Trusted Bond, page 14
“Tomorrow, if you feel up to it, we will accompany the new yareahs to the museum here in Sobek and have lunch, and then after, perhaps we will all stroll the marketplace.”
Like I was some newly mated blushing bride of a semel that had no prior contact with werepanther heritage or lore, he thought to include me in history tours and planned outings. I didn’t answer him.
“Your civility will bring you that much closer to your mate.”
There was no way for me to refuse. Anything that got me the promise of seeing my mate, I would do. As it was, instead of being allowed to return to Logan, I got to lie in bed, longing for him, knowing he was somewhere on the grounds of the mansion, villa, whatever it was, feeling the same warm night air on his skin, breathing in the same scent of jasmine and wanting me just as desperately as I wanted him. “Please,” I replied, my voice low and husky.
“Please what?”
“Please, semel-aten, allow me to accompany you to the museum and marketplace.”
“As you wish. You only need to make your requests to me reverently as befits my station. To make demands is a mistake.” It was, and I had to be smarter, I had to play his game. “You said earlier you had met one other reah, counting me. Who was the reah, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Her name is Amirah, and she was my wosret for a time.”
“What happened to her?”
“Last year at the feast, we were walking together through the roof gardens, and her eyes locked with those of the semel of the tribe of Ariat.”
I looked at him.
“That was all there was, just a single glance. I saw her face, I saw his… had I insisted she stay, I would have had to live with knowing that every moment of every day, she longed for another.”
“So you understand why I need my mate,” I said hopefully, blessing Amirah wherever she was for opening this door for me. His brows furrowed. “She is a woman, her mate a man; it is a natural state for both to be drawn to one another, and so their stations as semel and reah are enhanced by their union. The same bond cannot possibly exist between you and your mate. Yours is a perversion of nature and can be seen as nothing else. I do not doubt that you are truly a reah, as my own senses tell me it is so, but to say that you need Logan Church as Amirah did Terrance McCord is a gross exaggeration, for it cannot be.”
Because Logan and I were both men we couldn’t possibly love the same as a man and a woman… this was his feeling, his truth. I almost broke down. To have the most powerful semel in the werepanther world not believe in the love between me and my mate was overwhelming. I couldn’t eat anything more. Rising and then falling to one knee, I softly asked his permission to retire for the evening.
His brows furrowed. “I have many questions, reah.”
“Oh,” I said innocently, making my eyes big and round. “Of course I will answer any that you have, as my need for sleep pales in comparison to your need for answers.”
His lips pressed together in a hard line. “I will allow you to retire and will have the servant here to summon you to the main dining hall in the morning. I expect you to wear the keffiyeh that was placed in your room for you, as well. It is unseemly for a reah to have their head uncovered in any company but their mate’s.”
“Then I will leave you at once and cease to offend,” I said, rising fast, bowing quickly and turning away back toward my room.
“Reah.”
I stopped and looked over my shoulder at him.
“The game you find yourself playing will not sway me from my course. I will have you whole and well and have your life illuminated for me before I return you to your mate.”
I stared at him.
“If I return you to your mate,” he clarified. “I promise you now, reah, that if your safety cannot be assured, and if your semel is found lacking in the pit, then he cannot claim such a prize as a reah. I would be remiss in my duty to you, as would the priest, to not assure your continued well-being.”
“Only the priest can part a mated pair,” I corrected him as I had Jamal as well. “And only if the reah requests it or seeks sanctuary. You know that.”
“The semel-aten, as the leader of all werepanthers, may change the law as he sees fit.”
It was crap and he couldn’t but getting into a pissing contest with him would get me nowhere. “And as I said before, your well-being is my only concern.”
My well-being had everything to do with Logan and nothing to do with anything else. He didn’t understand, it was beyond him, and so trying to explain it to him was a waste of time. “As you say,” I replied, walking without stopping again back to my room. I drew the gauzy curtain behind me so there could be no mistake that he was not welcome to follow.
Collapsing down onto the bed, I felt hot tears of frustration well up in my eyes. If for some reason the priest saw fit not to return me, I wondered how long I could live without Logan before I went mad. Already beyond my ravaged body I felt something deeper, a longing that was trying to claw its way out of me. My first thought was normally never violence, but when the words had come from Ammon that he would decide when or if I could see my mate, I had wanted to tear his throat out.
It surprised me that there was no rise of boiling anger but instead just cold, flat, barren hatred. I was changing, twisting, my need eating me up, and I was almost frightened even as I pushed aside the thoughts as simply a normal reaction. Any lovers who were purposely parted would hate and revile the instrument of their separation. What was scary was that there should have been seething rage in me and there was only hate. I had passed anger and fury and gone straight to wanting to have his blood pooled at my feet. It was not like me, and as I pulled the satin sheets over my head, having turned off the lamp on the nightstand, I realized that my teeth were chattering and I felt like I was slowly freezing to death. Something was wrong, really wrong, but what?
Chapter Eleven
I HAD exchanged one cage for another. I was no freer to find Logan or leave where I was put than when Laurent Bruyere imprisoned me. The difference was that before I had harbored hope. Now I found myself with nowhere to turn. The semel-aten could keep me from my mate indefinitely if he wanted. On a whim, his whim, my life would either stop or continue on. I had no choice but to wait and see.
The priest of Chae Rophon who was supposed to be my advocate apparently didn’t care enough to even check on me. But why would he? I was one of millions. But not all cats were reahs, and this was the only thread of faith I had left, the only I allowed myself. Perhaps as a curiosity factor the priest would come see me. I appeared when I was summoned to the main hall in the morning. I wore the keffiyeh as I had been instructed, and it was held in place with the agal on my head. Like a small turban, it covered all of my hair, and the only part of my face that was visible was my eyes. The women at the long table, the yareahs, were all dressed the same, the difference being that their keffiyehs were made of sheer, iridescent material in different shades of red. Mine was black like my clothes and the sandals that I had been given.
It was interesting that the custom seemed like those of women in Middle Eastern countries, the way their heads, and in some places, their entire bodies had to be covered in the presence of any other man but their husband. Where the difference was for me was that as the mate of a semel, even though I was a man, the custom was extended to me. Had Delphine been in the room, she would not have had to be covered any more than the semel-aten was, but I had to be cloaked, as did all the yareahs. And I knew that most of the laws had been in effect since ancient times, laws that kept other men alive, as they could not see the mate of a semel and so were not able to lust after them and incur the semel’s wrath. The laws were there to protect others so a semel didn’t rip them to pieces. As I sat at the other end of the long table from the semel-aten, I greeted the women that spoke to me. Only the new yareahs were there. Vaguely, I wondered where Simone was before I remembered. Logan had told me that as the mating fell so close to the feast that neither she nor Ethan would be there. His maahes would attend in his stead, as a honeymoon in Sobek was not on the agenda for the semel of the tribe of Tefnut and his new yareah. I would have to call her when I got home. I wanted her to know that I didn’t blame her for talking to Laurent Bruyere and telling him my whereabouts. She had no idea that the man was going to hurt me, no idea he was a psychopath and wanted to take me from my mate.
My true-mate.
Logan. I wanted to see him so desperately. Wanted to kiss him, hold him, and be wrapped in his arms. Thinking about his hands, his tongue, his lips, I felt quick heat rush to my groin. I wanted to be under him. Have him inside me, filling me.
The ache was raw, and I didn’t suppress it, didn’t fight it, instead letting it roll through me unchecked and surrendered. The screams wrenched me from my thoughts.
“Reah!”
I looked up at the semel as he stood at the end of the table, hands fisted at his sides, staring daggers at me. “If you cannot contain yourself, I will have you sequestered in another part of the estate.”
What the hell was he was talking about? Contain myself how? Not feel? Not think? I wasn’t doing anything different from what I normally did, but apparently what was going on inside of me was affecting others. But I couldn’t stop that, change that. There were times when I was with Crane when he said that he could feel when I was happy. Other people seemed to be able to sense it too. But only ever a small group, one, two, even three at most, but never an entire room and never to a point where they were overwhelmed. I didn’t have that kind of power. I was just a panther. I was a reah, yes, but not something magical with supernatural gifts. It was ridiculous, and having him blame me was crazy. My eyes flicked to his. He swallowed hard. “I feel every emotion you have, but I am strong and able to withstand the onslaught. Others”—he gestured at the table full of panting, whimpering yareahs—“are not as strong. Either control yourself or I will do it for you.”
I loved how I was never Jin, only “reah.” I knew exactly what I was to him. I was a freak-show curiosity and nothing more. “Reah!”
“I beg forgiveness,” I said icily, my eyes locked on his.
The muscles in his jaw clenched. “I would like nothing more than to tame this stubborn streak of yours, but this is not my place.”
It was only Logan’s place.
After several heartbeats of strained, tense silence, he looked away. “Come, everyone, finish your meal.”
I wolfed down the rest of my food, speaking to no one, but I noticed when I looked up that every eye looked away. Clearly they were frightened of me. When the meal was concluded and the servants were removing the dishes, I saw Roshan Tabir and two other men I had never seen before crossing into the hall from the opposite side of the room from where I had entered. They had come from outside and brought the scent of the outdoors with them. For whatever reason, my sense of smell was heightened, and I noted the aromas of sweat and leather and amber oil.
Roshan turned after saying something to Ammon, but before he could start for me, cross the room to my side, his semel called him back. “I will have Sabrey accompany us to the museum. Roshan, you may take your leave, as I know you have much to do with securing all the matches for both the trials of Thoth for the Shu and the honor challenges between tribes and within houses.”
His eyes flicked to me, but he only nodded to his semel before he left. No matter how badly he might have wanted to talk to me or check on me, he was not about to defy his semel to do it. I should have cared that he left—he was, after all, the man I had called, the only sheseru there—but I didn’t feel like he was mine, not part of my tribe, so watching him leave was fine. Minutes later, a woman walked into the room with a child attached to each hand. She was elegant and tall, not beautiful but striking nonetheless with her dark hair, bronze complexion, and almond-shaped brown eyes.
“Everyone, come meet my yareah, Ebere El Masry, mistress of Sobek.”
All the yareahs rose at once and flocked to her; I rose after a moment but froze as a little girl barred my path, peering up at me, studying my face.
“Yes?” I asked, since I didn’t do that well with kids. I had a hard time remembering being one, and as a rule I bored them or made them cry. “You’re a boy.”
I squinted down at the dark cherub. “Yeah… and?”
She shrugged. “I dunno, you don’t hafta be such a grouch.”
I knelt down so that we were eye to eye. “I’m Jin.”
“Jim?”
I sounded it out for her. “Jh-in.” “Jin,” she repeated, smiling. “I’m Femi.”
“I like your name.”
Her smile got huge, all toothy. “How come you hafta wear a keffiyeh if you’re a boy?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed, because I didn’t want to get into it. “Are you going to the museum too?”
She made a noise like she was dying. “Yes, my mother says I hafta go again. I hate the museum so much. I could watch movies or ride Pitch or play with Brownie.”
“Pitch is a horse?”
“Yeah.”
“And Brownie is a dog or a cat?”
She giggled. “Brownie’s my ferret.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed ferret.”
“He’s cute, you wanna see?”
“Maybe after the museum.”
“Okay.” Her face fell as she slipped her little hand into mine. “How old are you?” I asked as I rose over her. “Seven, but I’ll be eight in March. Do you know when March is?”
“You’ve got awhile.” I sympathized, since it was summer. “I know.” She sighed deeply. “Hello.”
I looked up, and Ebere El Masry was standing before me hand in hand with her other, older, daughter.
“You’re the reah.”
“Yes.”
“You need to bow before me, reah; I’m mistress here, not you.”
It was really annoying that I brought such bitchiness out of every yareah I ever met. But it was the whole reah-trumps-yareah thing, and even as I understood, it was tiring. It was like they were all afraid for a second, afraid that I was actually their semel’s true-mate, and then the second the danger passed, the minute they knew I wasn’t a threat, I got paid back for making them worry in the first place. I wondered vaguely how she and Amirah had done. Ammon had said that he and Amirah had been strolling when she found her true-mate, not him and Amirah and Ebere. I was betting I was about to be paid back for Amirah’s sins as well. I went down on one knee and bent my head. “We’re gonna walk to the museum together, Mama.”
There was a long silence.
“Rise, reah.”
I stood up and realized that the little girl was still holding my hand. “My husband says you are dangerous, reah. Are you?”
I shook my head.
“Walk by me,” she ordered as she took the long piece of beautiful maroon silk from one of the serving women. She wrapped it intricately around her head and face until she was just as covered as the rest of us. The child, Femi, was a blessing. Her sister, Catava, was a pain. She was as cold as her mother and just as humorless. But Femi was cute and funny and so unlike either of her parents. I wondered vaguely who had raised her. “I was living with my grandmother in Cairo until last month, but now Mama says that I have to come here and learn about being a panther.”
It all became clear. Obviously this little girl’s grandmother and mine had been cut from the same cloth. As we walked, she chatted, telling me absolutely every thought that came into her head. I was very thankful for the distraction.
The museum was bigger than I expected and reminded me of every natural history museum I had ever been in. There were lots of dead animals stuffed in uncharacteristic “attack” poses, armor, pottery, statues, and paintings. The exhibits were extensive: history of the railway, irrigation, and life along the Nile. The gem room was pretty, the mummification room creepy, and the history of werepanthers, shown in large, detailed frescoes, enough to bore me right out of my mind. I wasn’t surprised to see Femi’s eyes rolling back in her head. She would be in a coma in no time. “What’s that?” Femi pointed, dragging me across the room to an enormous mural on the far wall. As I had seen the same scene presented a million different times in a million different ways over the course of my life, I knew what I was looking at. “Sweetheart, that’s the history of how werepanthers came to be.” I smiled down at her.
“Tell me.”
“You know this,” I assured her. “You tell me instead.”
“I promise I don’t.”
I groaned under my breath.
“C’mon,” she insisted, squeezing my hand. “Fine.” I pointed at the reliefs. “Thousands of years ago, there were wild panthers in Egypt”—I gestured toward the group of cats toward the middle of the wall picture—“that eventually bred with African wildcats to create you and me and every werepanther that lives today.”
“Why did they want to be together, the panthers and the wildcats?”
“Well, a lot of old books tell us that the panthers were being hunted and killed, and the wildcats, which were self-domesticating—”
“What is self… whatever you said?”
I liked her. She wasn’t afraid to speak up and ask questions, and that was normally missing in kids I met. She had her own mind, fostered, I was certain, by her grandmother. “Jin?”
“Sorry,” I said, smiling at her. “It’s like the wildcats chose to live with people.”
“How come?”
“Probably because the people fed them.”
“Oh, okay.”
“All right, so the cats, this new panther-wildcat mix, they found that not only did they want to live with people, they wanted to be people,” I said, pointing at another relief. “So one day one of them shifted and became the first werepanther.”
“Who was it?”
I pointed at a statue across the room. “That is Sened, one of the rulers during the Second Dynasty, and he took for his wife”—I pointed to the statue to the left—“Nashwa, who was, supposedly, the first of us who could shift.”
She walked over and looked at up at the sandstone statue. “She’s really pretty.”
Like I was some newly mated blushing bride of a semel that had no prior contact with werepanther heritage or lore, he thought to include me in history tours and planned outings. I didn’t answer him.
“Your civility will bring you that much closer to your mate.”
There was no way for me to refuse. Anything that got me the promise of seeing my mate, I would do. As it was, instead of being allowed to return to Logan, I got to lie in bed, longing for him, knowing he was somewhere on the grounds of the mansion, villa, whatever it was, feeling the same warm night air on his skin, breathing in the same scent of jasmine and wanting me just as desperately as I wanted him. “Please,” I replied, my voice low and husky.
“Please what?”
“Please, semel-aten, allow me to accompany you to the museum and marketplace.”
“As you wish. You only need to make your requests to me reverently as befits my station. To make demands is a mistake.” It was, and I had to be smarter, I had to play his game. “You said earlier you had met one other reah, counting me. Who was the reah, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Her name is Amirah, and she was my wosret for a time.”
“What happened to her?”
“Last year at the feast, we were walking together through the roof gardens, and her eyes locked with those of the semel of the tribe of Ariat.”
I looked at him.
“That was all there was, just a single glance. I saw her face, I saw his… had I insisted she stay, I would have had to live with knowing that every moment of every day, she longed for another.”
“So you understand why I need my mate,” I said hopefully, blessing Amirah wherever she was for opening this door for me. His brows furrowed. “She is a woman, her mate a man; it is a natural state for both to be drawn to one another, and so their stations as semel and reah are enhanced by their union. The same bond cannot possibly exist between you and your mate. Yours is a perversion of nature and can be seen as nothing else. I do not doubt that you are truly a reah, as my own senses tell me it is so, but to say that you need Logan Church as Amirah did Terrance McCord is a gross exaggeration, for it cannot be.”
Because Logan and I were both men we couldn’t possibly love the same as a man and a woman… this was his feeling, his truth. I almost broke down. To have the most powerful semel in the werepanther world not believe in the love between me and my mate was overwhelming. I couldn’t eat anything more. Rising and then falling to one knee, I softly asked his permission to retire for the evening.
His brows furrowed. “I have many questions, reah.”
“Oh,” I said innocently, making my eyes big and round. “Of course I will answer any that you have, as my need for sleep pales in comparison to your need for answers.”
His lips pressed together in a hard line. “I will allow you to retire and will have the servant here to summon you to the main dining hall in the morning. I expect you to wear the keffiyeh that was placed in your room for you, as well. It is unseemly for a reah to have their head uncovered in any company but their mate’s.”
“Then I will leave you at once and cease to offend,” I said, rising fast, bowing quickly and turning away back toward my room.
“Reah.”
I stopped and looked over my shoulder at him.
“The game you find yourself playing will not sway me from my course. I will have you whole and well and have your life illuminated for me before I return you to your mate.”
I stared at him.
“If I return you to your mate,” he clarified. “I promise you now, reah, that if your safety cannot be assured, and if your semel is found lacking in the pit, then he cannot claim such a prize as a reah. I would be remiss in my duty to you, as would the priest, to not assure your continued well-being.”
“Only the priest can part a mated pair,” I corrected him as I had Jamal as well. “And only if the reah requests it or seeks sanctuary. You know that.”
“The semel-aten, as the leader of all werepanthers, may change the law as he sees fit.”
It was crap and he couldn’t but getting into a pissing contest with him would get me nowhere. “And as I said before, your well-being is my only concern.”
My well-being had everything to do with Logan and nothing to do with anything else. He didn’t understand, it was beyond him, and so trying to explain it to him was a waste of time. “As you say,” I replied, walking without stopping again back to my room. I drew the gauzy curtain behind me so there could be no mistake that he was not welcome to follow.
Collapsing down onto the bed, I felt hot tears of frustration well up in my eyes. If for some reason the priest saw fit not to return me, I wondered how long I could live without Logan before I went mad. Already beyond my ravaged body I felt something deeper, a longing that was trying to claw its way out of me. My first thought was normally never violence, but when the words had come from Ammon that he would decide when or if I could see my mate, I had wanted to tear his throat out.
It surprised me that there was no rise of boiling anger but instead just cold, flat, barren hatred. I was changing, twisting, my need eating me up, and I was almost frightened even as I pushed aside the thoughts as simply a normal reaction. Any lovers who were purposely parted would hate and revile the instrument of their separation. What was scary was that there should have been seething rage in me and there was only hate. I had passed anger and fury and gone straight to wanting to have his blood pooled at my feet. It was not like me, and as I pulled the satin sheets over my head, having turned off the lamp on the nightstand, I realized that my teeth were chattering and I felt like I was slowly freezing to death. Something was wrong, really wrong, but what?
Chapter Eleven
I HAD exchanged one cage for another. I was no freer to find Logan or leave where I was put than when Laurent Bruyere imprisoned me. The difference was that before I had harbored hope. Now I found myself with nowhere to turn. The semel-aten could keep me from my mate indefinitely if he wanted. On a whim, his whim, my life would either stop or continue on. I had no choice but to wait and see.
The priest of Chae Rophon who was supposed to be my advocate apparently didn’t care enough to even check on me. But why would he? I was one of millions. But not all cats were reahs, and this was the only thread of faith I had left, the only I allowed myself. Perhaps as a curiosity factor the priest would come see me. I appeared when I was summoned to the main hall in the morning. I wore the keffiyeh as I had been instructed, and it was held in place with the agal on my head. Like a small turban, it covered all of my hair, and the only part of my face that was visible was my eyes. The women at the long table, the yareahs, were all dressed the same, the difference being that their keffiyehs were made of sheer, iridescent material in different shades of red. Mine was black like my clothes and the sandals that I had been given.
It was interesting that the custom seemed like those of women in Middle Eastern countries, the way their heads, and in some places, their entire bodies had to be covered in the presence of any other man but their husband. Where the difference was for me was that as the mate of a semel, even though I was a man, the custom was extended to me. Had Delphine been in the room, she would not have had to be covered any more than the semel-aten was, but I had to be cloaked, as did all the yareahs. And I knew that most of the laws had been in effect since ancient times, laws that kept other men alive, as they could not see the mate of a semel and so were not able to lust after them and incur the semel’s wrath. The laws were there to protect others so a semel didn’t rip them to pieces. As I sat at the other end of the long table from the semel-aten, I greeted the women that spoke to me. Only the new yareahs were there. Vaguely, I wondered where Simone was before I remembered. Logan had told me that as the mating fell so close to the feast that neither she nor Ethan would be there. His maahes would attend in his stead, as a honeymoon in Sobek was not on the agenda for the semel of the tribe of Tefnut and his new yareah. I would have to call her when I got home. I wanted her to know that I didn’t blame her for talking to Laurent Bruyere and telling him my whereabouts. She had no idea that the man was going to hurt me, no idea he was a psychopath and wanted to take me from my mate.
My true-mate.
Logan. I wanted to see him so desperately. Wanted to kiss him, hold him, and be wrapped in his arms. Thinking about his hands, his tongue, his lips, I felt quick heat rush to my groin. I wanted to be under him. Have him inside me, filling me.
The ache was raw, and I didn’t suppress it, didn’t fight it, instead letting it roll through me unchecked and surrendered. The screams wrenched me from my thoughts.
“Reah!”
I looked up at the semel as he stood at the end of the table, hands fisted at his sides, staring daggers at me. “If you cannot contain yourself, I will have you sequestered in another part of the estate.”
What the hell was he was talking about? Contain myself how? Not feel? Not think? I wasn’t doing anything different from what I normally did, but apparently what was going on inside of me was affecting others. But I couldn’t stop that, change that. There were times when I was with Crane when he said that he could feel when I was happy. Other people seemed to be able to sense it too. But only ever a small group, one, two, even three at most, but never an entire room and never to a point where they were overwhelmed. I didn’t have that kind of power. I was just a panther. I was a reah, yes, but not something magical with supernatural gifts. It was ridiculous, and having him blame me was crazy. My eyes flicked to his. He swallowed hard. “I feel every emotion you have, but I am strong and able to withstand the onslaught. Others”—he gestured at the table full of panting, whimpering yareahs—“are not as strong. Either control yourself or I will do it for you.”
I loved how I was never Jin, only “reah.” I knew exactly what I was to him. I was a freak-show curiosity and nothing more. “Reah!”
“I beg forgiveness,” I said icily, my eyes locked on his.
The muscles in his jaw clenched. “I would like nothing more than to tame this stubborn streak of yours, but this is not my place.”
It was only Logan’s place.
After several heartbeats of strained, tense silence, he looked away. “Come, everyone, finish your meal.”
I wolfed down the rest of my food, speaking to no one, but I noticed when I looked up that every eye looked away. Clearly they were frightened of me. When the meal was concluded and the servants were removing the dishes, I saw Roshan Tabir and two other men I had never seen before crossing into the hall from the opposite side of the room from where I had entered. They had come from outside and brought the scent of the outdoors with them. For whatever reason, my sense of smell was heightened, and I noted the aromas of sweat and leather and amber oil.
Roshan turned after saying something to Ammon, but before he could start for me, cross the room to my side, his semel called him back. “I will have Sabrey accompany us to the museum. Roshan, you may take your leave, as I know you have much to do with securing all the matches for both the trials of Thoth for the Shu and the honor challenges between tribes and within houses.”
His eyes flicked to me, but he only nodded to his semel before he left. No matter how badly he might have wanted to talk to me or check on me, he was not about to defy his semel to do it. I should have cared that he left—he was, after all, the man I had called, the only sheseru there—but I didn’t feel like he was mine, not part of my tribe, so watching him leave was fine. Minutes later, a woman walked into the room with a child attached to each hand. She was elegant and tall, not beautiful but striking nonetheless with her dark hair, bronze complexion, and almond-shaped brown eyes.
“Everyone, come meet my yareah, Ebere El Masry, mistress of Sobek.”
All the yareahs rose at once and flocked to her; I rose after a moment but froze as a little girl barred my path, peering up at me, studying my face.
“Yes?” I asked, since I didn’t do that well with kids. I had a hard time remembering being one, and as a rule I bored them or made them cry. “You’re a boy.”
I squinted down at the dark cherub. “Yeah… and?”
She shrugged. “I dunno, you don’t hafta be such a grouch.”
I knelt down so that we were eye to eye. “I’m Jin.”
“Jim?”
I sounded it out for her. “Jh-in.” “Jin,” she repeated, smiling. “I’m Femi.”
“I like your name.”
Her smile got huge, all toothy. “How come you hafta wear a keffiyeh if you’re a boy?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed, because I didn’t want to get into it. “Are you going to the museum too?”
She made a noise like she was dying. “Yes, my mother says I hafta go again. I hate the museum so much. I could watch movies or ride Pitch or play with Brownie.”
“Pitch is a horse?”
“Yeah.”
“And Brownie is a dog or a cat?”
She giggled. “Brownie’s my ferret.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed ferret.”
“He’s cute, you wanna see?”
“Maybe after the museum.”
“Okay.” Her face fell as she slipped her little hand into mine. “How old are you?” I asked as I rose over her. “Seven, but I’ll be eight in March. Do you know when March is?”
“You’ve got awhile.” I sympathized, since it was summer. “I know.” She sighed deeply. “Hello.”
I looked up, and Ebere El Masry was standing before me hand in hand with her other, older, daughter.
“You’re the reah.”
“Yes.”
“You need to bow before me, reah; I’m mistress here, not you.”
It was really annoying that I brought such bitchiness out of every yareah I ever met. But it was the whole reah-trumps-yareah thing, and even as I understood, it was tiring. It was like they were all afraid for a second, afraid that I was actually their semel’s true-mate, and then the second the danger passed, the minute they knew I wasn’t a threat, I got paid back for making them worry in the first place. I wondered vaguely how she and Amirah had done. Ammon had said that he and Amirah had been strolling when she found her true-mate, not him and Amirah and Ebere. I was betting I was about to be paid back for Amirah’s sins as well. I went down on one knee and bent my head. “We’re gonna walk to the museum together, Mama.”
There was a long silence.
“Rise, reah.”
I stood up and realized that the little girl was still holding my hand. “My husband says you are dangerous, reah. Are you?”
I shook my head.
“Walk by me,” she ordered as she took the long piece of beautiful maroon silk from one of the serving women. She wrapped it intricately around her head and face until she was just as covered as the rest of us. The child, Femi, was a blessing. Her sister, Catava, was a pain. She was as cold as her mother and just as humorless. But Femi was cute and funny and so unlike either of her parents. I wondered vaguely who had raised her. “I was living with my grandmother in Cairo until last month, but now Mama says that I have to come here and learn about being a panther.”
It all became clear. Obviously this little girl’s grandmother and mine had been cut from the same cloth. As we walked, she chatted, telling me absolutely every thought that came into her head. I was very thankful for the distraction.
The museum was bigger than I expected and reminded me of every natural history museum I had ever been in. There were lots of dead animals stuffed in uncharacteristic “attack” poses, armor, pottery, statues, and paintings. The exhibits were extensive: history of the railway, irrigation, and life along the Nile. The gem room was pretty, the mummification room creepy, and the history of werepanthers, shown in large, detailed frescoes, enough to bore me right out of my mind. I wasn’t surprised to see Femi’s eyes rolling back in her head. She would be in a coma in no time. “What’s that?” Femi pointed, dragging me across the room to an enormous mural on the far wall. As I had seen the same scene presented a million different times in a million different ways over the course of my life, I knew what I was looking at. “Sweetheart, that’s the history of how werepanthers came to be.” I smiled down at her.
“Tell me.”
“You know this,” I assured her. “You tell me instead.”
“I promise I don’t.”
I groaned under my breath.
“C’mon,” she insisted, squeezing my hand. “Fine.” I pointed at the reliefs. “Thousands of years ago, there were wild panthers in Egypt”—I gestured toward the group of cats toward the middle of the wall picture—“that eventually bred with African wildcats to create you and me and every werepanther that lives today.”
“Why did they want to be together, the panthers and the wildcats?”
“Well, a lot of old books tell us that the panthers were being hunted and killed, and the wildcats, which were self-domesticating—”
“What is self… whatever you said?”
I liked her. She wasn’t afraid to speak up and ask questions, and that was normally missing in kids I met. She had her own mind, fostered, I was certain, by her grandmother. “Jin?”
“Sorry,” I said, smiling at her. “It’s like the wildcats chose to live with people.”
“How come?”
“Probably because the people fed them.”
“Oh, okay.”
“All right, so the cats, this new panther-wildcat mix, they found that not only did they want to live with people, they wanted to be people,” I said, pointing at another relief. “So one day one of them shifted and became the first werepanther.”
“Who was it?”
I pointed at a statue across the room. “That is Sened, one of the rulers during the Second Dynasty, and he took for his wife”—I pointed to the statue to the left—“Nashwa, who was, supposedly, the first of us who could shift.”
She walked over and looked at up at the sandstone statue. “She’s really pretty.”
