Honored Vow (20 page)

Moving up beside me, he then looked at the man who had spoken. “Sain ta sain bainuu?”

The man was surprised that he was being responded to. “Sain banaa,” he said in return. “Ta yamar ulsaas irsen be?”

“Bi Amerikiin Negdsen ulsaas irsen,” Danny replied. “Ta angular yairdaguu?”

“Yes,” the man replied. “You did well.”

“Thank you so much,” he said as he smiled at him. “Tand ikh bayarlaa.”

The man who had been addressing Danny grunted at him. “So which one is the mate?” He sounded like he was bored out of his mind.

I stepped forward. “I’m the mate.”

“Oh,” he grunted. “The reah.”

And normally I got a little better reception than that.

“Not a big deal to you guys, huh?” Crane smirked at them. “See reahs every day, do you?”

“We have our own.”

This was news.

“Oh yeah?” Crane chuckled. “Who’s that?”

“Amirah Fehr.”

“Amirah.” I squinted at him. “We were told that Amirah Fehr had been killed by her semel.”

“No,” he told me, and I heard it finally, a trace of an accent as he spoke. “She asked for sanctuary with my semel and was granted it.”

“Does the priest know?” Taj asked him.

“He knows now.”

There was a silence.

“Well, even if you have a reah in your tribe, this is our reah,” Crane told him, “and you need to show him the proper respect.”

“Or?”

“Or….” I parted my lips, let my power out, let it uncoil and hunt. “You can feel the difference between reah and nekhene.”

“I—”

“Jin,” Crane cautioned me.

But we had been working on things, he and I, and my control was better, could be directed.

“Uuchlaarai!” The stranger wobbled and went to his knees, the other two following fast.

His head snapped back, and he met my eyes.

“I am the mate of the semel-netjer,” I told him, my eyes narrowing. “Don’t mistake me for anything less.”

“No, my reah,” he said quickly.

And I was proud that unless I wanted it to be, my power was no longer sexual at all. Now it was pure, breathing out strength, discipline, and will. Crane being with me had changed everything.

“Stand.”

He rose, and I tipped my head back to meet his gaze as he stepped closer, offering his hand now in greeting. It was a pissing contest, and I had won. American, Mongolian, it didn’t matter, we were all cats, and it only mattered who was alpha. Normally it was Logan, but here it was me.

“I’m the maahes of the tribe of Khertet, Chuluun.”

“Borjigin, right?” I asked, taking his hand.

He smiled suddenly. “That is the clan name of Genghis Khan, Borjigin; it’s not a real last name, just something to use. We don’t have surnames like you do, as they were illegal here for a very long time when the communists came to power.”

“Quick history lesson there,” Crane muttered under his breath.

“Stop,” I told him and then smiled at the man I had just met. “So just Chuluun, then?”

“Yes.”

“Then just Jin.” I took a breath.

I felt his hand clutch mine, and that fast, Yuri was beside me.

“
Ataide
,” he snarled.

The word that had come out of my sheseru was one I had never heard before, and since I doubted that he had been studying Mongolian along with Danny, I had no idea what I was hearing. But Chuluun must have, because he released his grip. He didn’t move away, though, and that was not making Yuri happy. I could feel his anger rising.

“What was that?” I asked him.

But he wasn’t looking at me, all his attention instead riveted on Chuluun.

“Ne trogai,” my sheseru growled.

“Oospakoisya,” Chuluun snapped back at him, but I watched the maahes take a step away from me, respecting Yuri’s wishes.

I took a guess at the language. “Russian, right?”

“Yes,” Mikhail told me, moving close before addressing Chuluun. “I understand that it’s a whole day’s ride, like, nine hours to Tsetserleg in Arkhangai aimag from here.”

“That’s a close approximation.”

“And how far from Tsetserleg is Vanchigdash, where your tribe lives?”

“Not far. We will pass the nature preserve, and then we’ll be there. Our home is in the side of a mountain, and there is a small valley that sustains us during the winter.”

“So you don’t live in the traditional ger? You—”

“The home of Orso Bataar, semel of the tribe of Khertet, was carved out of stone. It has a hot spring that runs underneath it, but the home itself is without electricity or running water,” he said, and his voice, the way he was standing suddenly, all of it suggested irritation.

Yuri said something else in Russian, and I wondered why until I saw the amazing transformation of his words on Chuluun. The man was visibly stunned.

“That’s really smart,” Mikhail said under his breath.

“What?”

“Yuri gave him commands in Russian so he’d know they have a common language between them—his accent is Russian, after all.”

“I thought that was a Mongolian accent.”

“No.” Mikhail gave me a hint of a smile.

“You did?” Chuluun speaking to Yuri in English brought my attention back to him.

He nodded.

“Good.” His dark black eyes locked on Yuri. “I’m glad you realized that to visit us would not be a resort vacation. We are a tribe that lives the same way we have for hundreds of years. Others have been less than appreciative of our home and culture and language.”

“We, unlike some of the others, are honored to be your guests,” my sheseru assured him.

I watched the tension, animosity, and defensiveness run out of not only Chuluun but the other two men with him. And I understood then. Everyone else they had picked up at the airport had not been thrilled with the accommodations. We didn’t care; we were just happy to have a roof, or a cave, as it were, over our heads. The maahes was pleased with us already.

Yuri then asked for the names of the two men with Chuluun, and he apologized for his lack of manners, and the long introductions began. They didn’t speak the lineage because we were all aware of what tribes we belonged to, so that extra posturing wasn’t necessary. But between all of us, it still took a while, and by the time we were ready to go, I was antsy. Just getting started, just driving somewhere, would make me happy. I wanted my mate, and just being in the same area as him, just knowing he was close, would help ease my rolling stomach, fluttering pulse, and jittery, like-I-was-on-crack demeanor. I knew I was a mess, but as soon as I saw Logan, in whatever form he took, I would be better. Just being in the same country as him had taken away my nausea. Things were already looking up.

“Can we go?” I asked after an acceptable moment of silence had passed.

“Of course.”

There were five Jeeps parked outside of Arrivals, waiting there at the curb with a driver in each. They looked just like the one I had at home, and when I told that to Chuluun, that pleased him as well.

“When you visit me, you can ride in my baby,” I told him.

“Thank you,” he said hoarsely, and the smile was genuine.

Crane and Yuri came with me in the first Jeep, and Chuluun got in to drive, replacing the man who was there, sending him to another. Mikhail and Danny were in the next vehicle back, and Andrian and Taj were in the third. All the luggage was piled into the fourth one, and the last had the rest of the khatyu that Chuluun had brought with him. Once everyone was seated, we got on the road.

“Are you hungry at all?” Chuluun asked us.

“Starving,” Yuri said from the passenger seat.

“No one is allowed to see their semel until tomorrow night, so we should get you all fed, since we’re not in a hurry.”

“Sounds good,” my sheseru agreed.

I wanted to say something, to ask why I couldn’t see Logan, but before I got my mouth open, Crane’s hand was on my thigh. When I turned to look at him, he gave me a slight shake of his head before he widened his eyes. And I got it. It was time to listen, not speak.

“Can you give us the timeline?” Yuri asked.

“For the beginning of the trials, you mean?” Chuluun wanted to clarify.

“Yes.”

“Well, as your sylvan said, it will take us all day to reach our home. Tomorrow morning when you rise, all mates of the semels and their entourages will meet with our semel and the priest of Chae Rophon. He is here with his phocal and his Shu warriors to officiate the sepat, but he will only interfere if he sees a rule broken. The trials themselves will be performed by my semel, myself, and our tribe. It was a great honor to be chosen to host the sepat, and my semel has had the priest here for eight weeks preparing him.”

“Why did the priest choose your tribe, do you think?”

“The security of the location,” Chuluun answered him, glancing over at Yuri. “And because my tribe won all the tests of strength at the last feast of the valley, and two of our number became Shu warriors. I myself was asked to take the oath of the Shu but prefer to stay as the maahes of my tribe. My semel asked me to remain as well.”

And I had known he was powerful, I could feel it rippling off him.

“You must shift very fast.” Yuri smiled at him.

“Yes.”

“I don’t,” Yuri confessed.

“But I remember you in the pit in Sobek,” Chuluun told him. “A stronger, more powerful panther I have never seen.”

Yuri nodded but said nothing.

“So after meeting your semel and the priest in the morning,” Crane chimed in. “Then what, maahes?”

“Then the day is for the mates to prepare themselves to see their semels, and that evening they will.”

“When my reah sees his mate,” Yuri began, “what happens?”

“Our pit is attached to the cells where we keep prisoners when—”

“You lock up members of your tribe?” I asked him.

“Of course, don’t you?”

It was an outdated, archaic practice, and I was beginning to understand why the priest had chosen the tribe of Khertet. They were not modernized and seemed ensconced in old practices and antiquated ideas.

“Sorry,” I said quickly. “So your prison, you said, is attached to your pit?”

“Yes.”

“So there’s a door,” Yuri clarified.

“An enormous grate that lifts and lowers,” Chuluun explained. “All the semels will be released through it to find their mates, and we’ll see who comes out alive.”

“So the preparation that the mates are doing during the day—that could be them preparing for their deaths.”

“Yes,” Chuluun said solemnly. “I am sorry.”

“Not to worry,” Yuri said with a shrug. “The mate of our semel is his reah, there’s no reason to even worry.”

“Of course.”

“So we’ll be above them, we’ll be able to see.”

“Yes, our pit was built like most, like a coliseum, with entrances on the top and bottom so you can walk around the rim of the room and see everything that’s going on below.”

“I look forward to seeing it.”

I watched Chuluun nod and turn his head just enough to catch a glimpse of Yuri out of the corner of his eye.

As he drove, I studied the maahes of the tribe of Khertet.

He was just as tall as Yuri, but he wasn’t as wide through the chest or shoulders. His hair was black like mine, but whereas mine was so dark that Logan always said he could see blue highlights in it, Chuluun’s looked like there might even be streaks of brown in his. He had sharp, chiseled features and dark-bronze skin that set off deep-set sepia-colored eyes. Striking man, and his voice complemented him, low and husky.

“Since you’re going to have nothing but traditional food soon, lots of mutton, goat, maybe we should stop for some Thai food for now or—”

“Whatever you choose will be great,” Yuri assured him.

“I—” he coughed, “—apologize for earlier and—”

“Zaboot.” Yuri smiled, cutting him off gently.

“Spasiba,” Chuluun whispered back.

We drove for an hour, and slowly, cautiously, my sheseru prodded the maahes with questions about the trials. Yuri’s would start on the third day; the test of blood was first, then Mikhail’s, the test of law, and finally mine on the fifth day, the test of heart. He then prodded about the reah, where she had come from, why his semel would allow her sanctuary and not simply return her to the semel-aten.

“We don’t know yet who the semel-aten will be,” Chuluun told him. “Might we simply be gifting the semel-netjer with another reah?”

“No.” Yuri smiled, stretching languidly, and I saw the maahes open his mouth to take a breath, taste my sheseru’s scent in the air. “You misunderstand. My reah was not simply taken as my semel’s mate because Logan Church chose to do so; my semel is semel-re first, semel-netjer second.”

Chuluun looked at me in the rearview mirror. “You are the true-mate of your semel? You’re not simply a reah that he decided to take for his mate that was born on his land?”

“I’m his true-mate, he is semel-re.”

He grunted. “Then my semel’s….”

“What?” Crane asked after he realized that Chuluun didn’t want to say. “Your semel’s what? Does he have a plan to use Amirah as an added bonus test?”

It was obvious that the other man was flustered.

“He’s using her,” Crane said as Chuluun took a turn off the highway into what looked like a busy metropolitan area. “Does your semel have a plan, maybe? Use the reah to screw with the other tribe leaders?”

He couldn’t say; it would be dishonorable, disloyal. The way he wiggled in his seat, uncomfortable suddenly, was enough of an admission.

“I doubt it was his idea,” I said, relieving Chuluun’s semel of any wrongdoing, putting the blame firmly where I was sure it deserved to be. “I’ll bet you that Ammon El Masry found her and made Orso take her in just for the purpose of using her as a diversion in the sepat.”

“Yes,” Chuluun agreed, sighing deeply. “The reah is to be used as a diversion. No semel can ignore a reah, the semel-aten said.”

“So he brought her with him, or she came before him?”

“Before,” he told us. “She came asking to join the tribe at his request. As you know, he could not ask Orso to take her unless she belonged to his tribe, and she did not. She belonged last to the tribe of Ariat.”

She had belonged to a semel who had killed himself over her betrayal. And she had not forced him to take his own life—no one could force anyone to do that—but she had been the catalyst.