Change of Heart 05 - Forging the Future (25 page)

“Thank you and yes,” he said before he folded his arms and put his head down on them.

I put Yusuke on her feet, and she kissed me again, hugged me once more, and then, in a total breach of her normal steely discipline, walked over and hugged Logan. The look of absolute shock on his face made me chuckle as Ilia came into the kitchen with Crane and Yusuke’s girls following behind him. I’d forgotten that they did that, trailed after him like baby ducks.

“Papa, I’m hungry.” He then indicated the girls, and Dmitri, who appeared quickly, with a wave of his hand. Imperious, just like his father, he, too, would be a semel someday, and at present, it looked like he might be a semel-aten. I assumed the kids had been up during the past day while the rest of us slept, likely under Eva’s and Irina’s watchful eyes. “We all are.”

“Would you all like banana pancakes and bacon?” Eva asked.

They all wanted that badly, and Eva asked Irina to help her. Everyone was waking up, and she needed people eating, not waiting. Irina was more than happy to help but worried because she knew it was time for Logan to talk to her son. I saw him walk to the end table in the living room and return with Andrian’s dagger. He told Dmitri he could eat in just a minute, but he had to talk to him first.

“I’ll help Mom,” Delphine offered as she walked into the kitchen with Markel.

She came to kiss me, Markel stopped to hug me, and Irina hugged me on her way out to sit in the airy living room with Logan and her son.

I didn’t want to intrude, but I had to watch from the doorway. I was surprised when Ilia walked by me into the living room and took a seat beside Dmitri on the couch. After a moment, Dmitri leaned on Ilia, and I watched my son put a hand on his knee. It was very sweet, the two of them cuddling like the panthers they were. Instinctively, Ilia knew Dmitri was sad and so had sought to offer support.

The moment Dmitri understood he was never going to see his father again, he dissolved into tears, hopped off the couch, and flung himself at Logan. My mate hugged him tight, opened an arm for Irina, and both mother and son were in his lap. I knew, even without hearing it, that Logan was promising to always be there, always care for them, and that they both would go with him wherever he went, would always have a place in his home. It was critical that he reiterate what he’d told Irina before. She needed to hear it, and so did her son.

Standing there watching the tender scene, I suddenly felt like I was intruding, so I walked back into the kitchen, pleased that the guesthouse had an open floorplan so I could still see Logan and Ilia but also join in with the warm family bonding time in the kitchen.

Crane was having an orgasm from eating pancakes and Yusuke was giggling, which she never did, just listening to him. Eva was beside herself with happiness, and Markel could not stop snickering.

“Seriously?” Delphine teased Crane. “Would you like to be alone with your food?”

He continued to eat, clearly in ecstasy, and I told Eva that I’d have what he was having. She dissolved into a fit of laughter, and it was really good to hear.

When Logan and Irina and the two boys rejoined us, Dmitri showed everyone his father’s dagger and then settled down to have pancakes and eggs and bacon as well. Logan and Ilia sitting down on either side of me made me ridiculously happy for so small a thing. But maybe it was just being together.

Once breakfast was over, I got up to help Eva and Irina with the dishes. But before anyone else could rise, Yusuke leaned forward and pinned Ivan with her stare. It was amazing, how she could go from happy and laughing with her husband to hyperfocused predator in seconds. I was surprised by how intent she looked, and when I glanced at Crane, he touched his finger to his lips. Apparently I was not to interrupt his mate. She was acting as maahen at the moment, not friend.

“Ivan,” she said coldly, her tone killing all conversation in the room. “How did Sasha get in the house?”

“What?” he asked, chuckling, pretending the question was meaningless instead of his entire future riding on the answer.

“You heard me,” she prodded gravely, her voice devoid of any and all warmth, her lips pressed into a hard line. “How… did Sasha get into the house?”

He lifted his head to meet her stare, which people thought, with her only having one eye, would somehow not be as frightening as it was.

“Friday night,” she said slowly, so there was no question that he heard her. “You were asleep in the back. How did Sasha get by you?”

The room went silent, and Ivan lifted his head to look Markel in the eye. It made sense, it did: they had been, so many years ago, Domin Thorne’s sylvan and sheseru together, though why Domin had ever picked either of them for those positions was beyond me. Markel was not big enough or strong enough to be a sheseru, and more than that, he did not have the killer instinct that was necessary. Ivan did not have the encyclopedic mastery of the law needed to be a sylvan. Neither had been an informed choice, but that was before Domin knew anything about leading. He made far better decisions these days.

Markel sighed deeply as he stared at perhaps his oldest friend. “Was Koren here last night, Vanya? Did he call you outside?”

Ivan scrunched up his face in an effort not to cry, but the tears welled up quickly anyway.

“Did he text you like he used to when he was still with Danny?” Markel pried. “To hook up with him in secret?”

Quick nod.

“So you left the house to meet him outside.”

“Yes.”

“Did you see Sasha come in the house?”

“No,” he answered Markel and then turned back to Yusuke. “I swear on my life, maahen: I would have
never
let him in,” he promised, his voice breaking. “I would never allow anyone to hurt my semel.”

She was deciding, and Logan was standing quietly beside me, letting her weigh what she knew of him against what she did not. “Did you see Koren throw you away last night?”

He nodded.

“Are you certain?”

More nodding because his voice was gone.

“Because wanting something—someone—and falling under their spell… I understand that. Once.”

He swallowed hard, barely breathing.

“From now on, no one in this family can be weak.”

The tears spilled over.

“Do you understand?”

He suddenly reached out to her, and after what felt like an endless moment, she grasped his hand and gave him the lifeline he needed.

“No one in this family can be weak,” she reiterated.

“Yes,” Ivan said, his voice finding purchase, the sound clearing.

“Okay,” she breathed, and I turned to look at Logan.

“Maahen,” he whispered and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

I glanced at Ivan, and we both understood that had he answered any of her questions with anything but the truth that she had already surmised, she would have gutted him right there in the kitchen with only a quick word to cover the eyes of the children.

“The maahen is merciful and wise,” Ivan said softly.

“She is,” Crane agreed, leaning to kiss his mate’s cheek. “But she’s also unforgiving a second time.”

As she quickly covered her mate’s cheek with her hand, I realized how right Crane was. There were no second chances with Logan Church’s maahen. Heaven help you if you thought there were.

Chapter 14

S
OON
AFTER
Yusuke decided to allow Ivan to continue breathing, Christophe came in with the news that we were ordered to the pit for the formal division of the tribe.

“I don’t understand,” Delphine said, looking to me to translate the law for her.

“Before the actual challenge,” I explained, “everyone has to officially choose either Logan or Russ. All members of the tribe have to stand and be counted.”

“Why?”

“So whoever loses, those people who chose wrong will either be exiled or slaughtered, depending on what the old semel, or new one, decrees.”

“That’s barbaric.”

“That’s the law,” Logan replied.

After deciding that Justin and Danny, who were still upstairs, and Eva were enough—with ten members of Christophe’s khatyu—to stay and watch Ilia, Dmitri, Jinny, and Suki, the rest of us left to make the long walk out to the pit of the tribe of Mafdet. It was strange to be going to the amphitheater-shaped structure for the next to the last time. I would see it during the challenge, of course, but never again after that. As I strolled beside Logan, I sensed things coming full circle. I had started my life as the mate of my semel in the pit, had shown the tribe my power for the first time, and so it was strange to be saying good-bye and taking their semel with me. My life in Nevada, on the mountain, was ending, but I found I wasn’t scared anymore. I didn’t think I was stealing Logan’s life or his legacy anymore. His new one would be better, and if everything he said was right, if Domin followed through, then semel-aten was a much greater lineage than any other.

When we reached the pit, I wasn’t surprised that the sorting was already underway. A table stood on the raised dais at the center of the floor, and Russ and Lydia were seated there, flanked by Peter and Koren. Marina was there as well, standing beside Koren, her arm linked with his, smitten even while still staring down her nose at everyone who came near them.

Ivan was overwhelmed—how uncomfortable he looked, wringing his hands and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Seeing that Koren had chosen the stunning blonde woman had to be hard on him. I was going to send him back to the house—Logan had his proxy anyway—but Yusuke’s words about the family being strong sank into me, and I knew we all needed to remain and stand together.

As we took the steps that descended to the floor of the amphitheater, and then those that led up to the stage, whispers and murmurs followed as we moved around the lines of people to face the dais.

Peter’s hatred was palpable, his lips set in a hard line, his eyes cold and flat, and the disgust there for anyone to see as Logan stepped up to face Russ.

“Yes?” Russ asked formally.

“I used to sit at the kitchen table and help you with your algebra. Do you even remember that?” Logan asked gently.

“Yes,” Russ assured him. “And I also remember you allowing me to leave.”

“You wanted to leave Nevada so bad, Russ. You hated Incline Village, and then when you wanted to be a duat on Miguel Garza’s land, I let you make your own decision.”

“I made that choice after Jin pulled me by force through my shift, just like he did the day before yesterday! Your mate is a menace, and he should be put down like a rabid dog, and your mongrel son with him!”

Logan bristled, but I took hold of his hand and squeezed. Just that much contact calmed him so that the timbre of his voice never once changed.

“I have my mother’s proxy. She will follow me, if that wasn’t already abundantly apparent,” he said tightly. “And Danny is, of course, going with me as well.”

Russ inhaled sharply.

“Everyone with me today is leaving with me when I go.”

He had their sudden attention, his father and brothers all riveted.

“Go?” Russ asked, standing up slowly.

“Yes,” Logan apprised him. “You want me gone—it seems the whole tribe does. Ask for a show of hands now, Russ, and we’ll make this simple.”

He was stunned. Peter could not look away from Logan, and Koren’s mouth hung open in obvious shock.

After a moment Russ turned from his brother to the assembled crowd. “May I have your attention?” he called out.

As he spoke to the tribe, I turned to see who was sitting in the area designated for those who chose to follow Logan. Only Ivan’s parents were there. When I waved, they got up to hurry over to greet me.

“My reah,” they both said, taking my hand, one after the other, before hugging their son.

I missed the vote, but it was unanimous. I was sad that it had taken a lifetime for Logan to earn the love and loyalty of his tribe and only months to lose it. I understood it at the same time.

I wanted to tell them all,
You’re making a mistake letting Logan go
.
He’s the best man, the best leader, the best everything
.
Him leaving will diminish this tribe.
But it was useless, and I knew, just like he knew, that saying anything would be meaningless.

“I thought,” Logan said, turning from the tribe that had just voted, by a show of raised hands, to have Russ lead the tribe instead of him, “that I needed to fight to stay. I thought my stepping down would be like giving up, because no semel worth anything relinquishes the birthright of leading his tribe.”

Everyone was quiet, waiting.

“But now I realize if I had simply stepped down yesterday, maybe members of what used to be my khatyu would still be alive, maybe Andrian—” He inhaled sharply. “I don’t know. I can’t second-guess my resolve. A semel fights for his place, it’s in our nature.”

Still the quiet continued.

“But if no one has faith in me anymore, if what I did for over twenty years can be so easily forgotten, then I’m wasting my time. Better to find a new place for me and my family to thrive instead of trying to force something that can no longer work.”