Crucible of Fate (26 page)

A gust of air, and then the creature was back, coming toward me.

My knees weak, my throat dry, and my chest tight, I felt his eyes fix on me. I wondered if this was how I was going to die.

“Jin.”

He inhaled, and I was suddenly seeing a bruised and bloody Jin Church.

“Oh God.”

That was worse. If I had to choose, I’d rather die myself than watch him succumb. I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to get him out of the cave. If he was shifted, he could fly out, but reverted now back to just Jin, what was I supposed to do?

He crumpled to the ground, and I was running before I even realized I was moving.

I went to my knees beside him, pulled him into my lap, and curled around him, trying to give him any body warmth I had left.

“Domin.” Jin’s voice, which I had always teased him about, was now the sweetest sound I had ever heard. “Don’t cry.”

I couldn’t even speak.

“I searched and I saw no trace of Yuri, and I don’t sense him in here at all.”

I searched his face.

“I swear to you, he’s not in here.”

There was no way he could know that.

“Please keep your eyes open,” he pleaded. “Please, Domin.”

But there were spots in front of my eyes.

He twisted around in my lap and put his hands on my face. “You’re ice cold.”

But he was the one, naked, who was shivering. “You’re so strong now. That dragon thing was new.”

He shook his head. “It’s not, did it once before. Logan hates it.”

“I can understand why.” I coughed and my whole body hurt. “There’s a walkie-talkie back over there by Hanif. If you get it, we can at least see who might answer.”

“You should shift to panther, you’ll be warmer.”

“But I’m not like you,” I said softly. “I’m not me when I’m a panther.”

He didn’t argue, simply rose and shifted, rolling into his panther form in midstride. It was really something to see and never failed to amaze me.

I couldn’t keep from sighing. He retrieved the walkie-talkie and dropped it onto my stomach, then nuzzled against my side, head down on my chest.

Pressing a button on the device, I gathered myself and then said, “Is there anyone there? Please. Anyone.”

Nothing.

“Yuri.” My heart was breaking.

Dead air.

I gazed at Jin. “In case I… so you know, I killed your father, not Yuri. I mean, I know Crane probably let you know, but he wasn’t in there and he doesn’t know what I did and what Yuri did. We never said. I didn’t even tell Logan. But for the record, so you know, it was me.”

He lifted his head and gazed down at me.

“I wanted to bring him back and kill him again, Jin. I hated him. You deserved so much fuckin’ better. I wish it was different, and I wish he had been different, and I wish I could tell you that at the end he recanted it all and realized what he’d done.”

He nuzzled under my chin.

“You’re a gift, Jin, so please run out of here to Logan.”

He just cuddled tighter against me.

“Nobody fuckin’ listens to me,” I grumbled. “Some akhen-aten I am.”

“Domin!”

I was wrong. The voice of my mate was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.

“Domin Thorne!”

I lifted the walkie-talkie.

“Domin, goddamnit! Please!”

Pressing the button, I choked out, “Yuri.”

“Oh, thank you, God,” he gasped on the other end.

Even over a crackly connection, he sounded so good I was ready to bawl.

“Where are you?” he wanted to know.

“With Jin.”

“With Jin? Jin’s okay?”

“No, we’re not okay. Are you bleeding?”

“No, baby, not my blood. Not Jin’s blood. I was the sheseru of my tribe, remember?”

I forgot sometimes. “You’re not bleeding?”

“I’ll be okay,” he comforted me. “Don’t you worry.”

And everything went dark, my vision going out on me, but it was fine. I didn’t need to be able to see to work the buttons. “Hanif’s dead. There’s only one guy alive in here with us, but he’s out cold right now.”

“Okay, we’re coming in, we just have to get people up here and more men and some bulldozers. It’s just a small cave-in, but enough to slow us down. You’re all right, though, aren’t you? You’re not hurt, are you?”

“Come get Jin.”

“We’re coming for both of you.”

“I might not… Jin’s cold,” I said, and then I heard a low whine from the panther purring on my chest.

There was nothing else.

Chapter 12

I
HEARD
my mate. He sounded hysterical.

“He has to shift.”

“If I drag him through it, he could die.”

“He’ll die if he doesn’t!” Logan yelled.

“Yuri.” I heard Jin’s gentle, patient tone. “What do you want me to do? It’s up to you.”

“Try,” Yuri heaved out the word, and I could hear the tears in his voice.

“Move,” Jin ordered, and I heard scrambling. “Domin Thorne, you will shift for me.”

But I wouldn’t, because Jin had no power over me anymore, and more than that, he wasn’t my mate. I’d never had anyone who wanted just
me
before Yuri Kosa. Everyone else let me go. Yuri was holding on.

I felt Jin’s power run over me, wash hot and scalding over my skin, and then sink into my bones, chasing away the chill. I took it in, absorbed it, and tried to pull more.

“Oh shit.” Jin sounded surprised.

“Love,” Logan sounded scared.

“I need—you.”

“Here, I’m yours.”

I wanted to see the big, strong semel holding his mate, but more than that, I wanted to see Yuri’s beautiful blue eyes.

“I can’t make him shift anymore—he’s like Crane now. My power recognizes him. It runs through my beset, but Domin just absorbs it.” His voice sounded shaky. “Oh, Yuri, I’m so sorry, I can’t make Domin do anything. He’s too strong.”

Yuri moaned softly, and his voice was thick with tears when he spoke. “I need him.”

Jin was crying, and I wanted to tell him it would be okay, but I was so tired. I’d tell him later.

I
T
WAS
quiet, but there was something tickling my nose. A smell I knew, a smell I liked. The breath on my ear made me shiver, and I felt goose bumps on my skin.

“Domin.” My mate’s voice was a rumbling purr. “You need to shift so you can heal, because I have things I want to tell you and more you should see.”

I felt like I was underwater and needed to swim up to the surface so I could talk to him. And I desperately wanted to talk to him.

“We’re back home, and everyone’s here.”

I was
home
.

“I have to tell you what Logan did,” he said, like it was a secret. The conspiratorial tone rolled right through me. “You’ll like it.”

I burned with curiosity.

“I’ve brought everyone in here, I even had Koren come to talk to you, and it did nothing,” he said, his voice husky and low.

I wanted to touch him so badly.

“And then Jin pointed out that I haven’t once been in here all alone,” he said, and I felt him slide the palm of his hand over my stomach. “I have to wonder at my own lack of self-confidence. Jin simply knows he’s what Logan needs, but it’s not just them. Every mated couple, just like regular married couples, assumes that the husband or the wife, or the mate, is the one the other craves. So I thought, what if I am simply missing the obvious?”

He slid his hand up to my chest as he pressed his lips down into my abdomen. It felt so good, and I made a noise in the back of my throat.

“Oh, I like that sound,” he growled, and it was low and dark and full of decadent ache.

My cock twitched and my breath caught.

“I had no idea,” he said, his voice thick with hunger. “I mean, I knew you enjoyed being in bed with me—you can’t fake what we’ve been doing—but I didn’t know that the sex was wrapped up in so much more. Forgive me for doubting. I knew you loved me, knew you almost died getting to me, but I didn’t know when you were saying the word ‘mate’ that it was truly what I was. I’m an idiot, and I can only say in my own defense that you’re all I ever wanted, so it’s been Christmas for me for the past six months already. I keep thinkin’ I’m gonna wake up.”

The hot hand closing around my cock made me gasp.

“Doc says that your brain isn’t making a connection to your body, and if it did, you could wake up.”

Instinctively, I bucked up into his hand.

“Do you want me?” he whispered, and it was sultry and hot and he stroked me until I was throbbing and hard. “Do you love me?”

I wanted to answer.

“I’m leaving if you don’t open your eyes and tell me.”

It was like rising through layers of thick, heavy fog.

“Okay,” he said, and his hand was gone. “I’ll be back.”

“No.” My voice was raspy and full of gravel, and when my eyes fluttered open, I closed them again quickly because it was so bright.

“Oh baby.” His hands were back, on my face, and he kissed everywhere he could reach, small, light, soft kisses that felt warm on my cold skin.

I smiled because I could feel it in his clutching hands, taste it on his lips when they grazed mine, and hear it in his halting breath: he loved me.

“Domin?”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Promise,” he insisted.

“I swear,” I said, opening my eyes again, and I saw how pleased he was, and how tired.

“Why are you scowling at me?” he asked as tears ran down his cheeks.

“Because you look like hell.”

He framed my face with his hands.

“I woke up to get laid,” I quipped, even though just that much talking was exhausting.

He leaned over and kissed me again, laughing into my mouth, so happy, even as I parted my lips under his, his tongue sliding over mine as he tasted me, savored and ravished me.

“You missed me,” I said as he kissed my eyelids and my nose, my cheeks, my forehead, my chin, and then fused his lips to mine once more.

“Sleep,” he commanded. “You’ll shift when you wake up.”

“Stay with me,” I ordered. “Right here. I want to smell you when I wake up.”

“Yes, my semel.”

“And I expect some action then too.”

I was kissed again and it was good.

I
WOKE
up ravenous.

“Shift,” Yuri said the second I opened my eyes.

It hurt, my muscles were sore, but I did it and lost time as I always did when I was in panther form. I was starving and there was meat and water, so much food, and I ate and drank my fill. When I was sated, I found my mate outside in the sun, lying down, and I crept over and joined him on a blanket in the grass. It smelled good, there was shade, and I could hear a fountain. I fell asleep curled into his side.

The next time I opened my eyes, I was in bed. I had been bathed; I knew because I no longer smelled like blood and dirt and sweat. I had felt gritty before, but now, smelling good, clean, lying on my back under freshly laundered sheets, I felt better. The best part of all was that when I rolled my head to the left, I found Yuri sleeping beside me on top of the sheets, barefoot, in jeans and a threadbare old T-shirt. The man was gorgeous all rumpled, and I would have reached for him, woken him up to hold me, but the sound of a throat clearing drew my attention. I found myself caught in the gaze of Dr. Pakhom.

“Oh,” I said, yawning. “Hi.”

She sucked in a breath.

“What?”

Quickly, she shook her head.

“Good Lord, woman, get a hold of yourself,” I grumbled.

“You scared me to death,” she said, then pursed her lips together in a tight line. “But I guess you’re going to be doing that a lot.”

“I hope not.”

She reached down to take my hand without permission.

“This is a slippery slope,” I said with a grunt.

“I want to hold your hand,” my doctor confessed.

I shook my head.

“Are you really planning to visit every tribe in the world?”

“Yes.”

“And are you planning to take me and my team with you?”

“Yes, if you’re up for an adventure.”

“I am.”

“Then, yes, you’re invited along.”

Her tears were instant.

“Oh come on,” I complained.

“No, you come on!” she ground out. “Scaring me to death, how dare you! Broken clavicle, deep puncture wounds, a bullet, for heaven’s sake—and still not fully recovered from an assassination attempt! Who are you?”

I let out a huff of air to let her know I was annoyed too. “And? Did you save Taj? Rahim?”

“Of course I saved Taj and Rahim!”

“Where are they?”

“That is for your steward to tell you,” she huffed, and I saw her begin to fidget.

“Do you need to hug me so you know I’m well?” I asked bluntly.

“Yes. Do you mind?” She sounded just as practical.

“No.”

And with that she bent and wrapped her arms around me for a long minute. When she straightened, I gave her a compliment, telling her that she was very beautiful for a doctor.

“Well, I’ve seen a hundred more handsome semels.”

I chuckled, and she said to get ready for visitors.

“Not in my room,” I groused irritably.

“No. Use your eyes, what do you see?”