Honored Vow

charm… it was pure
    intuition, and Logan had it. Everyone there but the man’s own tribe had
    only ever seen him in panther form or werepanther form, or bound and
    wounded, before that moment. They had never been treated to the
    breathtaking golden man before them.
    Normally my mate did not put himself on display. He usually
    downplayed his own power, beauty and magnetism. But he was free of the
    madness, free of the threat of Sobek, of becoming something he never
    wanted, free of rules and tradition and law. He was going home, and
    everything that had been taken was returned to him. So he was glowing
    with pride and happiness and overwhelming relief. It was rolling off the
    man in waves. People were transfixed, and even though the priest of Chae
    Rophon was there, and the phocal and the newly made semel-aten, for a
    moment in time, the only thing anyone saw was Logan Church. And he
    didn’t have eyes for anything or anyone but me.
    The crowd parted for him, and he covered the space between us in
    long strides.
    I lifted my arms to receive him and heard his breath catch as he
    reached me.
    “Jin,” he growled, and I moaned my pleasure into his ear as he
    reached me, grabbing me tight and crushing me to his chest.

    254

    Mary Calmes

    “Oh God.” My whimper was torn from me.
    “My mate,” he breathed down the side of my neck, which raised
    goose bumps on every inch of my skin.
    When he lifted me, hands on my ass as he walked me away from the
    others, toward the mouth of the cave, I wrapped my legs tight around his
    back. “This isn’t seemly,” I told him.
    “I don’t give a fuck,” he told me, increasing his pace, the
    temperature dropping the further we got. “We’re no longer important to
    anyone but each other, and that’s how I like it.”
    “I wanna go home,” I whined into his shoulder, nuzzling my nose
    into the crook of his neck, my lips seeking skin, wanting to kiss and lick,
    suck and nibble.
    “Fuck, you feel good,” he groaned, tightening his arms, savoring the
    closeness, inhaling my scent, holding me so tight.
    “Wait,” I ordered him when I realized that we had passed through
    the gate that led outside. The cave was deep, and so from the sentry point,
    the entrance was another hundred yards away. There was snow on the
    ground that blew in before you actually hit open air. “You can’t go outside
    in just your ceremonial robes, you’ll freeze to death.”
    He was wearing white silk and brocade pants and an intricately
    woven tunic that would offer no protection at all. The boots, like the ones I
    had been given, were the traditional Mongol ones with the upturned toe,
    but whereas mine were red, his were black. But still, the wool socks would
    offer only minutes of protection from the frigid arctic temperature outside.
    “I’ll be in our ger in a few minutes. If I’m carrying you, I can’t
    freeze. You’ll keep me warm.”
    “Logan—”
    “No,” he told me. “If I don’t get to be alone with you, I’m gonna
    lose it. I need everything to be over, I’m barely holding it together.”
    I shut up, held him tight, and let him tramp through the powder with
    me wrapped around him. And he was strong, but he was still quaking with
    cold by the time we reached the ger.
    Inside, I put him by the stove, grabbed blankets, and wrapped him up
    before I stripped out of my parka and hat and dropped down into his lap,
    straddling his thighs.

    Honored Vow

    255

    He snuggled me close, and we just sat there for a long time, just
    breathing together, sharing body heat in silence. When his scent finally
    started tickling my nose, my hands burrowed up under his shirt, sliding
    over the washboard abs.
    “You want this off?”
    I nodded.
    He reached over his back and pulled the shirt off, his eyes locking on
    mine when he finished. “Touch me.”
    Immediately my fingers trailed up his rippling torso to his chiseled
    pectorals.
    “Now you.” His eyes narrowed, became slits of molten gold as he
    stared at me. “I want skin too.”
    I peeled myself from my cocoon of warmth slowly and enjoyed
    watching him lick his lips, swallow hard, and stare at me with pleading
    eyes as I stripped off my layers of clothing. Anyone who came in would
    have thought the look was carnal, but it was comfort that he was starving
    for, and closeness, and simply me. He craved my body wrapped around
    his as tight as I could be, like a second skin. He fisted his hand in my hair
    and pulled it forward, burying