Honored Vow

by Mary Calmes

  Chuluun drove and mentioned sights as we passed them in the dark: Ögii Lake, Tsenkher Hot Springs, Bulgan Uul Nature Preserve. He explained the history and the importance of each as we drove on. But I didn’t care. I was cold, so cold, and even though my blood ran hotter because I was a panther, it was still a frigid thirty-six degrees below zero outside.

  “When does it warm up here?” Crane asked through chattering teeth.

  “We’re in the second of the nine nines,” Chuluun explained. “Unfortunately you’ve come here during the coldest eighty-one days of winter that start right around the winter equinox.”

  “Is that why you left the Jeeps running the entire time we were inside?” Yuri asked.

  “Yes, it gets warmer after Tsagaan Sar.”

  “That’s your New Year, in February, right?”

  “Yes, reah,” he answered me indulgently.

  “And the first day of the New Year festival is called Shiniin Negen.”

  He smiled into the rearview mirror. “You’ve done some reading.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s frickin’ freezing out here.” Crane shivered again, crossing his arms tighter. “How do you guys even leave your homes?”

  “With great effort,” he said, smiling at my best friend before turning to me. “Tell me, reah, who will fight in the pit with you?”

  “My beset and me, along with Domin and—”

  “No.”

  “What?” Yuri was confused about why he had cut me off, and so was I.

  Chuluun again met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Jin, I mean no disrespect to your beset, Crane Adams, but unless I was misinformed by the priest as to the severity of your beset’s scourging at the hands of the disbanded tribe of Anuket, then he was gelded, was he not?”

  “He was,” I said flatly, turning to look at Crane’s profile as he stared straight ahead, jaw clenched, not moving, barely breathing.

  “Then he cannot fight in the sepat and may never step foot into another tribal arena. I understand that this is not the case, but by law, he is no longer fit and may not enter the fighting pit. He is not allowed to defend your tribe, as he is considered unclean and not even, as was done in ancient times after a challenge, fit for sacrifice.”

  I heard Crane catch his breath.

  “Take off your glove,” I told him, closing my eyes as I took off my seatbelt and leaned sideways into his lap.

  “Jin,” he whispered.

  “Take off your glove,” I repeated, ordering him, the first time having been a request that he had not obeyed.

  If Crane’s hands were uncovered and I was anywhere near him, he had to touch me. It was far too ingrained in him not to.

  “Jin.” His voice cracked.

  I turned my head, baring the side of my neck, and put my arms around his hips, nestling in against him. “Crane, do you know who you are?”

  After long minutes of waiting, I felt his fingers thread through my hair.

  “Tell them who you are.”

  He stroked my hair from scalp to end, over and over, and then I felt the tips of his fingers slide down the side of my neck.

  “Crane,” I whispered, turning my head, laying my head in his lap so he could press his palm to the base of my throat, feel my pulse beating there. “Tell the man who you are.”

  It took a while, but I was not surprised that no one spoke. Finally, he cleared his throat. “You have a reah with you maahes, but she apparently has no beset or you would know,” he began hoarsely. “Being chosen as beset of a reah is the only station that changes only at the discretion of the reah,” Crane told Chuluun as well as Yuri. “Any other man—gelded—you would be correct, but not me. My station of companion to my reah supersedes all others. I can always fight in the pit as long as I hold the title of beset.”

  All I heard was the sound of the rushing wind outside. All the Jeeps we were in had the soft tops on them; otherwise we would have frozen to death, I was sure.

  “I mean no disrespect, Crane Adams, but I will ask my sylvan if your words are true.”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t mistake me checking with him as me not believing you.”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” he told him, and I felt him fist his hand in my hair, tugging gently.

  “I don’t wanna.” I yawned loudly, the idea of sitting up not appealing at all.

  “Screw you; I ain’t your fuckin’ pillow.”

  He was grumbling at me, which was a very good sign. I sat up and turned to look at him.

  The smile I got broke my heart. The gentle slap in my face made me smile before he replaced the glove on his hand.

  “Ass,” he grumbled under his breath. “You makin’ me take off my glove is gonna give me fuckin’ frostbite.”

  I arched an eyebrow for him.

  “Move over, you’re crowding me.”

  Settling back, I was not surprised when, after several miles, he put an arm around my shoulders and drew me close, leaning me against him.

  “Thank you for reminding me.”

  I wouldn’t let anyone hurt my best friend ever again. Nothing else would be taken in any form.

  Never.

  Chapter Twelve

  THE home of the semel of the tribe of Khertet was breathtaking in the morning. At night, in the dark, after an entire day of travel, I was exhausted. I passed out on the pile of furs in the ger that was to be ours, reserved for the delegation from the tribe of Mafdet for the duration of our stay.

  I had thought we would be inside, in the home built into the rock. I had misunderstood. We were guests, so we would sleep in a ger, or a yurt, a large, round wooden-framed hut covered in waterproof canvas that was extremely durable and able to stand up to the snow and wind. The gers, all six of them, one for each house of the challengers, had been erected along a small river that cut through beautiful pastureland. In the summer, or anytime it wasn’t winter, I could imagine how green it must have been, but now everything was covered with heavy white snow. The river water was still clear and turquoise because it was reflecting the magnificent color as far as the eye could see. The travel books called Mongolia the country of blue sky, and as I stood, turning in every direction, I understood why. It was just endless. I felt like I was on another planet, as alien as everything felt.

  Absolutely nothing was like I thought. We were outsiders, so we stayed, literally, outside. There were no sleeping quarters for us. We were allowed only into common areas, the pit, corrals for animals, food stores, and a large main hall where the semel received visitors. It was where we were supposed to go after we were brought our morning meal of tea with milk and rice congee, which was porridge with pickled vegetables and tiny freshwater fish.

  I was standing outside the ger I shared with the other six men who had made the trip with me when I saw Chuluun walking toward me with two other men that I had not met before. He himself looked exhausted.

  “Good morning,” I greeted him when he was close to me.

  He squinted, and his brows furrowed. “Good morning, my reah. May I introduce my sylvan, Naran, and my sheseru, Sükh?”

  I bowed quickly as they both went to their knees. I had forgotten that their tribe was much more formal than my own.

  There was a grumble of sound before Chuluun too went very slowly to his knees.

  What was I… oh. “Please,” I prodded them, “rise and be at ease in my presence.”

  They both stood. Naran helped Chuluun up and then shook his head.

  I smiled at the maahes. “Uhm, I’m gonna guess drinkin’?”

  He groaned, and the sheseru, who was trying really hard to hold onto his glower, had to give me a trace of a smile. “It seems that your own sheseru can hold his liquor better than the maahes of our tribe.”

  I nodded.

  Sometime in the middle of the night, I had woken to hushed voices whispering in the dark and had gotten up, gone around the partition that stood to give me, and only me, some semblance of privacy, and walked toward the f
ront of the ger. It had gotten colder the further I moved from the wood-burning stove that gave off the only heat, but when I had discovered the source of the sound, I had doubted that the two men were concerned with the freezing temperature in the least.

  Chuluun’s pants had been piled on the ground beside him, and the man himself had been on his hands and knees, moaning softly as Yuri, fully clothed, his own pants shoved down just enough, took him from behind. It had been raw and hot, and as soon as my brain wrapped around what I was seeing, I had turned around and gone back to bed, too tired to let the muffled whimpers and cries keep my eyes open.

  Hours later, I had been awoken when Yuri came stumbling back toward the main area. I had pushed my head up under the small silk curtain to see him. He had been shivering and wet and had, he had told me through chattering teeth when he noticed me, washed himself in the river beside the ger. It had been morning already, and even though he smelled mostly like him, there had still been alcohol on his breath.

  “At least you don’t smell like come,” I had teased him.

  He had grunted and Mikhail had woken up.

  “What are you guys doing?” he had grumbled irritably at us.

  “Just freezing to death,” Yuri had said shakily.

  “Come here,” my sylvan had snapped at him.

  I had thought Yuri would have preferred to lay down by me and Crane, or Danny, or even Andrian, but he had gone instead to Mikhail and crawled under the blankets with him, and when I had checked later, he had been wrapped tight around his friend. But even watching them sleep, I had understood how devoid of sexuality it was. They had slept like cats, for warmth, companionship, but when Mikhail had moved, there had been that annoyance that I got with Crane, not the sensual invitation that any movement from Logan would have signaled.

  When he had risen before Mikhail in the morning, Yuri had been careful not to disturb him. As he had shed his shirt, I saw the marks.

  “Your back is covered in scratches,” I had told my sheseru from where I was sitting up on the furs, reading, waiting for the day to begin.

  “I’m sure,” he had said, not turning.

  There had been a bite that looked deep on his shoulder.

  “You gonna shift and run so you can heal that?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “If another panther gets a fang in it—it could be bad.”

  “Alright.” His voice had rumbled in his chest.

  “I saw you guys. Sorry.”

  He had shrugged, still not turning to look at me. “Had to be there, nowhere else. I can’t be inside his home at night, the tribe doesn’t trust me, and I don’t trust him any closer to you.”

  “If he was gonna kill me, he would have already.”

  “I take no chances after Abbot George and you almost being killed in your own kitchen.” He had sighed. “Fuck. I still can’t believe I let that happen.”

  “Like you knew that guy was a psychopath.”

  “I don’t take chances anymore.”

  “And?”

  He had finally turned to look at me, and I had seen the scowl. “And what?”

  “Are you going to keep the maahes?”

  “Are you insane? I wouldn’t live here on a bet. There’s no—”

  “We both know you love it here. Your idea of heaven is living off the land up high in the mountains. You fuckin’ love this.”

  He had smirked at me. “Yeah, but it’s not my tribe.”

  “And Chuluun, does he wanna keep you?”

  “I think he wants me to keep fucking him until I leave, beyond that… I doubt it.”

  “Well, after he sees you in the pit with other sheserus, he might change his mind.”

  “Perhaps.”

  And now I was looking at Chuluun, smiling because he looked like he was in a lot more pain than my sheseru.

  “What did you drink?” I smiled at him.

  “Just airag, it’s a traditional drink, it’s nothing.”

  I looked over at Naran, the sylvan.

  “And vodka.” He smiled at me. “Let’s not forget the vodka.”

  Which my sheseru drank like water when he did have it, so it was not surprising that of the two of them, Yuri looked better.

  “Are we going to see the priest?”

  “Yes,” Naran told me. “All of you need to come with us; the priest is addressing everyone at once.”

  And my brain stopped. Luckily for me, when Crane walked out of the ger, he understood from my face and so stepped up next to me and went on full alert.

  “Did you hear—”

  “I heard you,” Crane told Naran.

  Chuluun winced. “I received permission from my semel to speak to the priest, and the station of beset is as you said. You remain the reah’s companion, and as the title cannot be stripped from you, neither can the duties. You will always be able to face challengers in the pit.”

  And I didn’t necessarily even want Crane there, but he needed to be. He had fought in the pit in Sobek and would stand at my side in the sepat as well. Nothing had changed for him, and whatever his father had thought to take by maiming him, he had been unsuccessful. He remained a panther in his tribe, beset of his reah, and a member of his semel’s household.

  “Good,” Crane breathed out, secure in his place, content that everyone knew who he was and what he was to me and, more importantly, to Logan Church.

  Logan.

  I had to see him. I was dying to see him. And I was going slowly out of my mind with the waiting.

  I had been able to put it out of my mind, shove it back, shove it down, fill my head with anything and everything else: the lush scenery, the new and different-tasting food, the smell of the air, the mineral taste of the water…. I had let all of it clutter my brain, anything not to focus and obsess, but now….

  I didn’t need to eat anything else, I didn’t need to see the priest or meet the semel of the tribe of Khertet or do one more task that was not seeing my mate. Didn’t they understand? We were supposed to be….

  And it hit me that they didn’t. No one understood the pulse-pounding, blood-racing, heart-pumping need to be with their mate, because only semels and reahs ever had that soul-searing desire. Only semels and reahs mated for life. Everyone had jumped on board with awe and reverence that I was a nekhene cat, but they forgot about the reah part, the part that craved my mate, hungered for him, could barely breathe with the weight of the wanting riding him.

  “Jin,” Crane snapped out my name.

  I lifted my head and looked at him.

  “Your scent’s changing.” He widened his eyes, signaling the danger. “Stop.”

  His hand on my shoulder grounded me.

  “Let’s go,” he told the sylvan of the tribe of Khertet. “We’ll follow you.”

  Each mate of each semel had been allowed four companions along with their sylvans and sheserus, and we joined the others walking silently toward the entrance of the semel of Khertet’s home.

  “Why the quiet?” Danny asked Crane as we trudged with the procession.

  “All but one group of these people will lose their semel,” Crane answered him. “Some of them will lose him today. Some of them will lose their sheseru or their sylvan or their yareah, and one tribe has already lost a maahes. This is a very solemn occasion, and no one here wants to care at all for anyone outside their circle. Only the people from the tribe of Khertet are candidates for friendship, as they’re the only ones that aren’t a threat.”

  Danny understood, nodding as he fell into step beside Mikhail.

  It was a maze inside, tunnels carved deep into the side of the mountain, rock on all sides, dirt covering it at our feet, the air smelling damp and like something else, sandalwood incense and fire and burning wood.

  Finally, after easily a half an hour of walking, we were led through a corridor into an opening that turned out to be the pit. We gathered there, assembled, to be addressed by the priest of Chae Rophon, Hamid Shamon. He stepped forward to address
us, and Jamal Hassan, the phocal, head of the Shu cats, stood on his right.

  I tried to listen, I really did, but the speech, the posturing of the semel-aten, Ammon El Masry, as he stepped forward on the man’s left, was all too much. We all knew what hung in the balance. The priest was leveraging his power against Ammon’s. If the semel-aten emerged victorious, he was within his power to appoint a new priest and have Hamid Shamon, who had served for over forty-three years—the man was in his seventies—exiled or ritually executed. It was the price the priest paid for challenging him. But if the semel-aten was killed in the pit, then the strong, vital priest would continue his reign and be partnered with a new semel-aten, together enacting law for the werepanther world.

  He spoke on, and all eyes moved from him to Ammon El Masry and back. I looked at the semel-aten and wondered for the millionth time why he would ever try and hurt Logan. If he was so terrified of losing his power, surely, even from running my gaze around the room, there were more men than my semel who would try to seize power.

  “Jin, you need to focus,” Crane cautioned me, because he knew my mind was drifting.

  But I was close now, hours instead of days away from seeing Logan. He was being kept in a cell close by, caged separately, as were all the semels, from one another.

  “And now let us please thank our host, Orso Bataar, semel of the tribe of Khertet.”

  Only Genghis Khan himself could have possibly lived up to my expectations. As it was, the man was tall and broad with hair that was graying at the temples but otherwise thick, black, and straight. His yareah, Khongordzol, at his side, was elegant, queenly, and smiled at us all and waved. Their sons—they had three—all bowed low from above us. His khatyu, those who would test us, were headed not by his sheseru, whom I had met, but by Dval Quach, the new sheseru of the tribe of Rahotep. Roshan Tabir, whom I had met when I was in Sobek, had been killed trying to carry out his semel’s orders to ambush and kill my mate. Now, as I looked up at Dval Quach, I knew that Ammon would have told him the story, told him specifically to make sure that Logan didn’t live, and all the men that he brought with him would have the same orders: to kill my mate.