Honored Vow

by Mary Calmes

  “Fuck you, no,” Domin snapped, moving to get up, rolling off the bigger man’s lap.

  Yuri was strong, though, and he wanted Domin there, right there where he was. His fingers dug into Domin’s thighs to hold him. “You’re still a semel inside, and I know that.”

  His head snapped up, his eyes locked on Yuri’s.

  “I know that just because you’re a maahes now doesn’t take away all the things you wanted and what you’re built for, physically, emotionally, and mentally. I know that you wanted to find your true-mate, mark

  him—”

  “There’s no way that I would have found a male reah like—”

  “But that’s why you were so pissed.” Yuri took his face in his hands. “What the fuck did Logan Church need with a male mate? The man was straight. So when you saw Jin, you thought he was the answer to everything, and when he wasn’t yours, it made no fuckin’ sense.”

  Domin brushed Yuri’s hands from his face but didn’t move, instead pushing forward, closer.

  Yuri caught his breath, hands back on the smaller man’s thighs. “Dom, I know, okay? I do. Please lemme be the guy you need, please mark me.”

  “It could kill you.”

  But I knew it could also kill him not to take the mark. Before we got home, Yuri needed to have a piece of Domin to carry around with him. It was necessary.

  “Please,” was all Yuri said.

  “What makes you think I even want that?” Domin snapped at him, asking for the second time so that even I knew he wanted to, since he couldn’t stop bringing it up.

  Yuri smiled at him. “I know you.”

  And Domin was going to argue, I could see he was, but it was there in his eyes, how badly he wanted to bite into the other man’s flesh and taste Yuri’s blood on his tongue. “What if you bleed to death?”

  “I don’t shift as fast as Jin, but I can shift fast enough not to bleed to death. I’m the sheseru of my tribe, Domin; the only one stronger than me is Logan.” He was matter-of-fact as he stared into Domin’s dark-brown eyes.

  “For a reah, the pain becomes pleasure, for you… it won’t change. It will only hurt.”

  “I think that depends on what you’re doing to me as you deliver the bite.” Yuri smiled slightly, his eyes heavy-lidded.

  I saw the muscles in Domin’s jaw clench as he made a noise in the back of his throat.

  “Get up and let’s go to the cave where we spent that night.”

  “Yuri—”

  “I want this—please.”

  The last, with his voice breaking just a little, was too much for Domin. He got up, grabbed his parka, hat, gloves, and lube—couldn’t forget that—and headed for the door. Yuri was right behind him.

  I was smiling as I watched them go.

  “You’re happy about something.”

  I looked down at my mate. “Yuri and Domin.”

  “Oh? You like that even better than Koren and Domin, do you?”

  My scowl made him smile, his eyes gleaming in the low light.

  “You’re an ass, Church.” I shoved him away from me as he tried to grab me and pull me down beside him. “How come you never told me that Yuri was in love with Domin?”

  “It wasn’t my secret to share; besides, you always think I’m oblivious anyway.”

  What was he… and then I knew. “I thought you didn’t know about Domin and Koren’s relationship when that was going on, but you did, didn’t you?”

  He nodded. “I knew they were having one, I just didn’t know how far it had progressed. I do see things, Jin.”

  As I stared down at him, his smile turned wicked. “Come here,” he said, patting his chest.

  I lay down beside him, snuggled up tight, and listened to him breathing. It was a really good sound.

  “It’s why I’m so pissed at Koren all the time,” he told me, threading his fingers through my hair as he kissed my forehead. “He can’t keep jerking Domin around, it’s not fair.”

  “I feel so stupid for missing that Koren was clueless.”

  “But all of us, me, Yuri, Domin, Mikhail, we all grew up with him; you didn’t. He’s just annoying you lately,” he said, chuckling, tilting my head up and kissing the edge of my jaw. “He’s been annoying me way longer.”

  I smiled at him before he leaned close and took gentle possession of my mouth. I loved the kiss, his mouth on mine, and so moaned out my happiness softly, intimately. He clutched at me, the kiss becoming hotter, deeper, and endless. It went on, was urgent and needed but still drugging, languid, not explosive.

  “I missed you so much,” I told him when I had to take a breath, panting, with my forehead against his, the air heavy between us.

  “Me too,” he confessed, leaning in to kiss me again.

  When I felt a hand on my ass, squeezing, kneading, the other fisted in my hair so I couldn’t get away, I put two hands on his chest and pushed. He let me go but stared up at me as I rolled free, breathing hard, his warm gold eyes locked on my face.

  “What?”

  I arched an eyebrow for him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m trying to get laid.”

  There was no way to hold in my grin. “No.”

  “No?”

  “Go to sleep.”

  “Can’t,” he said, rubbing his very obvious erection. “I could die from this.”

  Which was funny, considering the things he could have died from over the past few days and hadn’t. “Is that what you told the girls in high school?”

  “Only you do this to me.”

  “Really?” I snickered. “Did you use that too?”

  He whimpered, which made me smile and made him crack a grin in return.

  “You’re full of crap, go to sleep.”

  “But your scent is driving me crazy.”

  “Then I’ll go sleep somewhere else.”

  It was really something to see the warm golden gaze turn molten. “You sleep with me, only with me.”

  The man was so possessive, and I reveled in it. “Yes, my semel.”

  His groan was pained. “Oh, baby, please, take all that off and lay down with me. Put your skin on mine.”

  “I’ll take off everything on top, but—”

  “No,” he whined, “all of it. I need to be… inside.”

  The man’s eyes were golden slits; watching him swallow hard, licking his lips as he stared at me, was enough to make my blood run hot.

  I rolled up to my knees and began to strip. I was pretty sure that everyone else was asleep, and there were only the sounds of the fires in the braziers scattered around the ger, the wind howling outside, soft snoring, and the rustling of bedding.

  As I shed my clothes, Logan unzipped his parka and pulled off his sweater and the many layers underneath. When I was naked, I grabbed one of the lined, heavy wool blankets beside him, opened it, and came down on top of him, straddling his hips. He moved fast, dumping me down on the furs on my back as a soft purr rose from his chest.

  I squirmed under him, but instantly he lifted my hips, and I felt my cheeks spread and his tongue slid between them. As I bucked up off the berth, his rough tongue swirled over my fluttering entrance. “Logan,” I gasped, “someone will see.”

  “They’re all exhausted, and Yuri and Domin are gone,” he told me as he nibbled up my buttocks, making my breath hitch. “And I need you, I need my mate,” he finished and made me understand the breadth of his desire as his tongue slid inside my puckered hole.

  He licked hard and long, that talented muscle of his going deeper each time, sucking harder, tasting me over and over until my cock was dripping with precome and my ass with saliva. I was writhing under him as his body arched over mine, begging softly, my whispers desperate. When he thrust two fingers into me, capturing my mouth at the same time, letting me taste myself on his tongue, I shuddered with how close I was to release.

  His fingers scissored apart, slid over my gland, and I bit his bottom lip as my back bowed and he caught my
leaking cock in his hand.

  “Logan,” I panted, “I’m gonna come.”

  He moved fast, changing position above me, my knees in the crooks of his elbows as he lifted my ass and drove down into me.

  I came from the first hard thrust, his cock filling me, spreading me, and I cried out even though we were trying to be quiet as I spurted come over his rippling torso. As I rode the waves of my orgasm, he fucked me, pushing in and out, sheathing himself, burying himself fully inside so I could feel his balls pounding against my ass.

  “Oh fuck, baby, you’re so tight,” he ground out, and I could feel my muscles clenching around the length of him, rippling, clasping, as he rode me.

  My orgasm flushed me with heat; I was slick with sweat as my mate pounded his enormous cock into me. The tears bathing my face were of no consequence. “Mine,” I growled at him.

  His breath caught with my declaration of ownership, and I knew that me being possessive of him had sent him right over the edge. He grabbed hold of my thighs and yanked me forward at the same time, ramming the long, hard, thick length of him into me. I felt his hot release fill my ass, pour into me as he pumped and pumped. I wrapped my legs around his back and held on.

  We were a single, sweat-slickened creature when his hand fisted in my hair and he lifted me, bringing me up to him so he could remain buried to the hilt in my ass and claim my mouth at the same time. I wrapped my arms around his neck and ground my lips over his, our tongues tangling, breath mingling as we trembled with aftershocks, trying to press closer together, tighter, joined.

  When he could finally move, when I could, he eased gently from my body, and we lay down together under layers of blankets.

  “Jin.” He whispered my name as he kissed behind my ear and nibbled down the side of my neck. “I want a promise.”

  I rolled over in his arms so I could see his face.

  His hands were clutching me tight, pressing me closer. “Swear that if I die tomor—”

  “Logan.” I caught my breath. “You—”

  “Promise,” he growled, dragging me under him, staring down into my eyes, pinning me there, reminding me that he was all big, hard, virile, muscled man and outweighed me by a good hundred pounds. “Jin.”

  I closed my eyes, just savoring the feel of his warm, sleek skin against mine, the strong hands holding my face so tenderly and his hot mouth as he sucked on the side of my neck. I would be covered in marks in the morning, and I was so glad. I loved carrying evidence of our lovemaking on my skin.

  “Jin.”

  With effort, I got my eyes back open and met his beautiful amber ones.

  “If I die in the pit tomorrow, I want you to go home and start the process with the surrogate that Delphine knows to have our baby.”

  I clenched my jaw tight so I wouldn’t cry.

  “Before this all started, I was going to tell you that I think it’s time to start having children. Everything’s ready, we’ve just been waiting for the perfect time. It’s time now, Jin, and if I die tomorrow, you have to promise to follow through, because the thought of you holding a baby, our baby… I need to carry that with me, okay?”

  There were no words.

  “I need to know when I walk into that pit tomorrow that no matter what, you’ll be okay.”

  “I won’t be okay,” I told him even as he blurred.

  He brushed my tears away with his thumbs, bent, and kissed my lips, his big body absorbing my shudders, holding me still.

  I tried to breathe around the lump in my throat, my hands holding onto his wrists.

  “You have to live, Jin, and know that I’ve never been prouder of anything than being the owner of your heart.”

  There were so many things I wanted to say, but I couldn’t get anything out.

  His hands fell away as he hugged me tight, crushing me to him. “It’s gonna be okay, baby, I promise.”

  I dragged in air. “Then you gotta live, Logan,” I said, wrapping my legs around his hips. “That’s the only way I’ll be okay. You need to know that.”

  “Love—”

  “No,” I said, my voice hoarse. “I did everything I was asked to, so did you, and now I’m telling you, I need you to live for me.”

  “Jin,” he rasped.

  “I do,” I told him, making sure he could both hear and feel my desire.

  “Oh God,” he groaned, because when he had given me room to move, breathe, I had twisted around under him, lifting up, wanting him again and letting him know it. I had gone months without him; once would not quench my thirst. “Jin, you can’t still—”

  “Show me you want to live.”

  He slid inside me easily, as I was still slick with his semen, and I instantly felt the tingling, breathless excitement that always took hold of me when Logan was buried in me. My body, accompanied by my heart, never failed to be touched by the contact.

  “Say it, so I know.”

  “I want to live.”

  I purred with contentment as he pressed me tight to his heart.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I WAS a sticky, sweaty mess in the morning and so took Khongordzol up on her standing offer to use the hot springs that ran under their home to bathe. I slipped out without waking anyone, even Logan, went to the entrance of the cave, was allowed to enter by the guards, and was then led to the bathing area by two men.

  It was still early, and I was the only one there. The water was warm, and the enormous natural basin was huge, carved into the rock over thousands of years, smoothed by another hundred years of use. Even though I wanted to stay and soak up the warmth and comfort, I made myself get out, dry off, and wrap myself up in the fur cloak to return to the subzero temperatures outside. I pulled on the traditional thick, unbending leather boots that Chuluun had brought me the second night we were there. I liked them; they were red, made of buligar, which was the hardest leather I had ever felt in my life. It had absolutely no give to it at all. The toes were upturned, and when I had asked him why that was, he had said that if they were flat, there was no way I would have ever been able to walk in them. It made sense, and I was feeling a little like Genghis Khan in my fur cloak and boots as I made my way back to the ger.

  At the entrance, I was suddenly yanked forward hard and ended up grabbed and tucked to Logan’s chest as someone screamed.

  I was confused, shaken, and I would have been frightened, but I was in my own quarters, and my mate was there as well as my sheseru. Nothing could hurt me.

  “How dare you!”

  I had never heard Yuri’s voice sound like that, menacing and cold, completely animal.

  “Bring him to me!”

  I needed to see, but Logan had my head tucked under his chin, and he was clutching me tight.

  “Domin! Mikhail!”

  It took a minute because Logan was so damn strong, all power, but I wiggled free enough to lean sideways and see that Yuri had one hand wrapped around the neck of a man I had never seen… before….

  But I had seen him…. Who was he?

  “It’s the sheseru of the tribe of Nebthet,” Mikhail said. “Armando Mojica.”

  He was turning blue from lack of oxygen.

  I prodded my mate. “Logan.”

  He just stared, watching as Yuri slowly strangled the man to death.

  “Logan!”

  “Yuri,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  My sheseru opened his hand, and the man fell to the floor of the ger. Instantly, the coughing and hacking and wheezing began.

  “What—”

  “Fuck!” Logan snarled, grabbing me, lifting me up off my feet and walking me backward to my bunk.

  He dropped down with me and wrapped me in his strong arms.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, my arms up under his, my hands on his shoulders. Bunched muscles in his back and arms flexed against me as he tightened his grip. He had been really scared. “Logan?”

  It took several minutes with his face buried in my hair before he leaned back
to look down at me. “I didn’t think I was going to reach you.” His voice was a raspy whisper.

  And it had scared him to death. “I’m fine,” I soothed him, pressing into him tight. “But do you feel that, inside, that moment?”

  He closed his eyes, breathed through his nose, and when he opened his glorious gold eyes, I knew he got it.

  “So you talking about how I’m supposed to live if I lose you? Fucking stop, okay?”

  After a minute he nodded. “Okay.”

  I lunged at him and he grabbed me, and we were both on our knees, wrapped together, when Domin squatted down beside us.

  “Does anybody care about what just happened? Or do you need to go somewhere and fuck?”

  Someone was cranky.

  I turned my head to look at him. “That was the sheseru of the tribe of Nebthet, and he’s pissed because if I had only used my power earlier yesterday, then his semel would still be alive. I’m sure both he and his sylvan blame me.”

  Logan let me go, leaning back to look at me with the same expression Domin had, like he was confused and shocked at the same time.

  “It makes sense. I would blame me too. But they don’t get that I was only partly in control of what I was doing yesterday. I’m working on getting command of it, but I still don’t know, and since there aren’t any other nekhene cats around to ask, I’m sort of screwed.”

  Domin nodded. “That’s exactly why he was here. He wanted to kill you.”

  “Please return him to his sylvan after you warn him not to come

  af—”

  “No!” Logan roared. “He dies!”

  I rolled forward, my hands on his face. “No more blood, no more killing, please.”

  “Jin—”

  “Just warn him, let him look at Yuri and Crane and Taj and know that he can’t touch me. And then let him look at you, semel-netjer, and your maahes, and send him on his way.”

  He was deciding, thinking.

  Let him understand there can’t be any blood because of me. Never because of me.

  I stared at him, willing him to remember what it was that I stood for in his life: the love, the irrevocable trust, and the vow that was always between us.