Honored Vow (34 page)

His groan was pained. “Oh, baby, please, take all that off and lay down with me. Put your skin on mine.”

“I’ll take off everything on top, but—”

“No,” he whined, “all of it. I need to be… inside.”

The man’s eyes were golden slits; watching him swallow hard, licking his lips as he stared at me, was enough to make my blood run hot.

I rolled up to my knees and began to strip. I was pretty sure that everyone else was asleep, and there were only the sounds of the fires in the braziers scattered around the ger, the wind howling outside, soft snoring, and the rustling of bedding.

As I shed my clothes, Logan unzipped his parka and pulled off his sweater and the many layers underneath. When I was naked, I grabbed one of the lined, heavy wool blankets beside him, opened it, and came down on top of him, straddling his hips. He moved fast, dumping me down on the furs on my back as a soft purr rose from his chest.

I squirmed under him, but instantly he lifted my hips, and I felt my cheeks spread and his tongue slid between them. As I bucked up off the berth, his rough tongue swirled over my fluttering entrance. “Logan,” I gasped, “someone will see.”

“They’re all exhausted, and Yuri and Domin are gone,” he told me as he nibbled up my buttocks, making my breath hitch. “And I need you, I need my mate,” he finished and made me understand the breadth of his desire as his tongue slid inside my puckered hole.

He licked hard and long, that talented muscle of his going deeper each time, sucking harder, tasting me over and over until my cock was dripping with precome and my ass with saliva. I was writhing under him as his body arched over mine, begging softly, my whispers desperate. When he thrust two fingers into me, capturing my mouth at the same time, letting me taste myself on his tongue, I shuddered with how close I was to release.

His fingers scissored apart, slid over my gland, and I bit his bottom lip as my back bowed and he caught my leaking cock in his hand.

“Logan,” I panted, “I’m gonna come.”

He moved fast, changing position above me, my knees in the crooks of his elbows as he lifted my ass and drove down into me.

I came from the first hard thrust, his cock filling me, spreading me, and I cried out even though we were trying to be quiet as I spurted come over his rippling torso. As I rode the waves of my orgasm, he fucked me, pushing in and out, sheathing himself, burying himself fully inside so I could feel his balls pounding against my ass.

“Oh fuck, baby, you’re so tight,” he ground out, and I could feel my muscles clenching around the length of him, rippling, clasping, as he rode me.

My orgasm flushed me with heat; I was slick with sweat as my mate pounded his enormous cock into me. The tears bathing my face were of no consequence. “Mine,” I growled at him.

His breath caught with my declaration of ownership, and I knew that me being possessive of him had sent him right over the edge. He grabbed hold of my thighs and yanked me forward at the same time, ramming the long, hard, thick length of him into me. I felt his hot release fill my ass, pour into me as he pumped and pumped. I wrapped my legs around his back and held on.

We were a single, sweat-slickened creature when his hand fisted in my hair and he lifted me, bringing me up to him so he could remain buried to the hilt in my ass and claim my mouth at the same time. I wrapped my arms around his neck and ground my lips over his, our tongues tangling, breath mingling as we trembled with aftershocks, trying to press closer together, tighter, joined.

When he could finally move, when I could, he eased gently from my body, and we lay down together under layers of blankets.

“Jin.” He whispered my name as he kissed behind my ear and nibbled down the side of my neck. “I want a promise.”

I rolled over in his arms so I could see his face.

His hands were clutching me tight, pressing me closer. “Swear that if I die tomor—”

“Logan.” I caught my breath. “You—”

“Promise,” he growled, dragging me under him, staring down into my eyes, pinning me there, reminding me that he was all big, hard, virile, muscled man and outweighed me by a good hundred pounds. “Jin.”

I closed my eyes, just savoring the feel of his warm, sleek skin against mine, the strong hands holding my face so tenderly and his hot mouth as he sucked on the side of my neck. I would be covered in marks in the morning, and I was so glad. I loved carrying evidence of our lovemaking on my skin.

“Jin.”

With effort, I got my eyes back open and met his beautiful amber ones.

“If I die in the pit tomorrow, I want you to go home and start the process with the surrogate that Delphine knows to have our baby.”

I clenched my jaw tight so I wouldn’t cry.

“Before this all started, I was going to tell you that I think it’s time to start having children. Everything’s ready, we’ve just been waiting for the perfect time. It’s time now, Jin, and if I die tomorrow, you have to promise to follow through, because the thought of you holding a baby, our baby… I need to carry that with me, okay?”

There were no words.

“I need to know when I walk into that pit tomorrow that no matter what, you’ll be okay.”

“I won’t be okay,” I told him even as he blurred.

He brushed my tears away with his thumbs, bent, and kissed my lips, his big body absorbing my shudders, holding me still.

I tried to breathe around the lump in my throat, my hands holding onto his wrists.

“You have to live, Jin, and know that I’ve never been prouder of anything than being the owner of your heart.”

There were so many things I wanted to say, but I couldn’t get anything out.

His hands fell away as he hugged me tight, crushing me to him. “It’s gonna be okay, baby, I promise.”

I dragged in air. “Then you gotta live, Logan,” I said, wrapping my legs around his hips. “That’s the only way I’ll be okay. You need to know that.”

“Love—”

“No,” I said, my voice hoarse. “I did everything I was asked to, so did you, and now I’m telling you, I need you to live for me.”

“Jin,” he rasped.

“I do,” I told him, making sure he could both hear and feel my desire.

“Oh God,” he groaned, because when he had given me room to move, breathe, I had twisted around under him, lifting up, wanting him again and letting him know it. I had gone months without him; once would not quench my thirst. “Jin, you can’t still—”

“Show me you want to live.”

He slid inside me easily, as I was still slick with his semen, and I instantly felt the tingling, breathless excitement that always took hold of me when Logan was buried in me. My body, accompanied by my heart, never failed to be touched by the contact.

“Say it, so I know.”

“I want to live.”

I purred with contentment as he pressed me tight to his heart.

Chapter Eighteen

I
WAS
a sticky, sweaty mess in the morning and so took Khongordzol up on her standing offer to use the hot springs that ran under their home to bathe. I slipped out without waking anyone, even Logan, went to the entrance of the cave, was allowed to enter by the guards, and was then led to the bathing area by two men.

It was still early, and I was the only one there. The water was warm, and the enormous natural basin was huge, carved into the rock over thousands of years, smoothed by another hundred years of use. Even though I wanted to stay and soak up the warmth and comfort, I made myself get out, dry off, and wrap myself up in the fur cloak to return to the subzero temperatures outside. I pulled on the traditional thick, unbending leather boots that Chuluun had brought me the second night we were there. I liked them; they were red, made of buligar, which was the hardest leather I had ever felt in my life. It had absolutely no give to it at all. The toes were upturned, and when I had asked him why that was, he had said that if they were flat, there was no way I would have ever been able to walk in them. It made sense, and I was feeling a little like Genghis Khan in my fur cloak and boots as I made my way back to the ger.

At the entrance, I was suddenly yanked forward hard and ended up grabbed and tucked to Logan’s chest as someone screamed.

I was confused, shaken, and I would have been frightened, but I was in my own quarters, and my mate was there as well as my sheseru. Nothing could hurt me.

“How dare you!”

I had never heard Yuri’s voice sound like that, menacing and cold, completely animal.

“Bring him to me!”

I needed to see, but Logan had my head tucked under his chin, and he was clutching me tight.

“Domin! Mikhail!”

It took a minute because Logan was so damn strong, all power, but I wiggled free enough to lean sideways and see that Yuri had one hand wrapped around the neck of a man I had never seen… before….

But I had seen him…. Who was he?

“It’s the sheseru of the tribe of Nebthet,” Mikhail said. “Armando Mojica.”

He was turning blue from lack of oxygen.

I prodded my mate. “Logan.”

He just stared, watching as Yuri slowly strangled the man to death.

“Logan!”

“Yuri,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

My sheseru opened his hand, and the man fell to the floor of the ger. Instantly, the coughing and hacking and wheezing began.

“What—”

“Fuck!” Logan snarled, grabbing me, lifting me up off my feet and walking me backward to my bunk.

He dropped down with me and wrapped me in his strong arms.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, my arms up under his, my hands on his shoulders. Bunched muscles in his back and arms flexed against me as he tightened his grip. He had been really scared. “Logan?”

It took several minutes with his face buried in my hair before he leaned back to look down at me. “I didn’t think I was going to reach you.” His voice was a raspy whisper.

And it had scared him to death. “I’m fine,” I soothed him, pressing into him tight. “But do you feel that, inside, that moment?”

He closed his eyes, breathed through his nose, and when he opened his glorious gold eyes, I knew he got it.

“So you talking about how I’m supposed to live if I lose you? Fucking stop, okay?”

After a minute he nodded. “Okay.”

I lunged at him and he grabbed me, and we were both on our knees, wrapped together, when Domin squatted down beside us.

“Does anybody care about what just happened? Or do you need to go somewhere and fuck?”

Someone was cranky.

I turned my head to look at him. “That was the sheseru of the tribe of Nebthet, and he’s pissed because if I had only used my power earlier yesterday, then his semel would still be alive. I’m sure both he and his sylvan blame me.”

Logan let me go, leaning back to look at me with the same expression Domin had, like he was confused and shocked at the same time.

“It makes sense. I would blame me too. But they don’t get that I was only partly in control of what I was doing yesterday. I’m working on getting command of it, but I still don’t know, and since there aren’t any other nekhene cats around to ask, I’m sort of screwed.”

Domin nodded. “That’s exactly why he was here. He wanted to kill you.”

“Please return him to his sylvan after you warn him not to come
af—”

“No!” Logan roared. “He dies!”

I rolled forward, my hands on his face. “No more blood, no more killing, please.”

“Jin—”

“Just warn him, let him look at Yuri and Crane and Taj and know that he can’t touch me. And then let him look at you, semel-netjer, and your maahes, and send him on his way.”

He was deciding, thinking.

Let him understand there can’t be any blood because of me. Never because of me.

I stared at him, willing him to remember what it was that I stood for in his life: the love, the irrevocable trust, and the vow that was always between us.

He could never punish in my name.

It took long minutes for the golden eyes to go from molten anger back to warm amber-flecked understanding. When he could, he nodded, stood, and walked away. Domin followed, leaving me alone.

Crane was there minutes later to look me over.

“I’m fine,” I told him.

He studied my face.

“Knock it off, I’m fine.”

He punched me in the arm.

“What the fuck?”

“Don’t be a prick,” he cautioned me. “I know you’re tired of fuckin’ being here, we all are, but don’t get all annoyed that I was worried that you were almost killed. I will kick your ass.”

He so would.

“Didja hear me?” he asked, flicking my forehead hard.

“Ass,” I grumbled, rubbing my skin, and then, and only then, I noticed the surprise of Yusuke Narae as she sat beside Crane. She moved quietly, I would give her that. “What?”

She looked at me and then Crane and then back to me. “Your tribe is different, Jin Rayne.”

Like I had never heard that before. “Yeah, I know.” I smiled at her. “How are you doing?”

She bowed her head. “I will go and speak to Logan, if you will excuse me.”

“’Course,” I told her.

When she joined the others—Logan, Domin, Mikhail, and Yuri—I turned back to Crane. His smile, the way he lit up, revealed everything.