Though he was a small, stooped old man, his eyes were alert and watchful with an edge of cunning. Everyone in the room had turned to stare at me as I stopped at the entrance to the walkway between the tables. I had a feeling I shouldn’t take the attention off him for long. I swallowed my nerves and started forward, Lord Balam on one side of me and Prince Kwame on the other while Shadow loped behind.
This was the first time I’d appeared before a king who was as intimidating as my father, and I couldn’t help but wonder what else they had in common. Besides that unfounded paranoia, there was the very real problem that he might not want to hand over the amulet to a mere human.
“Your Majesty,” I started, bowing when I reached the end of the row of tables that led to his. “Thank you.”
The diners, an assortment of people with defining features of various supernaturals as well as some that appeared human, paused in their meal to watch our exchange.
“It’s not often we get visitors from the Ocelot Nation,” Shah Tiger said, stroking his chin. I could hear his fingers rasp against the silver stubble on his pointy chin.
“That’s true,” I said. “But my sister and I would like to remedy that.”
“I’m sure you would,” he said, a gleam of mirth in his eyes. “After all, we’re the most powerful nation in the ICFN, and you’re the smallest.”
“What the Ocelot Nation lacks in geographical size, it makes up for in resources and innovation,” I answered.
“Is that right?” he asked. “I’ll have to take your word for it. I haven’t set foot in it for almost a decade.”
I winced. This guy was nothing like the head of the Lion Court, or even Sir Kenosi. I knew how to play Sir Kenosi’s games.
I knew how to play this game, too, though. It had been a while since I’d been required to do so, but I’d grown up deflecting that kind of veiled accusation. I called on my inner Camila, the poised princess that I’d tried to emulate for half my life before realizing I’d never be a match for her in this department.
Still, I could usually maneuver my way through the minefields of a political dinner.
“We’d like to invite you to visit as soon as Her Grace Princess Camila takes the throne. In fact, we hope to gain the tiger amulet as a show of trust and improved future relations between our nations.”
“Really?” he asked, raising a thin eyebrow. “You might want to inform her that you’re working together. She seems to think you’ve stolen the world’s most precious artifacts from her.”
Fuck. Of course he’d talked to her, or at least my father, before she started for the Tiger Empire.
“I didn’t steal them,” I said. “A mistake was made, and they ended up in my possession. I have them right now, ready to give back to her when she arrives.”
I gestured at Shadow, who grimaced before giving the shah the slightest of nods.
“That’s too bad,” the old man said with a twinkling smile. “I was hoping to watch the drama unfold when she arrived. I do so like a good show.”
“My apologies, Your Majesty,” I said. “But I’m simply completing the challenges needed to gain the amulets so my sister will not be overtaxed by some of the more demanding tasks.”
“Ah,” he said. “But if she’s to be queen, she must be willing to make these sacrifices, don’t you think? She should be willing to make hard choices and do hard things.”
“Oh, she is,” I said, an ache building in my chest as I forced out the next lie. “My sister and I are very close. It’s devastating for her to see me go through any hardship.”
Shah Tiger studied me for a long moment before nodding. “Very well. If you can’t give me a show with your sister, then perhaps we’ll find a different way for you to entertain me and my guests during our dinner.”
I swallowed, my eyes darting around the tables on either side of me. “You want me to dance for you?”
“This is one of the sacred mating amulets,” he said. “It takes more than a dance to seduce it from my hands. But I have spoken with your sister, and she said something similar about the future relations between our nations. I expect a lavish welcome when I arrive there.”
“So, you’ll come?” I asked. “Thank you so much, Shah Tiger. No expense will be spared to welcome Your Highness. We are so grateful for your interest in our humble nation.”
“Now, as far as getting the amulet, I believe tonight I’d like a live show. I may look old and worn out, but I assure you, the right entertainment before bed can get me started and keep me going through my entire harem.” He gave me a grin, his wrinkled lid dropping in a lewd wink.
I gulped, pretty sure I knew what he was asking. I glanced at my three lovers. “You want us to have sex for you?”
“Unless you can think of something better.”
“We’ll do it,” Lord Balam said, his thick fingers wrapping around mine. I knew what he was thinking. It could have been a lot worse.
“Oh, not you,” Shah Tiger said with a sly smile. “Let’s make things interesting.”
Fuck. It was about to get worse.
“Trust me, watching me with Lord Balam would be more that entertaining,” I said. “But if you require all of us…”
“That’s no sacrifice on your part,” the shah said. “I like to see more drama unfold than just seeing a woman and her mate. I want to see the drama of a moral dilemma unfold before and during the act.”
“Moral dilemma?” I asked, a knot forming in my stomach. Was he going to make me choose something horrible, like which of my lovers I wanted to fuck my sister while I watched?
“Besides,” he said with a mirthful smile. “You haven’t really been fucked until you’ve been fucked by a tiger. We are the biggest of all the species, in more ways than one.”
Shit. I glanced around the table, wondering which of his court he was going to give me to. Two maharajas sat on each side of him, his sons from his various concubines. Was he going to make me choose between them? Or what was the drama?
The shah turned to the row of guards that stood behind him. “Bring the prisoner.”
Ten
Gabor
Royal Guard, Ocelot Nation
“That thieving whore,” the Princess Camila fumed, flinging open the door to the tiny cockpit. “After everything she’d done, she gets to ride in comfort while I, the crown princess of the most refined nation in the world, am stuck with this piece of shit.”
I wasn’t sure that she required a response, but I nodded nonetheless. Her emotional state worried me, but I knew better than to suggest she talk to someone more qualified to calm her than a palace guard with a traitorous heart. I stared out the front of the old cargo plane that had arrived on King Ocelot’s order to the nearest city. He’d asked for the best for his heir, and this was what they’d sent. I had tried to dissuade the princess, not sure that the plane was safe or even able to stay aloft, but she had ordered me to fly it to the Tiger Empire. So, that’s what I’d done.
She stared at me through narrowed eyes, breathing hard. “Say it.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Call her a thieving whore.”
I was ten thousand feet above the ground with a woman whose mental state seemed less stable than ideal for the situation. So, I forced the words out, sure that my own mental state must be compromised if I was feeling more guilt about calling a human woman a name than about all I’d done to betray our crown. “She is a thieving whore.”
“Hmph.” Princess Camila crossed her arms, looking less than convinced. She stooped and squeezed into the empty copilot seat beside me. For a minute, neither of us spoke. I began to think she was calming down at last, something she’d been unable to do since we’d been stranded in the Lion Kingdom.
The plane lurched under us, despite the clear sky. I checked Her Grace, but she didn’t seem to have noticed. She stared ahead, a calculating expression on her face. That was good. I didn’t want her worried about the plane on top of everything else on her mind.
When I’d joined the Guard at age sixteen, developing flight skills had been the thing I most looked forward to. Its allure had been just part of what led me to the high-level position of guard, but I had excelled at it. It wasn’t as if I could pass up the opportunity to work inside the palace gates, anyway. One did not refuse an offer from the royal family. I would be paid handsomely, taught an impressive number of skills at the hands of the masters, from aviation school to sniper training, hand-to-hand combat, knife play, and horsemanship.
But no skill was more important or more necessary than keeping quiet, forgetting what one’s eyes had seen and one’s hands had done. Above all, a guard must have unwavering loyalty and unquestioning obedience. That had not been listed as a privilege granted, nor a skill required, in the letter of summons from the king, but I’d learned it soon enough. We all had.
“You know she’s a traitor,” Princess Camila said suddenly, turning to me.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Even if she’s a princess, she’s not a real princess. She’s not an ocelot. She can still be tried. For a crime this big? My father will have her imprisoned for life. And not just in a convent. Not that they’d take her after she screws her way across the entire globe.”
Princess Camila might have lost her confidant, so she’d confided in me, but I’d never had one. A guard wasn’t allowed the luxuries of family or love. I had only my own servitude, my honor, and the throne. The throne above all else.
“Yes, Your Grace,” I said.
She crossed her arms again and threw her shoulders back against the seat. “You know,” she said slowly. “I’ll be the one who sentences her. Sure, he’ll toss her in jail when she gets home. But before she’s tried, I’ll be coronated. I’ll have her dragged out of her cell and shot on the street like the common whore she is.” A self-satisfied smile played across her lips. She stared off as if imagining the scene exactly how she wanted it to play out.
After a minute, she fixed me with a glare. “She deserves it,” she snapped, as if I’d protested her planned treatment of her sister. “She stole the most sacred objects in the world from me. And she pushed me, the heir to the throne, out of a helicopter, Gabor. She tried to kill me!”
I clenched my teeth together and didn’t speak.
Her eyes narrowed. “I’m going to have you do it.”
“What would you have me do, Your Grace?”
“I’m going to have you execute her,” she said. “To prove your loyalty.”
“I’ve sworn my life to the throne,” I said. “It belongs to the crown until I die.”
“Does it, though?” she asked, watching me as if waiting to pounce. “You haven’t shown yourself loyal to me on this tour. Not the way you should be. Does the body, heart, and mind of both your human and your ocelot still belong entirely to the Ocelot Throne?”
I inhaled slowly, silently, through my nose. “Yes, Your Grace.”
We both knew I lied. I had learned to have no heart, to take the thing I’d been born with, as flimsy and delicate as paper, and fold it into smaller and smaller squares until it was something as hard and impenetrable as steel. I felt only loyalty, pride, and honor for my country. Nothing else was allowed.
And yet, somehow, the other princess, the simple human princess, had plucked it up and unfolded that paper heart as if it were the most meaningless thing she’d ever done. She tied it to her kite string and flew it high, where everyone could see it, as if she were as proud of that steel-grey heart that had lost all feeling as she would be of a bright yellow one with as much light and passion as the sun.
Princess Camila had seen that kite, and she knew what it was. She knew what it meant.
A royal guard should have no strings to pull but the one tied to the throne.
I’d made that mistake, the mistake of thinking this was a job that would feed my family. It wasn’t a job. It was a contract, a selling of the soul. And it hadn’t provided for my little sister, the human who would unfairly be denied the opportunities the rest of my family, the ocelot shifters, were so eagerly handed. Her screams still haunted my sleepless nights, even though I hadn’t been there to hear them. I hadn’t been among the guards who had dragged her out of bed, accused her of treason, and beaten her to death.
But I might as well have been.
I had sent her money. Letters showing concern and love for her. I’d asked for days off to visit her, to attend a ceremony in which she was receiving an award for community service. I had dared to care about someone more than the king, and that wasn’t simply treason, it was dangerous. A guard who loved someone more than the king could be blackmailed and bribed. But he couldn’t be fired. Not after so much expense had been spared to train him in the skills a guard needed to be able to protect the king, to give his life for the king, to take lives for the king.
Princess Camila shifted in her seat to watch me. “Prove it,” she said. “Prove your loyalty.”
The plane lurched, but she didn’t seem to notice. I wondered how much Princess Itzel would hate me if I didn’t make it to the Tiger Empire with her sister. If the plane went down, killing us both, I would lose nothing. I’d already lost everything that had ever mattered.
I hadn’t gone to my sister’s funeral, and I’d never visited my parents again. One death had taught me enough. Guards didn’t have families.
But Itzel did. Camila did. I wouldn’t add her blood to the countless layers already on my hands.
“Your Grace, I would be happy to renew my vows to the throne,” I said, as if it were a marriage.
It was a marriage. But in this marriage, someone whose heart strayed from the throne was executed as a traitor. Princess Camila was allowing me leniency, and I owed her nothing but gratitude for that.
“Not to the throne,” she said quietly. “To me.”
I turned from my seat to stare at her, the lurch inside me instead of the plane this time. What she was asking was impossible, not just treason for me but for herself. The throne, the country, came before the individual who ruled it. For a moment, I wondered if she was testing me. Her eyes said she wasn’t, but she wouldn’t commit treason in front of one of the king’s own guards. My heart began to hammer in my chest. I could have her removed from the throne, even imprisoned, for such a request.
But no. Of course I couldn’t. There was no one left but us. No witnesses. No one, especially not her father, would believe me if I came forward. I could swear on the throne itself, and all I’d get in return was a firing squad for accusing the heir of betraying her own crown.
If I swore an oath of loyalty to her, though, I would lose the only part of myself I had left, the only thing the king hadn’t erased completely. My honor.
And later, she could execute me for betraying the throne, even though I was obeying her orders. She could claim she’d been out of her mind with grief, and in her time of need, I should have upheld the oaths I’d taken to protect the throne from every threat, internal as well as external.
“Your Grace,” I said quietly. “You know I am bound to the nation’s throne.”
“The throne will be mine,” she said. “You’re bound to my throne. You need to be loyal to me until that happens. While we’re on this tour, you’re not my father’s guard. You’re mine. I need to know that you won’t betray me like you have before.”
“I have made mistakes,” I admitted. “You may punish me for them as you see fit. But I will swear loyalty only to the Ocelot Throne and Crown. I will never betray my country. Now, I need to land this plane without distractions, so please allow me to convey Your Highness safely into the Tiger Nation. I don’t think it will stay up a minute longer.”
Camila’s eyes widened as she finally registere
d that the plane was not supposed to be experiencing turbulence.
“Swear loyalty to me,” she demanded. “You have to do it now, or I won’t leave.”
“Your Grace,” I said. “My life counts for nothing, but yours would be a great loss not only to your family but to your nation and the world. There is no time to argue. You need to be seated and secured in your seat.”
“You will swear before we get off this plane,” she hissed. “You’ll swear or—or—.”
Her eyes widened as an alarm began to sound. Without another word, she ducked out of the cockpit and back to one of the two seats behind it. I wondered if she knew that there was nothing she could add to the end of her threat. She could take nothing from a man who had already lost everything.
There was a reckless, terrifying freedom in having no heart. She had nothing to hold over me but my own life, and I’d long ago decided I would willingly give my life to keep my honor.
As the plane sped toward the jungle, I thought once more about the price of the lives on this aircraft. One was worth so little that even his own parents wouldn’t mourn his passing. The other was worth so much to so many.
For one careening moment, I held not only Her Grace’s life in my hands, but the lives of everyone who would live in our nation under her rule. For one moment, I had more than honor. I had power. I felt what the king must feel every moment, the sickening high of knowing that at the snap of my fingers, I could control the world. I wasn’t just a man or a shifter or even a king. I could choose who lived and died. I was a god.
As I leveled the plane and aimed it for the clearest spot I could find, another thought flashed through my mind. I had the choice. I held our lives in the balance. The only question was, which decision let me keep my honor?
Eleven
Itzel
Princess, Ocelot Nation
My heartbeat slammed into high gear. Inside me, I could feel Kenosi’s cheetah straining as if trying to rip through my chest and attack the shah who was apparently going to make me fuck some kind of convict.
Hunted Princess: A Paranormal Dark Romance (Feline Royals Book 3) Page 8