“He’s a monk,” Lord Balam said. “The Snow Leopard Nation is very small in terms of population, and they don’t live together like other cat clans. They’re isolated from the world and each other.”
“Sounds like the panthers,” I said. “Maybe we can do what we did to Shadow.” I felt guilty even suggesting it after what had happened with Shadow. He’d also been a celibate recluse, and I’d seduced him out of his lifestyle, his home, his whole life.
“A couple problems with that,” Lord Balam said. “First, the jaguar amulet has been closed. It would take another virgin to open it.”
A flicker of heat shimmered inside me at the memory of opening it the first time, the way it sprang open inside me, filling me with an incurable need to be fucked into submission.
“What’s the other problem?” I asked, squeezing my knees together.
“Even if we found a virgin to open it, we can’t give the potion to someone until we find him.”
“Maybe the other amulets can help,” I said. “What does the Tiger amulet do?”
“Kwame’s finding out right now.”
A few minutes later, Kwame returned from a lunch with the large family of tiger princes and princesses.
“It will be most helpful to lure out the next keeper of the amulet,” he told us. “But it’s risky for Itzel, and it might not work at all.”
“What does it do?” I asked, my heart beginning to hammer.
“It puts you into a heat.”
I gulped. “I can do that?”
“You’re a shifter now,” Kwame said, taking a seat on my other side and linking his fingers through mine. “You should be able to.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s try it. How does it work?”
“It’ll make every shifter male in the area go nuts when they smell you,” Lord Balam said. “And that includes us. It’s kind of like what happens when you open the jaguar amulet, except it’s carried by pheromones. And it’ll make you want to fuck anything that moves for about a week. You won’t care who it is. We won’t care if it kills us, and neither will you.”
He let that settle into my mind for a minute.
Finally, I shook my head. “No. I can’t endanger you. If you fuck me, you’ll die.”
He nodded. “And so would Shadow.”
Kwame squeezed my hand. “I’ve already been to the spirit world with you. I’m not bound by the curse.”
I hadn’t even thought of yet. I hadn’t exactly been in a feisty mood since the rough treatment I’d received from Tadeu, and my mates had all been wonderfully patient in helping me recover. Despite knowing that we could still be intimate, Kwame had never so much as suggested it. My heart filled with warmth and gratitude for my most openly loving and nurturing mate.
“Then you’re the only one who can go with me,” I said, gripping his fingers. Despite having found a group of steadfastly loyal men, I seemed to be losing them as fast as I could gain them.
“It will be my honor to guard you,” he said.
“If we could get Kenosi back, he could go, too,” Lord Balam said. “But if he came back, you’d lose his cheetah, and you wouldn’t be able to go into heat.”
“Damn it,” I said. Despite our rocky relationship, I needed Sir Kenosi. He’d given his life for me, though, and I needed to remember that. I had forgiven any resentments I still had toward him—how could I not? The man had fucking died for me. Now, I would have given anything to have him back. He’d been a soldier for me, one willing to lay down his life to give me another chance. Now, I had to do something with it. I had to make him proud.
“Only a lion or a tiger could escort you,” Kwame said, watching my reaction warily.
“Oh, fuck no,” I said. “Tadeu is on Camila’s team now.”
“He is your mate,” Kwame said. “When you are ready, he will have to accept that and come to your side.”
“Besides,” growled a voice behind me. “Aren’t you on Camila’s team?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin, my heart racing as I spun to see Shadow standing near the window.
“What the fuck, Shadow,” I growled. “You trying to give me a heart attack? Where have you been?”
He shrugged one shoulder almost imperceptibly. “Around.”
“Right,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. “Well, how much of the plan did you hear?”
“Enough to tell you it’s a bullshit plan,” he growled. “You think what Tadeu did was bad? If you go up on a mountain with only one guard and go into heat, the entire Snow Leopard Nation is going to come running to rape you.”
“Well, hopefully they won’t all come at once,” I said. “If we get within scenting distance of one, me and Kwame will fight him off. There’s two of us, and Kwame is bigger than a snow leopard. They live alone, so it’s not like an entire clan will find us at once.”
“Remember how easily I took you?” Shadow asked, his green eyes going dark and his face sober with memory. “You had more than one guard then.”
“What other options are there?” I asked. “Search for thirteen years while my father goes on murdering our people?”
Lord Balam cleared his throat. “You need to prepare for the possibility that Gao Jetsun will be locked up in a monastery somewhere, since he’s a monk, and he may not be out and about to catch your scent. I’m sorry, Itz, but this isn’t a guaranteed win.”
“Anyone have a better suggestion?”
“If he’s out, he’ll come to you,” Kwame said. “He won’t be able to help himself.”
He was my brother, so I knew he wouldn’t do what Tadeu had to me. I just had to find him. It was probably a good time to tell the guys he was my brother, but for some reason, that felt too strange. I hadn’t even come to terms with the fact that my father—the man I’d always known as my father, who had raised me—wasn’t blood related to me. Sure, he’d done a shitty job of being a dad, and he was a murderous psychopath, but he hadn’t kicked me to the curb when Mom died. Didn’t that count for something?
Or was it just because he didn’t know?
And having a brother somewhere, a brother I’d never met but who had been alive my entire life, felt even stranger. I wanted a moment to know him before I announced him to the world. It seemed somehow intimate and private, and there was a bit of shame attached to it, too, whether I wanted to admit it or not. My mother had conceived me through an affair.
This man I’d never met was more closely related to me than anyone in this world except Camila, but he might want even less to do with me than she did. After all, I was a bastard child, the result of an affair between his father and a woman who had lured him to be unfaithful to Jetsun’s mother. Not only that, but that affair had cost his father his life, leaving Jetsun to be the man of the house and take care of his mother in whatever way she needed when her husband died.
“If you’re sure this is what you want to do, I’ll consult the oracle, find out as close as I can to where Gao Jetsun is,” Lord Balam said after a long silence.
“I will find a map of all the known monasteries in snow leopard territory,” Kwame said. “Most snow leopards belong to human monasteries, though there is one shifter-only one. The territory is large, but there aren’t many snow leopards within its boundaries.”
“We should follow at a safe distance,” Shadow said. “We can move in if things go bad and head off Camila’s crew if they get too close.”
He was protecting me from Tadeu, and I was thankful for that, but I didn’t like the thought of him and Lord Balam coming to rescue me from some snow leopards, only to be sucked in by the pheromones and end up dead.
“Far behind,” I said. “I don’t want any more of my mates dying for me.”
“I’ll go find some things you might need while you’re backpacking around the mountains,” Shadow said.
“Hey,” I said. “Before you go, I’m going to need those amulets you stole.”
“I didn’t steal them,” he said, producing a bag from his pocket and handing
it to me. “I protected them from the thieving hands of your sister.”
“Thanks for keeping them safe,” I said, looping an arm around his neck and pulling him down for a quick kiss. “And thanks for coming back.”
For a moment, he pressed his soft lips to mine, his hair falling around our faces like a curtain to give us privacy. His hands tightened on my hips, and I could feel the ache in him, could feel how much he’d missed me and the conviction it had taken to keep him away. At last, he stepped back.
“I was never gone,” he said, disappearing out the window before I could press him for more answers. While he collected supplies, Lord Balam went to consult the oracle and Kwame went to research monasteries, leaving me alone in the room with my thoughts. One guard wasn’t enough, but it was all I had, unless I took Tadeu, and I didn’t think he’d come even if I asked. And I wasn’t about to ask.
Sixteen
It was time to move on. I went to the door, the bag of amulets clutched in one hand. The emotional side of me balked at the thought of giving them to Camila after all I’d endured to get them. The rational half knew that it was the right thing to do no matter how unfair it felt. I had worked for them, yes, but I’d gotten each and every one of them under the pretense of giving it to her. So that’s what I had to do.
When I opened the door, Tadeu stood in the hall, his arms crossed over his chest. He straightened when he saw me, a frown darkening his brow. “What do you want?” he snapped.
My heart lurched into my throat, wrestling to take me over, to turn us into the cheetah and run away faster than a tiger could follow. I had to reason with myself to get it under control. If Tadeu wanted me, he could have knocked down the door and come at me any time I was alone in the room. And this wasn’t the first time I’d been there alone. I’d insisted my men not hover, not feel like they had to treat me as something broken. I knew that if I let them, I’d feel more broken than I was.
“I was actually looking for Camila,” I said, crossing my arms to steady myself.
“And now you know she’s not here,” Tadeu said, glowering at me.
I hesitated, a masochistic urge inside me refusing to walk away without hearing the truth. “Why do you hate me so much?” I blurted before I could talk myself out of it.
Tadeu snorted. “You mean besides the fact that you’re exactly like your father?”
“What?” I asked, recoiling.
“You could have just told me to fuck off,” he said. “But you had to have a little fun with it, make it into a big spectacle. You couldn’t be happy with just stringing me along for ten fucking years and then dumping me like a bitch. You had to throw me out for the rabid dogs to tear apart when you were done with me.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, gaping at my former friend and first love, who was now spewing venom and acting like he didn’t know me at all.
“Did I say rabid dogs? I meant ocelot royal guards. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.”
“I didn’t throw you to the guards,” I said. “I know you blame me, and I admit that it’s my fault for not protecting you better, for drawing attention to you. Yes, I was selfish and blind and young, but I never wanted to hurt you, Tadeu.”
He shook his head, looking disgusted. “But you never cared if you did, either,” he said. “So long as I hung on your every word, flattering your precious ego every step of the way. The really pathetic thing is, I don’t think you even know you’re doing it. And even more pathetic, I didn’t know you were doing it, either. All those years, I actually believed your lies. At least I know what kind of snake I’m getting in Camila.”
I gripped the door handle, thankful I had something to hold onto. “I may be a lot of things, and I may have made a lot of mistakes, but I am not a liar.”
Tadeu’s eyes narrowed. “So, tell me this, Itzel. Did you love me?”
“Yes,” I said without a second’s hesitation. My heart still ached with how much I’d loved him, with the loss of not only him but the promise that love had held.
“Then how come, not five hours after I was murdered by your father, you had your legs wrapped around another man’s head?” he said slowly, his eyes blazing with fury.
“What?” I whispered, stepping backward. My mother had told me she couldn’t see what was going on in the human world. How could Tadeu possibly know that?
“You said you weren’t a liar,” Tadeu said, stalking a step closer. “So tell me it’s not true, Itzel. Tell me you weren’t screaming another man’s name while he pounded that tight virgin pussy you’d promised to me a hundred times.”
“I thought you were dead,” I whispered, staring at him as if seeing a ghost. The ghost of the boy I’d loved. Could ghosts visit you while you were with the man you’d used to erase him from your heart so you couldn’t feel it breaking?
“Well, you sure had yourself a good time at the funeral,” Tadeu said. “You couldn’t even wait until my body was cold. And here I really believed you were a virgin all those years. Must have been pretty fucking funny, how gullible I was. I actually thought you were saving yourself for me.”
He looked me up and down like he might spit on me, like I was some diseased whore begging him for work. I shrank back further, my heart pounding and my breath coming short. How could I defend myself? His accusations were true.
Tadeu prowled forward another step, his eyes filled with so much rage, so much betrayal, that I could feel it sickening my own heart. He was right. It hadn’t been a sacrifice I made for the amulet. I hadn’t lain under Lord Balam, feeling nothing while he fucked me. I’d liked it. So how could I have loved Tadeu, if I could do such a thing on the very night he died?
“Tell me, Itzel,” Tadeu snarled, leaning in so his face was a foot from mine. “How long had you been spreading your legs for your daddy’s royal visitors? Since your mom died, I bet. Your dad never minded pounding a little preteen pussy. Why wouldn’t you be thrown in the mix?”
“It wasn’t like that,” I choked out.
“Is that why you were always all over my dick when you were way too young to fuck? If I’d known you were already doing it, I wouldn’t have been such a good guy. Did you like it the first time, Itzel? Or did you scream for them the way you screamed for me the other day?”
“Leave me alone,” I whispered, my throat too tight to rage at him the way I wanted.
“Maybe it wasn’t the king’s idea at all,” he said, his voice taking on a cruel, taunting edge. “Maybe it was yours. You always wanted to be a shifter. I just never knew you wanted to fuck them. You used to laugh at the kitty chasers, but you were just like them, weren’t you, Itzel? I saw how much you loved it with my own eyes.”
“How?” I croaked, tears aching in my throat.
Tadeu straightened, pushing off the door frame to step back into the middle of the hall. “That night when I woke up? The night I fucking died, Itzel. When I woke up, your sister said she had something to show me.”
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head slowly. I knew what was coming, but I couldn’t bear it. Now I knew why she’d wanted him close to her, away from me. So I’d never know the truth.
Tadeu snorted with derision. “I was such a lovesick puppy, you know what I thought? I thought about you, Itzel. I was back alive, so maybe I had another chance. And even though the guards told me you ordered my execution, and they had no reason to lie, I didn’t really believe it. Not until Camila took me into the room where you were riding that jaguar like a real cowgirl. I’m glad those fucking riding lessons I gave you came in handy.”
“I’m—sorry,” I choked out.
And then I couldn’t say anything, because a sob rose in my throat like a primal scream from the center of the earth itself, one that would tear apart my entire world like Tadeu’s words just had. I closed the door, sliding down the inside of it and curling in on myself like a broken thing. Big, earth-rending sobs wracked my body as I lay there, my heart imploding. Strong arms wrapped around me, heaving me
up and carrying me to the bed. Shadow lay me down with him, wrapping himself around me, his forehead pressed to mine as he watched me shatter like glass in his hands.
Seventeen
Gabor
Royal Guard, Ocelot Nation
It had been two weeks since I had considered killing the heir to the throne. Two weeks since I’d landed a plane with flames consuming it by the second. Two weeks since I’d pulled the future queen from the wreckage and taken her to the shah’s palace, where she made me witness to the most sickening scene of brutality I’d encountered in a decade of serving King Ocelot, where degradation and violence were so much a part of everyday life that I could walk by a hanging man without blinking—without even noticing.
I had sat in the cockpit of a plane with Princess Itzel after her first murder, and I’d wanted to say something, but I hadn’t. There were no comforting words that would make me anything but a hypocrite. I’d wanted to tell her that the first one was the hardest, which was true. But I hadn’t wanted to remind her that after my first killing, there had been many, many more. I’d wanted to tell her that it never got easier, but I couldn’t lie to her. It had gotten easier. Frighteningly easy.
I hadn’t realized exactly how callous, how sociopathic, I’d become until something came screaming like a meteor through the void I’d cultivated around my heart. No, not something. Someone.
Someone whose scream had hit with the impact of a bomb detonating inside my soul. Now a second nightmare had joined the one about my sister, a scene to plague my dreams and haunt my sleepless nights.
I threw the blankets off and climbed out of the bed that offered every comfort but no peace. The familiar, restless urge to reach for my slow and bitter poison drew me out of my room. And because I had been imploding incrementally since the day I considered whether to kill the queen, I didn’t stop at one self-destructive urge. After lighting a cigarette, I let my feet wander down the maze of halls, past the concubines’ quarters, past the rooms where the shah’s guards slept and down the hall where the other princess slept.
Hunted Princess: A Paranormal Dark Romance (Feline Royals Book 3) Page 12