Honored Vow by Mary Calmes

him. “I am. How was your trip?”
    “Quick,” he said, smiling at me. “I’m glad you’re coming home, Crane needs you. He won’t shift back, and we can’t let him out to run on the grounds because we’re afraid of what he might do to himself.”
    I nodded. “So he’s locked in a room in his panther form?”
    “He’s not locked up, all he has to do is shift and he can get out.”
    “But he won’t.”
    “No.”
    I took a breath. “I just want to go home.”
    He was looking at me, staring, and I saw his brown eyes bleed to cat green a moment before he dropped to the floor.
    I had not been there to protect Crane. I had let him be taken and violated and maimed. How could I have done that? He was my best friend, the closest thing I had to a brother.
    “No!” Miguel shouted, and it was chaos in seconds, everyone yelling, the fear and panic drowning me, choking me.
    “Jin!”
    I lifted my head, and Logan was there and I was wrapped in strong arms and held tight.
    “Logan!” Justin roared.
    “Baby, I’m here,” my mate told me.
    I clung to him, pressing against him as hard as I could, freezing suddenly, wanting to draw every bit of warmth I could from him.
    “You’re panicking, and you don’t need to,” he soothed me. “I’m right here. You’re safe.”
    I was trembling, my teeth chattering as he tightened his hold so I could feel his heart beating. I felt a hand in my hair, his other arm around my waist, and his lips on my forehead as he tried to soothe me with his presence, with his body. He smelled like stale air and musk, with a faint trace of the cologne I had bought him for Christmas. I wanted to crawl inside him where I knew it was safe. I clutched at him, my fingers digging into the hard muscles of his back, holding on.
    “Logan!” Justin yelled. “Either claim your reah or step aside!”
    “He’s mine!” Logan roared out his ownership, and the primal sound sent a flush of heat through me, my mouth opening on his throat.
    “Show me,” Justin challenged him.
    Logan’s low growl was answered by my moan that was part growl, part purr.
    I was spun around hard and slammed against the window, only my hands splayed on the glass keeping me from going face-first into the hard surface. My sweater was yanked and tugged, and I heard the ripping and then the cool air on my skin as the shredded garment slid off me and fell to the floor at my feet. Logan fisted my hair and pushed my head down, causing a shudder to tear through me.
    “Mine,” he whispered in a voice more animal than man as fangs were driven deep into my skin, holding me there hard, pinned, under his teeth.
    I whimpered and whined, my cock so hard and needy that, that fast, I was leaking in my jeans.
    “Clear the room!” Yuri commanded.
    I pressed back against Logan, rubbed, and ground against the now-hardened bulge in his dress pants, sliding my crease over his arousal.
    “No.” Justin’s voice was cold and hard. “The law states that any semel may watch another semel take his mate at any time. Miguel and I will remain.”
    “Yareah,” Domin Thorne answered him, his voice just as icy as Justin’s had been moments before. “Not reah, never reah. No one shall bear witness to a semel taking his true-mate.”
    Domin knew his law well.
    “Get the fuck out,” he growled from low in his chest.
    “So the maahes of the tribe of Mafdet commands,” Yuri said, his voice booming through the room. “On his word—out!”
    I was panting with my devouring need and did not follow all the movement behind me, but when the door slammed shut, Logan withdrew his fangs and took a step back from me.
    Whirling around, I lifted my face to his, and I saw that his eyes had bled to all gold. He had not shifted to his werepanther form, but he was trembling on the verge of it.
    My body responded to the strength in him, his beauty and dominance. I got out of my clothes as fast as I could, kicking off my sneakers, unbuckling my belt, shucking out of