Honored Vow

Aldar
    Oyuun, semel of the tribe of Girdaht from Guangdong, China.
    When the priest reached me, he took a breath before he spoke.
    “Jin Rayne, reah ”—his voice rose on the word—“of Logan Church,
    semel-netjer of the tribe of Mafdet from Incline Village, Nevada.”
    “Thank you for receiving me, Your Grace,” I told him after I bowed
    low, offering him my hand.
    He took it in both of his, and his smile was radiant. “Jin,” he said,
    and his voice was infused with warmth. “It is my honor to see you again.”
    “As it is mine,” I assured him.
    He nodded and moved to stand beside me, which, from the sounds in
    the room, no one missed.
    “Reah,” Ammon El Masry said, his cat eyes gleaming, eyeing me
    but not lifting his hand. “I have a surprise for you.”
    I waited, and he turned his head to look at Orso Bataar.
    “You promised me she would appear.”
    The older man squinted at Ammon for a moment and then called
    across the room to Sükh, his sheseru.
    “Why do we wait?” the priest asked Ammon.
    “The reah must meet his equal.”
    “There is no equal for a mated reah,” Orso’s yareah Khongordzol
    said, gliding forward, extending her hand to me. “And as the priest has
    presented you, I have no need to wait.” She smiled at me, and I was struck
    again by her regal bearing, the dark, beautiful glittering eyes and the
    warmth of her smile. “It is an honor, my reah.”
    Women that wanted to mother me, really, I just couldn’t get enough
    of them. I took her hand and held it tight. “The honor is mine. Thank you
    for our accommodations outside. I would love to see more of your home
    when the sepat has concluded.”
    “And it would be an honor to show it to you and your mate.”
    I felt hot tears fill my eyes fast, but they didn’t spill. She just went
    blurry for a second. She had basically told me she thought Logan would
    win and that it made sense to her. But it did to me as well.
    There were gasps all around, and I turned as a woman started toward
    us. She was stunning, and I had no doubt that she knew it. Her walk was
    the fluid grace of a dancer; she flowed across the floor, and the air almost

    164

    Mary Calmes

    sparked with electricity. She was radiant, her huge brown eyes with thick
    feathery lashes, her skin the color of warm cinnamon, flawless, glowing,
    her features delicate and fragile, and when she spoke, calling out a
    greeting to the priest, her voice was lilting and mellifluous. Here was a
    reah, the embodiment of feminine beauty and mystery. There was not an
    eye not riveted on her… except….
    “Such airs,” Khongordzol said under her breath.
    “You dare speak to me, yareah filth.”
    “You are not mistress in this house.” Khongordzol’s voice rose loud
    and defiant. “And as you are not my mate’s reah and I will not be taurth,
    you will get on your knees.”
    All yareahs hated unmated reahs because the potential was there that
    they could take a semel from them. But once the semel acknowledged that
    the reah was not their mate, then the yareah, as mistress in her home and
    undisputed mate of the semel, had all the power. Normally, unless the
    semel in question was the semel-aten, the reah was sent away. As the
    semel-aten was the only one who could claim a reah as a consort, as
    wosret, his mate, his yareah, had to deal with the continued presence of the
    reah. Ammon El Masry’s yareah, Ebere, had had no recourse but to live
    with Amirah Fehr in her household. It was why, when she had met me, she
    had treated me so poorly at first. She had forgotten that I was a mated
    reah, and had just seen me as a reah.
    We had mended things between us, and even though she had
    cancelled her trip to visit with us in the summer, it had been, she
    confessed, because she had moved with her children back to Cairo. She
    and her mate no longer shared a bond; it had been shattered years ago, and
    she was tired of pretending it still existed. I wondered vaguely if she was
    there for the sepat.
    “I will never bow to you,” Amirah snapped, bringing me from my
    thoughts and pulling my attention back to her.
    “I think you will,” Khongordzol said, her tone icy.
    Her head lifted. “Your husband gave me sanctuary, and I was called
    here by the semel-aten to speak with the mated reah, and that I will do.”
    Khongordzol growled, and I realized at that moment that I had been
    right and Orso had nothing to do with receiving the reah into his tribe.
    Ammon must have found out