Trusted Bond

even if she didn‘t know, she‘s so crazy about you,
    Jin… when she finds out that we let her stay with Aunt June all this time
    and didn‘t tell her anything about you being kidnapped or—‖
    ―You guys didn‘t tell her?‖ I was stunned.
    ―No, Logan said not to.‖
    I chuckled. ―He‘s toast too, ya know?‖
    ―Oh, I know. And I‘m glad you think it‘s so frickin‘ funny, ‘cause
    I‘m gonna be in the doghouse along with everyone else! Mikhail and Yuri
    and… Koren… we‘re all in such deep shit, and where the hell is Markel?‖
    she finished with a yell.
    I laughed at her, turning back to the pit in time to see Ian Lund,
    Abbot George‘s friend who had attacked me that night in my kitchen, fly
    into the center of the arena. He charged over to Crane in a snarling flurry
    of teeth and claws, and Crane, with a minimal amount of energy, put him
    on the ground a second later. He then let the panther free and put him
    down again. It was like when you were little and trying to sit up and your
    brother pushes you back down on the bed. He does it over and over until
    you‘re breathless with frustration and so pissed off that you can‘t even see
    straight, and then when you finally lunge at him with every bit of strength
    and anger you have in you, all that happens is he sidesteps you and you fly
    head-over-heels to the floor.
    214

    Mary Calmes

    Watching Crane toy with the other panther, humiliate him, hurl him
    down again and again, pin him and let him up, over and over, like a cat
    batting around a mouse, was hard to watch. And every time Crane put him
    down, the down got that much harder and that much meaner until there
    was a cloud of dust the last time. Bones would break soon, and then there
    would be blood.
    As Ian panted in the dirt, exhausted but needing to try again, the
    priest called for his submission. He shook his head, and Crane grabbed
    him around the neck, flung him up, lifted, turned, and slammed him back
    down onto the dirt again like he was a big stuffed doll instead of a fully
    grown, muscular panther. The moan was loud and broken and echoed
    throughout the coliseum.
    When the priest declared Crane the champion, the crowd gave a
    deafening roar of approval. I watched my friend bound from the arena
    amid waves of cheering.
    ―God, he‘s happy,‖ Delphine sighed, her face soft as she looked at
    me.
    ―You like him.‖
    ―I do, Jin, so much,‖ she told me, taking hold of my hand. ―Just not
    how you want. Can you forgive me?‖
    ―Nothing to forgive,‖ I assured her, squeezing her hand.
    We sat there a minute before I mentioned to her that we should go
    look for Logan and Markel.
    ―I know, right?‖ Her brows furrowed. ―They missed everything.‖
    They had, and that was strange.
    ―Come on, let‘s go find them.‖
    It took several minutes for us to make our way down the row of
    people to reach the end so we could descend the stairs. Halfway down, I
    saw Mikhail coming up.
    ―Did I miss all the challenges?‖ he asked, reaching us. ―Are we
    leaving?‖
    ―Where were you?‖ Delphine asked him.
    ―I had to meet with the other sylvans at the… where‘s Logan?‖ he
    asked, looking around, distracted. ―Where‘s Yuri?‖
    ―They‘re all still changing, I guess.‖ I shrugged. ―Delphine and I are
    going to find them.‖
    Trusted Bond

    215

    ―Good.‖ Mikhail nodded slowly. ―Let‘s find them so we can all eat.
    I‘m starving.‖
    ―Me too,‖ Delphine echoed him.
    ―Where‘s Markel?‖
    ―Your guess is as good as mine,‖ she snorted. ―Maybe he and Logan
    got lost.‖
    But that wasn‘t likely. And now that my worry over Yuri and Crane
    was over, I had a weird, fluttery feeling in the pit of my stomach. Logan
    would have wanted to see his sheseru and the beset of his reah fight in the
    pit. He wouldn‘t have wanted to miss it. Where the hell was he?

    MIKHAIL tried to argue with me, but he and I had different people to find,
    so he lost the discussion to remain with me. Delphine and I had to locate
    Logan and Markel, and Mikhail had to figure out where in the hell Yuri
    and Crane were. We split up, as my sylvan had a pretty good idea where
    he was going, and I was fairly certain that I had left Logan on the opposite
    side of the arena. Since, in theory, Markel was wherever Logan was,
    Delphine stayed with me.
    It was harder to navigate the tunnels than I would have thought, and
    I got lost almost instantly. The crowd didn‘t help with how many