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  Readers love MARY CALMES

  Change of Heart

  “…an incredible story filled with suspense, drama, love and family.”

  —Fallen Angel Reviews Recommended Read

  “Mary Calmes has created an intriguing world that I would love to visit again and again.”

  —Coffee Time Romance and More

  “The world built by Mary Calmes in this novel is amazing and refreshing.”

  —Reviews by Jessewave

  Trusted Bond

  “Mary Calmes’ stories are always wonderfully written and full of drama, excitement, passion and hot steamy sex. And Trusted Bond is no exception.”

  —Night Owl Reviews Top Pick

  “She throws her readers into a rapture with her engaging narrative and loveable characters. It's hard to take your eyes off the pages.”

  —Rarely Dusty Books

  Honored Vow

  “I think you should get this book and lock yourself in a room with a pot of tea and some chocolates and enjoy.”

  —MM Good Book Reviews

  “Honored Vow earns 5 Fairies for a captivating book that had me biting my nails and crying tears of joy.”

  —Amethyst Daydreams

  By MARY CALMES

  NOVELS

  Change of Heart

  Honored Vow

  Trusted Bond

  Crucible of Fate

  A Matter of Time Vol. 1 & 2

  Bulletproof

  But For You

  Acrobat

  The Guardian

  Mine

  Timing

  The Warder Collection Vol. 1 & 2

  Three Fates

  (with Amy Lane and Andrew Grey)

  NOVELLAS

  After the Sunset

  Again

  Any Closer

  Frog

  Romanus

  The Servant

  Steamroller

  What Can Be

  THE WARDER SERIES

  His Hearth

  Tooth & Nail

  Heart in Hand

  Sinnerman

  Nexus

  Cherish Your Name

  Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  Copyright

  Published by

  Dreamspinner Press

  5032 Capital Circle SW

  Ste 2, PMB# 279

  Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886

  USA

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Crucible of Fate

  Copyright © 2012 by Mary Calmes

  Cover Art by Anne Cain

  [email protected]

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Ste 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA.

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  ISBN: 978-1-62380-181-6

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition

  November 2012

  eBook edition available

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-62380-182-3

  Dedication

  For my wonderful fans

  who wanted to know

  what was going on with Domin.

  Glossary

  Aker

  A leadership position in a large tribe that is fought for. The position(s) reports to the maahes. An aker is always appointed in twos as manu and bakhu.

  Amenta

  A panther who lives in the territory of a tribe not their own without permission

  Aset

  The appointed mate of a semel in the event of the death of their reah. An aset can only be chosen, made, by a reah.

  Beset

  Companion of a reah

  Djehu

  A leadership position in a tribe that is elected

  Duat

  A panther who has promised, on pain of death, to live only as human and never shift

  Hathen

  A female servant who oversees the semel-aten’s harem

  Khatyu

  The soldiers of a semel

  Maahes

  Prince of a tribe, the emissary of the semel

  Mastaba

  Mistress of a semel’s home, normally the widow of the previous semel

  Maat

  Balance, harmony, correct action

  Phocal

  Leader of the Shu cats, an elite group of werepanthers that serves the priest of Chae Rophon

  Reah

  True mate of a semel

  Sekhem

  A new term that the semel-aten bestows upon his chosen mate who is not a yareah

  Semel

  Tribe leader

  Semel-aten

  Tribe leader of the werepanther capital city of Sobek

  Semel-re

  Tribe leader blessed with a true-mate, a leader who has found his reah

  Sepat

  Honor challenge

  Sheseran

  Mate of a sheseru

  Sheseru (Flail)

  Enforcer of the tribe, guardian of the mate of the semel

  Sylvan (Crook)

  Teacher of the tribe, counselor to the semel Taurth. A yareah who has been cast aside because a semel found his true-mate

  Wosret

  An unmated reah claimed by the semel-aten as a concubine

  Yareah

  The mate of a semel that is chosen, not their true-mate

  First things first….

  WHEN I arrived, before I addressed anyone, before anything, I had to purge my house. I left my new steward, Kabore Nour, to explain it to the two rows of people, the house staff lined up from the steps of the villa into the main hall.

  I walked at a brisk clip, flanked by Yuri Kosa on my right and Crane Adams on my left. The guards outside the doors knelt and I told them never again. Just do what I ask, but the bowing and scraping bullshit was over. Taj Chalthoum, my sheseru, was there, having caught up, and fluidly translated my English into Arabic. They seemed surprised but quickly nodded. I understood I was different; it would take time to get used to me.

  Mitchell Rayne and Nelson Adams, Jin’s and Crane’s fathers respectively, had not been placed in a cell, per my order, even though their circumstances had, of course, changed. Originally, they had been accepted into the home of the previous semel-aten, so all I had done was place them under house arrest and confine them to a suite in the villa.

  Once the doors were open, I strode into the common area between their two rooms. I found the two men there eating, enjoying breakfast, one reading the newspaper, the other finishing up fresh-squeezed orange juice. It would be the last glass he would ever have.

  “Who are—”

  “Hi there,” I said softly as both men gasped.

  I didn’t make the man who dropped the glass tremble, or cause the hands of the man holding the paper to shake. Crane, my maahes, did that; he was the one. It was his presence there, in the room, that filled both men with dread.

  “I used to be the maahes of the tribe of Mafdet,” I said slowly, tasting the blood as my fangs, upper and lower, pushed through my gums. The canines were long and wicked sharp, which made the curl of my lip, I was certain, slightly sinister.

  “You,” the smaller, handsomer man
breathed. His face was just similar enough to his son Jin’s to remind me of the crime he had committed against his own child.

  They fell to their knees, their faces a study in fear, shock, and dawning realization.

  “Me,” I said and squatted down, cocking my head, studying them. “I won the sepat. I’m the new semel-aten. My name is Domin Thorne, and Crane Adams,” I said, pointing to the man on my left, “is the new maahes of the first tribe, the tribe of Rahotep.”

  Crane’s father took a shuddering breath.

  My eyes went to Mitchell Rayne, Jin Church’s father. “And this man,” I said, nodding to the second man at my side, “is Yuri Kosa, formally the sheseru of the tribe of Mafdet, guardian of the mate of the semel-netjer, the only male reah in the world.”

  Mitchell’s eyes filled with tears. It surprised me that these men, who for so long had plotted destruction and death, would themselves be so cowardly when faced with their own.

  “I’m here,” Crane announced, spreading his arms wide. “Still. And Jin is home with his mate, with Logan Church, and they will both soon be fathers. And nothing you did stopped him or me from living our lives.”

  “At least you will never have children,” his father spat, speaking of his son’s castration as though he was proud to have wielded the scalpel. I was certain he was.

  “Yes, I will,” Crane corrected. “They might not be mine in blood, but they will be in heart. And I will love them as I was not, as Jin was not, and we’ll grow old together, and when I die, they’ll miss me and mourn me but remember the love and laughter and what I taught them.”

  The tears welling up in Crane’s eyes were not for the men before him but for the love he would surely have and for that which already was. When he gazed over at me, the smile through his tears made my chest hurt.

  “Thank you,” Crane said before he spun around and walked out of the room, locking the door behind him.

  I refocused my gaze on the men in front of me.

  “My son is an abomination,” Jin’s father spat haltingly. “And Crane Adams is the same for loving him as he does.”

  I made the tch noise in the back of my throat. The man was just so blind.

  “You,” Yuri said, pointing at Mitchell, “watched your own son nearly beaten to death when he shifted for the first time.”

  “I—”

  “And you,” Yuri thundered at Nelson, “castrated your own son. You held the blade.”

  “I would do it again!” he roared back at my mate. “He’s dead to me!”

  “As you will be to him shortly,” Yuri said, his voice going deathly dark and cold as he began stripping.

  Both men rose and stumbled away, Crane’s father jostling the table and knocking it over, Jin’s father walking backward until he hit the far wall.

  “You mean to kill us,” Mitchell choked out.

  “I mean to tear you to pieces and then have you burned with the nightly trash,” I stated gamely, smirking at the end.

  “You cannot! We need burial rites and to be—”

  “I’m the semel-aten.” I shrugged as Yuri finished his shift and stood close to me, a massive golden panther bristling with power and fury. “I can do as I please.”

  “This is inhumane!”

  Yuri’s roar filled the room before he launched himself at Nelson. Man and panther flipped over the love seat together, hitting the floor hard on the other side. The screams came fast, bloodcurdling and loud.

  Mitchell began to shriek as a thick splatter of blood washed the curtains.

  “It’s sad,” I said over Yuri’s snarling as Nelson’s screaming subsided to wrenching, sobbing whimpering, and I stretched out my hand, the long razor-sharp claws replacing my fingers as I finished the movement. “That only here, now, at the end, will you understand the error of your ways, father of the only nekhene cat in existence.”

  “I will go to my death believing him to be an abomination.”

  “That is your right,” I said, advancing on him. “But I will no longer have to hear it and neither will he. Let us start with your tongue.”

  “You’re a monster!” He screamed his very last word.

  But I knew who the real monster was.

  Chapter 1

  IT MADE no sense, and they were all tired of hearing me ask the same questions. But until I had an answer I understood, how was I supposed to simply accept it?

  “What did your father tell you when you became a semel?” I inquired of every single tribe leader who visited Sobek.

  They all regarded me oddly, the last one being Maroz Amadu of the tribe of Serabit from Giza. He was confused.

  Yuri translated. “Specifically, he wants to know what would happen to you if you failed as a semel. Where would the people in your territory go for help, if, let’s say, you decided that two panthers of different races couldn’t be married in your territory.”

  “But that’s absurd,” he said to Yuri. “It doesn’t matter who you—”

  “The sekhem of the semel-aten is hypothesizing,” his yareah, Hesi Amadu, remarked.

  Apparently we needed our mates to do the talking for us.

  “Oh, I see.” He plastered on a smile. “Well, I was told that if I was not a good ruler, that the panthers in my tribe could contact the semel-aten, and he would hear the case against me and pass judgment.”

  “Exactly.” I pointed at him, then whirled around to face Yuri. “You see?”

  He crossed his thickly muscled arms across his wide, bulky chest and fixed me with a stare that made me question my sanity. “What do I see?”

  “I was a bad semel.”

  “‘Was’. Past tense. What does—”

  “So does that mean no one ever reported me to Ammon El Masry when he was semel-aten? That seems odd, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. How would I know?”

  “And therein lies my question.”

  There was a soft clearing of a throat behind me.

  Pivoting, I found Maroz and his mate still there. “May we go to the grand salon now, my lord? We’re both famished.”

  “Oh yeah, go ahead,” I said, waving them away. “Sorry.”

  Maroz grabbed his mate by the hand and tugged her away from me quickly. They all ended up doing that, concerned about my state of mind, I was certain.

  “Okay, so what now?” Yuri asked, stepping in front of me.

  “It’s what I was told as a new semel, what Logan was, what we all were.”

  “That the semel-aten would come get you if you were bad,” Yuri paraphrased. “Right? Like the bogeyman?”

  “Yeah. And if that’s true, if millions of panthers are supposed to be calling me or e-mailing me and complaining—where is it?”

  “What? You’re asking if there’s, like, a command center or something for all this correspondence?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m asking. I mean, who checks to make sure no panther is ever seen? Who spins an attack? Who basically has kept werepanthers off human radar for centuries?”

  His eyes narrowed as he regarded me.

  “So maybe whoever it is started small and now covers the entire world.”

  “You’re nuts. You know that, right?”

  “Yuri, there has to be a bigger body, a level up from semel-aten, like a werepanther CIA or something. There has to be. Someone is handling situations, and we know it’s not me. I’m a figurehead with no power except for any other semel over my tribe right here.”

  “You make law for everyone.”

  I dismissed that with a wave.

  “And it just so happens that the tribe of Rahotep is the largest single tribe in the world.”

  “Yes, but if you put it into perspective and say every panther in the world….” The number was just staggering. “Who does that? Who is responsible for everyone?”

  “I think, in all seriousness, everyone is responsible for their own and maybe the tribe closest to them. I mean, it was on Logan to make you stop when you were out of control; maybe th
at’s how it is everywhere.”

  I shook my head. “That’s too simple. Think about it. What if Logan and Christophe were just as fucked up as me? If that was true, then the entire corner of Nevada would have crazed werepanthers running around.”

  “Yes, but Logan ended your tribe,” he reminded me. “He ended your reign as semel. Who’s to say that something similar doesn’t occur every day?”

  “But if single semels are just policing themselves, why doesn’t the whole thing just collapse and we’re on the six o’clock news everywhere?”

  He shook his head. “You’re overthinking this.”

  I wasn’t, though; he was just missing it. There had to be a big brother—there simply had to be—but who or what that was, that was the question. I didn’t want to be a figurehead. I wanted to make a difference, and on a larger stage than my own tribe. But I had no idea how to do it.

  I did have the power to change the law, though, and that was where I was planning to focus all my energy, if I could just figure out what to start with and how. Everything had to be revamped, but I was buried under the weight of what I should have been doing versus what I was doing. I was on my second rant of the night. If the first was the conspiracy of silence, my next familiar tangent was change.

  Yuri said the time for me to simply be had passed. I had to embody the revolution I wanted to see, not simply hope for it. I alone could become a catalyst for action.

  “There’s no way,” I railed, pacing in our room, back and forth at the foot of the bed as he lay stretched out on the mattress watching me. It was how it always went, from firebrand to quitter; I swung back and forth daily. “How do I, the infidel, expect to simply upend thousands of years of this-is-how-we-do-things?”

  He was waggling his eyebrows.

  “What?” I yelled.

  “You simply say ‘this is the way we’re going to do it from now on.’ You do what we’ve discussed—proclaim yourself akhen-aten and begin a new reign with your players on the board.”

  I found myself staring at him. “It’s not that easy.”

  “I think it is.”

  “That’s because you’re not the semel-aten!”

  “And you’re not either.” He tipped his head to one side. “Well, at least you don’t want to be.”