by Mary Calmes
“Yes.” I smiled at him, bowing low.
When I rose, I saw him smile in return. I watched him shake hands with Yuri and Domin and Artem and realized again, as I had in Sobek when I had first met Justin Cho, that Logan’s friend was very similar to him, and the men he chose were much like my mate’s, strong and kind and gifted. Watching Justin and Sean walk away together, I saw the same easy camaraderie that Logan shared with both his sheseru and his sylvan in private moments.
“Where’s the damn gate?” Yuri grumbled. “I wanna go home.”
“Me too,” Domin said with a nod, yawning as he lifted his head to scan the list of departures.
Yuri smiled at him, and put a hand on his shoulder. Domin’s in return, warm, gentle, was a surprise.
“This way.” Artem pointed before he led us toward the gate.
It was like the whole horrible trip had never happened. We all ate together at the airport and then sat in the boarding area and waited. My mate spoke to his brother on the phone, wished him well, hoped that they would still hear from him on occasion, and told him that if he ever wanted to return to the tribe, the door was always open.
“You didn’t want to see Russ?” I asked Logan afterward.
“I don’t anymore,” he told me honestly as we were boarding. “I’m the semel of my tribe, and basically Russ has told me that not only does he not want to belong to me, but he doesn’t want to belong anywhere. The part of me that is related to him will accept his decision, but it’s a slap in the face, Jin, and I can’t pretend that it’s okay. A tribe is your family, and his choice is not to have one. What use can I have for him?”
It was cold and harsh, but I understood it too. Logan was the leader of his tribe, and Russ didn’t want to belong. What more could there be between them?
Even when Crane and I had been traveling together from one part of the country to another, neither of us had ever thought to ask for the status of duat. I could not imagine never shifting, and Crane had never given up his dream of belonging to another tribe. I had wanted nothing to do with being a panther, but even then, I had still peeled off all my clothes and gone running in the night. I had lied to myself years ago when I had told myself that I hated being a werepanther. I had never hated the shift; I had hated being an unclaimed reah. Ruslan Church truly wanted to be nothing but human; I hoped his decision made him happy.
“I hope one day Russ will embrace his heritage like you did once you found your place in the tribe, but he is allowed to make the decision to never return if that’s what he wants. I would never ask anyone in my family or my tribe to live by a law that they didn’t believe in. My purpose is to guide and nurture and keep everyone safe, not to punish.”
I stared up at his profile, looking my fill of him.
“What?” he asked, noticing my fixed regard after a moment.
“I love you very much,” I told him, my eyes swimming.
“Yeah, I know.” He smiled, hand on my shoulder as he followed me into the cabin of the airplane. “And I love you back.”
Chapter Eight
I WALKED in the front door of my house and suddenly had an armload of sobbing Delphine. Apparently, from what Markel said minutes later, first they had been angry tears, then sad, and then humiliated, and now, finally, they were relieved. I hugged her so tight she calmed, and when I asked her if we were okay, if she still loved me, she started crying all over again. Of course she loved me, always would, had never stopped even for a second. I was relieved and told her so over and over. Everyone walked away from us in disgust.
I wanted to see Crane, but it was very late, and I was told by Mikhail, who had been watching him, that he was finally asleep. In the morning I could see him. Domin was on his way to his car, parked with many others in the snow, when Logan ordered him to use the room that was still his and spend the night. The lure of family and warmth was a hard temptation to fight, but Domin shook his head and thanked his semel for feeling sorry for him, but he was no charity case that needed pity. He was leaving.
“No,” Logan barked at him, brows furrowed, his scowl intense. “I want you here, and tomorrow we’re gonna talk about you moving back.”
Domin staggered up the steps, as exhausted as the rest of us. “Do you really think—”
“Yes, I think it’s a very good idea,” Logan said, reading the argument in the head of his maahes. “I hate you not being here, and I’ve lost one brother, I won’t lose another.”
I watched Domin absorb the word.
Brother.
Logan had called him his brother. Russ was gone, and Logan wanted Domin close. No one turned down the semel-netjer; no one argued and tried to wiggle out of things except me. I was the only one allowed a voice.
“Come,” Logan ordered.
Domin moved forward until his semel could reach him, and when he could, Logan put a hand on the bicep of his maahes and dragged him close. I watched my mate lean in, press his nose into Domin’s thick brown shoulder-length hair, and inhale. The tremble that followed, the flutter of lashes, the clench of Domin’s jaw, was all very telling. Oh, how the man needed to be held tight and told he was beloved. The need was etched in every line of his long, lean frame. Hard not to notice the beautiful picture the semel and his maahes made, the golden, chiseled, muscular leader, and his dark, lithe, sleek second-in-command.
“Okay.” Domin gave in, walking into the house.
I smiled at Logan, so very pleased with him for seeing that Domin, too, needed a slice of Logan cake, needed his attention, validation, trust, and to be told, once and for all, that he mattered, that he, too, was necessary.
“Jin,” he called me, and I moved fast.
Logan had e-mails to answer and needed to check on his actual business and so left me with a kiss to lock himself up in his office for a while.
Yuri was exhausted, and I followed him and Domin upstairs after receiving a welcome home hug from Markel and a shoulder squeeze from Mikhail. When I asked where Logan’s parents were, I was told that they were still happily on their cruise in Europe. They would be home before we all left for the sepat in eight weeks.
Yuri gave me a smile before opening the door of his room, and at the other end of the hallway I saw a door open, and Koren appeared in jeans and nothing else. He stood there watching, waiting, in silent invitation. Domin walked by without a glance, disappearing into his room seconds later. We all heard the lock.
Koren slammed his door hard, and I put on a really good show of going to my room to go to bed. Once there, behind closed doors, I threw everything on the bed, kicked off my shoes, and slipped back out. I was outside Crane’s door in minutes.
The idea that I would wait and just go to sleep while my best friend was right there where I could see him was ridiculous. Surely Logan knew me better than that.
I stepped into the room and locked the door behind me. I heard a low snarl and turned to look toward the bed. He was in his panther form, curled up by the headboard, and every light in the room was on. I got that. If he accidentally fell asleep, when he woke up, he would be in his cat form, and he would instantly be able to see, to make sure that the nightmare was not reoccurring.
He must have shifted at least once to light the room, but that was it. He was making himself comfortable with being an animal. I knew panthers who had done it purposely, shifted and then never returned, for whatever reason. I would not let that happen to Crane.
“I know you,” I told him, walking slowly, carefully, into the room. And I was basically talking to myself since he was in his shifted form, soothing him with my voice, the words more for my benefit than his understanding. “You’ve always been so strong, and if you stay as you are, then no one will ever see that your body’s been mutilated.”
His ears went flat and he hissed at me, mouth open, flashing his fangs.
“But it’s only a mutilation to you,” I said firmly. “Logan told me what the doctor said, that for human men, sometimes as a result of what you’ve gone through
there are side effects, bad ones, and for others they don’t affect them at all. Everyone’s different, Crane, everyone has a different system. Just because you’ve heard things doesn’t make them so.”
Panthers other than semels and reahs, when they changed, were animals. But that was not to say that they did not know they could change back, that they stayed in their bestial form. And even though Crane was now, for all intents and purposes, a wild animal, he still had the familiarity with me that any creature would with a human who fed it or that they continually saw. He knew me but didn’t. It was dangerous to be in the room with him, as he was in his panther form and I was human, but the risk, for me, was of no consequence. I needed him back.
“Shift,” I commanded him.
He charged forward to the edge of the bed, growling, snarling; his hair rose, and it looked like he was going to rush across the floor and rip me to shreds.
I went for the heart of his fear. “You’re scared that you won’t be able to get it up. You’re terrified that women will laugh when you take them to bed, tell you that you’re not a real man anymore, or half a man, or no man at all. I know you; I know exactly what you’re thinking.”
He came at me, stopped a foot in front of me, and roared.
“Shift!” I ordered.
He ran back to the bed, halfway up the wall, and then crashed back down. The picture rattled and fell. Glass shattered; the lamp on the nightstand, bone china, was smashed into a hundred pieces, only the fixture intact, the light still on but rolling back and forth on the floor. In a frenzy of anger, he destroyed the down comforter and the sheets, left them in shreds along with the mattress underneath.
“Shift!” I screamed at him.
He ran at me and pounced, slammed me hard to the floor, and stood over me, heaving, his muzzle inches from my face, teeth bared, a low growl curling up from his throat.
“They did this to you because of me, to hurt me—Crane!”
He leaped away and crouched by the window, and slowly, he shifted back. When he was sitting there, shivering, I sat up.
I was not prepared for the way his hair had been shorn off so close to his scalp, the skin dug into in places, leaving matted, bloody patches. To see the black eye, the torn lip, and the bruises that mottled the left side of his face brought hot tears welling up in my eyes. His hands were over his genitals, covering them so I couldn’t see.
“My father did this to me,” he said, and his voice was not his, broken and rusty instead. “And I know what you’re thinking, but he didn’t do it because of you; he did it because he hates me. He let them hold me down, he let them spread my legs, and then he took the knife himself and cut me.”
I felt bile rise in my throat and fought back the urge to vomit with everything I had.
“He did it, and when it was done, he rolled me over and told everyone that I was no longer a man, no longer a panther, I was nothing at all. He left me bleeding to death on the table.”
Trying to imagine it, I found that my brain could not dredge it up; there was just no way, the betrayal far worse than even my father’s of me.
“All I could think to do was shift. It’s what you always do when you’re hurt, it’s what you always told me, and I could hear your voice in my head telling me to do it.”
My voice.
“And when I did, oh God, Jin, it hurt so bad, but when you shift, you know, you can feel your body heal; you can feel it use what it needs to fix itself.”
But I didn’t. I had never known that sensation. Only those who shifted as Crane did, in intervals of time, felt the change. Even Logan, whose own shift was slow in comparison to mine, shifted too fast to feel the metamorphosis of his body. Semels and reahs never had that understanding. Me especially, I had never even glimpsed it.
“The semel-aten is the one who had Archer kidnap me, he’s the one who turned me over to my father, and he’s the one who’s going to have to face Logan at the sepat.”
“I know all this,” I said gently, sliding a centimeter closer to him. I was careful, moving slowly, not wanting to startle or spook him.
“Then why did you come in here?” His voice cracked.
“Because I wanted to see you,” I told him.
“Why?”
“That’s the stupidest question you’ve ever asked me. Why do you think?”
“Jin, I—”
“You’re mine.”
His tears welled up and overflowed fast. One second he was just staring; the next his head was back against the wall and water was rolling down his cheeks.
“It’s my fault.”
“It’s not!” he screamed, raw eyes back on me. “It’s my father’s fault, and Archer Pike’s, and the semel-aten’s! They did it. They all did it!”
“I won’t let you be a panther.”
“I could be your pet.” He laughed suddenly, and it was heartbreaking and sad and utterly defeated and slightly unhinged. He was teetering on the edge of a complete breakdown.
“The doctor told Logan that for a normal human man the loss of testicles can cause all the side effects you know about, but for you… you’re a goddamn werepanther, you ignorant piece of crap! The shift is fueled by testosterone; even female werepanthers have an ungodly amount of it in their bodies. Use your head, Crane, please.”
Logan had talked to me on the plane, told me every detail his doctor, our doctor, Jefferson Smith, a werepanther himself, had told him. He lived in Reno but was part of our tribe, and even though Christophe had made the man very generous offers, he refused to renounce the tribe of Mafdet for the tribe of Pakhet. He was a good man and had given Logan the facts without sugarcoating. It was time Crane heard them.
“I can’t have kids,” he whispered.
“You can have all the kids you want, Crane. Just because they won’t share DNA with you doesn’t make them any less yours. Logan can’t have any of his own kids, either. You think he gives a shit?”
He dragged in air.
I moved closer and closer.
“I’m not a real man anymore.”
“Being a man has nothing to do with anything between your legs and you know it. Anyone in their right mind would be blessed to have you. Anyone.”
He watched me move closer. “If you touch me, I’m gonna be done.”
I shook my head, almost able to reach him. “No, you’re gonna take my strength until yours builds up again.”
“I should have never gone to Vegas. I should have listened to you.”
“I never told you not to go.”
“But you didn’t want me to.”
“Because I was being selfish, thinking of me, not you.”
“I think, for a while, I’m gonna move back to the house. I can’t face going back there.”
He had no idea they had torched his condo, and I wasn’t ready to tell him that all his things were now ash. “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”
He nodded, squinting hard, his eyes filling but not overflowing. “I wanna be safe.”
“I won’t let anyone touch you.”
But the haunted look in his eyes, to my surprise, didn’t go away.
The knock on the door startled us both.
“Jin.”
Logan was in the hall.
I turned to Crane. “Do you want him in here?”
“He’s the semel-netjer, what does he want?”
I rose and walked to the door, and when I opened it, I was faced with my scowling mate. “You asked too much of me to wait.”
He just stood there until I moved, holding open the door for him. He walked into the room, and I locked the door behind him.
I was surprised that instead of moving toward Crane, he strode to where the desk and chair were. Slowly, silently, he took off his clothes. He started with his wingtips, put his socks inside of them, and then pulled his sweater off over his head. I had no idea what he was doing, just watched as all his golden skin was revealed, as everything was draped over the chair. When he was completely naked, he s
hifted into his golden panther glory, took a step, and then, in one powerful leap, he was on top of the ruined bed. He lay down, paws in front, head lifted, and growled.
I looked at Crane and saw him tremble, saw the tears dripping down his cheeks, and then saw the beginning of his shift. It took long minutes, and then he was a panther, standing there, still shaking, head lowered.
Logan opened his jaws and made a chirping noise at Crane. It was high-pitched, the call, and seconds later, when he called him again, it became a churr. I had never heard him make the sound; as leader, he didn’t have to invite anyone to him, coax anyone but me. But he was calling Crane, and I watched my friend react.
He bolted to the bed and then sprang up onto it, sinking down instantly beside his semel, leaning against him, pushing his muzzle forward to touch Logan’s. Slowly, carefully, my mate lifted his head only to lay it gently on the back of Crane’s neck. I heard the whine come out of my best friend, and I was flooded with relief and sadness all at the same time.
Clearly Crane did not believe that I was powerful enough to keep him safe. No matter what I was, nekhene cat or no, Logan was the semel and I was the reah. He was the tribe leader and I was his mate. He would always be stronger than me. I was thrilled that Logan knew exactly what Crane needed—to feel utterly and completely safe. I heard Crane begin to purr, and I knew that he would finally sleep. I turned to go.
The low churr caused me to turn around.
Logan lifted his head, waiting.
“I don’t wanna do anything to upset him.”
Logan rubbed his head against his own shoulder and then called to me again.
“But he doesn’t need me, he has you.”
There was a whine from my mate, and I finally got it. No, Crane didn’t need me at that moment; it was Logan’s strength and dominance that was necessary. But for my mate, to have me at his side, that was vital.
I moved around the room, picked up what was left of the broken lamp, and turned it off. I flipped off every light but the desk lamp before I stripped out of my clothes. My mate watched me with hungry eyes, and when I was done, I shifted and padded over to the bed. I was up and lying down beside him seconds later.