Honored Vow

picture
    of what the reah looked like in the morning after all her blood had run
    from her body and the animals had been at her.
    I found the practice of staking utterly vile and cruel and obscene. But
    I had done all I could, tried to delay and give her that hope. But in the end,
    Dval Quach ripped a hole in her side, and he and his khatyu took her
    outside in the sub-zero temperature and left her, screaming her pain into
    the howling wind. The only comfort was that there were no animals
    around at all, and we all knew she was going to freeze to death before
    long.
    Inside the ger, I lay between Crane and Yuri, shivering with horror
    and cold. Staking went against every reah instinct I had.
    “Get your ass up and let’s go sit by the stove and talk,” Crane told
    me after an hour of trying to get me to close my eyes.
    Once I was there, all the others joined us.
    Mikhail boiled water for tea, and we sat there huddled together, no
    one saying a word.
    “What the hell are you all doing?” Domin asked as he came in from
    outside, shaking snow from his hair and beard.

    Honored Vow

    185

    I was glad that he had been allowed to join us; every maahes was
    reunited with his tribe now that the sepat had officially begun.
    “Jin’s sad about Amirah,” Crane told him.
    Domin crossed the felt-covered floor to me and squatted down.
    “What were your options, my reah?”
    “I know that logically, I—”
    “Jin,” he cut me off. “She took away your choices. And yeah, maybe
    if we’d have gotten hold of her, us, your tribe, maybe we could have
    healed her, but, Jin… how things stood in that pit—it was her or you, and
    if Logan had reached her, he would have killed her. There was no lust
    riding him, only fury, and if he had eviscerated her, then he would have
    been next, and then you. I know you feel like shit right now, but I want
    you and Logan alive more than I wanted Amirah Fehr to keep breathing.”
    I nodded.
    “I promise to try and save everyone else I can from now on, okay?”
    “Yes.” I smiled at him.
    He rose, and my eyes followed him until my head was tipped back
    so I could still hold his gaze. “And so you know, she’s dead already. It
    didn’t take long. The cold is merciful. If this was summer, she would have
    been mauled and mutilated. Everything happens for a reason, Jin, you
    gotta believe that.”
    I put my head in my hands and cried silently for the only other reah I
    had ever heard of, and Domin’s fingers in my hair were comforting.
    “I have an idea.”
    Slowly, I lifted my head to look at my maahes.
    “Let’s go for a run. The speed and our fur will protect us. C’mon,
    see if you and Taj can outrun me.”
    Taj scoffed and Domin laughed, and Yuri was already stripping as
    Mikhail stood up to join him.
    “I’ll stay here.” Crane yawned, giving me his lopsided grin. “And
    feed the stove.”
    “Me too,” Danny told us, annoyed with all of us for reasons I didn’t
    understand.
    “Oh fuck no,” Crane groused at him. “You go with them.”
    “Agreed,” Andrian told him. “I’ll keep Crane company, the rest of
    you get the hell out.”

    186

    Mary Calmes

    So all of us except Crane and Andrian shot out the door of the ger
    and flew out into the deep snow. It was like running into a wall of icy
    wind for a moment, until I let myself stop thinking and just feel. The
    others were already running, sprinting across the icy terrain, and when I
    joined them, streaking by, only Taj catching me, I felt the thrill of being in
    my panther form.
    The only thing that compared to running, which as fast as I moved
    across the ground felt more like flying, was being in bed with Logan
    Church. I was as addicted to being under the man as I was to the freedom
    of shifting into the animal that lived curled around my heart.
    I ran on and on, and when Taj and I were joined by others, I knew
    from the scent that I was looking at Jamal Hassan, the phocal of the Shu,
    the protector of the priest of Chae Rophon. The Shu, the fastest, strongest
    cats in the world, were the only ones who could match my speed. It was a
    pleasure to have company to run with, and I felt the singing joy infuse my
    entire being.
    We climbed so high we could see the whole valley stretched out
    below us. There was no way to see where earth stopped and heaven began,
    and the midnight-blue sky, the black clouds, the diamond-cut snow, were
    breathtaking. I shifted fast, a man again atop the precipice, hair blowing