Fallen Princess

by Alexa B. James

  “I—I’m sorry,” he stuttered.

  My brain registered the commotion then, and I scrambled upright, yanking up my pajamas and facing the back of the plane. Tadeu was on the floor, on his back, his pants still around his hips and his monstrous cock still out. A panther had him by the throat, his teeth clamped around his neck while a lion stood over him, his claws sunk deep into Tadeu’s biceps, pinning him to the floor. Lord Balam stood over them, his jaguar cloak clinging to his arms like he was mid-shift, his tail rapidly beating back and forth in agitation.

  “Don’t kill him,” I said, rushing over to the scuffle. I laid a hand on Shadow’s back, gentle but firm. I no longer feared the half-wild cat he’d been when we met. I knew I could jump in front of his snarling, slashing teeth, and that he’d bite himself before he’d bite me. “Shadow. Let him go.”

  Shadow didn’t move.

  “It’s her call,” Lord Balam said, giving me a baleful look. “He’s her mate, too.”

  Shadow growled low in his throat, the sound menacing and harsh with the rasp of blood added. But he lifted his face from Tadeu’s neck before baring his blood-streaked teeth at my first love.

  “Fucking pussy,” Tadeu said. “If you had any balls, you would have ripped my throat out.”

  “Is that what you want?” I demanded. “You hate being a shifter so bad you want to die?”

  “Wouldn’t that be convenient for you?” Tadeu sneered, jumping to his feet and pulling up his pants. “Then you could pretend it was what I wanted when your asshole squad tore me to pieces for taking what’s mine.”

  “Itzel’s not yours to take,” Lord Balam said. “She’s her own woman.”

  Tadeu snorted. “Oh, and I bet all of you get down on your knees and beg every time you want to fuck her? Is that how being a True Mate works?”

  Not one of the guys could meet his eye. Yes, Tadeu hurt me in a way the others didn’t, but that wasn’t entirely his fault. He’d made sure I was wet all but the first time. He couldn’t help how big he was. And the others had all done things to me that were similar enough that they couldn’t cast blame without looking like hypocrites. Shadow had chained me to a bed and forced me to have sex with him all night. Sir Kenosi had locked me up until I begged for him to have sex with me. Lord Balam had known I was drugged out of my mind my first time. Kwame and Jetsun had both fucked me while I was sleeping, though I had definitely had different reactions upon waking to find each of them inside me.

  “That’s what I thought,” Tadeu said, shaking his head in disgust. “What’s your problem with me? I didn’t do anything worse than all of you. In fact, I’d bet I’m the only one who was forced to fuck this bitch against his will. And now I’m stuck with her for the rest of my life. And not just her, but a bunch of fancy shifters who want to skin me alive and wear my pelt for a coat.”

  “That’s not true,” I said quietly. “They’re just getting used to you.”

  “Bullshit,” Tadeu snapped. “I was marked before Jetsun, and nobody raced to pull him off you when you were about to fuck him just now—and he’s your brother, for fuck’s sake. Everyone made excuses for the fact that he banged you along with the rest of us. But I just about get decapitated for fucking you the same as any of your other mates. So tell me. What is it?”

  “Jetsun accepted her as his mate,” Lord Balam pointed out. “You didn’t.”

  “And now I have,” Tadeu said. He turned to my other mates, all except Sir Kenosi, who hadn’t appeared from the back of the plane. “But you still don’t want me to fuck our mate. Is it because you’re all full of yourselves because you’re real shifters, and you think I’m not good enough?”

  “You’re a real shifter as much as I am,” said Kwame, who had emerged from his lion in a shower of gold sparkles of magic. Shadow shifted, too, smoothly transitioning from a panther on all fours to a man standing next to my other mates, his sleek black hair falling around his bare shoulders.

  “So it must be that you all have titles, and I’m just a farmhand,” Tadeu said bitterly. “That, or you’re all pissed that my dick is bigger than yours.”

  “It’s because you hurt Itzel,” Shadow growled, his brows lowered as he glared at my tiger mate.

  Tadeu scoffed. “You’ve never hurt her?”

  “Not like you do,” Lord Balam said. “Not intentionally, not vindictively, and not after we knew she was our mate.”

  “She told me to.”

  Four sets of eyes turned my way, all of them waiting for my response. “He’s my mate, too,” I said. “It’s the least I owe him. And can you really blame him for being pissed? I promised myself to him, and then I got him killed, and now he finds out he’s my mate but he has to share me with five other guys? None of you signed up for this. I wouldn’t blame any of you for being pissed.”

  “That doesn’t make it okay for him to hurt you,” Shadow said.

  “And you didn’t get him killed,” Lord Balam said. “I was there that day. You had nothing to do with it. And didn’t your sister admit she was the one who set him up?”

  “You don’t owe us anything,” Kwame added. “Not me, not any of the others, and not him. Being a True Mate doesn’t mean we’re entitled to your body whether you like it or not.”

  I looked at them, swallowing hard, my throat suddenly tight with tears. I didn’t deserve all this. It was too much, too good. I needed someone like Tadeu to ground me, to remind me where I came from and who I was. The disgraced princess who turned on her own family, her own sister, and tried to steal the throne.

  “I signed up for this,” Jetsun said quietly.

  “What?” I asked, turning to him.

  “You said none of us signed up for this,” he said, his pale ice-green eyes locking on mine. “I did.”

  We stared at each other for a moment before I dropped my gaze. I wondered if I’d ever be able to look at him without shame at what we’d done.

  “You don’t have to punish yourself,” Lord Balam said. He’d always read me too well. He probably knew exactly the thoughts going through my head, all the guilt over Camila, Tadeu, and Jetsun.

  “Maybe I do,” I said, meeting his dark gaze. For a second, no one spoke.

  Then the curtain slid back and Sir Kenosi emerged, stretching his muscular arms over his head and yawning. “Damn, you all get up early,” he said, rubbing the stubble on is jaw. “What’d I miss?”

  “Or maybe you sleep like the dead,” Lord Balam muttered.

  “Nah, I’ve been dead, and that’s definitely different,” Sir Kenosi said, flashing a grin and patting the rippled muscles of his abs. “Looking this good doesn’t come easy, though. A man needs his beauty rest to keep up appearances.”

  “While you were getting your beauty sleep, Tadeu attacked Itzel,” Shadow said, still glaring at the tiger like he’d personally offended him.

  “I didn’t attack her,” Tadeu snapped.

  “If it happens again, you’ll be eating your dick as your last meal,” Shadow said. “Right before I rip out your entrails and make a rope swing out of them.”

  “Why didn’t you just put me out of my misery here and now?” Tadeu asked.

  “Don’t think I’d be so kind as to kill you first,” Shadow said.

  Tadeu snorted. “I didn’t even shift. I could have turned into a tiger and crushed the whole lot of you, but I gave you a chance. You did nothing because you’re all a bunch of pussies who talk a big game but can’t pull the trigger when the time comes.”

  “Get me a gun,” Lord Balam growled. “Then you’ll see how fast I can pull the trigger.”

  “Touch me again and you’ll see how many chances you get,” Tadeu snapped, his eyes flashing with his tiger.

  “Touch Itzel with intent to harm again, and see how many chances you get,” Lord Balam shot back. “We’ll be watching you.”

  “What goes on between me and Itzel is our business,” Tadeu said, slinging a casual arm over me and giving the guys a gloating grin.

  “Act
ually, it’s all of our business,” Sir Kenosi said. “That’s kinda how the whole mate thing works.”

  Jetsun cleared his throat. “I know I’m the new guy here, but I wouldn’t mind having some clarification on what’s going on. I have to say I was horrified by what just happened, but I didn’t stop it, which means I’m equally to blame.”

  “You’re not to blame,” I said. “I told you I wanted it. Listen, I know it upset you to know I’m in pain, but Tadeu didn’t force me into anything. I agreed to it. If and when I need you to kick his ass, I’ll let you know. Okay?”

  “Thanks a lot,” Tadeu grumbled.

  “Okay,” Jetsun said. “I want to respect your wishes, but I’d rather not be a bystander next time. I don’t enjoy seeing you in pain.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “Now, can we focus on what’s ahead instead of my sex life? Because this is a whole lot bigger than that.”

  Shadow and Lord Balam still didn’t look too happy about my choice, but I would have to deal with that later. Eventually, they’d settle into a new pattern that included Tadeu, and he’d stop being so bitter about what had happened to him.

  “That sounds good to me,” Jetsun said. “I wouldn’t mind some briefings on your country and clan. I can read all the books ever written on the Ocelot Kingdom, but none of them will tell me what to expect when we land.”

  “Well, right now, I’m returning to a country against which I’ve committed treason, and I’m wanted for crimes against the crown. If I had to guess, I’d bet Camila has alerted my father that I’m on my way, and I’ll probably be arrested the moment we touch down.”

  “And what exactly is your plan?” Jetsun asked.

  I scratched the back of my neck and peered around at my mates. “Beg for mercy?”

  “We can’t exactly bring in an army,” Lord Balam said. “They’d accuse us of an invasion.”

  “And we all know what happens then,” Shadow said.

  “Unfortunately, he’s right,” I said. “My father would kill anyone who threatened the kingdom. Which is why appealing to him might work better than force.”

  “And you think he’ll hear you out?” Prince Kwame asked.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Camila’s furious and hurt, and she’s more likely to act out of anger. But my father doesn’t have much patience for her tantrums.”

  “He doesn’t have much patience for you, either,” Tadeu pointed out.

  That was why I needed this man by my side. He knew our country, and my family, better than anyone else here. I found myself wishing I had Gabor on my side. He probably knew more about my father and the court than even I did.

  But he was with Camila now, so I refocused my attention on what I did have.

  “True,” I said. “He’s been king for decades, but he doesn’t want to give up the power. He definitely wants her on the throne because he thinks he can control her. But if there’s something in it for him, he’ll at least consider our offer.”

  “What’s our offer?” Jetsun asked.

  “The last two amulets,” I said. “By our nation’s rule, when the heir to the throne is twenty, they go on the amulet tour and take over as soon as they have all seven amulets. Camila doesn’t have all seven.”

  “She didn’t get any of them,” Shadow pointed out.

  “Actually, she did,” Lord Balam conceded. “Stealing is a perfectly legitimate way to get them. As far as the amulets go, the rules are the same for each nation as they are in the Ocelot Nation. By their rules, it doesn’t matter who has them now. It just matters that she gets all seven by some form of trickery, persuasion, or bargaining.”

  “Itzel’s already gotten all seven,” Shadow said.

  “Which means that technically, she could take the throne, according to the ICFN rules. But her country has additional rules, like having to be twenty.”

  “So, you have two of the eight,” Jetsun said. “And you’re going to ask for what in exchange for them? Your life? Dropped charges? A position at court?”

  “Actually,” I said. “I’m not going to ask for anything. He’s going to ask me.”

  Six

  I may have sounded confident to my men, but when the plane turned toward the airfield in the Ocelot Kingdom, my heart flipped over in my chest. I leaned against the window, peering down at the strange sight of my familiar home after being gone so long. It felt odd to see the Ocelot Kingdom from the air, and even more strange knowing that I was coming home not as a celebrated advisor to the future queen but as the fallen princess, even more disgraced and estranged than I’d always been as the human child of shifters.

  I watched the city rise toward us, the cobbled streets inside the old-fashioned palace walls looking somehow both comfortingly familiar and dreadfully outdated after spending time in some of the more modern nations, like Sir Kenosi’s cheetah clan. I’d rarely flown in my life—between Camila’s deathly fear of flying and our nation’s poor relations with others, there wasn’t much occasion to—but I’d flirted and bribed my way into a few of my father’s planes when guards were taking private lessons. Still, I hadn’t done it often enough to lose my fascination with watching each detail become clear as we approached the ground.

  The small but sprawling city outside the walls stretched in every direction. The fortified stone walls surrounded and protected not just the palace but the heart of the city, though no cars were allowed except the king’s own fleet, so it looked empty from our vantage point. The twisting streets where I’d grown up running with Tadeu and his friends, the servant children, and other humans, were unfamiliar from the air, though I knew every nook and cranny and alley when on foot. The plane skimmed over bodegas and ocelot-owned businesses where I’d visited friends, eaten pastries, and shopped for clothes. The palace itself stood above it all, regal and indifferent, surrounded by the gardens I’d looked out on so many times. The stables where Tadeu worked and the arena where he’d been killed blurred past, and then we were dipping behind the palace and toward the airfield.

  That’s when I saw the crowd gathered. I’d expected to have to fight our way out, maybe even be arrested and taken before the king, where I’d plead my case. But this wasn’t a fleet of ocelot guards. It looked like half the kingdom was here, waving their fists and yelling so loudly I could hear them over the sound of the engine as we touched down.

  “Guess I assembled something too close to an army already,” I muttered, turning to my mates. My heart was hammering in my chest, and it was hard to take a full breath. I was glad I’d said everything I wanted to say on the plane, telling them all what they meant to me. I couldn’t think of anything meaningful right now, and even if I had, my throat was too dry to say it.

  “You’ve got loyalists,” Lord Balam said, looking alert but unruffled. “The king doesn’t like it.”

  “Who knows what that bastard said about you,” Tadeu said, the knuckles of his big, calloused hands turning white with the strength of his grip on his seat.

  “All I know is, we’d better get out of this plane before they dismantle it,” Sir Kenosi said, looking out at the roaring crowd that had rushed onto the airfield and surrounded the plane. “I borrowed this in good faith.”

  “They’ll get to us either way,” I agreed. “We might as well face our fate instead of hiding in here until they tear it apart and drag us out.”

  I wasn’t in the clothes I’d have chosen to die in, but at least I’d changed out of my pajamas. For my execution, I would have chosen something spectacular and custom made for me. Today I wore an outfit we’d bought in the time between leaving the Snow Leopard Commonwealth and arriving at Chief Alina’s, which consisted of a simple pair of black jeans, a tank top, and ankle boots. Still, I stood as tall as if I were already the queen, refusing to go out without at least a bit of dignity. I strode to the door, my mates flanking me, and swung it open.

  The roar of the crowd increased, and a dozen hands reached up for me. They helped me down, dragging me out of the plane. Instead of
pulling me under and beating the life out of me, though, they lifted me up. It took me a second to realize what was happening as I was jostled and passed from a dozen hands to the next, balancing above their heads. A sign smacked me in the shoulder, and I had to read it before reality finally sunk in.

  The People’s Queen.

  That’s what the sign said. Other signs read, “Welcome Home” and “Save Our Queen” and “Let Itzel Rule.” Suddenly, my heart was racing for an entirely new reason. These people weren’t here to accuse me of treason. They were here to support me. Which meant they were committing treason. For me. This wasn’t an angry mob here to tear me limb from limb for daring to want the throne. It was a fucking insurrection.

  And that was so much worse. These people weren’t just putting me and my mates in danger. They were putting their lives in danger. I had no doubt that King Ocelot would execute every single one of them if he could catch them all.

  But there were so many. Too many even for his dozens of guards. I knew it even before I saw a guard being dragged under, his club ripped from his hands and turned back against him, beaten and swarmed by bloodthirsty, voiceless, desperate humans until I lost sight of him completely.

  My stomach turned. I didn’t want this. I didn’t need a parade. I didn’t want people to die, even the terrifying assassins my father hired to keep the country under his control. I had fallen in love with one of those assassins. I knew they had hearts just like the rest of us, as damaged and walled off as they were. I didn’t want these people to risk their lives for me.

  A girl reached up and grabbed my hand, her face positively exultant, as if she thought I could save her. Why wouldn’t she? That’s what a people’s queen was supposed to do. Not just rule the land, but give voice to the silent, the oppressed. Help these humans who had spent decades living with the constant terror that at any moment, for any reason or no reason at all, they could be dragged out of their workplace or dinner or bed, brought before the Ocelot Court, and murdered for entertainment.