Change of Heart 05 - Forging the Future

by Mary Calmes

  “Papa?”

  Turning, I heard breaking glass behind me and then, across the room, saw the glass on a picture crack.

  Diving toward the bed, I grabbed Ilia and rolled to the floor, shielding him with my body as I shoved him into the corner.

  Both windows exploded in machine-gun fire, wood splinters and glass flying everywhere. It was loud, and Ilia started screaming, clutching at me and yelling for Logan. I could feel his power rising and so kissed and hugged him, whispering that he was okay, and I wouldn’t let anything happen to him ever again, and that I knew it was scary, but we were going to be fine.

  “Promise?” he whimpered.

  “I promise, honey.”

  He burrowed against my chest, and I squeezed him tight, more worried about what would happen once the shooting stopped than us getting killed in a hail of gunfire. Would men storm the house? How many were there? Without knowing the number of armed men, I wasn’t sure what the best course of action was.

  In moments it was over, and in the quiet that followed, I tried to hear voices or anything that would let me know how many attackers there were.

  “Jin?” Logan yelled as he barreled into the room.

  I lifted a hand from the corner near the closet. “Here. We’re here.”

  Bolting around the bed, he fell to his knees beside me, crushing Ilia and me as he hugged us to him.

  “Is everyone okay?”

  He pulled back to look at me. “They only shot up here. This is the only room they targeted.”

  How would they have known which room Logan and I were in? “Did you find Ivan?”

  “No, but I have Crane and Markel out looking.”

  It made sense that my best friend would go instead of his wife. Even though Crane was stronger, Yusuke was far better trained. Her former mate, a master at both Jujutsu and Aikido, had ingrained the same intolerance for error in her as he had in his men. Yusuke had accepted the training as she did everything in her life, with an absolute unwavering drive for perfection, and as a result was both strong and deadly. Crane would have insisted that she stay and guard their family. It would not make her happy, though, and when Logan, Ilia, and I joined her in the living room, she was, in fact, pacing.

  “Will you get away from the window,” she practically snarled at Delphine, who was looking to see if she could spot her mate.

  “How many places could Vanya be?” Delphine snapped back. “And no, I won’t get away from the window—no one would dare hurt me.”

  “But they would hurt the nekhene cat,” Yusuke said snidely.

  They normally never took shots at each other; they were both just scared.

  “What are you talking about?” Delphine asked irritably, turning to look at her and only then noticing Logan and me there with our son. “Oh, Jin, are you okay?”

  She was late with her concern, but again, I understood.

  “I’m fine now. Please, come away from the window. You’re carrying a child, Delphine. You have to be mindful of that.”

  Grudgingly she moved to the overstuffed couch and flopped down. Seconds later Yusuke joined her, taking her hand and leaning close.

  Danny came in and crossed the room to Logan. “I checked everything, and there’s no way that Russ’s new sylvan got in undetected. His scent is all over the back stairs.”

  The muscles in Logan’s jaw clenched.

  “What does that mean?” Delphine asked, her voice quavering.

  “That means that Ivan betrayed us,” Yusuke concluded.

  “No,” I said quickly. “We don’t know until we talk to him.”

  “He—” Yusuke’s eyes flicked to Danny and then Ilia. “—might have done it for Koren. They’ve become close.”

  “They’re fu—”

  “Friends,” I cut off Danny, who was seething that fast, face red, hands clenched into fists. I felt so bad for him, because I, too, had thought that Koren had finally made a choice and took a stand. But it turned out he was his father’s man, and that meant not being gay, which meant throwing Danny away and fucking Ivan on the side.

  “I gave away my title for him,” Danny whispered.

  “But not your tribe,” Logan reminded him. “And you have a place in our family.”

  Danny glanced at me.

  I could remember now what had transpired and why I’d stripped my cousin of his title. I’d come inside into the middle of a meeting of Logan, Koren, and Peter. I could hear the yelling from outside, where I’d been with Ilia and Crane’s girls, and so had come in to see if I could help defuse whatever the situation was. Walking into the great room, I found my father-in-law and brother-in-law both pacing behind my mate, who was gazing out the large bay window, watching his son.

  “Logan, be reasonable,” Koren groused.

  “I said no,” Logan retorted, his voice edged with exasperation that could quickly turn into fractious anger if they weren’t careful.

  Ilia was playing tag with Crane’s daughters in his panther form, and they were squealing with delight as he pounced on them.

  “Are you going to listen now?” Peter spat at Logan.

  “No,” he sighed, turning to them and smiling when he spotted me. “You looked like you were having fun with—”

  “Logan!” Koren yelled, moving to stand in front of him. “You should take the deal. It’s a really good idea. It’ll bring in extra money for the tribe, and we’re selling the smallest plot we have. No one will even miss—”

  “No,” Logan snapped, gesturing for me, not even looking at his brother.

  Koren stepped sideways, crowding him, barring my path to my mate.

  “What are you doing?” Logan barked, shoving Koren just enough to move him and crossing the room to me.

  “Logan, this isn’t right,” Koren shouted, and Logan swung around to look at him, arms crossed, scowling, the picture of irritation.

  “I decide what’s right, Koren. I don’t want to sell any part of our ancestral lands, and that’s the end of it.”

  “No,” Koren argued, darting across the room to get in his face again. “It’s a smart business decision that you’re turning down on nothing more than a whim.”

  “And?” Logan baited.

  “What do you mean ‘and’? You owe me an—”

  “I don’t owe you a thing,” Logan said harshly, “and definitely not a reason for any decision I make.”

  “Yes, you do,” Peter seconded, moving up beside Koren. “You’re so involved with your son and the changes in him and his power that you have no time for anything else.”

  “That’s not true.”

  But it was, a little.

  We were on a mountain where Ilia could be discovered, and so always, Logan was on guard, and as a semel, that cut into his time for the tribe. He had missed a few things, most notably the failings of his sheseru sleeping around. Had Logan not been distracted by his concern for Ilia, he would have noticed.

  “Between your reah and your son,” Peter began accusatorily, “you’re no longer the semel you were.”

  “Oh?” Logan said levelly, stepping close, his eyes locked on his father’s. “Shall we see who is and is not a semel?”

  Peter visibly wanted to challenge him, but he was no match for the panther Logan was, in his prime, thrumming with power.

  “Well?” Logan goaded his father.

  “You’re being ridiculous!” Peter shouted. “It’s an insignificant piece of land that—”

  “I don’t care,” Logan replied flippantly, almost sneering, and I could hear it in his voice then: he just wanted to fight. He had no good reason for turning down the sale except that they’d presented it to him poorly. No one made demands on Logan; he was asked, he was courted, he heard all the pros and cons, and people waited for him to come to the best decision, which, nine out of ten times, he would. But this time, they’d pushed instead, and now Logan was bristling, digging in. They should have just walked away.

  It was stupid on both sides, and I would have la
ughed if I hadn’t seen how really angry Peter and Koren were. Apparently they’d had enough of distracted Logan and needed him to go along with their plans.

  I was about to soothe my mate when Danny came striding into the room without permission. Even though Logan kept a very relaxed household, there were still rules, protocols, especially when he was in the middle of a discussion with others.

  “Forgive me, my semel,” he addressed Logan, “but though you haven’t asked, I must offer my counsel and tell you that you’re being obtuse about this opportunity.”

  Logan might have taken it a bit better if Danny hadn’t been sleeping with Koren. He knew as well as I did where Danny’s loyalty lay.

  “Am I?” Logan questioned, and had Danny been listening better instead of trying to impress Koren with his ability to sway my mate, he might have heard the annoyance in Logan’s sultry tone.

  In contrast, I had moved beyond my mate’s prickly irritation and rushed headlong into boiling anger. How dare Danny presume to offer Logan advice that wasn’t solicited, who the hell did he think he was? And worse, he’d done it solely to advance Koren’s agenda and for no other reason. Evidently, Logan’s sylvan was no longer putting his semel’s needs first above all others.

  My skin felt like it was going to sear off with how hot I flushed.

  “You are,” Danny said hopefully, and I could tell he actually thought he was getting through to Logan. As if that were possible after Logan heard such obvious disloyalty, as though my mate could be so easily duped. “Koren has the best intentions for both you and the tribe.”

  “Does he?” Logan prodded, and the slithering taunt was right there on his tongue. Danny was a fly in the middle of a web and he didn’t even notice.

  “Of course,” Danny replied, so confident that he’d changed Logan’s mind, undoubtedly thinking his rhetoric and charm were so great. He thought he held the same sway as I did over my mate, and I shivered with menace.

  Logan nodded and then turned to me. “I’m going to burn up, standing this close to you when you’re this mad.”

  Danny turned to me. “Jin?”

  “How dare you question your semel?” I roared, and all of them—Peter, Koren, and Danny—all took several steps back. I felt my power rise, filling the room, swirling around Logan and then flaring outward, hitting the three men and knocking Danny to the floor. “You’re the sylvan of this tribe! You’re supposed to be Logan’s counselor, Logan’s man! You stand at his side, you’re his voice—his—no one else’s! Have you lost your fucking mind?” I railed, enraged.

  “Jin,” he whined, lifting his hands as I advanced on him.

  “You ungrateful piece of crap!”

  “Jin,” Koren began. “Don’t—”

  “And you!” I rounded on him, livid. “How dare you fill his head with all this bullshit that you’re a good guy and going to keep him when we all know better!”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Danny asked, his voice suddenly small as he looked back and forth between Koren and me. “Jin?”

  It was not my place to tell him that Koren was sleeping with Ivan and Avery Cadim’s mate, at the same time. That was for him to confess. But Danny had thrown in his lot with a man undeserving of his loyalty, and I refused to let that simply pass.

  “Logan, control your reah!” Koren shouted.

  “Get out of my house and off my land,” Logan ordered. “If you can’t respect my rules, you have no place in my household.”

  “If he goes, I go,” Danny threatened, rising from the floor, facing Logan and me imperiously, so certain of his place in the tribe.

  “Then go!” I thundered, incensed over his hubris, as well as his idiocy. To think for a second that Koren Church was worth selling his soul for was the height of stupidity.

  “You can’t threaten him!” Koren blasted.

  Oh, but I could. “Daniel Rayne,” I said, ignoring Logan’s brother as I stepped in close to my cousin. “You are hereby relieved of your duties to this tribe and are stripped of your title of sylvan.”

  “What?” he gasped. “You can’t do that, I—”

  “I can, and I just have,” I said icily. “I will find another sylvan, one who places his semel’s interests before his own, and until then, I’ll act as the teacher for the tribe of Mafdet.”

  “No, Jin,” Danny pleaded, reaching for me, finally, at the end, understanding what he’d done, what he’d given up.

  I stepped back, out of his reach, to stand beside Logan. “Get out of my sight,” I whispered, my voice filled with disgust. “I can barely stand to look at you.”

  “Go—” Logan dismissed the both of them. “—and don’t come back.”

  I turned and stalked out of the room, and I didn’t stop until I was all the way outside on the porch and could breathe again. When Logan grabbed my arm and spun me around, I was momentarily caught off guard and prepared to trade more angry words.

  “Your battle stance,” Logan teased, remarking on my lifted chin, fisted hands, and legs braced apart.

  “No, I—”

  “Stop,” he cajoled, taking hold of my elbow and drawing me forward into his arms.

  As I unclenched my hands, I found they were shaking, and I blinked hard so I wouldn’t cry. I had trusted Danny to put the welfare of his semel and his duty to his semel before everything else, and to find out I’d been wrong after it had taken me so long to put faith in any member of my birth family, rocked me to the core.

  “It’s not your fault,” he promised, nuzzling his face in my hair. “I trusted him too.”

  I sucked air in through my nose. “Don’t worry about anything, my semel. I’ll make an excellent sylvan until we find another, who will never disappoint you.”

  “Only you could manage that, my sweet, fearsome reah.”

  I grunted. “Don’t mock me.”

  “Never.”

  My thoughts returned to the present as I faced Danny. “I was angry,” I said. “We all were. It’s done and doesn’t bear repeating or reliving.”

  He nodded quickly, wiping at his eyes before turning to Delphine and Yusuke. “We give it ten more minutes, and then you and I will go look for them while the others watch the kids.”

  “I like that plan.” Delphine smiled up at him.

  “Yes,” Yusuke agreed quickly. “That’s a very good plan, Daniel.”

  “No,” Logan commanded, and we all turned to him. “Jin, you go look.”

  I was gobsmacked, but only for a second. In the next, I was beaming up at him. I never thought I’d live to see the day that Logan would trust me to not only take care of myself but to go do something alone.

  “Don’t get excited,” he growled. “You are doing reconnaissance only. I know there’s no cat on the planet as fast as you. They can’t catch you; they won’t even see you.”

  The rest of the words were hardly important. It was the faith that was.

  “You dare stop or engage, I’ll skin you, you understand?”

  I did. My mate was letting me go do something alone, and he knew I’d come back. We were in deep uncharted waters, and I was almost quivering with happiness.

  And yes, horrible day, worse night, wretched new morning, but still… my mate believed in me. I was ready to fly.

  “Logan!”

  We all turned at once to the front of the house, having heard the booming call from outside.

  He lifted a finger for us all to be silent as he picked up Ilia and walked him over to Eva, who was sitting in the Massoud Stella oversized chair beside the fireplace. “Stay with Babushka. I need you to be my big boy and protect her.”

  Ilia’s brows furrowed the same way mine did at times, and he nodded to his father, taking the task so very seriously. “Can I shift if I have to?”

  “Yes,” Logan told him before tousling his hair and then striding past me to the front door.

  I followed quickly. So did Delphine, Yusuke, and Danny.

  It was just after sunrise. Outside in the clearing,
on their knees, were Crane, Ivan, and Markel, and behind them were Peter, Koren, Russ, and several of the khatyu. Vincent Rector had what looked like a katana in his hand, and Peter had a dagger in his.

  “What the fuck?” Logan asked, charging forward, moving fast from the porch and crossing the lawn.

  “Stop!” Peter ordered.

  Logan kept moving.

  “Stop or we’ll kill them all instead of allowing you to choose!” he screamed at his son.

  Jolting still, Logan waited.

  “You killed Sasha, did you not?”

  “I did,” Logan answered, his voice clear and deep. “He came to kill my family, I had no choice.”

  “He came to kill you!” Peter yelled.

  “My family doesn’t work without me, so either way, he was going to die,” Logan insisted. “It was foolish to send him.”

  “He wasn’t sent,” Russ said hoarsely. His red-rimmed eyes, trembling shoulders, and chewed lips made it obvious that yesterday’s events had been more than a bit overwhelming. Peter had probably told him it would be easy, the transition to tribe leader, and it had been anything but. “And you murdered him!”

  “I defended my family,” Logan declared, “as I said the first time.”

  “You—”

  “He was in my bedroom with my son and my mate,” Logan said, his voice icing over. “He was never getting out of there alive.”

  “He only wanted to scourge Jin for what he did to him! He only wanted to make him pay for taking him through his shift!”

  “Again, if you hadn’t tried to attack me, hadn’t murdered Andrian, then that action would have never been necessary.”

  “Enough!” Peter yelled. “I promised his parents he would finally be sylvan, and you killed him! He was a fine young man, decent, not a perversion like you.”

  Finally it was out. I wondered how it must have pained Peter to hold it in for so long. It had been like a festering wound, all these years hating me, hating what he thought I had turned Logan into, and now… at last… without Eva to cull his words, he could release the vitriol he’d been holding in his heart since my mate claimed me as his own.