Honored Vow

would even be
    accepted.
    “That was obscene.”
    I turned my head to look at Blake Dempsey.
    There was a stain on his pants: he had come in them, and where he
    had ejaculated was clearly, glaringly visible. I gave him a lot of credit for
    standing there, eyes locked on mine, swallowing his humiliation down as
    he stared at me with burning eyes.
    “I’m so sorry.” I choked on the words because it hurt to say as much
    as it hurt for him to hear.
    “Fuck you and your power, reah,” he roared at me, furious. “I will
    not suffer this insult; you cannot strip us of our humanity on a whim!”

    54

    Mary Calmes

    “No,” I pleaded, motioning to Delphine, who lay panting on her side
    on the floor, and then to Russ, who was heaving and retching, bringing up
    nothing, his body simply spasming with the need to try. “I didn’t do it on
    purpose, why would I?”
    Only seeing Delphine and Russ there, suffering the same fate as the
    others, both in their panther forms, cut through the veil of his rage. It made
    no sense that I would want to hurt members of my own tribe.
    “You will come with me to see my semel, and he will determine
    what apology is to be made.”
    “Agreed.” I nodded, wanting to say, or do, something but unsure
    what that could possibly be.
    “I was so honored to meet you,” he told me, his voice low. “And
    now I can barely stand to look at you.”
    I thought I might be sick myself.

    BACK at the hotel after leaving the restaurant, I realized that the
    experience had proven to be too much for Delphine. She wasn’t mad, she
    said she wasn’t a thousand times, but she wouldn’t look at me. She
    apologized as she packed and took deep breaths and sniffled. There was a
    lot of sniffling, a lot of her blowing her nose and shivering. I tried to touch
    her, but that was out of the question. I was making her skin crawl. She
    didn’t want a hug goodbye; she wanted nothing to do with me at all. She
    just needed to go home and see Markel. Her thoughts were only of him.
    “I’m so sorry,” I told her as she was at the door, a cab downstairs
    waiting for her.
    “It’s not your fault,” she said, again without looking at me. “You
    just—it’s Crane, I know, but you took away choices from me, and it’s
    like… it felt like… like….”
    And she didn’t want to say, so she stopped herself. She didn’t want
    to say I had violated her, raped her, but it was how she felt. I had made her
    feel powerless, done it to all of them, and the only person who could have
    stopped it once it started was myself—or Logan. I had power but no
    control, and I was dangerous.
    “Please forgive me,” I said to her, moving slowly closer to her.

    Honored Vow

    55

    “I have already,” she told me, her eyes finally flicking to mine, the
    green eyes she shared with all her brothers except my mate staring back at
    me, hers being the softest color, celadon. “It’s not in you to hurt anyone on
    purpose, and while I know that, it was brutal. I felt like I was being turned
    inside out, and even though I don’t hurt anymore, it was terrifying.”
    I had scared my girl.
    I was a monster.
    “I want to see Markel.”
    She must have said it a hundred times, and all I could do was nod
    like an idiot.
    “I should send Artem here, and Ivan, or—”
    “No, don’t do that,” I told her. “Just leave it—”
    “Fine,” she said, cutting me off, opening the door. “You know best.
    Bye.”
    She was gone that fast, and I let the wave of guilt come and flood
    me. My self-destructive streak that I could own having, sometimes it not
    only tried to drown me but everybody else as well. I needed to be more
    focused on what I was really doing. I sat down on the end of the bed, put
    my head in my hands, and tried to calm my racing heart. When my phone
    rang an hour later, I realized that I had not moved, and answered without
    checking to see who it was.
    “Hello?”
    “Where are you?”
    I cleared my throat to speak to my mate. “You know where I am.”
    “I gave explicit orders that you not leave the grounds.”
    “Russ was kidnapped.”
    “Taken, held, not kidnapped. I received word from Miguel Garza,
    the semel of Los Angeles, and Justin was on his way to negotiate Russ’s
    release and to determine if my brother would come and present his
    girlfriend to me or would accept the station of duat.”
    Of course my entire trip was useless, and it was my fault because I
    was mad and so had leaped before looking, as