Honored Vow

hand with his, pressing it against his cheek,
    smiling down at her. She began to shiver, and he tucked the blankets
    around her chin before he lay down in front of her so they were facing
    each other. I watched as she stared at him and listened to him talk. He had
    already told her that he had been scourged; it was the piece of information
    that had allowed him to be close to her. He was maimed, so was she, and
    the horrifying tale he confessed to her had brought fresh tears. After all
    she had been through, that she could still weep for someone else said so
    much about the size of the woman’s heart.
    “She’ll find her place,” Yuri said from his place beside me.
    I turned to look at him.
    “And so will your boy.”
    “My boy?”
    “Who’s the only boy around here?”
    He meant Danny. “Oh yeah, I know.”
    I got a smile then.
    Looking at my sheseru, I realized that in the time I had known the
    man, he had changed so much. “And you?”
    “Me what?”
    “Will you and Domin find your way?”
    “I figured you knew.”
    “Only because Mikhail told me,” I confessed.
    “You’ve been dealing with your own shit.”
    “But I should have seen that you were hurting. Forgive me.”
    “Nothing to forgive.”

    Honored Vow

    229

    “And now? Is there a happily ever after for you and my maahes?”
    He sighed heavily. “I hope so. Jesus, Jin, have you ever wanted
    anything so bad that just thinking about maybe getting it made you sick?”
    I nodded. “Yes.”
    “Then you understand.”
    “I do,” I said, glancing over at Logan, who was sleeping on my
    bunk, his face buried in my pillow, absolutely dead to the world.
    We had fed him, talked briefly, put gallons of water down him, and
    listened as he thanked each man who had come on the odyssey with him.
    He had hugged everyone, even Danny, had sat with Yusuke and accepted
    her tearful, heartfelt pledge of fealty, and then Yuri and I had taken him
    outside and scrubbed him.
    He had been delirious over being clean, absolutely giddy afterward,
    and then when dumb things like shaving had been finished—I had told
    him the beard and mustache were hot, but he wasn’t buying it—he had felt
    like a new man. Things we took for granted, like deodorant, hair gel,
    clothes, he had appreciated so much. When he had been sitting inside in
    long underwear, jeans, heavy wool socks, a long T-shirt, a flannel shirt, a
    wool cardigan, and a parka, he had finally been able to look at me, sigh,
    and ask me how I was.
    “I’m good,” I had said, chuckling. “You?”
    He had grabbed me and thrown me down on the bed and confessed
    that all he really wanted to do was take off all his clothes and hold me in
    his arms.
    “Maybe when you wake up,” I had told him.
    His eyelids had fluttered. After the food, the water, he had been
    sated, and he was clean and warm. As he stretched out, head on my thigh,
    his eyes had drifted closed.
    “Will you stay right here?”
    “Yes, sir, I will,” I had said, smiling down at him.
    “I love you,” he had said, wrapping his forearm around my thigh.
    “And the tribe means so much, and my family and Yuri and Mikhail
    and….”
    He had been fighting sleep so hard.

    230

    Mary Calmes

    “Rest, love,” I had said, threading my fingers through his hair,
    loving the feel of it, the warmth of his scalp, inhaling his scent that was
    musky and sweet and smoky all at the same time.
    “But, Jin,” he had muttered, sighing deeply, “it’s you, you know
    that, right?”
    “Logan—”
    “Just you. I would never give up for you. I have to have my mate;
    you’re the only thing I can’t live without.”
    “I know, me too.”
    And now, three hours later, I sat with Yuri in the ger with everyone
    either asleep or close to it around us.
    “Where’s Domin now?”
    “He’s out running, trying to clear his head.”
    “You didn’t want to run with him?”
    “I did, but I didn’t think it was a good idea. I need to be smart
    enough to give him his space when he needs it and be there when he needs
    me.”
    I looked into his eyes. “Mikhail says you’ve been in love with the
    guy since you were sixteen.”
    He shrugged his massive shoulders.
    “You don’t deny it.”
    He just looked at me.
    “Jesus, Yuri,” I sighed. “When it was going to be Domin and Logan
    in the pit—you had to have been terrified.”
    “Yes. Either way I would have lost.”
    “But Logan, he thought of making Domin his maahes.”
    “Because he didn’t