Honored Vow

me?”
    “Yes.”

    Honored Vow

    13

    “If Crane is not in a bed, bandaged and cared for by a physician
    when I reach you….” He took a breath. “I will end your house, Archer
    Pike. Do… you… hear… me?”
    “I do.”
    “We will be there tomorrow with Derek Jackson and his men. Do
    not make the mistake of having me look for Crane or you. Understood?”
    “Yes.”
    “Yes?” he hissed, his fury and hatred boiling over.
    “Yes, semel-netjer.”
    I heard Logan hang up, and then I heard something shatter. I didn’t
    turn around. My guess was that he had wrenched the phone out of the wall
    and hurled it across the room. I saw his reflection behind me in the glass
    seconds later, saw him heaving for breath, saw the pain in his eyes, and
    felt the heat rolling off of him.
    “Jin….”
    I shook my head. If I spoke I would break down, and I was not ready
    to do that.
    “Go,” I heard Domin say behind us to the men still kneeling on the
    floor.
    “Semel-netjer,” Calvin Reynolds began. “I am so—”
    “Leave us,” Yuri said, cutting him off. “We thank you for our
    accommodations here, and we will leave shortly.”
    There were no more words. I heard them go, and when the door was
    closed, a silence fell that sucked all the air out of the room.
    “I’ll call Taj from the car,” Domin said, his voice dark and low.
    “Let’s get home and get you all packed.”
    I turned, walked around Logan, and headed for the door. Yuri was
    right behind me.
    “I’ll kill them all, Jin.”
    And even though as a reah my first instinct was usually forgiveness,
    in this instance his words wrapped around my heart and gave me comfort.
    “I promise.”
    It was all I could ask.

    14

    Mary Calmes

    Chapter Two

    I WAS sitting on the chaise in my bedroom. Logan had knocked out a wall
    and put in heavy sliding-glass doors that slid open sideways onto the
    covered patio. There was a fireplace outside as well as in, and the floor
    that had once been tile was now black-veined marble. It was beautiful. He
    had completed it over the summer so it would be ready for winter.
    “You’re going to freeze,” Logan said, walking around me, wrapping
    me in a heavy down comforter, rubbing my arms to warm me faster. He
    bent and inhaled my scent, pressing his nose to the side of my neck, and I
    turned and kissed him.
    I made slow love to his mouth, licking, sucking, biting, my tongue
    sliding over his, rubbing hard. I loved the taste and feel of my mate, but
    this, of course, had a purpose.
    He leaned back, gasping for breath, sounding drugged when he
    spoke. “I forbid it.”
    I shoved him away from me.
    “And that’s my final word.”
    I couldn’t breathe. Didn’t he understand? How could he not
    understand?
    “I will never allow you back in that city. I will never let you step
    foot back in the territory where they hurt you. Once upon a time, I thought
    it would be fine. I thought your father would come around, I thought your
    old tribe would see the error of their ways. But your father and Crane’s
    father, they spoke to the priest of Chae Rophon and told him that you were
    an aberration. They said that my mate should have been killed. Does it

    Honored Vow

    15

    make sense to you why, knowing all the facts that I know now, I will
    never let you go back there?”
    I looked out at the snow.
    “You need to trust me to bring Crane home. You need to let me
    punish them.”
    Tears welled up in my eyes.
    “Crane’s father will fall to Yuri and yours to me, and that’s the only
    way it can be. There can be no mercy, the wound is too deep. I thought
    once that there would be nothing between our two tribes, but now I know I
    was wrong. There will be blood, Jin, there has to be. I see no other
    recourse.”
    I shivered hard as tears rolled down my cheeks.
    “I will call you when I get there and tell you what was done,” he
    said, moving forward again, trailing his fingers through my long hair,
    which ran through his hand like water. “You will wait for me and not
    leave. Do you hear me?”
    I nodded.
    “I know you’re furious, I can feel it rolling off of you, but I can’t do
    what I need to do, be what I need to be, if you’re with me and I have to
    protect you.”
    Anger wrapped around me and squeezed my heart in a vise.
    He was silent, his fingertips tracing over the line of my jaw, brushing
    away hot tears.
    I shivered hard as I tried to get my body under control.
    “Listen,” he said, steadying his voice, “I