Honored Vow

caused.
    “Attack me!” She yelled.
    “Don’t leverage your power against mine,” I warned her. “If I pull
    you through your shift, you’re dead. You’ll be wounded and left to die
    outside, at the mercy of the elements and animals. It is not a death I would
    wish on anyone, even you. A reah is a precious thing, please don’t force
    my hand.”
    “You think you can do it! You think I can’t turn all these semels to
    slaves that will still turn on their yareahs, and their reah, and carve you
    into pieces?”
    She was so drunk with her own power that she wasn’t even listening
    to me.
    “Please,” I begged her as she advanced.
    “You’re trembling, reah,” she said snidely, “frightened of losing the
    man you hold clutched tight to your chest. Because whatever you think in
    that deluded brain of yours, he would pick a reah who is a woman that is
    not his over a true-mate who is a man because, really, all you are is a sick,
    filthy abomination. Your bond is unnatural and unclean, and you will die
    now and see the semel of the tribe of Mafdet drink your blood even as he
    fills me with his hot seed.”
    “You can come live with us,” I offered, meaning every word. “You
    can be a part of our tribe and travel the world but know that you’ll always
    have a home to return to where you’ll be protected and cared for and
    loved.”

    178

    Mary Calmes

    She put on a show of being shocked, eyes wide. “Live in your tribe?
    Live in sin with the rest of your disgusting panthers? Are you kidding?”
    Her voice rose. “You’re a monster, and you’ve polluted and disgraced
    everything you’ve ever touched. You should have killed yourself the
    moment you had your first thought to go to bed with a man. It’s vile and
    so are you, and the bond you share with your mate is a—”
    “This is your final word,” I cut her off, shaking not with anger or
    fear but with the need to break down and sob. She was so angry and
    broken, and I wished, with every part that was reah, to heal her and protect
    her and that she would accept my offer of a place in my tribe.
    She laughed at me as she exhaled heat and desire in a wave of
    throbbing, pulsing power.
    There were gasps from above us as even the gallery was hit hard
    with her pheromones. Logan leaned back, looking at me, I knew, because
    my scent was changing. I pushed out of his grip, and he looked at me
    before his head swiveled fast to Amirah.
    I saw the hair rise on his back, the ridge of fur that ran the length of
    his spine, as he bristled, became wary, ready to fight. She smelled like
    danger to him because I was his mate and she was threatening me. But if
    he killed her, he would be a panther forever just as if he slaughtered me or
    one of the other yareahs. I could not allow his desire to protect me to
    endanger him.
    “Jin!”
    I looked over at Yusuke, saw her dark eyes on me.
    “You can’t save everyone. You want to, I know you do, reah, but
    sometimes,” she said, and her smile was full of aching sorrow as she
    glanced around the pit, “you can’t.”
    “Protect your mate,” Teresa called over to me. “Honor those who
    love you, and guard your tribe, reah of the semel-netjer.”
    My eyes flicked back to Amirah as she let out a call to Logan, to the
    other two semels, the lure of her scent and flesh drowning and
    overwhelming.
    I exhaled and released the fury of the nekhene. It was a wild,
    untamed thing, but Logan Church had claimed it, held sway over it, and
    the energy that lived and breathed inside of me was curious about him,
    wanted to run with him, see if he was really strong enough to mate with.

    Honored Vow

    179

    Amirah wanted to take the semel from the nekhene, and so the power blew
    out of me in a scalding jealous rage, exploded so that my back bowed and
    I gasped with the release of the ancient annihilating wrath.
    If it had been two months ago, Amirah might have countered, but
    Crane had stripped the temptation from my power, taken away the lust and
    the seduction and the glamour and the allure. He could not curb my will—
    the essence itself was feral—but he had trained me not to call others, to
    instead keep them away. In the past, the energy shifted those not worthy to
    mate with me into panthers but still wrung sexual submission and climax
    from them. Now, it brought them to their knees and attacked. If I was
    allowed to shift, the power transformed me, worked through me, and
    assailed only those that I could physically