Honored Vow

about
    Crane and Logan and Delphine and the maahes and his mate and his men
    and all of it running around in my head, my phone rang. It was a number I
    didn’t know.
    “Hello?”
    “Jin?”
    “Yes.”
    “Jin, this is Justin, where are you?”

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    Mary Calmes

    “In the hotel, waiting for you.”
    “No, I mean—I know you’re at the hotel, where are you in the
    room? Are you standing by the front door?”
    “No, I’m by the window.”
    “Okay, hold on, I’ll call you right back.”
    He hung up, which was weird. I looked down, out the window, and
    on both sides of the street there were cars, lots of them, parked up and
    down. It was like there was a party at the hotel that I didn’t know about. I
    went to the door but stopped before I opened it. Logan had told me to stay
    inside.
    There was a knock on the door, and I called out to whoever it was.
    “Jin, it’s me, Justin.”
    “Okay, lemme—”
    “Don’t come out; I’m on the phone with Logan, just wait.”
    I moved close to the crack between the frame and the door and
    listened.
    “Yeah, I’m here,” he said, and when the door bumped, I realized he
    was standing against it, leaning his back into it. “And Sean’s with me, and
    my other two men, along with Miguel Garza and his, but Logan, what the
    fuck? Was he like this when you left? Did you leave him like this?”
    There was a silence, and I realized that he must have been listening
    to my mate.
    “You don’t understand. I have never in my life felt like this, I want
    to be in that room so fuckin’ bad I’m choking on it. Miguel went back
    downstairs because he was that close to going through me.”
    More quiet.
    “Well, the good news is that you no longer have to make amends to
    the tribe of Deshret or its semel; he understands that Jin wasn’t doing it on
    purpose, you can feel it as soon as you get close—it’s raw animal power,
    there’s no gentle pull like it was when I first met him, this is furious and
    carnal and—God, what….” It was like he was searching for a word.
    “Throbbing need.”
    It was quiet again for a moment.
    “Yeah, well, the problem is now that there’s too many men here. I
    can’t calm Sean down without doing it physically. I will have to make him

    Honored Vow

    67

    submit to me, but to do that, we’ve both got to be in our panther forms. I
    can’t shift in the middle of this fuckin’ hotel.”
    I shivered at the man’s voice, the power of him, and the semel that
    he was called to me.
    “You fuck! Why would you do this? Why would you let him out of
    your sight if he was like this?”
    There was more silence, and I knew that Logan was telling him
    everything. It took long minutes during which I listened to Justin breathe
    on the other side of the door.
    “Okay, okay, I get it, but right now, right this very second, I don’t
    see how I’m getting your mate out of this hotel in one piece unless I can
    get him to stop filling the air with his fucking scent. I mean you sent me
    here so I could put him on a plane back home to you but… Logan, do you
    have any idea what he smells like? What his skin must taste like?”
    I wanted to smell Logan, see Logan, taste and touch him. I needed
    him.
    “Oh fuck!” Justin yelled, startled. “Jin, get away from the goddamn
    door!”
    I took several steps back as I heard something bang the wall outside
    in the hall. After a few minutes of silence, there was a sharp knock on the
    door.
    I moved back close. “Hello?”
    “Jin, it’s Yuri, open the door.”
    He was the only person my semel had given permission to open the
    door for. When I cracked it the blue-eyed glare of my sheseru was the first
    thing I saw. “Hi.” I smiled at him, so happy to see him.
    He growled at me, grabbed the door, and gestured for me to step
    back.
    I walked away, across the room, to the window, and when I turned,
    he was following and several other men had come in.
    Yuri stepped closer than he normally did, then turned and went down
    on one knee. He was so big that even when he was kneeling, the top of his
    head was at my waist. Instinctively, I put my hand on his shoulder. His
    deep breath turned my head.

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Mary Calmes

    “Okay.” He took a breath as Domin joined us, stepping in front of
    me, completely blocking my view of the room, hands on his hips and,
    from the tip of his head, seemingly bored, though I couldn’t see his face.
    “I’m Domin Thorne, maahes of the tribe of Mafdet,” he announced
    loudly.