Honored Vow (6 page)

He lived off Fourth Street, and Delphine told me that once we found him, we should all go for crêpes at this place that he had taken her the last time she visited. There was no question in her mind that everything would turn out fine. At six that evening, we knocked on Russ’s door.

The woman who answered was breathless. “Hello?”

“Hi again.” Delphine smiled, pushing around me. “Remember me?”

“Ohmygod,” Samantha sighed, lunging at Delphine. “I wanted to call you so bad, but Russ was very specific and told me that if anything ever happened that I should call Jin, not you, and I don’t know why, but he was so—
so
adamant, and now… ohmygod, thank you so much for coming!”

The two women hugged tight, and slowly, Samantha calmed enough to meet me. Her eyes took me in. “It’s so good to meet you. Russ always goes on and on about you.”

“Well, I kind of like him a little bit too.”

She nodded fast, eyes filling. “I don’t know what to do.”

But I did. “Samantha, could you tell me and Delphine where Russ went to meet Mr. Dempsey?”

“Of course.”

After we left the apartment, promising Samantha to call and give her an update in a couple of hours, I told Delphine that now was the time to scrutinize the list for Los Angeles again.

“It’s a huge city,” I told Delphine when we were back in the Dodge Neon with me driving this time. “I bet the semel here has a maahes and several akers below him, it’s the only way.”

“Oh, Jin,” she said, grimacing. “I have no idea what you just said.”

“About what?”

“What’s an aker?”

I shot her a look.

“What?” she snapped at me. “We just––our tribe wasn’t like that, Jin, you know that. And especially me and Koren and Russ, we didn’t receive any formal training in werepanther law at all. Only Logan got that, and even he didn’t get enough. Until Logan made Domin his maahes, I had no idea what that even was.”

Domin.

“He’s gonna kill you when he finds out you left.”

“So guess it’s lucky for me that he’s not living at the house anymore.”

She made a face. “I miss him.”

“Me too.”

“I hate this.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Just say it.”

“No, I—it just sucks.”

“What does? Domin and Koren?”

“Yeah,” she sighed, finally turning to look at me from staring out the window. Her eyes were red-rimmed.

“Awww, sweetie, don’t cry; they’ll figure it out.”

“Oh, Jin, I don’t give a shit. If we’re being honest, I hope Koren gets home from one of his many business trips and finds out that Domin’s mated and adopting babies. It would serve him right to lose the love of his life because he’s too big of a coward to claim him.”

I snorted out a laugh. “Really? This is your brother you’re bashing.”

“I know, but look at my brothers: I have Logan, who knows exactly who he is and what he’s about, and Russ, who’s the same kind of guy, if you think about it, and then we have… Koren,” she finished, disgust dripping from her voice.

I started laughing.

“Who is a wishy-washy pansy piece of crap!”

“He does love Domin.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Delph, you know he does.”

“If he did, he would be able to make a commitment.”

“He’s bisexual and he’s not sure what he wants.”

“The bisexual has nothing to do with anything and by the way––bisexual, my ass! I have never seen the man light up like he does when Domin walks into a room. He melts like butter. I don’t even make cow eyes like that and I’m a girl!”

“Are you sure?”

She smacked my leg really hard, which just made me laugh harder.

“Ohmygod, Jin, how stupid is Koren? He knows who he wants to screw him and that’s about it,” she said irritably, obviously disgusted. “He’s so fuckin’ scared of taking a chance, he’s terrified of what my father will really think, and he’s worried about missing out on some perfect picture of the perfect family that he’s got stuck in his head. He’s absolutely terrified of making a choice one way or another just in case it’s wrong, so he’s not; he’s just dog-paddling on the surface and not diving deep.”

“Huh, how very profound of you.”

She growled at me. “I’m just saying, he’s scared of standing up like Logan and saying fuck you all, this is who I love, step up or step off.”

“Now you’re gangster?”

“God, I hate you right now!”

I laughed harder and she shoved me, which was dangerous with me driving. “Speaking of Koren,” I said, “where was he when you left?”

“He wasn’t there. Isn’t he out of town?”

“No.”

“Oh, that’s right, if Logan is, he can’t be.”

I nodded. “Like the president and the vice president, can’t have them in the same place at the same time or both not at home. Somebody has to be protected and safe, either the semel or the heir.”

“But where was Koren, then?” she asked me.

I had no idea. I had not even thought about him when we were plotting our escape, and why was that? Why didn’t I….

“Oh, I know,” she said quickly. “He had to go to Avery’s mating ceremony, remember?”

“Shit, that was tonight,” I groaned, only then remembering that Christophe Danvers, the semel in Reno, had invited Logan and me to attend the mating ceremony of his sheseru, Avery Cadim.

“I know Avery wanted you and Logan there, but since Logan was gone and you were on house arrest, Domin had to go, and Koren would have had to go too….” She trailed off, wincing.

“I bet they’re sitting there in silence glowering at each other.”

“Or Koren’s dancing with all the pretty young things and Domin is just sad.”

And suddenly I understood what she had been saying earlier. I didn’t want Domin to be sad or alone. He didn’t deserve to be waiting or cast aside. He didn’t. I wanted him to find the guy, the smart guy, the strong guy, the guy who could deal with his bullshit and not break. I had thought it was Koren, but apparently I was wrong. We all were. And now I wanted a prince for the prince of my tribe.

“I hope he’s not sad.”

But I had bigger concerns. I knew Domin well enough to know that the man had a self-destructive streak in him a mile wide and that he liked to test his limits. I had talked to Ivan, his former sylvan, and Markel, and understood the level of bad boy that Domin had once been. I didn’t want him slipping down the rabbit hole into danger; I didn’t want to lose the man that Logan had created, just because his heart was broken. When I had seen him the few times in the fall, at Christmas, New Year’s, and one other time a week or so ago, there was a hardness in him that I had seen when we had first met but that had been missing for so long. I had been worried, and then he had come with me and Yuri and Logan to the morgue, and he seemed grounded. I wanted to talk to him, but really, we had never been friends.

“We’ll all have to keep an eye on Domin,” I told Delphine.

She smiled at me. “Isn’t it funny to even be thinking like that?”

And it was.

“You know, if Koren could actually pull his head out of his ass, then all my brothers would be on the right track, although Russ is being a little bit stupid as well.”

“It was probably just a mistake.”

“Oh, I forgot I wasn’t supposed to shift? Oopsy.”

I smiled at her.

“He wouldn’t have to worry about it being all or nothing if he wasn’t trying to turn his back on his entire culture.”

“Well, apparently he’s picking and choosing what parts to keep.” I had filled her in about what I thought had happened while we were together on the plane.

“Which is just fucking brilliant, I mean, Christ, Jin, you don’t get to keep the parts you want and say screw the parts you don’t. God, I’m gonna beat the crap out of him.”

And she was certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she would get that opportunity. I really hoped she was right.

Chapter Four

“S
O
,” D
ELPHINE
said as we walked toward the Italian bistro where Russ had gone to meet Blake Dempsey two days prior. “Tell me what an aker is, now?”

I did a slow pan to her.

“What?”

“You were serious about that?”

“Yes, I was serious, just tell me already.”

I gave her an eye roll and got a swat on the arm as reward. “You’re supposed to respect me,” I told her.

“I missed the memo,” she volleyed back.

“Fine, in large tribes, ones with either a big territory or just a lot of members, there is usually a maahes, or prince, and under him are akers. There is normally a manu and a bakhu, always an even number, always ruling as a set. So, like, two people here, two there, whatever. They report to a maahes who, in turn, as you know, reports to the semel.”

“So like a sheseru and a sylvan but not reporting to a semel, reporting to a maahes.”

“Except it’s not a position that’s chosen, it’s a position that’s fought for. The strongest wins, you fight for it in the pit, and it can be challenged at any time.”

“So if I wanna be a manu or a bakhu and I think I’m stronger than the guy or girl who has the title now, I just tell my maahes and he puts us in the pit?”

“Exactly.”

“That sounds barbaric.”

“It’s survival of the fittest.”

“But the positions of sylvan and sheseru aren’t decided that way.”

“The semel chooses the strongest when he’s picking a sheseru and the smartest when he’s choosing a sylvan. If he decides that someone else is stronger or smarter, he replaces them.”

She turned to look at me. “Are you kidding?”

“No.” I smiled at her.

“I had no idea that Logan could replace Mikhail or Yuri if he decided to.”

I shook my head at her, and she playfully shoved me away.

“But then how do you account for the bond between a sheseru and reah? Wouldn’t Yuri still have that even if, say, Logan replaced him?”

“But that’s hardwired into the animal part of him, so that’s not logical, it’s primal. Yuri is the strongest after his semel, and as the strongest, he protects the mate of his leader. That’s all built into the part of Yuri’s brain that has nothing to do with him as a man and everything to do with him as a panther.”

“I guess I don’t separate it because when I’m a panther, which I hate being, by the way, I’m not really aware of being a panther. I can’t look at the experience through my human eyes like I guess you and Logan can, I just become an animal.”

“Logan can’t.”

“Logan can’t?” She was surprised. “I thought he could?”

I shook my head. “When Logan’s a panther, he knows me, and that’s as far as his reasoning goes. I mean, just like any other panther, he won’t attack a cat he knows or has scented before, but if another cat tried to get close to me when he’s in shifted form—he’d tear them to shreds.”

“Anyone.”

“Anyone,” I assured her.

“Jesus.”

“It’s why there’s a whole laundry list of precautions when dealing with a semel and his true-mate that are different if he has mated with a yareah.”

She nodded.

“But yeah, when he’s in his panther form, Logan isn’t really any more cognizant than you are.”

She let out a deep breath.

“What?”

“I—I just thought he was just like you.”

I shook my head.

“Then you’re even more amazing.”

“How so?”

“Jin, when you shift, you’re still you. When I shift, I’m like a wild animal with no ties to anyone. I could kill Markel in that state and not even know it.”

I chuckled. “No, love.”

“No?” She looked so hopeful, like she had been thinking about this. “I wouldn’t hurt him?”

My smile made her do the same. “Even though you think you’re just an animal when you shift, you’re still not.”

“I’m not?”

“No. All werepanthers make choices, even in their shifted form. You decide to kill or not kill, attack or not, fight or not, run or not. You would never hurt Markel because you know his scent; you know him on sight in human or cat form.”

“Really?”

I nodded.

“But Logan would kill either me or Markel if we were close to you when he’s in his shifted form.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Semels and reahs mate for life.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, so the bond is different, it works on levels that a mating with a yareah doesn’t, that matings between regular cats don’t.”

“Then what you’re saying is that if Logan had a yareah for a mate, I could be close to her when he’s in shifted form and he wouldn’t have a problem with that.”

“Probably not.”

“But you, because you’re his one true-mate, he’ll go nuts.”

“Yes.”

She was taking it all in. “Okay, so back to regular panthers, those cats that attacked Logan back when Domin had a tribe; they made that conscious choice to try and kill Logan.”

“Yes.”

“And Logan forgave them all how?”

“Because they were following their semel at the time,” I told her. “There’s no punishment for loyalty.”

“And the night you saved me from Markel, that’s almost two years ago now, he could have killed me and not even known because he didn’t actually know me then.”

“Markel was a sheseru, so he’s stronger than you, he has more control. He was never going to kill you, he was trying to scare you, and he knew who you were. The target was Logan, not you.”