Honored Vow (24 page)

“Is he?” I asked Ammon El Masry.

His eyes narrowed as he regarded me. “He is not.”

I looked back at her. “So maybe the sylvan was looking after you at the request of the semel-aten, huh? And you’re here… why?”

Her eyes studied my face. “I want my freedom.”

“And so because you want to be free of the semel-aten, the price is to help him here at the sepat and try and tempt any of the mates of the yareahs you see here beside me, is that it?”

Her eyes were hard as her chin snapped up. “I do not answer to any of you mated chattel.”

She saw mating just like as I used to, as a prison, as a death sentence.

“May I have permission to speak?”

I turned my head to look at Yusuke. We all did.

“Speak,” the priest told her.

Her eyes met Amirah’s. “I tell you now, reah. If my mate becomes semel-aten, then he has dominion over you, and the day he does, I will take your head myself for what you visit on us this night.”

Amirah smirked at Yusuke. “You will be dead in the morning, as will your mate.”

“We’ll see, reah.”

“Oh,” Amirah spat back, “you would leverage your power against mine!”

“Silence!” The priest’s voice rose, and no one dared say a word. “The mates will retire to prepare for the opening of the sepat. There is nothing in the law that says that a reah may not enter the pit with the other mates of the semels. It is done; she may attend and change with the other mates.”

He moved in close to Amirah, and his eyes looked right through her.

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

“Your choice of path is a mistake,” he told her, his voice dark and low.

“I will be consort no longer. I will be free.”

He nodded. “Well, then, do now as your master bids you and meet Jin Rayne.”

She stepped close to me. “I have heard of you.”

“And I have no use for you,” I told her, leaning sideways, “or your master. May I greet the phocal now?”

“You may,” the priest said, and Ammon, as angry as he was, and Amirah, as fuming as she was, had no recourse but to step back because the priest allowed me to disrespect both of them.  After a moment, Jamal Hassan took their place in front of me, and I lifted my hand for him to take.

“Jin.” He smiled.

“Have you seen Taj?”

“Not yet, but we’ll have time while you prepare for the beginning of the sepat.”

“Good.”

Khongordzol introduced me to her mate then, and I met the semel of the tribe of Khertet and thanked him for his hospitality and for the kindness of his maahes, sheseru, and sylvan. He nodded and then stared at me.

“You pride yourself, as does my semel, on the treatment of a tribe like a family. It had to have gone against your sense of
maat
to allow Amirah into your tribe. The actions of the semel-aten are regrettable.” I bowed when I finished, and he bowed back, deeper, longer, and I understood that he appreciated what I had said. It wasn’t that he needed forgiveness or would ever ask for it; the whole encounter was simply, as I said, regrettable.

“You speak out of turn, reah,” Amirah snarled at me.

“Mind your tongue, bitch,” Kushi Oyuun warned her, dark eyes flashing as she looked at Amirah. “We may all die tonight, and that would be regrettable. You die tonight and no one will mourn you.”

Amirah took a breath to speak, and I lifted my hand. “We need to follow Khongordzol now,” I cut off her venom. “Let’s go.”

And with that, Khongordzol took my arm in hers and led us in our fur capes from the pit. When we returned, the sepat would begin.

“Jin!”

But I didn’t turn around to look at Crane. I wasn’t that strong.

Chapter Thirteen

T
HERE
were candles everywhere and braziers set up in each corner of the huge space of the pit of the tribe of Khertet. One end, I realized when we returned, had an enormous grate that rose and lowered on a winch. It was just like a coliseum in that respect. The heavy grate lifted, animals came bounding through, and you fought them. But this time, creatures did not escape out onto the floor—werepanthers did.

We stood in a row, looking, just as I had quipped to Crane earlier, like sacrificial lambs. Above us, seated, looking down from a safe height, was the entire tribe and everyone that each mate had brought with them to the sepat. When I looked up, Crane, of course, was the first to lift his hand to show me where they were. The second hand lifted to me was Ebere’s, and I nodded at her as she smiled down at me. It answered my question: yes, the semel-aten had brought his mate.

All of us, every mate who stood in the pit, had been bathed and scented with oil. The point was for purification but also to confuse the semels. We all needed to smell the same. We were also all dressed in white silk robes cinched at the waist with a tie. Even Amirah, who had walked in with us and taken her place in line, was outfitted the same.

“This is very brave of you, reah,” Teresa, Gavin Medina’s yareah, told her as we all waited for the grate on the other end of the room to lift. “You might be torn to shreds along with the rest of us.”

“You forget,” Amirah sneered back, “I’ve been here as long as they have. I’ve stood outside the cells of each of your mates, just beyond their reach, torturing them with my scent for weeks. I’ve had sex in front of them and watched them spill their seed with wanting me. None of them will hurt me, they all want me, and any of them that come near me will tear you to shreds when you try to claim them,” she purred. “I’m a reah, and mated or not, mate or not, I can take them from you.”

“But why would you want to?” I asked her.

“My deal was struck with the semel-aten, if I help him turn semels into panthers; he renounces his claim over me as wosret. I have no desire to return to being his consort.”

“There are other ways to secure your freedom,” I assured her.

“I disagree but I see only animals anyway, it’s a simple task to turn your semels from you.”

“They’re men first,” Yusuke said, and I realized how much I liked her voice. It was strong and husky and confident. “And men love those that make their homes a sanctuary. We’ll see what we see.”

“Oh,” Katrina gasped, and we all heard the groan of metal at the same time.

The roar of panther was next, followed by snarling that made my blood run cold as six werepanthers came running into the pit.

We couldn’t shift and flee; I couldn’t turn to my own werepanther form and fight if I was cornered by anyone that wasn’t my semel. The only form that we, as mates, could take as monsters descended on us was human. To disregard any rule was instant death for the semel and his mate.

I ran to the side and saw Yusuke do the same, putting a brazier between any werepanther and her. My brain screamed at me to shift, the nekhene sensing danger and flooding my senses with adrenaline, ready to attack. I looked for Logan and saw him running fast, sniffing the air, searching for me. He had no idea what he was supposed to be doing. He had been a panther for two months, living as an animal, eating as one, been caged, beaten, run, and hunted. He had been tortured by Amirah, tantalized with her closeness, and then, finally, minutes ago, had been ordered into his werepanther form and released into the arena. I had no idea if he was even sane. Only my faith in him as my mate, as a man, kept me on my feet.

The first yareah killed was Juliet. She went to her knees, arms open to receive her mate, only to scream seconds later as his claws closed on her throat and punctured her jugular. I had never seen so much blood. Her mate, Wallace, drank some of it before running toward Amirah. She received him joyfully as he tore the robe from her body. I looked away before the final violation of faith and trust between him and his dead yareah was committed.

Kushi Oyuun was next, her mate tackling her to the ground, shifting to panther as he mauled her. I looked away, her screams dying fast as she drowned in her own blood.

Logan was circling Amirah and Wallace, not sure if he should fight the other semel for the reah or not. She called to him, arms out, but he stepped back, lifting his head, looking, inhaling deeply, unsure.

Calling him would be a mistake, and I knew that. Words were meaningless, and adding my pheromones to the already saturated-with-adrenaline and sweat-scented arena would only confuse him. Running would draw others, so I waited and made myself small.

Logan’s presence was too distracting for Wallace, and he turned from Amirah and launched himself at my mate in a frenzy of tooth and claw. The two semels went down in a tangle of snapping jaws and bloodlust, and I followed them before my attention was drawn to Katrina as she ran by them, sobbing.

She flew toward Amirah, who had been shoved up against a wall by another semel who was preparing to bury his cock in her. When she reached him, she leaped, but he caught her in mid-arch, savagely grasping her face, twisting it sharply, snapping her neck like a doll’s. She was dead before she hit the floor.

Another semel leaped at Katrina’s mate, hurling him to the ground before he lunged at Amirah, who was laughing.

“No!” Yusuke yelled. “I forbid it! Narae Hiroshi, remember who you are!”

His head turned, and he ran at her. I saw her change her stance, prepare to defend herself, but my vision was suddenly blocked by a huge werepanther towering over me.

It was a dream. Everything had all happened so fast, the entire scene playing out in minutes; all the savagery and carnage had become a blur. As the clawed hand shoved me back, lifting at the same time, I found myself pinned against the wall, held immobile several feet off the ground.

“No,” I growled, and the nekhene in me braced for battle.

There was a loud roar of warning, and before I could process the motion, I was on the ground, dropped hard, confused for a second as I was grabbed a second time and slammed into the stone wall, the impact rendering me breathless with pain.

The rock cut into my back, and my vision swam as every gasp of air was torn from my chest. As I was still reeling from the first attack, I wasn’t able to respond like I wanted to the panther/man hybrid who held me immobile in his grip.

“Come to me!” Amirah screamed at the semel who had released me as well as the one who was holding me now.

But she wasn’t getting the one who was looking at me hungrily; never would she claim what was mine.

I coughed, my lungs on fire, as I focused my eyes on the man I loved.

In his werepanther form, Logan Church was still beautiful. He was covered from head to toe in fine gold fur. His face was larger; all of him was huge and massive, his head that of a panther, with ears flattened back, eyes, nose, and mouth transformed to feline. The muscles were pumped big, but even in this form, Yuri still would have been bigger. The shift altered features but couldn’t add size or weight, just lengthened some muscles and bulked others. I was the only cat who changed completely, and no one knew why, the answer always being the same: nekhene.

As my eyes ran over my mate, I calmed, dragged in air, and finally lifted my hands to his face.

He shivered, taking a step back, and I fell again as he dropped me down the wall, abrading my robe, scraping skin as I crashed to the ground.

“Logan,” I got out, even as he was on me, claws driving into my shoulder as he held me trapped in his grip.

I heard a snarling growl close, and he turned his head and moved, giving way to the other panther, allowing him close. It was the way of cats, the dance of dominance. Another cat would growl at Logan and bare his teeth, and Logan would retreat, allowing the other cat close until he decided he wanted to investigate me again and would drive the usurper away. I had seen it at many gatherings, with panthers, the circling, the flash of fang, the swipe with claws. It would go back and forth, because Logan wasn’t certain of me, wasn’t sure who or what I was. So he retreated and let the other dominant male near. It would go on as each semel struggled to realize what he could claim, what was his, and who belonged to him.

Normally Logan knew me at all times, but he had been an animal too long and been allowed to shift back, only partway, to his werepanther form. So now he wasn’t sure of me, and the noise and the smell of blood and Amirah’s suffocating, cloying pheromones… all of it swirling together was driving him mad.

Scrambling to sit up, I sat there, frozen, as the other semel leaned forward to sniff me. It was hard to smell anything in the chaotic pit, but he tried, pressing his nose against my throat even as I turned my head away.

Seconds later, the semel flipped me over onto my hands and knees, and I made a noise that I wasn’t proud of, part anger and frustration, part sick, cold terror. In my human form there was no fighting whatever he had planned. I was completely at his mercy unless I shifted—but if I became a nekhene, I would lose everything. But to be raped… Logan would hate himself, hate that it had happened to me, that he had allowed it to occur, and so I would lose him anyway. I wasn’t sure what to do, and I had seconds to make a choice that would affect the rest of my life.

It turned out I didn’t have to.

I had never heard a noise like the one that followed my own. It was a strangled, roaring cry, almost a howl, and it was filled with pain and outrage and fury. The sound blew through me, made me shiver with dread. I was released instantly, and the entire room went silent and still. No one moved, not even Amirah.