Honored Vow Read Online Free PDF Page B

scarce little in the way of
    information on nekhene cats, said that the most important thing we could
    do now, from what he had read, was to show the nekhene the bond
    between myself and my semel.

    Honored Vow

    23

    The only reason I had been able to contain myself at the morgue and
    not let my power run out of me was Logan. If he was there, right there
    with me, hands on my skin, the nekhene was contained. The reah that I
    was first was Logan’s mate, so the nekhene responded to the familiarity of
    the bond. But if he was not close enough to touch me, kiss me, maul me,
    the wild creature that my body housed got restless when it was hurt or
    frightened or threatened.
    The priest had told me before I left Sobek that some of the ancient
    texts spoke of the nekhene as not a kind of cat at all but instead as an
    inherited power. But I knew the truth; it was simply a mutation of speed
    and size. And yet, in all shifts I had ever seen before mine, basic
    composition did not change, only musculature shifted. But now, for me, I
    morphed into something else altogether. It made sense, then, that the
    nekhene was power and not simply biology. And yet how could that be?
    Shifting wasn’t magic, so nekhene power had to be the same, something
    that could be explained logically.
    I told myself about logic and reason and science every single day,
    and every single day it made less sense. My skin, sometimes, was all that
    kept me from flying into a million pieces.
    “Jin.”
    And when I didn’t feel like me, I lost myself just a little.
    “Please, Jin,” I heard Yuri whisper from where he sat beside me.
    “Please try and breathe. Please calm down.”
    I had trouble focusing past whatever it was that had coaxed the
    nekhene power from me.
    “Jin!”
    My name, yelled, finally brought me from my thoughts at the same
    time I realized that my heart was pounding in my ears and I was
    breathless.
    “You’re making me sick,” Mikhail growled from across the room.
    “Please, Jin, please breathe.”
    I got up and walked to the picture window and stood there, my
    forehead pressed to the cold glass.
    “What’s going—oh,” Delphine gasped behind me. “I think I’m
    gonna shift.”

    24

    Mary Calmes

    There was shuffling in the room. I heard the front door lock open,
    the door hitting the wall with a bang, and then Yuri’s roar for his semel.
    There were others close by; I was aware of them, but my eyes were
    closed as the ache swelled inside, got bigger and suffocating, and the pain
    overtook me.
    “What’s—Jin,” I heard Logan say my name, felt him closing on me.
    “Logan,” Taj said from somewhere close. “Do something. I feel like
    I’m going to claw my way out of my own skin.”
    “I—” Mikhail gagged. “I’m going to shift right here. I can feel it.”
    “Logan,” Yuri panted, and I could hear his fist slowly pounding on
    the wall. “Please, I can’t… I’m gonna shift too.”
    “Jin!”
    When I felt Logan’s hand in my hair, I tried to lean away, but he was
    stronger and so grabbed me and held tight, not allowing any movement.
    “Stop,” he ordered sharply. “You think if I touch you, you’re gonna
    break. You won’t.”
    I didn’t turn to look at him.
    He yanked hard, cocking my head back at the same time his other
    hand wrapped around my throat. His mouth was at my ear. “You will
    submit to me because I’m stronger than you.”
    I took a deep, shuddering breath and felt something deep inside
    deciding. I could even imagine the gentle swish of a cat’s tail like a
    pendulum, thinking… thinking….
    “You’re mine, and all your pain is mine too. Trust me with it, my
    reah.”
    But how could I? He was leaving me, and I needed to reach Crane.
    “Stop,” he ordered me.
    I tried to pull free of his hold.
    There was a growl from his throat before he bent my head forward,
    moving my hair, baring my shoulder, and he buried his fangs in the curve
    of my neck.
    I jolted under him, and a sob rose