Change of Heart

just assumed you would. I don't want you to leave.
    Ever! Don't leave. Stay."
    "Okay," Crane said, and the smile was luminous.
    Sometimes I forgot how great looking my best friend was, even more so because I could see his heart.
    Turning back around, he faced my father. "As I was cast out by my tribe, I choose to seek sanctuary with another and herby renounce my place in the tribe of Anuket. I will become a member of the tribe of Mafdet."
    "Crane," my father sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose like my best friend was just so tiresome, "you shouldn't act so rashly. Our new semel, Archer Pike, is a much stronger semel than Gabriel ever was, and under his leadership, our tribe will—"
    "I renounce my place," Crane said firmly, turning sideways, his hand on my shoulder, steering me around my father toward the door. He wasn't leaving me alone anymore.
    "You may tell my father when you see him."
    "You should come home," my father told him.
    "Jin is my home," he said. "He always has been."
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    "Because while a semel leads the tribe, a reah strengthens it, makes it whole," Logan growled as he stepped into the room, obviously having been right outside the door for several minutes. Yuri and Mikhail stood behind him. I had no idea all of what he'd heard. "You," he said, pointing at Crane,
    "are beset of my reah and belong to me as surely as he does.
    I will hear your testimony and oath at the next tribal gathering, but I already consider you a member of my tribe, Crane Adams."
    My best friend nodded and left the room fast, brushing by me in his hurry to not show a flicker of the emotion he felt in front of either Logan or my father.
    "You," Logan said, his voice low and husky as he pointed at me, "come here."
    When I was close enough, he reached out and drew me with him out into the hall, leaving Mikhail to watch my dad.
    He held me close to his chest, his hands on my face, touching my skin, his breath ghosting over my hair. "Are you all right?"
    I saw how dark and molten my mate's eyes were. I smiled quickly, licking my lips to distract him. Clearly he was not pleased with whatever part of my father's rant he had heard.
    "You left me in there on purpose," I told him.
    "Yes." His voice was full of obvious pain.
    "So I could make my own decision about what I wanted to do."
    "Within reason," he agreed, smoothing my hair back out of my face, savoring the feel of my hair slipping through his fingers. "I will never let you go, but knowing that you can hear lies and not believe them, have faith in me before 287
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    anything else... I'm very proud. Just looking at you gives me joy. You have no idea."
    I couldn't contain my sigh. "I love you."
    "I know." He nodded before he wrapped me in his arms and crushed me against his hard chest. And even though the man was a mountain of muscle, he was gentle with me, tender, because I was treasured, prized above all others, loved. Held in his arms, to his heart, I was the safest I would ever be.
    "Did he hurt you?" he asked as he let me go, hands back on my face, lifting my chin gently, checking for damage.
    "Jin?"
    I shook my head because my throat had closed up.
    "You're gonna freeze like this," he said, hands on my arms, rubbing to try to warm me up. "Go put on some socks and a sweater and come back down. We'll wait right here."
    "But you shouldn't be alone with—"
    He gave me a look like I was out of my mind. Like my father could ever hurt him with anything he had to say. "Just go put something on already."
    I nodded and smiled at him before I bolted. Yuri was at the bottom of the stairs when I reached them. "What are you doing?"
    "I'm making sure no one follows you upstairs," he told me.
    "But you should go stay with Logan and—"
    "The sheseru is the enforcer of the semel, the guardian of the reah," he recited from a law we both knew. "Is that not so?"
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    It was so and we both knew it. When he smirked at me, I wanted to smack him, but anywhere I decided to jab him I would hurt my hand. The man was made of stone. Leaving him, I raced upstairs, grabbed a zippered cardigan and a pair of crew socks, and got back to Logan as fast as I could. What I found when I returned froze me in my tracks.
    Counting my father and Danny, there were four men on their knees on the tiled floor of the kitchen. It was surprising for me; I had never seen my father kneel to anyone but his own semel.
    "We beg your