Honored Vow

deep on his shoulder.
    “You gonna shift and run so you can heal that?”
    “It’s nothing.”
    “If another panther gets a fang in it—it could be bad.”
    “Alright.” His voice had rumbled in his chest.
    “I saw you guys. Sorry.”
    He had shrugged, still not turning to look at me. “Had to be there,
    nowhere else. I can’t be inside his home at night, the tribe doesn’t trust
    me, and I don’t trust him any closer to you.”
    “If he was gonna kill me, he would have already.”
    “I take no chances after Abbot George and you almost being killed
    in your own kitchen.” He had sighed. “Fuck. I still can’t believe I let that
    happen.”
    “Like you knew that guy was a psychopath.”
    “I don’t take chances anymore.”
    “And?”

    Honored Vow

    157

    He had finally turned to look at me, and I had seen the scowl. “And
    what?”
    “Are you going to keep the maahes?”
    “Are you insane? I wouldn’t live here on a bet. There’s no—”
    “We both know you love it here. Your idea of heaven is living off
    the land up high in the mountains. You fuckin’ love this.”
    He had smirked at me. “Yeah, but it’s not my tribe.”
    “And Chuluun, does he wanna keep you?”
    “I think he wants me to keep fucking him until I leave, beyond
    that… I doubt it.”
    “Well, after he sees you in the pit with other sheserus, he might
    change his mind.”
    “Perhaps.”
    And now I was looking at Chuluun, smiling because he looked like
    he was in a lot more pain than my sheseru.
    “What did you drink?” I smiled at him.
    “Just airag, it’s a traditional drink, it’s nothing.”
    I looked over at Naran, the sylvan.
    “And vodka.” He smiled at me. “Let’s not forget the vodka.”
    Which my sheseru drank like water when he did have it, so it was
    not surprising that of the two of them, Yuri looked better.
    “Are we going to see the priest?”
    “Yes,” Naran told me. “All of you need to come with us; the priest is
    addressing everyone at once.”
    And my brain stopped. Luckily for me, when Crane walked out of
    the ger, he understood from my face and so stepped up next to me and
    went on full alert.
    “Did you hear—”
    “I heard you,” Crane told Naran.
    Chuluun winced. “I received permission from my semel to speak to
    the priest, and the station of beset is as you said. You remain the reah’s
    companion, and as the title cannot be stripped from you, neither can the
    duties. You will always be able to face challengers in the pit.”
    And I didn’t necessarily even want Crane there, but he needed to be.
    He had fought in the pit in Sobek and would stand at my side in the sepat
    as well. Nothing had changed for him, and whatever his father had thought

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    Mary Calmes

    to take by maiming him, he had been unsuccessful. He remained a panther
    in his tribe, beset of his reah, and a member of his semel’s household.
    “Good,” Crane breathed out, secure in his place, content that
    everyone knew who he was and what he was to me and, more importantly,
    to Logan Church.
    Logan.
    I had to see him. I was dying to see him. And I was going slowly out
    of my mind with the waiting.
    I had been able to put it out of my mind, shove it back, shove it
    down, fill my head with anything and everything else: the lush scenery,
    the new and different-tasting food, the smell of the air, the mineral taste of
    the water…. I had let all of it clutter my brain, anything not to focus and
    obsess, but now….
    I didn’t need to eat anything else, I didn’t need to see the priest or
    meet the semel of the tribe of Khertet or do one more task that was not
    seeing my mate. Didn’t they understand? We were supposed to be….
    And it hit me that they didn’t. No one understood the pulse-
    pounding, blood-racing, heart-pumping need to be with their mate,
    because only semels and reahs ever had that soul-searing desire. Only
    semels and reahs mated for life. Everyone had jumped on board with awe
    and reverence that I was a nekhene cat, but they forgot about the reah part,
    the part that craved my mate, hungered for him, could barely breathe with
    the weight of the wanting riding him.
    “Jin,” Crane snapped out my name.
    I lifted my head and looked at him.
    “Your scent’s changing.” He widened his eyes, signaling the danger.
    “Stop.”
    His hand on my shoulder grounded me.
    “Let’s go,” he told the sylvan of the tribe of Khertet. “We’ll follow
    you.”
    Each mate of each semel had