Honored Vow

and I saw that Hiroshi
    Narae had shifted back to his werepanther form, probably to give him
    strength, and was now attacking his own yareah. Yusuke was being held
    down by several panthers, other members of her tribe who had rushed to
    the pit, as her semel mauled her.
    “No!” I screamed, and Logan jolted in my arms, lifting his head.
    The panthers, Hiroshi’s sylvan and sheseru among them, stepped in
    front of their frenzied semel, shielding his actions from our eyes, even
    though we knew he was biting and scratching and tearing at his mate.
    “Yuri,” Logan roared, his voice carrying like it always did, the
    embodiment of power and strength even in his weakened state. “Bring me
    the yareah!”
    “Stay back!” the priest warned Yuri and Mikhail and Domin as they
    moved toward the cluster of the tribe of Reshep. “The semel will not kill
    his yareah, only mark her as apophi. We all saw her hesitate to attack Jin
    when she had the chance before he let loose with his power.”
    “No,” I rasped, struggling to rise, to go to her.
    “Listen,” my mate coughed out and pulled me back to look at his
    face. “He’s not killing her, Jin; he’s giving her the mark of apophi.”
    Marking her? “Why? She did not disgrace herself,” I whined,
    struggling to get free, so tired but needing to get to her, to save her.
    “Stop,” he whispered. “You can’t do anything. This is the law. She
    had a chance to kill you, I saw it—she was close. I turned my head and

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    saw her maybe twelve feet away, but her mate screamed and she ran back
    to defend him.”
    He blurred as my eyes filled with tears. “He’s marking her as a
    disgrace because she chose to protect him instead of kill me.”
    “He might have been able to take care of himself, and so he feels her
    duty was to attack and kill you before going to his aid.”
    “Domin!” I screamed for my maahes.
    “No!” the priest yelled over me from above. “Call no aid for her, Jin
    Rayne!”
    “You can’t,” Logan told me, tightening his grip on me. “Baby, you
    can’t. It’s his right, just as it would be mine to mark you.”
    My eyes locked on the shining amber ones in front of me. “You
    would never, ever mark me.”
    “Not like that,” he agreed, hands on my face. “But I’m not him.”
    I was exhausted, overwrought, and the soul-rending screams of the
    terrified and wounded and heartbroken yareah were eating me alive. Tears
    rolled down my cheeks as I began to shake. Logan was in pain, too,
    excruciating pain, but he grabbed me anyway, as he had his strength as a
    semel to tap into, and held me tight.
    The sound went on and on for what felt like hours but could not have
    been more than minutes. Members of my tribe stood hovering over me and
    Logan. The tribe of Khertet, having recovered from my turning them all to
    beasts, had returned, changed, clothed, and brought robes for the members
    of other tribes who were naked. Thus Danny was wrapped in a fur cloak.
    When I could catch my breath, Logan eased me from his lap, and
    Yuri put his hands on my shoulders as my semel shifted into panther form,
    and then man, panther, and finally back to man. Logan looked better after
    he shifted twice more, and as he flexed his muscles, he put his right hand
    on his left shoulder and stretched, repeating the action on the opposite
    side, I understood that everything that had been dislocated was healed and
    that he was well on his way to recovery. He needed food, though, meat,
    lots of protein, lots of water, and sleep.
    When he stood up, Yuri slid a fur cloak over him, and Logan pointed
    at the now-bloody and mauled body of the yareah of Reshep. I had
    watched with horrified eyes as every remaining member of her tribe,
    including her semel, had spit on her. She had lost her right eye as well as

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    that side of her face. The ripped flesh would heal, but never completely.
    The scarring would be heavy. Her eye was gone forever; she would never
    be the beauty she once was.
    “I claim, as a member of my tribe, Yusuke Narae. She will be a
    member of my khatyu.”
    “You cannot!” Hiroshi snarled at Logan before looking up at the
    priest. “She will be staked for her cowardice and—”
    “To me, what she showed you was the depth of her love,” the priest
    told the semel. “But you have marked her, shown her your displeasure,
    and by your wish to have her staked, released her from your tribe, and so
    she may be claimed