Change of Heart 05 - Forging the Future Page 2

  I couldn’t control the shiver that ran through my body. The manhandling was terrifying, and I wanted to run. Not just out of the restaurant, but all the way out of the territory that this sheseru called home. Swallowing fast, trying to coach my stomach from spasming, I breathed through my nose to try and settle down.

  “My ray-ah,” he breathed. “Forgive me for touching you without permission, but I had to be sure and my instincts were—hard to control.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. Eliza had not gone over ray-ahs—whatever he was saying. “How—” I began. “—can you tell?”

  His gaze was locked on my face, and in his eyes I saw… devotion? “A sheseru would always know a ray-ah. We are enforcers of the tribe, yes, but all sheserus are first the protector of the true-mates, or ray-ahs. When we are made, it becomes instinctual.”

  “How?”

  He smiled at me and shrugged. “How does a semel know his ray-ah? How do we know how to shift the first time? It’s instinctual.”

  I cleared my throat. “Do I have a scent to you?”

  “No, and I’m thankful for that. I suspect if you did, I would be fighting every man in this room to keep you safe.”

  “And you would do that?”

  “I would do anything to keep you safe, my ray-ah.”

  “You would not fight your semel,” Catherine snapped.

  He turned away from me with some difficulty, still not rising, but giving her his attention. “All other duties are second to the protection of the true-mate of the semel.”

  “But he’s not your semel’s ray-ah, so it shouldn’t—”

  “Stop,” Alaine commanded, taking hold of his sheseru’s shoulder and squeezing gently. “I’m pleased that you know the law so well, Nazar.”

  It was easy to see the two men had a strong friendship and a tight bond, and while I was charmed, I could also see the semel was worried.

  “A male ray-ah, though?” he asked Nazar. “I heard about one, years ago at the Feast of the Valley, but I thought it was just a silly story. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

  “No, I haven’t, but you saw that mark. Nothing else explains that.”

  “Yes. As soon as you showed it to me, I knew exactly what it was. No mistake there,” Alaine said crossly, taking a tentative step closer, reaching out a hand to me. “But a true-mate who’s a man is—”

  “An abomination,” Catherine spat, intercepting his hand, stopping him.

  He turned to her.

  “I meant to say mutation,” she quickly amended.

  “Catherine,” he began. “You have—”

  “I don’t want you to touch him,” she said harshly, her voice brittle. “He may not be that ray-ah, may not be truly mated. I would not be taurth if this man, this person, is in fact your true-mate.”

  It was unnerving being in the same room with them while they talked about me as though I weren’t. Alaine was appalled, Catherine was disgusted, and I was just supposed to stand there acting like them discussing how revolting the idea of having me in their tribe didn’t hurt.

  He inhaled deeply. “I can’t even catch his scent. There’s no possible way he’s anything to me. I would know a true-mate on sight, and I would definitely know his smell. He’s not my mate, my yareah. You’re in no danger.”

  But she didn’t appear convinced, and that was the scariest part. I wanted nothing to do with the man, and he was repulsed by the idea of a male mate, but still, she was scared because I was a kind of cat that was a ray-ah, and there was apparently power in my touch. The whole thing seemed far-fetched.

  Reaching out, I slipped my hand around the sheseru’s forearm. While it still hurt, the pain wasn’t quite so bad when I did the touching. He immediately turned and gifted me with a warm smile.

  “May I ask just a few questions?” I ventured.

  “Anything, my ray-ah.”

  “That word you’re using for true-mate, is that like yareah with the y and the a taken off?”

  “It is.”

  Now I could see the word in my head. “And I know that yareah is mate, and you said that a reah is a true-mate?”

  “Yes. Reahs are very rare, and only a handful of semels are ever gifted with one. Most are mated just as normal people are, meeting their yareahs and falling in love, but your semel, he is semel-re, as he has you.”

  I nodded.

  “Reah means ‘home of the soul,’ where the semel goes for sanctuary. I can only imagine how much your semel is missing you.”

  Smiling quickly, I said, “I hope so,” even as my heart tripped.

  He was telling me there could be a man, my mate, somewhere out there wanting me, missing me? That was too much to hope for.

  He scowled. “There’s no question. A true-mated pair should never be parted.”

  “And the mark this semel gave me?”

  “A semel only marks his true-mate. Any other, yareah or simply chosen mate, doesn’t receive one. For a semel to claim one who isn’t their true-mate in that manner would cause great pain and, perhaps from the loss of blood, even death. I couldn’t imagine a cat other than a sheseru even being able to bear such.”

  I wondered if any semel had ever tried.

  “Jim,” Alaine said, reaching for me.

  Again his yareah deflected his hand.

  “I wouldn’t take a man to my bed,” Alaine promised, visibly tired of being doubted, but moving to cup her face gently in his hands. “I’m not gay. You know that.”

  “Yes,” she said, searching his face. “I do. I simply ask that you keep your distance until we know the truth about the reah.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And you should not share what he is with others,” she continued, “as they will perhaps come to challenge you to take possession of the reah, and as you’re honor bound to protect him until his semel comes to claim him or other arrangements are made… you’ll be constantly fighting.”

  “That’s good counsel.” He released her and turned back to his sheseru, who had risen to stand beside me, and his sylvan. “Only the small group of us here in this room needs to know about the reah. Anyone else, Jim is merely the newest member of our tribe.”

  All the others consented to keep my identity a secret.

  “Jim,” Alaine said, his attention back on me. “With this discovery, I really don’t think you’ll be waiting long to know who you are. Even though I’ve never been to a Feast of the Valley or to Sobek, I can’t imagine that there is more than one male reah out there. I’m sure your mate, or your mate’s tribe, will come forward to claim you very quickly once I send an addendum to Domin Thorne.”

  “Thank you,” I said, trying to squash down the hope inside of me before it ate me up. I could not pin all my hopes on something that might not be true.

  He coughed softly. “In the meantime, as you are another semel’s mate and are a guest in my territory, I am bound by the rules of honor to keep you from harm.”

  “Of course,” I agreed, even though I had no idea what he was talking about. It was imperative that I get out of the room and away from him and his yareah who hated me, so if saying yes to protection I didn’t need would do it, I’d accept.

  “So I have to insist that you consent to my protection.”

  “Yes, semel,” I said. I didn’t use the “my” since he was clearly not. I had a home, more importantly, I had a mate. Or hoped I did. Somewhere out there was a man I belonged to, and I prayed he was looking for me. “May I ask, what happens if my semel is dead? Is it possible that the reason I’ve been walking around the world alone is that after the death of my semel, I had been cast out?”

  “It is possible,” Alaine answered. “A reah—or yareah, for that matter—who doesn’t want to become the mate of another when their semel dies would have no recourse but to leave their tribe to ensure that outcome. Perhaps you ran so as not to be claimed by another.”

  The very idea filled me with terrible sadness. What if my mate had passed and I had no m
emory of him at all?

  “Just be patient, Jim. I think your answers will be here very soon.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

  Chapter 2

  THE FIRST week of October in New Orleans was warmer than most people would think. It was sticky and hot and humid as hell. But in the French Quarter, nobody cared. Bourbon Street was still thriving: the beignets were still being made and devoured at Café du Monde, and at Devotion, between the air-conditioning and our signature handmade cocktails, nobody gave a crap what the weather was like outside.

  They were astounded when I announced that I wanted to finish my shift at the bar, but really, what else was I going to do? Sit home and stare at the walls while I waited for word, chewing my nails to the quick, throwing up, just basically tying myself into knots? What was the point of that? I had to stay busy, and even more than that, I needed the money. I was living on tips since my paycheck was practically nothing and I had just paid rent. If I wanted to eat, I needed to work.

  The idea of taking the semel up on his offer of staying with him in his home was simply not possible. For one, I could smell the fear on him—I was freaking him out—and for two, his yareah wanted to gut me. I had no idea why. I was already mated, so whatever did she have to fear from me? But from the murderous glances she kept casting my way, I could tell that staying out of her path was the best course of action.

  Also, it was odd, but when the sheseru was manhandling me, that had hurt even more than I had expected, and the residual ache was disconcerting.

  Once I’d started working at the restaurant, clean-cut, eating regularly, no longer resembling a skin-and-bones homeless guy, people started flirting with me. Since I had needs just like any other man, I had allowed a few of the customers and bar patrons to walk me home. The problem was that when we got to my studio apartment down close to the corner of Dauphine and Ursulines, as soon as they put their hands, their mouths, on me, it felt like my skin was trying to shrink away from their touch and my nerve endings were on fire. I got nauseated, too, and if I ignored it and allowed the contact to continue, I started to hyperventilate. Guys had called me a tease, one guy even tried to take what he wanted, and inevitably all those encounters ended in yelling. I had stopped trying to have sex because it really wasn’t worth it. I could take care of myself much more easily.

  So the news that I had a mate was doubly terrifying. If he was still among the living, what if I couldn’t touch him, either? What if that was the reason I was on my own? What if he had cast me aside because I couldn’t bear his hands on me? Worse, how hurt would he be to find out that I’d forgotten him?

  Maybe he’d done something horrific to me and I’d suppressed it and my memory failing was due to emotional trauma?

  The possibilities were endless, and my head was spinning just thinking about them.

  I needed to run.

  After my shift was over, which I’d had to finish out in a much too big shirt of Keith’s that he had in his locker, I was planning to bolt and figure out what I could do with the limited funds at my disposal, but the semel, along with his sylvan, sheseru, and several members of his khatyu—guards—were outside the restaurant, waiting to pick me up.

  “I already told you that I—”

  “Jim,” Alaine said loudly, drowning out my words. “Please get in the car so we can drive you home. I have a phone for you, as I know you don’t have one, but I want to be able to get in contact with you if your semel reaches out to me.”

  “I like walking home alone,” I explained, because it was always nice, peaceful, distracting me from all the things I had no control over. The French Quarter absolutely thrummed with history, and I liked listening to the stories when I passed by the ghost tours and reading the plaques on the sides of the buildings and just marveling at the gorgeous architecture everywhere I turned.

  “I’m sure you love strolling through the Quarter at night,” Luther informed me. “So do I. But your safety is now in our hands. We’re responsible for you until your mate arrives here.”

  There were rules for everything, apparently, and another semel’s mate in your territory was not something that could be ignored.

  “You must understand that for my semel to lose you, accidentally let you be injured, or to allow any lapse in security, would open the door for your semel to call for his death.”

  I did not know that. “I understand.”

  “So please, allow us to accompany you home.”

  I had no choice but to agree.

  Inside the Lincoln Navigator, I noticed how coldly Catherine was regarding me and so settled my attention on the sheseru, Nazar, instead.

  “You have a question, my reah?”

  I smiled despite my fears. “Your reah?”

  His eyes warmed. “I cannot seem to make myself address you in any other way. All sheserus are the enforcers of their tribes, but the bond between a reah and a sheseru supersedes that. Even if I were not a sheseru, if my semel did not choose me, I would have still known what you are. As you are a reah born, I come from a long line of sheserus, and therefore have the senses of one. I knew what you were immediately.”

  “May I ask, Nazar, how you knew I was a reah?”

  “As I said, I sensed it,” he replied. “I don’t know how to explain because you don’t smell like anything at all.”

  “I know.”

  “May I ask how you’re doing that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Maybe it’s connected to your memory,” he offered.

  “It could very well be.”

  It was really the only thing that explained my lack of scent.

  “So would you like to shift and run with us on Saturday night?” Nazar asked. “That’s when we normally go.”

  “I work weekends,” I told him.

  “You should shift,” Luther cautioned. “You know that if you don’t, after a while, your body starts to ache with the need.”

  I didn’t know that. I’d asked Eliza about shifting, and she’d explained. I’d lied to the semel: I had shifted and run through the Quarter, sticking to the shadows in the early hours before dawn. It was never truly quiet, but I was fast and had stuck mostly to the rooftops when possible. And if I was spotted, hopefully the drunks would think they were seeing things, and others would go with me being a ghost or spirit. Because really, what else would a black panther in the French Quarter be?

  “I’ll shift as soon as I have a night off,” I assured him. “And perhaps you or your sheseru would show me the safe places to run.”

  “I have land out in the bayou,” the semel said, taking his yareah’s hand. “Luther or Nazar can accompany you there with some of my khatyu, when you’re able.”

  “Thank you,” I said, tired suddenly, just wanting to be alone in my apartment even though, after three months, it still didn’t feel like home. I had been waiting for it to magically feel that way, like the one place in the world where you were always relieved to find yourself. Lately I had been starting to think that it was people who made a home, not places or the things there. So what I needed was my people. I needed to find them even though I was terrified at the same time. What if they all hated me? What if they felt that a male reah was an abomination? Worst of all, what if they respected my station but didn’t truly even like me? I wanted to be accepted and loved, but what if even in my true home I was not?

  “My reah?” Nazar prodded gently. “You’re shivering. Are you cold?”

  “I’m fine,” I lied, hoping he couldn’t hear it in my voice.

  The streets were wet after the rain, and it was humid when the car pulled up in front of my building. Water puddled in the dips in the sidewalk, and the cracked, broken path that led to a gate in front of the narrow passageway between two buildings had lost a few more pieces of pavement to the rain.

  “Is this where you live?” Luther asked, eyeing the wrought iron skeptically, as tight as it was. The path would not accommodate two people walking side by sid
e, and even upon reaching the door, the area was constrictive. Inside were stairs that went up to a small landing where the second-floor apartment was. Mine was another two flights up from that in a converted attic. Yes, I had the top floor, but it was tiny.

  There was no stove; all I had was a hot plate and a toaster. The refrigerator was a mini, like the kind found in a hotel room, and the kitchen sink sat above one cupboard with ancient pipes underneath. There were no counters to speak of. If I needed to chop something, I had to do it on top of the fridge.

  The pipes made a really scary groaning noise when I ran any kind of water, but the pressure was strong, and that was all that mattered. My bathroom consisted of a claw-foot tub with a shower curtain around it and a freestanding sink with a mirror on the wall above it. There were no counters or cabinets. I was still sleeping on an air mattress Eliza had loaned me until I got enough money together to buy a bed. With my rent being seven-fifty a month, cheap for the Quarter, it was a purchase I was still saving up for.

  “Jim?”

  “Sorry,” I said automatically, my mind having drifted. “Yeah, this is where I live. Thank you for driving me.”

  I put my key in the gate’s lock and was about to go through when he stopped me.

  “I should come up and take a look around your place to make sure it’s safe.”

  “That’s not necessary. If there was another panther here, you could smell them, and since I don’t smell anyone, I know you don’t either. I’m fine.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Thank your semel again for the phone,” I said, lifting the iPhone I’d been given. “I wish I had someone to call.”

  “You can call me,” he said, stepping in close, his hand touching my chin, lifting it.

  I wasn’t short. At five eleven I was taller than a lot of men, but he was easily six three, so he had to tilt my head back to have me stare into his eyes.

  “If I need you, I will.”

  “Call if you don’t.”