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from my chest.
    He was stronger, I was weaker, and I calmed because he had
    reaffirmed my place at his side, in my tribe, so that my world settled and I
    could breathe.

    Honored Vow

    25

    We stayed frozen there together, and after long minutes, he gently
    withdrew his teeth. He licked at the spilled blood, at the wound he had
    made, and kissed and suckled at my skin.
    “Mine,” he told me as he rubbed his chin over me, his cheek,
    marking me with his scent, putting it all over me. “You’re mine.”
    I twisted around and buried my face in his chest. His arms wrapped
    me up, and he tucked my head under his chin. I was shaking hard,
    clutching at him, holding on for dear life.
    “Baby, you haven’t slept in days. Let me put you in bed, you need to
    sleep. You need to close your eyes. I have you, I’ll always have you.
    You’ll always belong to me.”
    “Oh my God, thank you,” Delphine gasped, and I heard her drop to
    the floor.
    “Christ,” Mikhail moaned, and I opened my eyes in time to see him
    slide down the wall so he was sitting with his knees up, looking
    completely wrung out.
    “Thank you, Logan,” Markel muttered.
    Yuri took a deep breath.
    “Rest, Jin,” I heard Mikhail murmur, his voice edged with pain.
    “Please.”
    “Yes,” Taj muttered. “Please.”
    I inhaled Logan’s scent and concentrated on the sound of his
    heartbeat. I wished I could lie down with him, curl around him.
    “When I get back with your beset, my reah, I’m all yours.”
    I had only his promise to comfort me.

    26

    Mary Calmes

    Chapter Three

    DELPHINE woke me the following morning and brought me the cordless
    phone.
    “Who is it?” I asked her, because Logan and anyone else close to me
    would have called my cell; it had to be someone else.
    “I’m not sure,” she said, squinting at me, her hand on my face. “But
    I think maybe it’s somebody who knows Russ.”
    Someone who knew Logan’s youngest brother? “Russ?” I said,
    putting the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
    “Hi, uhm, is this Jin?”
    “Yes, who’s this?”
    “Really?”
    “Yes,” I said irritably.
    “Sorry,” the woman said quickly. “I just, I think I thought with a
    name like Jin that it was short for Ginger or something.”
    “I’m sorry, who is this?”
    “No, I’m sorry, I’m Samantha Ritter, uhm, you know, Russ’s
    Samantha.”
    Russ’s Samantha… Russ’s Samantha….
    “He said he told you about me?”
    He had told me… crap! “Oh.” I sat up in bed. For the first time in
    days, some part of the world did not center around Crane Adams. “Yeah,
    he told me. How are you, Samantha?”

    Honored Vow

    27

    “I’m not that good, actually. A couple nights ago Russ didn’t come
    home, and the police found his car this morning, and from the looks of
    things, he was attacked by an animal.”
    Fuck.
    “I’ve been really trying not to freak out, and people have been
    saying that he probably just went out with the guys and lost track of time,
    but I checked with everyone, and nobody’s seen him, and, God, I just
    don’t know.”
    She was rambling because she was terrified, and I understood that.
    “And I called the police, and now they’re not sure, because I think
    they thought he was just out doing whatever, too, but that’s not like Russ,
    he’s such a grown-up, you know, but now, with his car and everything, I
    just…. And he said that if anything strange ever happened to him, which
    makes no sense but it’s what he said—he told me to call you.”
    “Okay. Uhm, Samantha did Russ happen to tell you where he was
    going the night he didn’t come home?”
    “Yeah, he was supposed to go see a man named Blake… Blake
    Dempsey.”
    I moved the phone away from my mouth and covered the receiver
    with my hand. “Delph!”
    She didn’t turn around.
    “Delph!”
    Nothing.
    I pulled my sock off, balled it up, and beaned her in the back of the
    head with it.
    She turned from where she was looking outside and faced me.