Crucible of Fate (11 page)

“The man is not my heir,” I corrected him.

“But by law he is, and as you have not put forth a new heir, if you were to die….”

“Then he would be semel-aten.”

“Yes.”

I had to laugh. “I will announce an heir tonight.”

“Excellent, my lord, but about Shahid—”

“What about him?”

“You’re not concerned?”

“Of course I am,” I said brusquely, “but what would you have me do?”

“My lord,” Jamal came closer. “I’ve tried to speak to Shahid, and so has Taj, but he won’t—he seems very set on his course and—”

“I’m sure he is.”

He moved closer still. “Perhaps if you were to—”

“Even if he liked being in bed with me, even if he remembered, that does nothing to help my cause.” I said, going back to gazing out at the valley and across to the mountains. “He thinks I’m unclean, and perhaps he knows that better than anyone.”

There was only silence behind me, so I assumed Jamal had nothing more to say. I could shock anyone if I put my mind to it.

I
T
WAS
hot, but it always was. There were different degrees of heat. But it was never cool except in the shade or sometimes at night. So on the dais at one end of the coliseum, even under the canopy of silk stretched over the throne, I was cooking in my robes. The layers suffocated though the material itself was lightweight. But it was the least of my problems. The worst was the scene before me.

Crane reappeared when they called for the challenge, walking in from the courtyard, matching the stride of his man. I received no explanation; he didn’t even acknowledge me as he strode by, intent only on reaching the forum as quickly as possible. I couldn’t stop the contest even to have a word with him, with my absent maahes. It was not permitted. As I followed after him, I started devising all the creative ways I was going to kill him.

I held my breath. The trial was like nothing I had ever seen. It was called warriors of the Sun-God, or Khatyu of Ra—and it would not be bloody but was instead fast. Every challenge I had ever seen in the pit was beast against beast or semel against semel, shifted werepanthers trying to carve out each other’s hearts. I had never been witness to a race.

The challenge was simple: Elham’s best man against Crane’s.

I sat on the throne, Mikhail on one side of me, Jamal on the other, knowing that once Elham won, he would demand Crane’s head and then take his place in my circle, thereby able to spread venom and claim Ebere, by law, as his mate. Rahab Bahur would have access to everything I did, and between he and Elham, they would slowly siphon off my power a little at a time until I was left a prisoner in my own home. Worst of all, they would, eventually, come for Yuri after they stripped me of everyone else.

I was sick.

I was furious with Crane for allowing his pride to make a path not only to his destruction but mine. I could taste the bile in my throat.

Jin would never forgive me if Crane died, and even worse than that, there was Logan.

I shivered even though the sun scorched me from overhead. “You swore you had an answer for this challenge,” I called down the steps to Crane.

He was silent as the two riders entered the packed arena, each seated atop a stunning Arabian stallion. I had never seen such beautiful horses, one black, one white, as was fitting.

Crane stood five steps below me on my right, Elham on my left. He glanced over his shoulder at me and smirked.

“Domin.”

Head up, I found myself swallowed in the dark-green gaze of Koren Church.

“May I stand by you through this challenge, my lord?”

I nodded, the lifeline so very needed.

“Good.” He stood at my side and put his hand on my shoulder.

The priest of Chae Rophon, Asdiel Kovo, stood up three seats away from me as trumpets sounded. The riders quieted their mounts and then moved them to the starting line. There was a second blast as both animals flew forward. It was beautiful to watch such a gorgeous display of strength, the fluid movement of man and beast becoming one.

No one spoke, no one made a sound, and only the breath of the horses, the thunder of their hooves striking packed earth and the urgent cries of the men were heard.

Everyone watched as the horses thundered toward the turn. The riders were supposed to dismount, strip, shift, and then race back to the steps where their “master” stood. The first one back won. The khatyu of Ra, in legend, were supposed to have been able to fight in either form—man or panther—at a second’s notice. Only the Shu were thought to be capable of such a display of shifting prowess in this the modern age, and Elham had been lucky enough to find a former member of the Shu to stand in the challenge for him.

Watching Crane, I realized how proud he was as he lifted the robe that was supposed to receive his rider. Elham did as well, his sneer of contempt as he regarded Crane easy to see.

“Here’s the shift,” Koren whispered.

Both men steered their mounts, and both leaped from the back of the horse, but that was where the similarity ended.

Crane’s rider hit the ground already shifted and burst free of the flowing robes, the turban, and all other articles of clothing, sliding out from under the flutter of white to reveal the sleek, muscular lines of the only black werepanther in the world.

The crowd came to their feet as one and the roar was deafening as Elham’s rider shifted almost instantly. It would have been impressive if the other—the change of the nekhene cat— had not been on display. He moved in a blur, streaming up the steps as the other panther raced in futile attempt to catch him.

He was already cocooned in the robe, had it cinched at his waist, and was facing the crowd, his long, thick black hair whipping back from his face by the time Shahid Alon reached the bottom step and lifted his eyes to Elham.

Everyone screamed as Jin Church, reah of the tribe of Mafdet, mate of the semel-netjer, turned to me, and along with Crane Adams, bowed low.

“The claim of Elham el Masry is denied,” the priest of Chae Rophon announced loudly to the assembled crowd. Even I could hear the regret in his voice. The man had wanted Crane dead and me in peril, but it was not to be. “What say you, semel-aten? Do you claim his rider as your own?”

He posed the question out of ritual; he did not actually expect an answer.

I glanced over at Shahid, shifted now back to human, and saw the terror on his face. “I claim him again for the Shu,” I said as I rose to my feet. “And if he’s mated, I claim his mate and any and all offspring of that union.”

I was always thorough.

The man closed his eyes, and I saw him breathing again.

Son of a bitch.

Shahid had left the Shu and married and sired a child. Of course he would do anything to protect that, and God only knew where Elham and Rahab were keeping his family. Perhaps Shahid had not sought them out, but instead, perhaps my enemies had gone hunting for him, searching for the ringer, a former member of the Shu to win with.

Sometimes I missed things, but other times I had to go with my gut. I had thought, no matter what, that Shahid didn’t hate me, and lo and behold, I was right. He was protecting people I didn’t even know belonged to him.

“You cannot!” Elham El Masry roared.

“He can do as he pleases,” the priest spoke before I could. “He is the semel-aten.”

I had never imagined hearing thousands of voices roaring my name at the same time. “Domin Thorne” sounded like thunder in the arena.

When I noticed Elham, I saw him think about striking Shahid, the panther who had failed him only because there was no cat in the world faster than Jin Church. But then Jamal Hassan was there, the phocal of the priest, leader of the Shu, to step between the two men and deliver his threat.

“As the semel-aten has demanded, I expect this man’s family here in no less than three days, and should any of them be harmed in any way, the Shu will come for your head.”

It was never to be forgotten that while the Shu protected me, they were also assassins, the deadliest in the werepanther world.

“I told you.” Crane smirked, and I flicked my eyes to his. “I always have an answer.”

It took every shred of self-control I possessed not to walk over and throttle him. Instead, I patted Koren’s hand before rising and walking over to Jin.

He was beautiful. I had noticed that the first time I ever laid eyes on him. From the blue-black hair that fell glossy and straight to the middle of his back, the large almond-shaped gray eyes, and his delicate, sharply angled features, he was simply breathtaking. But what made him exquisite to me, to everyone who knew him, was his heart. Jin was the embodiment of the reah—he nurtured, he counseled, and he stood devotedly beside his mate.

He could also be absolutely
terrifying
.

“My lord.” Jin bowed low, and I reached under his chin and lifted his gorgeous gaze to me. His eyes were so much like liquid jewels that sometimes, for a moment, I became lost in them.

“He went to you when he should have come to me, talked to me.”

Jin straightened and took a breath. “Yes. I made it clear that it was wrong. I yelled at him.”

But even though he’d admonished Crane, telling him that it was indeed wrong, Jin had done his bidding in a heartbeat anyway. I wondered for a moment what that must feel like, that safety net, to know that the most powerful werepanther in the world would cross an ocean to stand at your side.

“I, too, was a maahes,” I said softly but seriously. “And I never let my semel sweat, no matter how much I wanted to prove a point.”

Jin’s power rose, and I felt it reach out, curl around me like a cat, rub against my skin, roll through me with a gentle vibration before it receded and there was only Jin once more. The reason was easy to understand.

Yes, he was agreeing with me, and yes, Crane had been wrong, but still, deep down, Crane was first Jin’s beset, the companion of a reah, and I was taking him to task. Even more so, I had allowed Crane to be placed in danger.

“Jin—”

“I made a mistake,” he confessed, and there was a slight blush to his cheeks.

We had both made one where Crane Adams was concerned.

Wheeling around, I had the Shu arrest both Elham El Masry and Rahab Bahur. As they were led away, the cheers became deafening.

R
AHAB
B
AHUR
wanted to kill me. It was there in his eyes though he gave no voice to it. He trembled with fury. To his right, shackled to a bar, stood Elham El Masry.

“We beg mercy for them, my lord,” the priest of Chae Rophon had the balls to say to me.

The sheseru, sylvan, and maahes of the tribe of Wepwawet were all there on their knees in front of me. Elham had no one to stand for him since his tribe was his brother’s old tribe, which was now mine. Anyone who had planned to challenge me had backed down once the surefire solution had been annihilated in front of everyone. To those who were not there, everywhere else in the world, it would be reported that the maahes of the semel-aten had easily dealt with a challenge to his seat. Had Crane lost, had anyone but Jin been in the pit for him, for me, it would have meant a coup. Not within a day or a week, but surely within the month, I would have been dead. My reign would have come to an end. I would have been overthrown, and a new semel-aten would have been crowned. As it was, as events had transpired, my position of power had been upheld, and really, another attempt was unlikely. This had been their best chance; they had been so certain that they had tipped their hand at sedition. It had been a mistake.

Everyone waited hours for me. I sequestered myself in my quarters, in what I called my office but was honestly a large receiving room. Had Yuri been there, I would not have had to make calls. As he was not, there was only one place to go for counsel.

“Hello?”

She sounded good even on the satellite phone. “Delphine.”

“Domin.” She sighed and then squeaked. “Oh no, I mean, my lord—I mean—”

“Please just let me be Domin,” I directed her. “Please.”

I heard a soft chuckle from her, then, “Yes.”

“May I speak to Logan?”

“Oh Domin, I’m so sorry but we’re frantic here and it’s the middle of the night and—”

“Please.”

Silence and then muffled voices and sounds before Logan answered with his usual charm.  “What the hell do you want?”

I grunted. “I have your mate, semel-netjer.”

Long silence, and I knew, because I’d grown up with the man, that Logan Church was calming himself down before he said another word. It took a lot to get an explosion out of him.

“I’m sorry?” he rasped.

“You heard me. Crane needed Jin, he called Jin, and Jin came, because we both know he honest to God thinks that you don’t need him there right now.”

Deep breath. “I’m going to choke him to death with my bare hands.”

“Are you?”

“I swear to God, yes,” he muttered irritably.

“Will that be before or after you fall down at his feet and worship him?”

He growled. “I don’t worship my—”

“Yes, you do. We all do. He’s like some Egyptian god made real. For all we know, the stories about the gods are instances of sightings of werepanthers. Jin is the only link to our divinity, and even more so… he’s your mate, my friend. He’s the other half of you.”

“The other half of me is being ridiculous.”

“But that’s because he has no clue about true parent/child relationships. Jin actually believes that there can only be one primary love; he doesn’t know that nothing changes between you and he. He doesn’t get that you can add your son to your heart and how you feel about him doesn’t diminish in the slightest.” He started chuckling, and I was annoyed because I thought mine had been a very sage observation. “Fuck you, Logan.”

“Jin knows all about the love between a parent and a child, Domin. He’s just got his feelings hurt because, like you said, he thinks I don’t need him here right now. He thinks that my son and I are fine.”

“And are you?”

“What do you think?” he snarled. “My mate should be in my bed every night. I can’t be me if he’s not right here.”