Honored Vow

hour later, snuggled between Crane and Mikhail, I fell
    asleep fast, exhaustion blindsiding me.

    THE scent of arousal woke me, hard and aching, three hours later. I sat up
    and looked around and instantly was pulled back down. I was faced with
    eyes glinting in the darkness, those of my sylvan.

    198

    Mary Calmes

    “What’re you doing?” I whispered.
    “If you make a fuckin’ noise and do anything to mess this up for
    him—reah or no reah, I swear to God I will smother you to death with
    your pillow.”
    I was still asleep, I had to be.
    “Did you hear me?”
    “What are you talking about?” I said under my breath, being quiet
    enough that no one but him, or Crane on the other side, could have heard
    me.
    He made a sign for me to lift up a little.
    I moved just enough to see over the top of his head, and there, in the
    flickering glow of the lanterns, on the furs closest to the stove, were Yuri
    and Domin.
    Yuri was positioned facedown with his ass in the air. His hand was
    on his enormous rigid shaft, jerking, tugging, pulling as he strove for
    release at the same time Domin pistoned inside of him from behind.
    Domin’s hands were braced on Yuri’s flanks, and if the look on the face of
    my sheseru was any indication, he was teetering on the edge of a
    shattering orgasm. I had never seen the look of absolute bliss on the man’s
    face before, ever.
    My head thunked down as I turned to look at Mikhail. “Since
    when?”
    “Since when what?” he answered, which was impressively done
    because I “heard” every word without him making any noise at all. He
    enunciated perfectly.
    “Yuri likes Domin?”
    He pointed beside me, and when I turned, I saw that over Crane’s
    left shoulder was where all the luggage had been stacked. It was quite the
    pile, and at that moment it could not have been more perfect.
    It took long minutes of maneuvering to get us both over my best
    friend, who luckily slept like the dead, and down on the other side of the
    suitcase, duffel bag, and backpack mountain. As I faced a grinning
    Mikhail, I realized that in all the time I’d known the man, I could count
    the times he’d smiled at me. He was not a man given to shows of
    affection.
    “Talk.”

    Honored Vow

    199

    He shrugged broad shoulders as we huddled close together,
    whispering. “Yuri Kosa has been in love with Domin Thorne since he was
    sixteen years old.”
    “What? How?”
    “Why would Logan just allow a man that tried to kill him to be his
    maahes? Why would he care about that man’s tribe?”
    “Logan cares about all tribes, he cares about everyone.”
    “Not enough to allow a viper into his home.”
    “He let Abbot George into the house, and he nearly killed me,” I
    reminded my sylvan.
    “He let a sheseru in training into his home, but he never thought for
    a minute that someone wouldn’t be there with you at all times. He was
    certain that Yuri would never leave you unattended with Abbot.”
    “That wasn’t Yuri’s fault,” I defended him.
    “It was Yuri’s fault,” Mikhail told me. “But that was when he
    thought that everyone was as mindful as him. He thought that you would
    be fine because the burden of the protection didn’t just fall to him. Now he
    knows better.”
    “But then—”
    “But we’re talking about before that, we’re talking about when it
    was brand new—Logan would have never let anyone he didn’t know live
    in his house. Abbot was visiting; I’m talking about a permanent fixture in
    the house. Why would he do that?”
    “Why would he do that?” I echoed the question.
    “Think.”
    “Because Logan and Domin had history,” I said, the truth hitting me.
    “Exactly.”
    “Why didn’t he explain?”
    “It has nothing to do with you.”
    “Tell me.”
    “We all went to school together: me, Logan, Yuri, Domin, and
    Christophe. We’ve known each other forever. But Domin never saw Yuri,
    only Logan and then Koren.”
    “Domin had a crush on Logan?”

    200

    Mary Calmes

    “We all had a crush on Logan; it’s the lure of the semel. When they
    first shift, their pheromones—you know, it’s crazy; all anyone wants to do
    is roll over and submit, men and women alike.”
    It was true; a semel’s first shift was a heady thing for the entire tribe.
    “You don’t know until later, until you sort things out, whether what
    you’re feeling is real or not. Me and Christophe figured out that we were
    straight, Yuri that he was bi, and Domin that he was gay.