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wrist. The evil glint in his eyes said I wasn’t fooling him in the least.
    Watching him walk away was almost physically painful. What the hell was I supposed to do without my mate for two weeks?

Chapter 2

     
    Y URI had called me once from the road and apologized for accidentally taking the wrong phone with him. He’d taken his regular one and not the satellite, so the reception would be spotty at best. I had not been amused.
    “You did it on purpose,” I groused.
    “I really didn’t,” he said, chuckling. “But please don’t worry. I’m under your protection. Who would dare touch me?”
    It was not comforting. I had not been able to talk to him since. I wasn’t really worried—more annoyed with him for not being more careful—but I didn’t even have time to do that properly because of everything swirling around me. I was lucky a new semel wasn’t expected to host the Feast of the Valley until the second year of his reign. I would have been royally screwed since it would have been a mere three weeks away. How it was July already, I had no idea.
    “Elham,” Ebere said, standing when I walked into the room. I still didn’t know what she was doing in Sobek. Maybe it was time to pin her down.
    “What?” I said curtly, feeling like I had just walked into a conversation already in progress.
    “We still haven’t talked about him.”
    “First off, what the hell are you doing in Sobek? Cairo too boring for you all of a sudden?”
    “I was getting to that.” She was annoyed but trying not to let me hear it in her voice. “And no, I love Cairo. I came to talk to you about Elham. I––”
    “What’d you do with your kids? Ditch them somewhere?”
    She glared at me. “My children are safe with my mother and their aunt, my lord. Thank you for your concern.”
    I grunted. “So now you want to talk? You haven’t wanted to fill me in about anything since you got here.”
    “I know, and I’m sorry.”
    “And now, after days of silence, you want the topic of conversation to be your dead husband’s brother?”
    “Yes. Please.”
    “Why would I want to discuss anything about him?”
    “Because we must.”
    I groaned. “Why?”
    We were friends after six months, so alone, behind closed doors, I could treat her however I liked. She was the mate of the last semel, his yareah, and I had saved her from losing any status at all after I killed him in the pit. Taking her as my mastaba, or mistress of my home, put her and her children under my protection. If I never had any offspring of my own, hers would be my heirs. And even though she had two girls and neither of them could ever be semel-aten, whoever was named next would then protect them as my progeny. It was all very tidy, and I liked it. So did she. But now there was a problem, one that she was apparently ready to talk about.
    “Because Elham was Ammon’s brother,” she said. “If he fights Crane in the pit and wins, when he becomes maahes he can ask you for me, and by rights, you cannot refuse him, as his lineage gives him prior claim.”
    “This is boring old news that I know already,” I retorted.
    “You’re not taking this seriously,” she volleyed back. “Where is your sylvan? He needs to give you his counsel.”
    “I don’t need my—”
    “Elham is going to become your maahes and take me from you if he beats Crane Adams in the pit.”
    “Crane can beat him.” I dismissed her concerns as I walked over to the enormous monstrosity of a desk that came with the whole semel-aten gig. It was all hand-carved out of some extinct wood that surely had been prettier shading a stream somewhere.
    “It’s not just a simple test of strength in the pit, you know.”
    My eyes flicked to hers.
    “You see,” she said as she threw up her hands. “You have no idea what—”
    A knock on the door stopped her.
    I growled and then yelled for whomever to enter.
    The door opened and Kabore Nour walked into the room. He was my steward, in charge of the