by Mary Calmes
He could never punish in my name.
It took long minutes for the golden eyes to go from molten anger back to warm amber-flecked understanding. When he could, he nodded, stood, and walked away. Domin followed, leaving me alone.
Crane was there minutes later to look me over.
“I’m fine,” I told him.
He studied my face.
“Knock it off, I’m fine.”
He punched me in the arm.
“What the fuck?”
“Don’t be a prick,” he cautioned me. “I know you’re tired of fuckin’ being here, we all are, but don’t get all annoyed that I was worried that you were almost killed. I will kick your ass.”
He so would.
“Didja hear me?” he asked, flicking my forehead hard.
“Ass,” I grumbled, rubbing my skin, and then, and only then, I noticed the surprise of Yusuke Narae as she sat beside Crane. She moved quietly, I would give her that. “What?”
She looked at me and then Crane and then back to me. “Your tribe is different, Jin Rayne.”
Like I had never heard that before. “Yeah, I know.” I smiled at her. “How are you doing?”
She bowed her head. “I will go and speak to Logan, if you will excuse me.”
“’Course,” I told her.
When she joined the others—Logan, Domin, Mikhail, and Yuri—I turned back to Crane. His smile, the way he lit up, revealed everything.
“She’s so strong, Jin, and she’s so resolved to her life, and she still wants things like kids and a home and to create her art. She’s a painter, you know.”
“Well, Markel needs someone to share his studio with him, foot half the bill for the space downstairs. You should tell her.”
“Oh shit, that’s right,” he said as he gave my arm a swat. “You’re brilliant!”
“I try.”
AS I was following the procession toward the pit hours later, I felt a hand on my arm and turned to find Ebere El Masry, the yareah of the semel-aten. I was surprised to see her, even more startled to have her close to me before the start of the challenge, so when she tugged me after her, I told the others to go on without me. Yuri was going to stay, but Crane urged him on and remained.
I grasped Ebere’s hand, and her eyes filled fast.
“Rector Vincent is not from our tribe, Jin, he’s a hired killer from another tribe. He’s the maahes only in name and is there solely to kill Domin Thorne so that then he and Ammon can kill Logan. You must warn your mate, because two panthers on one, no matter how powerful your semel is, is too many.”
“He’s fought more than—”
“But not like them,” she went on worriedly. “My mate is very powerful, and Rector Vincent is brutal. I watched them preparing for this challenge, Jin, and even sparring in the pit they killed many.”
“It’ll be all right,” I assured her, even though my stomach was twisted into a knot.
“Logan’s weakened,” she told me. “He’s been through a physical and emotional trial, and Ammon has not. And your maahes is no match for Vincent.”
“I appreciate you telling me,” I said solemnly, not as scared as she so obviously was.
She cleared her throat. “If Logan dies… I will do what I can.”
I nodded.
“If Ammon dies… will your semel speak for my children? My girls?”
“For your children, and for you, Ebere El Masry, Logan, would speak.”
She launched herself into my arms, which wasn’t proper, but I didn’t give a damn. We hugged tight and then she was gone, back into the shadows, disappearing the way she had come.
“God, I’m really glad Yuri didn’t stick around to hear that,” Crane told me, eyebrow raised.
So was I.
If I never saw the inside of a pit again it would be too soon. The way people were looking at me, frightened, wary, keeping their distance, that was difficult too. I was a reah, but they were treating me like a pariah. I should have been warmly welcomed instead of reviled. Only the priest and Chuluun came to greet me before we were all seated. Even Jamal kept his distance, and I saw the look on the phocal’s face. We were no longer friends. I had pulled him through his shift, as well, his power, apparently, not as great as he had once thought.
I was sorry that I had wounded the man’s pride, Shahid’s, as well, because as they were members of the Shu, when Logan won, I would need to make peace with them whenever I had dealings with the priest. Sitting between Yuri and Crane, I looked around until I found Hiroshi Narae. His face said everything, and when our eyes met, he gave me a slight bow of his head. Every line of his face showed regret, and I knew if he could turn back the clock, he would. In a frenzy of heated anger and bloodlust, he had changed his life forever. He had to take a new yareah, and maybe, just maybe, the one he’d had was the only woman he would ever love. To know how close she was, simply in Logan’s quarters, and yet never be able to speak to her again, had to be an inconsolable pain. I hoped one day he would heal.
“Here we go,” Crane breathed out.
The priest called the challenge to order, had us all look down as the four panthers came into the pit: Ammon El Masry and his maahes, Rector Vincent, bounding fast, Logan and Domin padding in slowly, holding close together.
“The victor is the semel who lives,” the priest announced. “Normally the challenge is one on one, but the semel-aten wished for his new maahes to stand with him.”
And I knew why. Ammon was going to kill Domin fast and make Logan suffer.
“Should the semel-aten be triumphant, he may put under the knife all those who have challenged him.”
Which meant the priest as well as Logan, myself, and anyone else he felt should be executed.
“Should another semel prevail, he will be the new semel-aten, master of Sobek. The semels in the pit are allowed to shift to their werepanther form, as this is ordained by law.”
“Your Grace,” Danny said, rising. “May I ask for clarification?”
Why?
“You may.”
“The semel who kills the semel-aten, he then becomes semel-aten; this is the law, is it not?”
The priest looked confused. “It is.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
When he sat down, I looked at him.
“As my semel asked of me,” he said with a smile, “so I have done.”
And he was speaking in that way that we all did when we read the law: formally, with purpose. What the hell?
“The challenge for the seat of power begins now!”
It looked like every challenge I had ever seen in the pit. The panthers flew at each other, snarling, roaring; the clash of tooth and claw came fast and furious, slashing, biting, power and bloodlust filling the arena.
I held my breath, terrified, knowing that whatever happened, my life would change. As I had stood with Logan outside the ger before he left, I had kissed and hugged him with every drop of love and desire I had in me. He had to know that he was everything, my whole life, and when he nodded, unable to speak, I was certain he did. But now, as I watched him bleed, I felt my heart squeezed in a vise of pain.
“Logan’s stronger than both of them, Jin,” Crane assured me under his breath. “Don’t doubt it for a second.”
I took a breath and heard Yuri do the same on my right. I didn’t turn to look, couldn’t, my eyes riveted on Logan even as I was sure my sheseru’s were riveted on Domin. I had not seen the mark that Domin had put on him, but I had watched him reach behind his neck and touch what I was sure was a hell of a scar, raised and silver with scar tissue, on the back of his neck. He could not keep his fingers from tracing over it, and if it hurt, Yuri didn’t seem to care. I was scared for him, what it would mean for him if Domin died. I felt my power rise, and that fast Crane’s knee was against mine, his hand on my back.
“Hold on, Jin, this is gonna be alright.”
But if Logan died, what would I do? What would I become?
Ammon sh
ifted to his werepanther form, and I was breathless with anticipation for Logan to do the same.
Seconds ticked by.
Why didn’t he shift?
He had to shift!
What the hell was he waiting for? Ammon would tear him apart! The half-man/half-panther form was the strongest of all!
Logan!
“Wait,” Crane said suddenly. “What’s going on?”
And I was as confused as he was. As the four panthers circled each other after the last vicious attack, instead of Logan squaring off against Ammon, he had taken a small half-step back so Domin could rush forward to meet the semel-aten. They hadn’t even looked at each other, but it was like… it was planned.
“Oh shit,” I whispered as Domin shifted to his werepanther form and the entire gallery gasped at the same time.
Domin.
“What the fuck?” Crane exhaled, and when I turned to look at him, I saw how big and round his eyes were.
“Logan’s not going to do it,” I gasped.
“Logan’s not gonna do what?”
I looked back at the ring, saw Domin and Ammon rush forward and meet, Ammon tearing at the werepanther that Domin was and him fighting back with his fangs and claws. Ammon’s maahes, the formidable Vincent Rector, the hired gun, the ringer, went to the ground fast under Logan’s superior strength and power. Any cat versus a semel was no challenge at all, and even though Logan had not shifted, had remained in his panther form, it didn’t matter. Had he been fighting Ammon, the shift would have been necessary, but now I understood. If he had fought Rector in his werepanther form, the challenge would have been forfeit, but since he hadn’t, the challenge was valid. Once Logan had the large panther pinned to the floor of the pit, he held him there, immobile, and looked over at Ammon and Domin, as we all did.
The priest had thought that there were only two semels in the pit; it was why Logan had asked Danny to make sure the law was repeated….
The semel who killed the semel-aten then became the new semel-aten, that was the law. And Logan had made sure it had been spoken, to ensure Domin’s claim. Because there were not two semels in the pit of the tribe of Khertet: there were three.
People forgot that even though Logan Church had ended the lineage of the house of Menhit, had disbanded Domin’s tribe, he had not, could not, make Domin Thorne any less of a semel. No one remembered who Domin Thorne really was. When tribal leaders fought, semels were killed, and they changed often, no one truly caring about another tribe but their own. And maybe the priest could recall that Domin had once led his own tribe and maybe he couldn’t, but he, and everyone else in attendance, were about to be reminded.
You were either born a semel or not, and Domin had been born to lead, with all the power and strength and the true form of the station, the werepanther.
Ammon El Masry screamed in rage; he had wanted Logan, and here, in the final act, still he would be denied. Because unlike nekhene, which meant that I was different and that power lived in me, semel-aten was just a title. It did not make Ammon El Masry stronger than any other semel. It definitely did not make him stronger than a man who had changed and grown from the proud, scared, vicious creature he had been into the kind and gentle prince of his tribe. Losing his tribe had been the best thing that ever happened to Domin, but now he was ready to lead, and Logan, it seemed, agreed, because he wanted him to be semel-aten.
Ammon flexed his muscle and power through others, through orders; Domin used his own. I knew the second the killing stroke was delivered. I saw the surprise flicker over the semel-aten’s face, saw the hatred and rage and disbelief before his mouth opened and blood leaked out. He was dead when he hit the ground.
The silence was frightening before Domin turned, blood dripping from his claws, smeared across his fur, and looked up at the priest.
Domin shifted back to human form, as did Logan and Vincent, and each man knelt down on one knee.
I had no idea that so many people could go silent. No one even breathed in the room.
“I had thought,” the priest finally began, rising to his feet, “to proclaim the semel-netjer as the new semel-aten, as I had thought that the man who ruled the nekhene was most fit to be semel-aten, but it seems that Logan Church and I never had the same agenda.”
“No, you did not,” Domin answered, his voice strong and resonant as he rose from where he had been kneeling to his full height. “My brother wants to lead his tribe on his land and care for his reah and his family and his people. It is all he has ever wanted. As he remade me in his image, as I will always have his counsel as well as the counsel of his reah, Jin Rayne, I ask that you now proclaim me semel-aten, as I have won that right in combat by my victory in the sepat.”
The priest looked down at Domin Thorne. “What of Ammon El Masry’s household?”
“I claim Ebere El Masry as mastaba, mistress of my house.”
I had thought it was strange that Ebere was sitting one tier below me, as our mates were facing off in life and death combat in the pit, but now I was glad as I leaned forward and put a hand on her shoulder.
She curled her fingers around mine. “Bless you, Jin. I know this is your influence, and bless your maahes, my new semel. I will make him proud.”
But it wasn’t my influence; I didn’t even have a chance to speak to Domin. He had claimed Ebere so fast, seemingly without thought, as though he had already decided. I had no idea why. And while the act itself was good, I could not for the life of me grasp the reason.
“Will you name your sheseru and sylvan?”
“I will name them from the household of the semel-netjer but will need to ponder the choice before making my claim, Your Grace.”
Hamid Shamon stared at Domin Thorne, at a man he had not thought to share his home in Egypt with. He had wanted Logan because of the kind of man he was, but also because Logan was mated to me. He wanted the only nekhene cat in existence close to him. But as he gazed down at Domin, the strength in the man, the rippling energy that sparked off him, was impossible to ignore.
“Let us all hail the new master of Sobek, the semel-aten, Domin Thorne.”
The applause was deafening, and I let my head fall back on my shoulders as I closed my eyes. It was over. The sepat was finally, completely, finished. And my mate was coming home with me.
I couldn’t have stopped the tears if I tried.
THE receiving hall of the tribe of Khertet was massive. Carved out of the rock, it managed to be both elegant and rustic at the same time. There were furs on the stone floors and on the walls, and wrought-iron chandeliers hung from the beams of wood criss-crossing the ceiling. I had seen it the first day when I had walked through the home of the semel of Khertet with the other mates of the semels. So I knew what I would be missing when I sent Crane with my regrets that my mate and I would not be attending the priest directly after the close of the final challenge. We needed to be alone. He told everyone I was sick, and really, I was. Just the smell of the damp air in the cave threatened to flip my stomach over.
I had waited with everyone else right outside the entrance to the pit after the final trial was concluded, but unlike the others, I was alone. No one came near me, and that was fine with me, all of them more interested in talking to Domin.
The priest was disappointed, I could tell, and his eyes never fell on me. Jamal and Shahid would not look at me, and to every other panther there, I was the monster who had pulled them through their shift the day before. I had never felt more like an outsider.
So I was standing apart from the group when Domin and Logan came to join everyone after they had bathed and changed.
There was applause from every corner, the priest was there to greet my former maahes, and Jamal was close at his side. Their exchange was warm and genuine, and when the others asked permission to approach, it was granted.
Yuri was being patient, not wanting to muscle his way through, but the second the priest allowed others close, he moved quickly through the crowd and flung h
imself at my former maahes. I watched Yuri’s jaw clench before he buried his face down in Domin’s shoulder, trembling only slightly. Mikhail was there, then, and Danny, Andrian, and Taj, and Yusuke, with her hand in Crane’s. My tribe embraced Domin, and I was happy and sad. I would miss him, and I had just gotten around to truly liking him.
It was Domin’s moment, and I was glad, because he was restored to his birthright of semel in splendid, legendary style. But me being there, adding my voice, was meaningless. It didn’t matter, not really. I was only critical to one man, and he was all I saw.
Logan squeezed Domin’s shoulders as he walked by him, giving him that affirmation of closeness before he left. He didn’t pause to speak to anyone else.
The sepat was over, and so was anyone else’s dominion over the semel-netjer. We were both free.
His eyes were warm gold as he came forward, and I noticed the fluid stride, the play of flexing, rippling muscles, and the clench of his jaw.
He didn’t speak, and as he strode toward me, I noted the silence that fell over the assembled throng. There was not an eye not on Logan Church, and in that second, I understood what the priest had wanted.
Logan looked like a king. He had the demeanor of royalty; you noticed strength and power, a virile, pulsing energy that took your breath away. The man was a rock; he looked like shelter and home and safety. It could not be taught, the look, the bearing, the charm… it was pure intuition, and Logan had it. Everyone there but the man’s own tribe had only ever seen him in panther form or werepanther form, or bound and wounded, before that moment. They had never been treated to the breathtaking golden man before them.
Normally my mate did not put himself on display. He usually downplayed his own power, beauty and magnetism. But he was free of the madness, free of the threat of Sobek, of becoming something he never wanted, free of rules and tradition and law. He was going home, and everything that had been taken was returned to him. So he was glowing with pride and happiness and overwhelming relief. It was rolling off the man in waves. People were transfixed, and even though the priest of Chae Rophon was there, and the phocal and the newly made semel-aten, for a moment in time, the only thing anyone saw was Logan Church. And he didn’t have eyes for anything or anyone but me.
