Crucible of Fate

other bruising my hip as he took me and used me and burned the knowledge of who I was and what I was to him first into my body and then into my brain.
    “You’re nothing but mine,” he snarled, and the sound so dark and fierce it brought the first jolt of release. “If all else is taken, that remains. Always.”
    I could feel the hard ball of cold and terror start to break apart in my chest. Even if I failed, even if I was no longer semel-aten, he would always be mine. He could never be lost.
    “Did you hear me?”
    My balls tightened, my muscles locked, and my breath caught in my chest.
    “Did you hear me?” he roared.
    “Yes,” I rasped as my vision went white.
    “Yes, who?”
    “Yes, my mate,” I barely got out.
    He drove hard and deep, and the teeth in my shoulder made me gasp. As the orgasm wrung me out, I screamed his name.
    He purred mine softly in my ear.
    I clamped down around the thick pole impaling me, and his low rumbling purr brought an answering whimper before he convulsed within me and flooded my ass with liquid heat.
    “There’s my sweet man,” he soothed, and I felt hot tears on my cheeks.
    He bucked forward as my muscles milked his length, and I was so tight inside that as we stood there, molded together, semen dripped wet and thick between us. It felt decadent and intimate, and I shuddered with aftershocks and contractions.
    He wrapped his brawny arms around me, plastered his massive chest to my back, and kissed up the side of my neck so slowly, so gently, that I went boneless in his arms.
    “There, yes, lean on me so I can unlock your wrist.”
    I gave him my weight, and he reached up and released me. No longer tethered to the wall, I would have slumped to the floor had he not held me up.
    “Domin!”
    The muffled yell brought my attention from my memories to the present and to Jin, who I had not noticed standing out on the balcony.
    “Stop moaning and go to sleep. You will have your mate soon, and I suggest you unburden your heart and tell him everything that you think he doesn’t know already.”
    I scowled.
    “Silence heals nothing, fixes nothing, and unlocks nothing. Just because you don’t say something doesn’t make it any less true.”
    “Do you speak from experience?”
    “My semel knows I love him and I know he loves me. Yuri might know the same, you even declared it once in Mongolia, and I know because I was there. But after this, you have to make him understand his place.”
    “You realize you’re the last person in the world who should be giving me this lecture.”
    He exhaled slowly. “I do see the irony.”
    “Logan is going to kill us both, you know—you for going, and me for asking you.”
    “I suspect so, yes.”
    “He’ll never let you leave his side again.”
    “And there is comfort in knowing that, as there will be for Yuri. It is a great thing to be needed by another.”
    Yes, it was.

Chapter 8

     
    I T WAS what a prince did.
    “We both know that I won’t be the maahes of this tribe once Jin leaves,” Crane argued. “I’m leaving with him.”
    “I know that.” I said, before I made sure to darken my face to a scowl. “But until that time, Crane Adams, you are the maahes of this tribe, and you must remain here and lead.”
    “I can’t do that.”
    “You can,” I asserted, “and you will.”
    He was wrong to expect support from his best friend. Jin only cackled instead of helping him out.
    “Are you insane?” He was incredulous.
    “Just quit bitching,” Jin said with a yawn.
    I tried the logical route to put him at ease. “Mikhail will be here to answer—”
    Mikhail spoke up. “I’m going with you.”
    I watched Samani’s eyes go big and round behind him.
    “No.” I shook my head. “You will stay here and take care of the tribe and advise Crane while I’m gone.”
    He took a breath as he gestured at Jin. “And you will take the reah of the tribe of Mafdet with you without his sheseru or a dozen or so—”
    “You’re kidding, right?” Jin half yelled. “Nothing and no one’s gonna hurt me, Mikhail. Crane’s in charge of the first tribe. Could you just stay here and give him some goddamn backup?”
    Mikhail’s dark cobalt gaze was a glower.
    Even in the midst of chaos that morning, I found the both of them so endearing. Mikhail was trying to do his duty to everyone, and Jin was just being Jin, clearing his own path.
    “Logan’s going to kill you all,” Crane said impassively.
    “Probably,” I agreed.
    Jin