by Mary Calmes
“No,” Wick said hoarsely, saddened somehow, I could hear it in his voice. “I’m really sorry that this happened to you, that your memory is gone, but we will do everything in our power to get you home.”
“I appreciate that.”
“We thought,” he began, then coughed, and I realized he was choked up.
They’d thought… what?
Dov came forward, put a hand on his partner’s shoulder, squeezed gently, and then glanced at me. “I can’t imagine how terrifying this whole thing must have been for you, and you’ve handled it and thrived. That shows a great strength of character.”
“The kindness of strangers and all that,” I said quickly. “And look around you, this isn’t thriving, believe me.”
“It’s better than most could have done.”
I wasn’t sure about that, but I could graciously accept a compliment. “Thank you. But really, what did you think?”
Both men suddenly seemed wary.
“That I was lying?”
No answer.
“Why on earth would anyone lie about losing their memory?”
Dov’s brows furrowed like he was deciding what to say, but Wick tipped his head sideways, regarding me.
“To hide something, of course.”
I was surprised. “That makes no sense. What can be hidden with only one person losing their memory?”
“A secret only they knew,” Dov explained. “It would actually be altogether brilliant.”
I nodded.
“But you’re not pretending,” Wick said, telling me what I already knew. “Because you don’t even smell the way you’re supposed to, as we were told you would, and that can’t be faked.”
“How do you know? Maybe I’m gifted.”
Dov nodded. “You’re a reah, but no cat, no matter how powerful—even a neck-henny cat—can mask their scent on purpose. You might be able to control your power, but not change your very nature.”
I’d missed something. “What kind of cat?”
He spelled it for me. “It explains how you’re a reah but also male,” he continued. “You’re a nekhene cat first and a reah second.”
It became necessary to sit, and I did, quickly, so I wouldn’t fall down.
“Is any of this information familiar?” Dov asked.
I shook my head.
“Well, that’s okay.”
But was it? “You’re saying I’m not just a reah, but a—what again?”
“Nekhene.”
I tried to parse the word from the Egyptian phrases somehow floating in my head. “Nekhene is ‘hawk,’ isn’t it?”
“The use is a more ancient origin,” Dov informed me. “But basically, you can shift into creatures twice your size, sometimes three times.”
I shook my head. “That’s not possible. Shifting is basic physics. If you’re a 140-pound man, you’ll shift into a 140-pound panther. We don’t add mass; this isn’t magic.”
“It isn’t if you’re anything but a nekhene cat,” he offered. “When we’re talking about you… Jin… we’re talking about something unique and different.”
My head snapped up, and both men were gazing at me kindly, tenderly.
“It’s Jim,” I corrected, fast.
“No,” Dov apprised, shaking his head. “It’s not.”
I took a shaky breath.
“You’re Jinnai—Jin, Rain, reah of the tribe of Mafdet.”
“Rain?”
“It’s spelled R-A-Y-N-E.”
I squinted up at them. “The ‘Jin’ is right. I mean… I knew it was something like that, but the Rayne? I don’t—that’s not.”
“It is.”
But it couldn’t be. It didn’t resonate inside like Jin did.
“Would you like to know the name of your semel?”
I did want a name, but even more, I wanted to see him. I had an almost desperate need to know what the man looked like. “Yes,” I ground out.
“It’s Logan Church.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Jin?” Dov rushed forward, hand on my back as I bent over and put my head between my knees. “Are you all right?”
I would be, yes, the second I could push oxygen again. Straightening up in my seat, I faced him. “So my semel, he’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“And when can I—”
“We’re going to let our semel know that he should reach out to yours.”
“I can—” I gasped. “—call my semel. I could do it right now if you give me his—”
“There are protocols,” Dov reminded me.
Apparently there were rules for everything. “Yes,” I replied hoarsely, flushing hot and cold, jaw clenching, trembling, tears filling my eyes at the surge of feeling, of overwhelming, devouring want. “And tell him to hurry.”
“Our semel?”
“No,” I whimpered. “Mine.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem.”
Chapter 4
I WALKED around in a daze that Wednesday evening. There was still work, and I did that—I was personable and on task, I didn’t let any customers realize I was completely checked out of my own head—but I could not concentrate on anything to save my life.
Luther showed up and sat at the bar with a couple of his khatyu. I made sure to say hello, and he reminded me that I’d agreed to dinner. I could barely answer him because I kept watch on the door as people came in.
Logically I knew the flight time from Reno, Nevada—where I lived, apparently—to New Orleans would take an entire day. It was all the way on the other side of the country. I’d checked it on the phone I was given, and the estimates were anywhere from eight hours to eleven, and that was if my semel had gotten on the plane the second Domin Thorne, the akhen-aten, had called him. There was no way he could have. He probably hadn’t even been contacted yet. The truth of the matter was, however, that I was 100 percent thinking about my semel and what he would be like and not at all about anything else. I could not be counted on to even remember what drinks people wanted.
When I took my break, I went back behind the restaurant, bummed a cigarette off one of the busboys, and leaned against the exposed brick wall in the alley and used my new phone.
I searched for Logan Church on the Internet, but there was nothing except a link to a glass factory, of all the weird things. On the website for Preserve Glassworks, there was an office number, and since it was only seven where I was—which meant it was five in Nevada—I tried to get someone. It rang and rang and finally went to voice mail. The woman’s voice was clear and resonant, and because I wasn’t sure what to say that wouldn’t sound stupid, I called back three times before I finally just left my name and phone number.
Grinding out the cigarette, concentrating on not simply leaving to go buy a pack—I was trying really hard not to take up smoking, but I liked the taste, and the act of inhaling and exhaling calmed me—I was almost to the back door when the phone rang.
“Hello?” I answered quickly.
Throat clearing. “Hello?”
“Who’s this?”
“Jin?” The woman’s voice on the other end broke.
“Yes.”
Quick inhale. “This is Delphine.”
I had no idea if I was supposed to know her or not. “Hi,” I whispered. “Delphine, I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m trying to get in touch with Logan Church.”
“Yes,” she said softly. “We heard that you… that you don’t have your memory.”
“Yeah, I… don’t.” I agreed because I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. “So Wick and Dov’s semel—”
“Domin.”
“Domin,” I parroted. “He called Logan already?”
“Yes, he did.”
I coughed. “And so where is your semel now?”
“He’s my brother,” she clarified. “And he’s on his way to you.”
“Oh.” I was startled, and God, so pleased, and really, terribly scared all at the same tim
e. “Well, that’s good.”
“It is good,” she rasped. “Because we’ve all… missed you.”
“You have?”
“Oh God, yes.” Her voice cracked. “So much.”
I had to know, so I cleared my throat softly. “Are we close, Delphine?”
“We are,” she whispered. “And I miss you terribly.”
My eyes filled fast. “I miss you too. I mean—my family, I think. I hope.”
“Oh, you do,” she insisted. “You love your family, Jin Church. You very much do.”
I took a breath because that had sounded really good. “I go by Jin Church?”
“Yes. For a long time.”
I raked my fingers through my hair hard. “Delphine, would you tell me something honestly?”
“Of course I will.”
She sounded so wonderful. I wish I had a picture to go with the voice. “Does your brother… does he… does….”
There was nothing from her, no rush, no pushing me to say whatever it was. She simply breathed, roughly, like she was scared.
“Does he want me there? Did he banish me?”
“Oh Jin,” she replied, sniffling. “He wants you here desperately, and he would never banish you—he worships you.”
He did? “He does?”
“Oh yes. He loves you more than anything.”
It was embarrassing, but I had to know what she thought. “And… do you know—I mean, could you tell, before I… did I love him?”
“You more than love him,” she cried. “Honey, Logan and Ilia are your whole life.”
“Ilia?”
Silence.
“Please tell me.”
Deep breath before, “Ilia’s your son.”
My son.
I stumbled to the wall, turned in time, and slid down it, sinking to the pavement. “I have a son? I not only forgot my mate, but my child as well?” Instantly my vision blurred with hot thick tears, and I started to shake.
“No-no-no, you didn’t forget anyone!” She started to cry. “You’ll know them, I swear! It’s just your mind trying to do damage control. What you thought you did and what you really did—oh Jin, you have no idea!”
I started to hyperventilate.
“Oh God—oh God… they told me not to say… if you called, I was just supposed to… ohmygod, please don’t run! I’ll die if you run. Don’t leave there, please!” Her voice was high-pitched, frantic, and just shattered. She sounded terrified and angry at the same time.
“Delphine, I—”
“Don’t you dare leave there!” she shouted, and then her voice faltered, lowered, calmed. “I mean—you can’t, okay? Just don’t.”
I’d broken the girl I didn’t even know anymore.
“It was a horrible night, Jin—just… all the blood and… and everything got crazy, and… you thought you… oh Jin, but you didn’t, you couldn’t, but it was only when we all regained consciousness that we figured out what happened.”
But I didn’t know, and I had to! I had a mate and a child, and I wanted my life back.
“Please tell me what you know,” I begged. “Please.”
“I shouldn’t,” she told me. “Because I wasn’t close, I didn’t see it all. Crane knows, he was right there with you when you had to… when you… when….”
“Who’s Crane?”
“He’s your best friend and he saw everything and it’s okay—everything’s okay—it’s just, I’m not supposed to… they want your memory to come back naturally, and if I say something I could force you to… to… oh Jin.”
“Please,” I entreated when she stopped.
“You—you thought you killed your son, Jin, but you didn’t.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Your son is alive.”
NAZAR FOUND me in the alley and carried me back into the restaurant and put me in Eliza’s office. Apparently I’d passed out, which didn’t seem like me, but the news had been fairly overwhelming. I had thought I killed my own son. No wonder I ran away. The sheer volume of questions I had running around my head was staggering. I needed to see my semel more than anything. I longed to sit and talk to him and hear everything he had to say. I wanted—I craved, I yearned for… him.
My skin felt hot and I was anxious. I couldn’t sit still, so I got up, pacing, and was there, verging on my shift, when the door opened, and Wick and Dov walked in with Luther, Alaine Boucher, and two other men I didn’t know who guarded the open door.
“I’ve taken the phone from you on the advice of my counselors,” Alaine announced. “You will not be permitted to have dealings with any who is not your mate. Once he arrives, he may grant any permission he sees fit, but until then, you are to remain sequestered in the garden house of my home.”
I could barely breathe; talking was out of the question.
“I have taken the liberty of resigning your position, and any and all things that you need will be provided for by—”
“I will not have you pay for anything for—”
“The akhen-aten,” he said sharply, striding forward with Nazar, who immediately grabbed my shoulder and shoved me to the ground. On my knees, staring up at both men, I saw Alaine’s fury. “I am a semel and you are in my territory, and reah or not, nekhene cat or not, you will respect my position!”
I wanted to hit him. I wanted to somehow hurl him across the room, and for whatever reason, I had the oddest feeling that I could, which was ridiculous. Perhaps, as a reah, there was another form besides panther that I could shift into, but I had no clue how to go about that.
“Did you hear me?”
I wondered about what Wick and Dov had said earlier in the day about me being a nekhene. They’d said I could be twice my regular size, and even though that made zero sense, at least the thoughts in my head seemed not as crazy.
Alaine grabbed my face, hard, and his hand shifted so there were claws on my cheeks cutting into my skin. “Did you… hear me?”
If I yanked away, he’d rip into my face. From where his ring finger was positioned, he could take out my left eye. It would be foolish, so I concentrated on not moving. “Yes,” I answered in a whisper.
He let me go and Nazar eased me to my feet. I stepped away, and I saw the hurt expression on the sheseru’s face. Logically I knew he was only doing his duty to his semel, but still, he’d put me on my knees, and in that instant, I knew where his loyalty was. And again, truly, I’d known that he belonged to his semel and not to me, but to have it illustrated for me was difficult. I had no advocate. All these men could hurt me if they wanted, and that realization made me want to run. I could make it to Nevada on my own. I could call Delphine back and let her know I was on my way, and I wouldn’t have to listen to any of these men.
“Jin,” Wick spoke, directing my attention to him. “Dov and I will also be staying in the semel’s home with you.”
I had nothing to say to him.
“We’ve moved all your possessions from your apartment to the garden house of the semel, and we’ve paid off your lease as well.”
They had gone ahead and treated me as though I was a kept man with whom they could do as they saw fit.
“I’m sorry that we had to do that without your knowledge, but the decision was made earlier today.”
I nodded.
“The issue is that the semel is, in fact, responsible for your safety, and any circumstances out of his control are not fair to him.”
I cleared my throat. “His yareah will not be pleased.”
“His yareah understands protocol as well as he and has moved any but you from the courtyard and gardens of her home.”
Basically, I would be a prisoner until my semel arrived.
“This is for the best.”
It was for them, not me. “And am I able to come and go as I like?”
“You may go wherever you please as long as you have an escort.”
Translation, no.
“You will tell us when you want to go out, and one of
us and some of the khatyu will accompany you.”
There was nothing to be done. “I’d like to go to the semel’s home now.”
Everyone was pleased that I was being so agreeable, as evidenced by their relieved sighs and halfhearted smiles.
Walking out of the back of the restaurant, I was silent and stayed that way through the entirety of the car ride to the Garden District. If the semel asked a question, I answered. Anyone else, I ignored.
“When we reach the semel’s home,” Dov directed, “you must ask his yareah for sanctuary in her home.”
Nothing.
“Did you hear him?” Alaine asked.
“Yes, semel,” I responded quickly. “I will prostrate myself before entering your home.”
“That’s not necessary,” he said curtly. “You need only perform the aforementioned protocol.”
“Certainly,” I responded, staring into his eyes so he knew I was absolutely listening.
As he glanced away, I saw the muscles in his jaw clench.
When we reached the semel’s enormous Double-Gallery house and spilled from the SUV, everyone went to the right, to walk around the back, but I darted up the steps and rang the doorbell. Dropping to my knees on the welcome mat, I waited for the yareah to come out.
“Reah,” the semel snapped. “Come away from there!”
“I only seek admittance,” I replied. “You would have duty above all else.”
He growled behind me and would have said more, but the door opened, and the beautiful stately blonde woman I’d met the day before stood there. She appeared different than she had, though. Gone was the perfectly made-up haughty yareah, and in her place was a woman with puffy red eyes, a furrowed brow, and pursed, unsmiling lips.
Flustered, she gave me a quick bow. “Please don’t make a spectacle on my doorstep, reah. Simply enter and remove yourself to your quarters.”
I was to be out of sight. “I need permission to enter your home,” I reminded her.
“You have it,” she said brusquely. “Just stay out of my way and my semel’s.”
“Catherine,” Alaine sanctioned.
She inhaled quickly, crossing her arms, and seemed like she was on the verge of crying.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” I mumbled, turning and walking down the stairs, moving to Dov’s side to follow him through the back gate.