Crucible of Fate

you know about me and about the Iusaaset, and you’ll be my counsel and my maahes. You’ll be wonderful, Kabore Nour, and you will have Mikhail and Taj there to back you up, plus Jamal and Ebere.”
    “My lord, I would need to accompany—”
    “We all have to step up.” I smirked at him.
    “It’s gonna be great.” Yuri grinned at him, sealing the deal.
    “He really does complement you well,” Kabore snapped, giving up, scowling at me and then tipping his head at my mate.
    “I know.”

Chapter 10

     
    I T WAS late, but I was on a roll. Outside the medical tent in the courtyard of Ipis, I sat down with the others to eat while I called Jamal. The newly appointed menthu agreed wholeheartedly with me appointing Kabore to be maahes and then warned me that Logan Church had not been happy to arrive and find his mate absent from the villa.
    “On a scale of one to ten?”
    “He was a fifteen, my lord,” Jamal deadpanned.
    I groaned. “Did he leave already?”
    “Yes, my lord.”
    “Who was with him?”
    “He has his sylvan with him.”
    “His maahen was not with him?
    “She arrived with him, yes, but she remained behind to stay with Crane.”
    “Yusuke Narae, the princess of the tribe of Mafdet, is there with my maahes?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m going to name Kabore as my new maahes when I return.”
    “That is excellent news, my lord, as from the way the lady greeted Crane Adams, I suspect that she will be taking him with her.”
    “She was all over him, huh?”
    He coughed. “She was, my lord.”
    I hit the End button on the satellite phone and leaned sideways against Yuri, now sitting beside me. We could see across the courtyard to where Jin and Koren were meeting with the djehus of the two factions, the peq and the shen. Of course it made sense that they would be sitting with the reah, and that he would be mediating their conversation. I had planned to have a seat with them myself, but Alana had brought me and Yuri food, and when the yareah of a tribe served you, you ate.
    Taj was dozing with his head on his folded arms. Rahim was beside him, resting his head on his fist as he picked at his food, and Kabore sat next to him.
    “Rahim.”
    “My lord?” He sounded exhausted; they all were.
    “I apprised Jamal, and he agreed that you will be the new phocal of the Shu.”
    “Thank you, my lord, for that honor.”
    “Good job, buddy.” Taj yawned, not lifting his head.
    “When I’m gone, you will have to protect Jamal as well as the others.”
    “Yes, of course, my—where are you going?”
    “Yuri and I are going to visit every tribe in the world.”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “Probably more than one at once, obviously. Like, in the US, we’ll do state by state or something. I don’t know. There’s a planning component to this.”
    Yuri chuckled and moved his hand off the table down onto my thigh.
    He was hurt, I was hurt, but we were both more battered than broken, and I just wanted to find someplace quiet to kiss him.
    “What are you talking about?” Taj grumbled, lifting his head.
    “I’ll tell you later. Why don’t you all start turning in for the night?”
    There was instant complaining with everyone, even Rahim, who had never met him before that morning, all pointing at Jin.
    “So no one’s worried about me,” I groused at the table.
    “You’re the semel-aten, the akhen-aten,” Rahim said, “but he’s a reah.”
    Jin would always be more special than me, and I was tired enough for it to matter.
    An hour later, I was still watching Jin talk to the two djehus and found myself staring at Koren, sitting there beside him.
    “Every time he sees your eyes are on him, it makes him think that you’re interested in him,” Yuri said, his breath in my ear.
    I shivered, which drew a chuckle from him before he pressed his lips to the side of my neck. “I was only thinking that, from a distance, you could imagine you were seeing Logan sitting there with his mate.”
    Yuri grunted. “People say that they look so much alike, my previous semel and his younger brother, but I, for one, have never seen it.”
    “You don’t want to see it.” I mumbled.
    “What?”
    “Nothing,” I said quietly, studying my gorgeous mate. “But so you know, Koren doesn’t think I have any interest in him because I don’t and because we talked about it already and he knows better.”
    “You talked about it?” That was the part he heard? “What did you talk about?”
    “Don’t be an idiot,” I