Crucible of Fate

First things first….
     
    W HEN I arrived, before I addressed anyone, before anything, I had to purge my house. I left my new steward, Kabore Nour, to explain it to the two rows of people, the house staff lined up from the steps of the villa into the main hall.
    I walked at a brisk clip, flanked by Yuri Kosa on my right and Crane Adams on my left. The guards outside the doors knelt and I told them never again. Just do what I ask, but the bowing and scraping bullshit was over. Taj Chalthoum, my sheseru, was there, having caught up, and fluidly translated my English into Arabic. They seemed surprised but quickly nodded. I understood I was different; it would take time to get used to me.
    Mitchell Rayne and Nelson Adams, Jin’s and Crane’s fathers respectively, had not been placed in a cell, per my order, even though their circumstances had, of course, changed. Originally, they had been accepted into the home of the previous semel-aten, so all I had done was place them under house arrest and confine them to a suite in the villa.
    Once the doors were open, I strode into the common area between their two rooms. I found the two men there eating, enjoying breakfast, one reading the newspaper, the other finishing up fresh-squeezed orange juice. It would be the last glass he would ever have.
    “Who are—”
    “Hi there,” I said softly as both men gasped.
    I didn’t make the man who dropped the glass tremble, or cause the hands of the man holding the paper to shake. Crane, my maahes, did that; he was the one. It was his presence there, in the room, that filled both men with dread.
    “I used to be the maahes of the tribe of Mafdet,” I said slowly, tasting the blood as my fangs, upper and lower, pushed through my gums. The canines were long and wicked sharp, which made the curl of my lip, I was certain, slightly sinister.
    “You,” the smaller, handsomer man breathed. His face was just similar enough to his son Jin’s to remind me of the crime he had committed against his own child.
    They fell to their knees, their faces a study in fear, shock, and dawning realization.
    “Me,” I said and squatted down, cocking my head, studying them. “I won the sepat. I’m the new semel-aten. My name is Domin Thorne, and Crane Adams,” I said, pointing to the man on my left, “is the new maahes of the first tribe, the tribe of Rahotep.”
    Crane’s father took a shuddering breath.
    My eyes went to Mitchell Rayne, Jin Church’s father. “And this man,” I said, nodding to the second man at my side, “is Yuri Kosa, formally the sheseru of the tribe of Mafdet, guardian of the mate of the semel-netjer, the only male reah in the world.”
    Mitchell’s eyes filled with tears. It surprised me that these men, who for so long had plotted destruction and death, would themselves be so cowardly when faced with their own.
    “I’m here,” Crane announced, spreading his arms wide. “Still. And Jin is home with his mate, with Logan Church, and they will both soon be fathers. And nothing you did stopped him or me from living our lives.”
    “At least you will never have children,” his father spat, speaking of his son’s castration as though he was proud to have wielded the scalpel. I was certain he was.
    “Yes, I will,” Crane corrected. “They might not be mine in blood, but they will be in heart. And I will love them as I was not, as Jin was not, and we’ll grow old together, and when I die, they’ll miss me and mourn me but remember the love and laughter and what I taught them.”
    The tears welling up in Crane’s eyes were not for the men before him but for the love he would surely have and for that which already was. When he gazed over at me, the smile through his tears made my chest hurt.
    “Thank you,” Crane said before he spun around and walked out of the room, locking the door behind him.
    I refocused my gaze on the men in front of me.
    “My son is an abomination,” Jin’s father spat haltingly. “And Crane Adams is the same for loving him as he does.”
    I made the tch noise in the back of my throat. The man was just so blind. 
    “You,” Yuri said, pointing at Mitchell, “watched your own son nearly beaten to death when he shifted for the first time.”
    “I—”
    “And you,” Yuri thundered at Nelson, “castrated your own son. You held the blade.”
    “I would do it again!” he roared back at my mate. “He’s dead to me!”
    “As you will be to him shortly,” Yuri said, his voice going