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always in different places,
    and he hired buses for those who couldn‘t afford the transportation
    themselves.
    The gatherings that Logan had were on his own land, and since his
    family owned a hundred acres of it above Lake Tahoe, there was more
    than enough room. The land itself was probably worth millions and had
    been handed down from generation to generation. It would have cost a
    fortune to develop, as high up as it was. The lower area, house, and
    glassworks, were owned solely by Logan himself and me. My name was
    on everything right next to his. If anything ever happened to him, it was all
    mine. Not that I cared about wealth. What I cared about was Logan. I
    needed him; the rest was gravy.
    Most of the semels of city tribes would not be able to tell the
    members of their tribe just by looking. Only the semels of tribes that
    stayed together, in one place, that were more like extended families, only
    those could say for certain who belonged and who didn‘t.
    It was funny—Logan Church lived in a small place; he had a small,
    lucrative business that generated a reliable source of income, enough to
    support himself, his family and his home. He funneled quite a bit of funds
    right back into his business and so stayed profitable. He was not a rich
    man, but neither was he a poor one. Since I had become his reah, more and
    more people had joined his tribe, settling in Incline Village just to be close
    to him—and close to me.
    Logan should have been a small and insignificant semel of a
    forgettable lake town tribe, but at last count we had a little over two
    hundred members. The monthly gatherings and hunts were now run more
    like festivals, and Logan had just mandated that more khatyu, fighters, be
    trained to police the events. He had put Markel, Domin Thorne‘s former
    sheseru, in charge of the new recruits. I had concerns about the growing
    numbers of our tribe—I wanted us to stay a large family instead of a
    group—but as Logan had become semel-re, a semel who had found his
    reah, his true-mate, and word had spread, there was no way to curb the
    influx of people. For me, though, as reah of my tribe, it meant that I would
    need to spend more and more time receiving people and visiting homes if I
    wanted to remain on a first-name basis with everyone. I had no idea how I
    28

    Mary Calmes

    was going to do that unless I quit my day job. Logan had suggested it
    more than once, and while I protested, the reality of my situation was
    becoming increasingly apparent.
    Music off, there was only silence as I descended the staircase. A path
    was made for me, and Artem led me to one of the chairs by the couch. I
    took a seat and a woman stepped in front of me, kneeling down, offering
    me her hand.
    ―Good evening, my reah,‖ she said, beaming at me. ―I‘m Jennifer
    Eames. It‘s so good to see you.‖
    I took her hand, covered it with my other, and smiled at her. ―And
    you, Jen. How‘s school going?‖
    Her smile went neon. ―Oh, you remember?‖
    I tried to know everyone in my tribe; it was what you did when you
    were the mate of the leader. And a reah was made to mother everyone; it
    didn‘t matter that I was a man. I was the same.
    ―Of course,‖ I told her.
    If it was me, I would not have stood in line just to say hello to my
    reah. I would have taken the opportunity to get something to eat while
    everyone else was distracted. But I sat and met everyone in the house, one
    after another, until I heard a gasp, whispers, and looked up to find Mikhail
    Gorgerin, the sylvan of my tribe, striding across the room from the front
    door. Everyone moved for him, parting fast, and he stepped in front of me
    seconds later.
    ―Hey,‖ I said tiredly, caught in his cobalt gaze. ―What‘re you doing
    here?‖
    ―Artem Varda called his sheseru to tell him that he was protecting
    his reah and that Yuri should not worry.‖
    Shit.
    ―Artem knows, as does every khatyu, that a reah should never be
    unattended or