semel to tap into, and held me tight.

The sound went on and on for what felt like hours but could not have been more than minutes. Members of my tribe stood hovering over me and Logan. The tribe of Khertet, having recovered from my turning them all to beasts, had returned, changed, clothed, and brought robes for the members of other tribes who were naked. Thus Danny was wrapped in a fur cloak.

When I could catch my breath, Logan eased me from his lap, and Yuri put his hands on my shoulders as my semel shifted into panther form, and then man, panther, and finally back to man. Logan looked better after he shifted twice more, and as he flexed his muscles, he put his right hand on his left shoulder and stretched, repeating the action on the opposite side, I understood that everything that had been dislocated was healed and that he was well on his way to recovery. He needed food, though, meat, lots of protein, lots of water, and sleep.

When he stood up, Yuri slid a fur cloak over him, and Logan pointed at the now-bloody and mauled body of the yareah of Reshep. I had watched with horrified eyes as every remaining member of her tribe, including her semel, had spit on her. She had lost her right eye as well as that side of her face. The ripped flesh would heal, but never completely. The scarring would be heavy. Her eye was gone forever; she would never be the beauty she once was.

“I claim, as a member of my tribe, Yusuke Narae. She will be a member of my khatyu.”

“You cannot!” Hiroshi snarled at Logan before looking up at the priest. “She will be staked for her cowardice and—”

“To me, what she showed you was the depth of her love,” the priest told the semel. “But you have marked her, shown her your displeasure, and by your wish to have her staked, released her from your tribe, and so she may be claimed by another.”

“She will have nothing! Her clothes will be burned; I will not have them given to her! She will not be allowed to contact her family, as they are members of my tribe! She is dead to me and to the tribe of Reshep. There is only khet.”

I understood that he was in a fury; he was completely out of control, as he had just been through the same ordeal that Logan had. But whereas my semel had retained his humanity, Hiroshi had not. If only he had food and sleep, if only he had waited and not been so rash, if only he had taken a breath before attacking, his head might have cleared and he would have remembered how much he cherished and adored his beloved yareah. Instead, he had maimed the woman who was his mate.

“Logan Church,” the priest called to my semel. “You will have to feed and clothe and care for the former yareah of the tribe of Reshep. She might someday try and kill you for what has transpired here today. Are you aware of the danger that—”

“She will not,” Logan said, cutting the priest off. “I apologize for my impertinence, Your Grace, but she cannot blame me for any that was brought on her this day. Her semel, and her semel alone, has mauled her and marked her for death. I will claim her and give her life.”

“So be it,” the priest agreed, and he raised his hand, palm up, to present her to Logan.

Hiroshi Narae stepped back from the bleeding, inert body of his yareah. Her tears had mixed with blood, and she was trying to cover her nakedness from prying eyes, and her modesty in the face of the horror that had been visited on her made my heart hurt.

“Crane,” Logan said.

He moved fast.

My best friend was met at the fallen woman by a member of the tribe of Khertet, who offered him a soft fur robe. He thanked the man, spread the cloak gently, slowly lifted Yusuke, and then tenderly wrapped her up. He stood up with her in his arms as though she weighed nothing, and as he walked back to us, he began speaking to her.

“Take her to our quarters,” Logan told him, and Crane gave him a slight nod as he walked by, holding her tighter, her head turned now, tucked under his chin.

I took a stuttering breath and leaned into Logan’s side.

He clutched at me, and I felt the tremor run though him.

“Tomorrow at noon the challenge for the seat of semel-aten will commence. Logan Church and Domin Thorne of the tribe of Mafdet will face Ammon El Masry and his maahes, Rector Vincent, of the tribe of Rahotep, in the pit to decide who will be master of Sobek. May the semel most deserving be granted the grace of Ra.”

I already knew who that was.

T
HE
sylvan of the tribe of Reshep, Morimoto Arai, and the sheseru, Fuwa Kenichi, both came with all of Yusuke’s belongings that she had brought with her to Mongolia. They both bowed low to me, asking that I please keep her out of their semel’s sight, as they had been told to burn all her things but could not, in good conscience, do so. They had done their duty, as honor demanded, and followed the orders of their semel to hold her down as he gnawed on her face, gouged her flesh with his claws, and bit through her right eye and cheek. They could do no more to her; it had already crossed the line into torture and abomination. As I looked at them, I realized that they had both very recently been violently sick.

She had only one suitcase; they would send other things when, and if, they could.

I bowed low. “Thank you.”

They bowed back and then were gone. There was no time to linger lest someone see them. I took the suitcase inside the ger to where Yusuke lay sleeping. Even when she had drifted off, she had not released Crane’s hand. As I looked at him, I realized how content he looked as he studied her face.

She was strong, and she shifted as fast as Logan could, which was to say pretty damn fast. She had been able to morph back and forth six times before she was too exhausted and passed out. There was now a slash across the patch of pink skin covering her right eye. The entire right side of her face was criss-crossed with scars, but they were not grooves, as I had thought they would be; instead they were raised lines that cut across otherwise smooth porcelain skin.

I had heard her begging at first to be allowed to take her own life, whimpering softly, urging Crane to hear her. She even lifted fingers to his face. He covered her little hand with his, pressing it against his cheek, smiling down at her. She began to shiver, and he tucked the blankets around her chin before he lay down in front of her so they were facing each other. I watched as she stared at him and listened to him talk. He had already told her that he had been scourged; it was the piece of information that had allowed him to be close to her. He was maimed, so was she, and the horrifying tale he confessed to her had brought fresh tears. After all she had been through, that she could still weep for someone else said so much about the size of the woman’s heart.

“She’ll find her place,” Yuri said from his place beside me.

I turned to look at him.

“And so will your boy.”

“My boy?”

“Who’s the only boy around here?”

He meant Danny. “Oh yeah, I know.”

I got a smile then.

Looking at my sheseru, I realized that in the time I had known the man, he had changed so much. “And you?”

“Me what?”

“Will you and Domin find your way?”

“I figured you knew.”

“Only because Mikhail told me,” I confessed.

“You’ve been dealing with your own shit.”

“But I should have seen that you were hurting. Forgive me.”

“Nothing to forgive.”

“And now? Is there a happily ever after for you and my maahes?”

He sighed heavily. “I hope so. Jesus, Jin, have you ever wanted anything so bad that just thinking about maybe getting it made you sick?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Then you understand.”

“I do,” I said, glancing over at Logan, who was sleeping on my bunk, his face buried in my pillow, absolutely dead to the world.

We had fed him, talked briefly, put gallons of water down him, and listened as he thanked each man who had come on the odyssey with him. He had hugged everyone, even Danny, had sat with Yusuke and accepted her tearful, heartfelt pledge of fealty, and then Yuri and I had taken him outside and scrubbed him.

He had been delirious over being clean, absolutely giddy afterward, and then when dumb things like shaving had been finished—I had told him the beard and mustache were hot, but he wasn’t buying it—he had felt like a new man. Things we took for granted, like deodorant, hair gel, clothes, he had appreciated so much. When he had been sitting inside in long underwear, jeans, heavy wool socks, a long T-shirt, a flannel shirt, a wool cardigan, and a parka, he had finally been able to look at me, sigh, and ask me how I was.

“I’m good,” I had said, chuckling. “You?”

He had grabbed me and thrown me down on the bed and confessed that all he really wanted to do was take off all his clothes and hold me in his arms.

“Maybe when you wake up,” I had told him.

His eyelids had fluttered. After the food, the water, he had been sated, and he was clean and warm. As he stretched out, head on my thigh, his eyes had drifted closed.

“Will you stay right here?”

“Yes, sir, I will,” I had said, smiling down at him.

“I love you,” he had said, wrapping his forearm around my thigh. “And the tribe means so much, and my family and Yuri and Mikhail and….”

He had been fighting sleep so hard.

“Rest, love,” I had said, threading my fingers through his hair, loving the feel of it, the warmth of his scalp, inhaling his scent that was musky and sweet and smoky all at the same time.

“But, Jin,” he had muttered, sighing deeply, “it’s you, you know that, right?”

“Logan—”

“Just you. I would never give up for you. I have to have my mate; you’re the only thing I can’t live without.”

“I know, me too.”

And now, three hours later, I sat with Yuri in the ger with everyone either asleep or close to it around us.

“Where’s Domin now?”

“He’s out running, trying to clear his head.”

“You didn’t want to run with him?”

“I did, but I didn’t think it was a good idea. I need to be smart enough to give him his space when he needs it and be there when he needs me.”

I looked into his eyes. “Mikhail says you’ve been in love with the guy since you were sixteen.”

He shrugged his massive shoulders.

“You don’t deny it.”

He just looked at me.