Hunted by a Jaguar

by Felicity Heaton

  The elf male stepped outside and Kyter stroked Iolanthe between her ears. His mate was truly incredible. He couldn’t have wished for a more wonderful female.

  She distanced herself and transformed back, grunting and snarling as her body bent back into shape and her fur disappeared. She kneeled on all fours and looked back at the tail that had remained, a wicked edge to her eyes, and then it disappeared too.

  “That hurt more than I had expected.” She gave him a pained grimace and sat back, revealing her bare body to him.

  He rose onto his feet and helped her up onto hers.

  “You could’ve warned me.” He frowned down at her and she smiled and sidled closer to him.

  It was a struggle to hold on to his anger when she was naked, stalking towards him with a sensual swing to her hips, luring his gaze down to her body. He jerked it back up to her face and managed to keep scowling.

  She pressed her hands to his bare chest. “I wanted to surprise you.”

  “You almost gave me a heart attack.” He took hold of her hands and clutched them above his heart.

  “Liar.” Her smile widened and she twisted her hands free of his and placed her palms back against his chest. “I can feel your feelings and our hearts beat as one. You were not in any danger.”

  “It’s a turn of phrase… a little like I almost had a heart attack when I realised Bleu was your brother.” He released her and rifled through his backpack for a top, needing to distract himself and do something to keep his eyes off her body and his mind off the wicked thoughts spinning through it.

  He pulled out a black tank and tugged it on.

  When he had finished, he found Iolanthe had dressed, pairing tight black combats with a black camisole top that hugged her breasts. She brushed her fingers through her long blue-black hair and plaited it.

  “You could have warned me that you were friends with my brother.” She tied the plait and released it, and it swung against her back, the tip reaching midway down it.

  Kyter pulled on a pair of socks and jammed his feet into his black leather boots. “I didn’t know. It wasn’t as if either of us mentioned him by name. You could have told me.”

  “Would it have changed anything if I had?” She stepped closer to him and her eyes gained an edge that he tried to decipher through her feelings.

  He failed. It was going to take him some time to become accustomed to feeling her emotions and understanding what the more subtle ones were.

  He shook his head, slid his arm around her waist, and pulled her against him. “What about you?”

  A smile curved her rosy lips. “When you mentioned Prince Loren visited your nightclub, I had a suspicion that you had met my brother.”

  His face fell as he recalled her grumbling that alcohol probably had little effect on the other elf because he was already tainted with an experience of it. She had been talking about Bleu.

  Kyter frowned at her. “That was a while back when I told you that.”

  Before they had grown closer and had gotten together. She had kept it from him. Why? Because she had feared it would drive him away?

  It also meant something else.

  She nodded and swirled her fingers across his chest. “Who my brother is has no impact on my feelings or my decisions.”

  Kyter brushed his fingers over her cheek, opened his palm and cupped it before sliding his hand around the nape of her neck, beneath her thick braid. “Good… because it sure as hell wouldn’t have stopped me from falling in love with you.”

  She stiffened.

  He smiled.

  A blush climbed her cheeks.

  “Want me to say it again?” he murmured huskily.

  She nodded.

  “I’m in love with you.” He lowered his head towards hers but stopped short of kissing her. Her sweet breath danced across his lips, tempting him into capturing them. “Iolanthe… my beautiful fated female… my eternal mate… I love you.”

  She beamed up at him, the same warm and heartfelt smile she wore in the photograph he would be taking a copy of to keep with him wherever he went, filled with light and overflowing with happiness.

  Kyter waited.

  And waited.

  He huffed. “Surely you’ve got something to say?”

  Her smile turned wicked and she rose onto her tiptoes, bringing her lips up to his for the sweetest kiss he had ever experienced, one that would stay with him forever.

  “I love you, Ki’aro… my fated male… my eternal mate,” she whispered the words against his lips and he gathered her closer, pressing the full length of her soft body into his. She clutched his shoulders, her need sweeping through him as if it was his own, and her violet eyes darkened with desire. “Gods… I want to mate with you.”

  He chuckled and brushed a kiss across her cheek, feeling that pressing need echoing within him, growing in strength as it mingled with hers.

  “Later,” he murmured, his lips sweeping across her skin. “I don’t think Bleu will stand outside that door much longer and we have some things to take care of before we can think about what happens next. I need to know you’re safe.”

  He feathered kisses down her jaw and her throat, his fangs emerging as he thought about mating with her.

  “We’ll deal with everything standing between us and our forever… and then I know the perfect place… I’ll take you there and we’ll complete this bond with a mating you’ll never forget… one worthy of my beautiful mate. My Iolanthe.”

  She nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck as he pressed a long kiss to her throat.

  “My Kyter.”

  He liked the sound of that. Hell, he loved the sound of that.

  Her Kyter.

  He had never been anyone’s before. No one had ever wanted him, not in the way Iolanthe did. She accepted all of him.

  She loved all of him.

  He wanted to roar out his joy at that, and he would, when he took her to the rainforest and the hidden waterfall, and they completed their mating.

  But first he needed to ensure his female, his Iolanthe, was free of the assassins.

  And his father lost his head.

  CHAPTER 24

  Iolanthe pulled away from Kyter as the door opened and her brother stepped into the room. The rectangular tails of his long black jacket shifted with his purposeful stride as he closed the door behind him and approached her. He always had looked handsome in formal attire, the tight black trousers, polished knee-high boots, and crisp jacket decorated with pale blue embroidery suiting him. The raw pain that had been in his violet eyes yesterday seemed duller today and she was glad that his hurt was already fading, pushed out of his mind by her predicament.

  She had never liked pulling him into her problems and relying on him to get her out of trouble, but today she was happy that it was happening, because it was giving him something else to focus on.

  The cuts on his face were healing well and she wanted to ask him about the battle he had participated in for the Third King of the demons, but didn’t want to mention that male. It would only remind her brother of what that king now held and had taken from Bleu—a female she suspected had been far more precious to him than he would ever admit.

  Bleu’s scowl deepened as his gaze settled on her and his eyes only darkened further when he looked at Kyter.

  More specifically, he looked at Kyter’s throat.

  Her brother’s violet eyes shifted back to her and he huffed, a flicker of relief softening his expression for a heartbeat before it passed, leaving him looking ready to kill something.

  “I hope you know what you are doing.” He stopped in front of her and she nodded.

  He scrubbed a hand over his wild blue-black hair and around the back of his neck. His eyes gained a glimmer of concern that warmed her and she took his hand, wanting to reassure him that she did know what she was doing.

  “Leaving the bond incomplete will weaken you, Io,” he whispered.

  “What?” Kyter barked and caught hold of
her arm, tugging her around to face him. His wide golden eyes echoed the shock and fear she could feel sweeping through him. She placed her hand over his on her arm.

  “I had expected it to weaken me, but I actually feel stronger. I can only surmise that you are stronger than I am, so being tied to you physically is not weakening me. It is weakening you.”

  He frowned. “I don’t feel weaker.”

  Perhaps it was because of the demon side of his blood. She had known he was strong, but she hadn’t imagined he was as strong as she could tell he was now that they were bound, their bodies linked. He had power within him that surpassed that of any male she had met before him and something told her that he didn’t even realise how powerful he really was. He denied his demonic heritage, holding it back and relying solely on the strength of his more dominant jaguar side.

  If he tapped into his demon side, how powerful and dangerous would he become?

  Would he be strong enough to defeat his father as he desired?

  “I have permission to escort you to the library,” Bleu said pulling her back to the room.

  She nodded, released Kyter and rounded the bed to the side table where she had placed the dagger. They needed to translate it if they were going to discover whether it was another clue or the artefact she had been searching for.

  She picked it up by the twisted black and silver hilt, and the light from the arched window in front of her reflected off it, blinding her. She flinched away and tilted the blade before opening her eyes again and staring down at it.

  The language engraved on the double-edged blade was familiar.

  Her heart beat harder and she slowly tilted the dagger back towards the light. “I can read this.”

  “What?” Kyter’s deep voice swept over her and Bleu’s joined it. Both males approached her back and she turned to face them.

  Iolanthe held the dagger out between them. The light had been poor at the cave entrance and she had been tired and worried about Kyter, swept up in everything that had happened and feeling as if she was close to drowning.

  “It speaks of a temple in Hell.” She cursed herself as she realised where the temple was. She had been right on top of it. She had looked for it from the ledge. “We could have been there already if I had tried harder to understand the language on the blade. We could have dealt with your father and the assassins already.”

  “Father? That’s twice Io has called the one related to the dagger your father,” Bleu said with a sideways glance at Kyter. “I thought the artefact summoned a demon?”

  Kyter slid him a dark look. “Don’t ask.”

  Bleu looked as if he might press Kyter for the information she could feel he didn’t want to give to her brother. He feared Bleu would look at him differently if he knew of Kyter’s demonic lineage, just as he had feared she would look at him differently.

  “Focus,” she snapped and both males looked back at her.

  Bleu gave her his full attention again. Kyter shot her a relieved look laced with gratitude. She wished he could keep avoiding revealing it to Bleu, but it wasn’t possible. Bleu would come with them to the temple and when Barafnir appeared, he would know for certain that Kyter had demon blood in him.

  “What does it say?” Kyter peered at the blade of the dagger, moving closer to her at the same time.

  His heat curled around her and she lost focus now, finding it hard to concentrate when he was so close to her and the urge to shift her free hand to bridge the few centimetres between them and brush it across his was strong, compelling her to surrender to it.

  She swallowed and forced her focus to the dagger, studying the engravings.

  “It mentions a temple near the mountain.” She turned the weapon over and scanned the other side. “A key and, I think, a gate.”

  It sounded promising.

  “Doesn’t seem like a clue to me.” Kyter took the dagger from her and flipped it over and over, his gaze locked on it. “You think this is it? This is what we’ve all been looking for?”

  She nodded. “I do. I think we need to go to the temple and investigate it and try to discover what it means by a key and a gate.”

  “How long do we have before you need to get this to Fernandez?” Kyter looked from the blade to her, his golden eyes intense and focused, sending a shiver through her.

  “Three days, but I want it in his hands in two. Do you think that will be enough time?”

  He stared deep into her eyes. “It’ll have to be. We’ll figure this out, Iolanthe, and if we can’t, you’ll take the dagger to Fernandez. Understood?”

  “But Kyter—”

  He cut her off with a shake of his head. “You’re more important than my need to settle a score with my old man. I won’t risk you. I won’t let him take someone else I love from me.”

  Bleu gagged.

  Kyter shot him a glare.

  Iolanthe smiled at both of them. She could see that life with the two of them was going to be interesting. Never a dull moment.

  She took the dagger from Kyter and teleported it, sending it to her bolthole where it would be safe.

  “Back to the mountain?” Bleu said and she nodded. Her brother took hold of her arm and grabbed Kyter’s too.

  “To the valley, where the village was.” She wrapped her hand around her brother’s arm and slipped her other hand into Kyter’s.

  He shifted his hand and linked their fingers, pressing his palm against hers, his warm skin and the strength of his grip soothing her nerves and sending heat flowing through her.

  Darkness engulfed them and she tightened her grip on Kyter, unwilling to lose him during the teleport. If they were separated, he would end up in a random point in Hell. It could take them years to find each other again.

  She didn’t think she could wait years to complete her bond with him.

  The thought of having to wait a few days was torture enough.

  The darkness evaporated, revealing the desolate black valley and the jagged mountains that rose above it into the inky sky. The round buildings that had stood in the village were now in ruins around her, their stone walls crumbled and scattered, leaving only vague ghosts of them behind. Some of the stones had been used as grave markers ahead of her, names crudely carved into the black square slabs of rock.

  The fragments of stone that covered the dark ground crunched beneath her boots as she walked towards the edge of the village, Bleu and Kyter beside her, sandwiching her between them.

  “The temple is a short distance up the incline, closer to the base of the mountains.” She pointed towards the rise where she remembered it being.

  Her brother and Kyter picked up pace, their eyes constantly scanning their surroundings, on high alert. She was right there with them, heart steady but muscles tight, ready for anything as she hurried towards the remains of the temple. She couldn’t sense anyone in the vicinity, but that didn’t mean they weren’t being watched. There were countless species in Hell who could mask their signatures and scents, concealing themselves from their prey.

  The trek to the temple ruins passed quickly and Bleu and Kyter broke away from her as they stepped up onto the circular base that remained.

  The dome and triangular roofs that had been in the dragon’s drawing in the cave were gone, broken into pieces and scattered around the landscape, as if some powerful force had detonated in the centre of the temple, shattering the roofs and sending the shards flying. The columns that lined the round base of the temple and the square section that formed the entrance were all broken at different heights.

  “Look for any inscriptions on the stones… or anything that might be a key or a gate.” She headed towards the altar end of the circle and paused in the centre of the temple, above a set of markings engraved on the obsidian stones that formed the base.

  Iolanthe crouched and teleported the dagger to her. The engravings matched the ones on the weapon. They were in the right place. The images were different though, forming a wide circle in the middle of the floor, w
ith a band of symbols around the outside of it and a triangle of smaller markings in the centre.

  She ran her fingers over the engravings while Bleu and Kyter searched around the broken columns that followed the circular base, turning over the fragments of them that littered the floor and the ground around it.

  The triangle pointed towards the crumbled altar ahead of her, but also pointed towards the village off to her left and the mountains off to her right. Beyond those mountains was the Devil’s domain.

  This was definitely the place where a demon could be summoned, but it wasn’t necessarily linked to Barafnir. It was entirely possible that what she held was the method of summoning a different demon. She hadn’t exactly checked every item in the dragon’s treasure trove. She might have missed something.

  Her gaze scanned the darkness around them again, a sensation that something was out there unsettling her. In the far distance, a gentle glow lit the dark sky. The elf kingdom. The light of her land reached the realms around it, chasing back the gloom of Hell. It barely touched this place, giving only enough light for her to make things out with the aid of her heightened vision.

  Bleu huffed and shoved a piece of column with his foot, sending it tumbling off the edge of the temple base and crashing to the black ground below.

  “There is nothing on them.” He trudged back to her and she looked across her shoulder at Kyter.

  Her mate shook his head, silently telling her that it was the same on his side of the temple.

  That left only the mark on the floor.

  She looked between the dagger and the circular mark, studying both of them and trying to figure out how they were linked. This was the temple. She needed a key and a gate.

  Iolanthe focused harder on the symbols but none of them made sense to her. Only the ones on the dagger did and even those were beginning to look more like pictures than symbols with meaning. Was it something about this area that made it impossible for her to read them? She had been able to back in Bleu’s apartment, but now she couldn’t understand the language at all.

  Bleu walked towards the altar ahead of her, Kyter trailing after him. The answer had to be here. She could figure it out.