Honored Vow

speak.
    “I’m an idiot.”
    “Yes,” I agreed.
    “He’s perfect for me, he’s everything I’m not, dangerous and strong
    and loyal…. God, Jin, I really fucked this up this time.”
    I was silent, letting him work it out and talk to me.
    “And I don’t think I should try and fix it, but I want to so bad.”
    He was ready to pull Domin back into the tornado with him, and no
    one wanted that for our maahes, not any of us.
    “The shit of it is,” he said as he turned to look at me, “even now, I
    still don’t know what I want.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Meaning that I want him, but I don’t know if it’s love. And it’s not
    fair to be with him until something or someone I want more comes along.”
    No, it wasn’t.
    “God, this is such a mess.”
    I looked at his profile, which was so close to Logan’s and yet so
    different. The intense regal bearing that his brother had was not present in
    Koren. Logan was strength and power and heat, and just his presence in a
    room made the air spark and sizzle with vibrant electricity. Koren had
    none of that, and I was beginning to wonder what it was that Domin saw
    in him at all. Maybe the maahes of my tribe had been infatuated and now,
    finally, after easily four years of their back-and-forth bullshit, which had
    started way before I had even arrived, it was waning. And so maybe he
    had not punished Koren with a silent departure, but it had simply not
    crossed his mind to even gift the man with a goodbye. Last night in the
    hall, perhaps he had missed Koren’s invitation because he had not been
    looking for it.
    “Someone else will want him, Koren, and whoever that is, you have
    to step aside.”
    “I know.”
    “It’s a mistake, I’m telling you. You’re gonna grieve for the rest of
    your life when somebody else, some other panther, claims him.”
    “Or I won’t,” he told me, turning to me, looking pained. “And that’s
    the problem, right?”

    114

    Mary Calmes

    Never in my life had I been the indecisive sort, and sometimes it had
    been bad. I always did something, and a lot of times those choices were
    selfish, but Koren was not even that guy, not even me, thorns and all.
    Koren was the waffling guy, and because we were so different, I was
    having trouble wrapping my brain around who he was.
    “I figured you wanted him,” I said, looking for the man I thought I
    knew. “Before the feast of the valley, before I was kidnapped… didn’t
    you?”
    “He gave me an ultimatum.” He sighed deeply, raking his fingers
    through the same thick blond hair that he shared with his brothers. “He
    said, ‘choose or leave me the fuck alone.’ I wasn’t ready to let him go,
    so… but being with him, I look at other people.”
    “But when you’re with other people you think about him,” I said,
    because I knew it was the truth.
    “Yes.”
    “And then you want to go on the prowl the minute he’s back in your
    bed.”
    “Yes,” he groaned. “And I know that makes me seem like a total
    shit.”
    “It’s honest, and until you find the one person that makes you forget
    everyone else, you have to keep looking. I understand it, but it’s not fair to
    Domin, and he’s too important to the rest of us. We’re too invested in his
    happiness to watch you dick him around. It’s time to cut him loose,
    Koren.”
    “I already did.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “I am.”
    “It stopped going back and forth?”
    “Yeah. We haven’t reconciled since the last time.” He sounded so
    sad. “He won’t let me, and now, as you saw the other night, he doesn’t
    really even see me. He’s over me.”
    “Which is killing you.”
    “Fuck yeah.” He exhaled, carding his fingers through his hair.
    “Because I want him back and I want to make him promises and…. But
    the minute I do, the minute he’s there in my bed….”
    He would want someone else. “Sure.”

    Honored Vow

    115

    “You think I’m an idiot.”
    I did and didn’t. “You can’t make your heart want something just
    because you think you should. I get that.”
    “I thought when we were together when you were all away at the
    feast of the valley… fuck, Jin, I thought that was it. I thought I was done
    looking anywhere but at him.”
    But he wasn’t, and Domin knew that, and his earlier ultimatum had
    changed to resignation. Koren would never be his, and at some point he
    had stopped caring. The problem was, without anyone to love him… what
    did Domin Thorne have for an anchor?
    I