Change of Heart 05 - Forging the Future

by Mary Calmes

  I wanted to sit up straight and be strong. Everyone had gone through worse than me, after all, but Logan yanked my chair sideways so it butted up against his and then leaned me into him so he could rest his cheek in my hair.

  “I’m so proud of you.”

  “I was a nightmare out there.”

  “You were exquisite, and you saved us all,” he murmured, kissing my temple. “Again.”

  “I kill people.”

  “When they try and kill people you love—yes, you do.”

  I moved my food and bumped my head down on the table. “I can’t believe we lost Andrian just—oh God, Irina,” I gasped, lifting my head, staring at Logan.

  “She’s sleeping,” Eva promised me. “So is her son. I checked. Nothing wears you out like a funeral. They could have slept through a tornado.”

  “Which they did,” Markel said, giving me a warm smile.

  “I should go check on Crane,” I announced, getting ready to rise.

  “No,” Eva said, hand on my shoulder to keep me in my chair. “He ate, he drank, and he’s asleep. His body needs to heal. I hope he sleeps for days.”

  “None of us can sleep,” Danny uttered, shivering now that his body was digesting his food. It was too much to ask it to regulate his body temperature at the same time. “What if they attack us again?”

  “No,” Logan replied. “I made a call.”

  And as if on cue, there was a knock at the door.

  Logan yelled—he couldn’t get up, he was too tired—and in walked Christophe Danvers, semel of the neighboring tribe of Pakhet, who crossed the floor to us, flanked by his sylvan, Rana Shah, and his sheseru, Joshua Levitsky, and twenty other men who fanned out in the living room.

  “Jesus, you look terrible,” Christophe barked at Logan, reaching us. “You too,” he said, including me.

  “My reah,” Josh breathed, moving quickly to reach my side and kneel.

  “I hate the reah crap,” Christophe grumbled, but he put a hand on Logan’s shoulder and held on. “What can I do?”

  “Protect us until the akhen—”

  “Until Domin what? Just say Domin, we all grew up together, for fuck’s sake. He’s still Domin to me. I know all about the time he—”

  “My son is right there,” Logan groused, pointing to Ilia.

  “Oh yeah, look at that,” Christophe said, smiling. “Mini Jin, that’s super.”

  God, I was so happy to see him. I leaned forward and hugged Josh, which startled the hell out of him and left him sputtering as I stood, wheeled around Logan, and leaped at Christophe.

  He caught me easily, all the time shaking his head, and I realized that in all these years, he’d mellowed the most. His first yareah, he’d divorced, and he’d taken for his second yareah Haya Blum, who was the exact opposite of Talon in both temperament and appetite. Meaning that she was the salt-of-the-earth type, extremely level-headed, very kind, and she only slept with her mate, which was a huge change for Christophe.

  She made him accessible and thoughtful, and most of all, she gave him the ability to laugh at himself. He used to take everything so very seriously, but for the past four years, he’d been a completely different man and semel. So it made sense that Logan would turn to him now.

  “Get off me,” Christophe mumbled, giving me a hug before we separated. “I’m glad you’re back. He wasn’t the same while you were gone.”

  “I wasn’t either.”

  “And I’m sorry you lost Avery,” he said to me before moving his gaze back to Logan as he arched an eyebrow. “But I told you, Avery wasn’t strong enough to be your sheseru.”

  “He was not strong enough to be anyone’s sheseru,” Rana said, sounding exasperated before offering me her hand. “Blessings on you, my reah.”

  “And you,” I replied, taking her hand and squeezing.

  Christophe took a seat beside Logan. “Explain what’s going on to me.”

  They talked while the rest of us moved around.

  I got Yusuke in bed beside Crane, and she got naked and wrapped around him like a second skin. She needed to feel his heart beating. Their girls went into the room with Delphine and Markel, Ivan and Danny got thrown into a room and a bed together, Eva went to her room—but not without promising me that while she was relieved that Peter and her sons were alive, she had been fully resigned to them not being.

  “We all have choices to make, Jin. I keep telling you that.”

  I went upstairs to grab a cardigan because it was getting cold, and when I walked out of the bedroom, I was grabbed hard and shoved face-first into the wall. I would have struggled, shifted, done anything to get away if I wasn’t already begging my mate to take me.

  “Logan,” I husked, breathing his pheromones in and out, his spicy scent cloying, sticking to my skin, my hair, all of me.

  I toed off my right shoe, and he shucked my pants down fast, freeing the same leg so I could spread for him, open my stance. There was no gentleness in him, only his hand on the back of my neck holding my forehead against the wall as he pressed the swollen head of his cock against my entrance.

  “You are bound to me,” he whispered roughly before he drove to the hilt in one violent movement, the lube he’d quickly slathered on his shaft allowing the savage breach.

  I writhed on his cock, wanting more, needing him to move, to take me, even as I reached down and stroked myself to hardness.

  “All your power is mine because you are, Jin Church.”

  “Yes,” I whimpered as he snapped his hips forward, plunging inside again, boring deep.

  “Never forget you belong to me.”

  “No,” I rasped, panting as he pummeled into me, ravaging me as I chanted his name.

  He bucked into my body, and I felt his release, spilling inside me as I came on the wall with what would have been a scream if he hadn’t slapped a hand over my mouth.

  I loved it when Logan Church was gentle and slow when he made love to me.

  I loved it when Logan Church was fast and dirty, fucking me against the wall.

  All of me loved all of him, and he always knew what I needed and delivered the exact thing. After losing his tribe, he’d needed to claim what would always be his. I was the one unchangeable thing in his life, for I was his mate and I belonged only to him. He had just reminded us both.

  He slid too fast from my body, and I cried out, not from pain, but from the feeling of fullness so quickly gone. Spinning me in his arms, he bent and kissed me hard, molding my body to his even as he cupped my ass, still leaking his come, and lifted me.

  “You need another shower,” he sighed, kissing me as I was carried down the hall.

  “I love you,” I whispered.

  “I know you do,” he teased.

  He showered with me and then left to return to the others, but not before kissing me breathless once more.

  “I love you too,” he said in leaving.

  I was exhausted, my body spent, and went to lie down in bed. Right before I nodded off, Ilia bounded up the stairs to our bullet-strewn room—though now without benefit of glass in any of the windows that faced the courtyard—and dived onto the bed with me.

  “Oh, love, be careful of the glass,” I warned.

  “I had my slippers on,” he told me. “Daddy said I had to wear them if I came up here.”

  My semel was always vigilant.

  “Good,” I said with a yawn, barely able to keep my eyes open and noticing that he was the same. “Will you lie down by me?”

  He nodded and crawled across the bed to reach me.

  We snuggled together, leaving room for Logan, and I had a twinge of fear, remembering Sasha in the room. For a moment I wanted to open my eyes, just to reassure myself that he wasn’t really there, but then I heard my mate’s low chuckle from downstairs and let the tension flow out of me.

  We would be safe while we slept. It was one thing to terrorize us on our land, a whole other to threaten another semel or his retinue. Logan was brilliant to call
Christophe, and I knew that had he thought we would be attacked the second time, he would have called him the moment we laid Andrian to rest.

  God, what a day and night and morning. I could only hope that from here on, things would be better. I wanted to be a blessing to my mate, but it seemed like I brought pain as well. If I had been gone forever, I wondered if Peter would have still reached for Russ. He might have let Logan drown in his grief and then simply propose he step down. Logan probably would have simply released the tribe and taken Ilia to Egypt to live with Domin. But I’d returned, and so he’d had to fight.

  I really hoped having me was worth the sacrifices.

  Chapter 13

  WHEN I finally woke up, Logan wasn’t in bed and I instantly missed him. I went downstairs to look for him and found him showered and shaved and standing between Christophe and Justin Cho, semel of the tribe of Qebui, from San Francisco. He was one of Logan’s oldest friends, and as far as I could see, he was alone.

  “Morning,” I greeted them.

  Logan turned and crossed the room quickly to reach me, opening his arms wide.

  I lunged at him, and he kissed and hugged me and held me close, all the while murmuring the same words: “I love you; you’re the world to me.”

  There was my answer. No matter what, I was worth everything to my mate.

  When he finally let go, rubbing my upper arms like I was cold and brushing away tears I hadn’t realized were leaking from my eyes, his smile made his laugh lines deepen.

  “What’s Justin doing here?” I asked, happy just to be looking at him.

  “Justin agreed to Domin’s proposal, so he’s meeting him here.”

  “And what was that?”

  “To build.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “That’s what Justin’s company, Crescent, does. He’s a real estate developer. He builds all over the world, and then he sells those buildings as one or in pieces through agents.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you awake?”

  “I think so, what time is it?”

  “It’s around two. On Sunday.”

  “Holy crap!”

  “Well, you’re the first one up, so what does that tell you?”

  “Did you sleep at all?”

  “I slept down here once Justin arrived.”

  “Which was when?”

  “Around six last night, I think.”

  “Oh God, Logan, you’ve got to be exhausted.”

  “No, I’m okay. I just—Christophe’s a good guy, and I would have been fine, but I needed someone here who I knew liked me better than anyone and who would have no other agenda and would have no interest in making any kind of deals.”

  I studied him. “You thought maybe your father or someone could make a deal with Christophe that he couldn’t say no to.”

  “Maybe,” he reasoned. “And probably not, but still, I needed the extra layer of security before I could pass out.”

  “So you slept down here on the couch with Justin and Christophe.”

  “No, Christophe went home and left Josh here with enough of his khatyu to defend us.”

  “And what time did Christophe get back?”

  “Just now.”

  I took a breath, glancing over Logan’s shoulder at the other two semels. “Okay, so tell me about what Justin will do for Domin again, because I missed it.”

  “May I interrupt?”

  Justin Cho was just the most beautiful man. He had gorgeous carved features, he was covered in long, sinewy muscles, and he moved with fluid, feline grace in either form, man or beast. His glossy black hair used to be longer, to his shoulders, but was now shorter than mine, and his onyx eyes were as liquid and gorgeous as I remembered.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” I whispered, lunging at him.

  He wrapped me in his arms, hugged me tight, and then released me to Logan, who tucked me into his side.

  “What was your question?” Justin asked, his voice smooth and deep.

  “What are you doing with Domin?”

  “Oh, well, Domin’s learned that the tribe of Rahotep owns property across the continents, and so he wants me to build on it and sell it, and those funds he wants Mikhail to manage while he traipses all over the world.”

  “Okay, wait, I just got up.”

  His smile was a little patronizing, but that was okay.

  “So you build on the land he has and then sell it, Mikhail will manage those funds, and Domin will do what?”

  “Continue to travel, meet more of his people, and eventually bring everyone under one single umbrella of leadership. I mean, there are bad tribes out there, still, Jin, and Domin plans to weed out every single one. He’ll be doing this until he’s ready to pass the reins on to the next akhen-aten.”

  “You mean semel-aten.”

  “No, I mean akhen-aten.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “He’s making them separate.”

  “Making what separate?”

  “He will be the akhen-aten and continue to have absolute power, but he’s restoring the position of semel-aten as the name of the leader of the first tribe of Rahotep.”

  Yusuke had mentioned something about that. “I need to sit down.”

  The three of us walked into the living room, and I had a minute to wonder where Christophe had gone before I heard him barking orders outside. There was no glass in the windows, so it was easy to hear.

  “Okay.” I took a breath. “Domin will be akhen-aten, you’re traveling with him making money, and Mikhail is where?”

  “In Sobek.”

  “Ruling?”

  “He’s a sylvan, you remember,” Justin said, squinting at me. “The last I checked, sylvans don’t rule tribes.”

  “I meant overseeing, then.”

  “He can’t do that, either. Mikhail will be far too busy managing his staff of tax attorneys and accountants and whoever else he needs.”

  “Is Kabore ruling as maahes, then, in Domin’s absence?”

  “That ceased working well. The tribe needs a semel with a mate. They need to see a family with a lineage that they can depend on and put faith in, even though, as you know, the tribe of Rahotep will always be one where the semel may be challenged.”

  “Of course, it has to be that way so the seat of semel-aten can be fought for.”

  “Up to a point, of course,” he clarified. “I mean, you get a strong enough semel in there, no one’s challenging him, and really, living in Egypt is not for everyone.”

  No, it was not. “So Kabore is—”

  “Stepping down, is what he is. For now he’s helping Jamal out at Satis with the library so Jamal has more time to devote to his new family and to his position as menthu, keeper of the law.”

  “Guardian of the law,” I corrected without thinking.

  “Guardian, that’s right.”

  “He’s basically a glorified record keeper.”

  “Yes, and that suits him since he’s married now, and he and his mate are expecting their first child.”

  Jamal Hassan was the most fearsome man I knew, and imagining him as a father made me smile. “He has a mate?”

  “He does, and she’s expecting, as I said.”

  No one told me anything. “Okay, so, Kabore’s out. Is Rahim still phocal?”

  “Does Rahim Dewidar still command the Shu, the assassins of the werepanther world? Why, yes, he does.”

  “You don’t have to be such a smartass.”

  He tipped his head. “I do, actually, and if a phocal is removed, they do send out a memo.”

  I glanced at Logan, who only shrugged and smiled.

  “Shahid Alon is still Rahim’s second, and Taj is still sheseru… nothing has changed except what Domin wants to do.”

  “Which is what?”

  “He needs someone he trusts implicitly.”

  “To do what?”

  “To be semel-aten and take over leadership of the first tribe, but who would never, ever
think to challenge him or turn on him in any way.”

  “Yes, but who?”

  Justin studied me. Really, how had that question even come out of my mouth? Twisting in my seat, I turned my whole body to face Logan.

  He grunted. “I’ll be semel-netjer, semel-re, and lastly, semel-aten.”

  I nearly swallowed my tongue.

  Logan waited patiently as I tried to breathe.

  “Did you already say yes?”

  “Yes,” Justin informed me.

  “Shut up,” Logan snapped.

  “Jesus, Logan,” I gasped, trying to stand before he made it impossible for me with his hand on my wrist, holding me in my seat.

  “It’s for the best, as I explained before.”

  “But—”

  “I’m sick of being scared. I want to lead people who want me there while still understanding that this is not a family.”

  “There are protocols and rules for a reason,” Justin said simply. “The law with all of its etiquette is in place to protect both panther and semel.”

  “This is moving too fast.”

  “It’s taken too long,” Justin told me. “He’s dying here, Jin. He has been for so long, worrying about you and Ilia as he—”

  “Stop,” Logan said gruffly before he took my face in his hands. “I’ve explained my position, and you understand what I think’s best. We’re not going to debate about this. You’re my mate, and you’ll follow me.”

  Of course I would.

  “Yes?”

  “Anywhere,” I promised breathlessly.

  “Well, then,” he said softly, leaning in to kiss me. “We’re going to Egypt.”

  I smiled at him. “It was what the priest wanted in Mongolia. Hamid Shamon always wanted you to be semel-aten; he was so disappointed when you gave the title to Domin.”

  “I didn’t give Domin anything. He fought for it and won.”