Broken Princess: A Dark Paranormal Romance (Feline Royals Book 1) Page 12

  He turned toward me, resting his elbow on the railing. “I don’t smoke,” he said, gesturing his lit cigarette toward a pack with a lighter sitting on it. “But it’s a good excuse to be standing outside your room if anyone walks by.”

  “Even out of uniform, you’re still a guard,” I said, shaking my head.

  Gabor reached down as if to adjust the jacket of his uniform, then let his hand fall to his side. Without his jacket, I could see the slight bulge of muscles in his arms and shoulders, the taut planes of his abs. He was tall and lean, and now that I was really looking at him, totally gorgeous. His golden-brown skin was smooth over his angular features and chiseled jawline, and his lashes were long and impossibly thick around the usual golden eyes of an ocelot shifter. I’d never paid much attention to the guards, since they were, well, guards.

  They were supposed to protect us, but they were scary as fuck. Especially Gabor, who might have actually been a robot as well as a shifter, because I could have sworn the guy never slept or went home. Besides that, they always looked stiff in their navy blue and gold uniforms, and their inability to smile made them imposing and unapproachable. Add to that the rumors that they ate humans like me, and you could see why I hadn’t been checking him out in the years he’d worked at the palace.

  “I had a sister who was…delicate,” he said after a long pause during which I admired his beauty and came back around to the conclusion that even though I now knew him a little, he still scared the shit out of me. He took a drag of his cigarette, his eyes cutting toward the door to my room.

  I opened my mouth to protest, since I knew Camila wouldn’t want anyone thinking her weak. But then his words registered, and I drew back in surprise. “You have a sister?”

  He nodded, sucking on the cigarette like it was the only thing giving him life. If he didn’t smoke, he should be working in Hollywood, not here.

  “Had,” he said through a mouthful of smoke.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Gabor blew out a thin stream of smoke from the corner of his mouth, rolling the coal at the end of the cigarette against the metal railing.

  “A commoner,” I said, as if clarifying, as if she could have been anything else. Lots of people had multiple kids—human people. Besides me, I didn’t know a single commoner born to shifter parents. I was dying of curiosity, but I knew it would be insensitive to ask what had happened. I wanted to know about her life more than her death, but I didn’t know if he’d want to talk.

  Gabor frowned at my box of food. “You should eat, Your Grace.”

  Well, that answered my question. I flipped the Styrofoam lid open, letting the smell of seafood and deep-fryer oil waft into the sultry air.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about Gabor-the-human as opposed to Gabor-the-robot-guard, but I wanted to know more about this human sister. I tried to remember if I’d ever met Gabor at a party when we were kids. There weren’t that many ocelot families, so there was a good chance I’d run across all of them at one point or another—a party, a dinner, some function at the palace or a host family when we’d traveled around the country before Mom died. Nearly every ocelot family was some kind of aristocrat, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember meeting him as a child. I’d met so many people at the parties, and he was too old to have been a playmate even for a few days.

  He shifted against the railing, and my eyes were drawn to his narrow hips, the way his jeans hung low on them but hugged him in just the right way.

  Fuck, what was I doing? He was an ocelot and a guard. I should definitely not be lusting after him. Maybe he’d be a good match for Camila, though. It would be a little disparate, but not scandalously so. Father had married someone of a lower station than Gabor. And Gabor was obviously one hundred percent loyal to the crown.

  I startled when I noticed him studying me as intently as I was studying him. I shoved a tepid shrimp into my mouth and began to chew.

  The door next to ours opened, and Lord Balam stepped out, his eyes taking in the situation in one sweep. He pulled his door closed and leaned against the outside of the window unit, crossing his thick arms over his chest. “Should we make a plan for tomorrow?”

  “Should we do it out here?” I asked. “Anyone could be listening.”

  Gabor and Lord Balam shared a smirk that made me instantly defensive. “No one’s outside on this entire side of the motel,” Balam said.

  I stuffed a piece of something rubbery in my mouth and jerked my head toward the camera at the end of the walkway. “And that?”

  Gabor dropped his cigarette butt and ground it out under his guard boot. “There’s no mic on that camera.”

  He really was an excellent guard.

  A guard who would be a great companion for my sister. Not me.

  “You think the rooms are bugged?” I asked. “That’s pretty sophisticated technology for this place.”

  “It’s safe out here,” Gabor said, his eyes softening as he reached for my arm. He paused before his fingers made contact, dropping his hand back to his side. To my irritation, I felt a little twinge of disappointment.

  Not for you, I reminded myself. For Camila.

  “I don’t think Camila should go into any more dangerous situations,” I said. “If we can find a safe base to operate from, you can stay and guard her while we go looking for the Keeper.”

  There. I’d set them up to get to know each other and have some alone time.

  Gabor gave me his stone face. His fingers rested on the railing, but I caught one of them twitch toward his cigarettes. Former smoker, I decided. He’d probably quit to get the job. Father would never tolerate such a dirty habit around the palace. The fact that he had this dirty little secret made him somehow more intriguing. I wondered what else was hiding behind the flawless veneer. What would it take to break through that stony exterior and make him lose control?

  Yep, I was definitely turning into a nympho. Now that I’d had sex, I wanted more. I’d only done it once. I wanted to try some other things. And even the same thing—how different would it be with Gabor than Lord Balam? Would one be better, or would they just be different? What would they be like…at the same time?

  “We can’t use that car, and we can’t walk around like kings flaunting our wealth in a destitute clan,” Lord Balam said. “Not unless we want the people to rise up and eat us.”

  I glanced at Gabor, wondering if he’d react, either because he really had eaten people or because he’d heard the rumors, but he was doing his blank stare into the middle distance.

  “Okay,” I said. “So, we leave the guards and Camila at a hotel—she asked that we not stay another night in a place like this, though—and we track down the Keeper.”

  “Once we find their clan, it should be easier,” Lord Balam said. “This is panther country, but the actual clan lives mostly in one place, just as most of your ocelots live in the city around the palace.”

  “Princess Itzel should have at least one guard,” Gabor said, a frown drawing his brows low.

  “I’m a jaguar,” Lord Balam said. “I can do more damage than an ocelot guard.”

  My temper flared at the insult to my people, but Gabor only shook out another cigarette and lit it, his face blank as a dead man’s. I wasn’t even a shifter, and I knew the other clans looked down on ocelots for their smaller stature when in feline form. It didn’t seem to bother Gabor, though I had a feeling it would be hard to get a real reaction from him about anything. I wondered if he wore that face when he dragged people away and whipped them until they bled, or slit their throats while their children screamed for him to stop.

  The image of Tadeu rose in my mind, of his eyes fixing on mine as the tiger ripped his throat out. Suddenly, I thought I’d be sick. I closed the lid to the box of greasy food, my stomach roiling. Had Gabor been the guard to drag Tadeu away? Had he known he’d be fed to a tiger, the same way my mother had been eaten by panther rebels?

  He was watching me, his eyes searching me as if they co
uld find what had upset me. I wasn’t a cold stone wall. If anything, I wore my emotions too close to the surface.

  “I’ve been going out without guards since I was a child,” I said to Gabor. “My father wouldn’t spare a guard for me now. But then, you probably know that, considering you watch everything that goes on in the palace.”

  He stonewalled me with that face again.

  “You never cared where I went or if I was safe before,” I said, trying to get a reaction. “Why start now?”

  Gabor worked his jaw back and forth the tiniest fraction, as if gritting his teeth. “If it pleases Your Grace to be escorted by the shaman alone, then I have no say in the matter.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “You don’t.”

  Eighteen

  I grabbed Lord Balam’s hand and dragged him back to his room. He followed me in, and I slammed the door. “Have you ever met a more infuriating man?” I asked, flopping onto the bed.

  Lord Balam quirked an eyebrow. “Lover’s quarrel?”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “You’re just as infuriating.”

  “You know that shifters have excellent hearing,” he said. “They may not be able to hear us from the other side of the building, but he can hear you from outside this flimsy door.”

  I blew out a breath, thankful that Lord Balam had warned me before I said anything treasonous. Not that I was going to, but I had to wonder if he’d overheard me at the arena and wanted to make sure I didn’t say anything now. Did he think Gabor was untrustworthy? Or just that he was loyal to the king and not me?

  Balam sank onto the bed beside me. “What are you upset about?”

  I jumped up and paced the tiny room, which had nothing more than a walkway around three sides of the bed. “I don’t even know,” I said. “Nothing. Everything. The two of you. Worrying about Camila. Oh, and my best friend was killed, not to mention he’s the man I’ve loved since I was a kid and thought I’d marry, and then I opened that amulet and I don’t know if it’s had lasting effects or getting fucked once turned me into a raging nympho, but my libido seems to have gone off the charts.”

  Lord Balam grinned, and I realized I’d gone way too far with my confession. “I can help you with that.”

  I shook my head, trying to ignore his gaze even though it made my core tremble with memory of that glorious cock pounding into me.

  “And then there’s the small matter of being in a totally foreign place that is definitely hostile, and we haven’t even begun to find the fucking amulet.” I broke off, the words echoing in my mind. Suddenly, I was laughing and crying at the same time.

  I remembered playing with Tadeu, pronouncing that we were going to open the fucking amulet. We’d pretend we were shifters, and of course the amulet told us we were mates, and then we’d take off our clothes and rub together and say we’d had sex. We were probably-definitely too old to be doing that, but it hadn’t mattered. In my mind, I’d already known that Tadeu was the man I would love as if he really were my one and only mate.

  Now he never would be. My mind balked at the reality. It was as if I were still waiting for him to appear, to say it had all been some big mistake, that Father had killed someone else. Tadeu couldn’t be dead. If he’d been dead, I would have died, too. If I refused to accept the fact that he was gone, he would never be gone. Not to me.

  Balam put his arms around me, guiding me to the bed. I sank onto his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck. He wasn’t Tadeu, but he was what I had. He had the same aura, that roughness, that overpowering sex appeal. A picture of Lord Balam’s obscenely slick cock swam into my mind unbidden. I couldn’t bring Tadeu back, but I could forget him like I had the other night.

  But did I really want to keep doing this? I was using someone else to erase the pain. Using someone for those few blessed moments when Tadeu wasn’t in the back of my mind, a constant ache like a cracked tooth, incessant and painful and always, always there, even when I was thinking of other things, doing other things, trying to go on with my life.

  Balam’s hands moved up my back, stroking my hair and my shoulder blades while I got a hold on myself.

  “Do you want to stay here tonight?” he asked, his voice gentle for once.

  It took everything I had to shake my head. “It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

  He pressed his nose to my temple and closed his eyes, inhaling my scent. “I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t want you to stay. I don’t care why you’re doing it.”

  “You don’t care if I’m using you?”

  His eyes flashed with interest, as if he sensed a challenge. “Is your honesty supposed to scare me?”

  “Does it?” I asked, searching his strong, square face.

  “No,” he said. “I want to fuck you. Does that scare you?”

  I swallowed, suddenly aware of the bulge of his sex swelling under mine. My sheath fluttered helplessly at the sensation of his erection growing, readying itself to split me in half again. “Maybe,” I whispered.

  “Then you’d better not stay,” he said. “Because once you’re in my bed, there’s no backing out.”

  “Are you threatening me?” I asked, my walls clenched in fear as well as anticipation.

  “Did that sound like a threat?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Consider it a warning,” he said. “Like I warned you about the amulet.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Let me be clear about who I am,” he said. “So there’s no misunderstanding. If I want to fuck, I can find someone willing. I don’t have to mislead a woman to get her in bed. I’m not some noble fortune teller, and I’m not a little boy you can toy with and tease. If you start things with me, I’m going to finish them. And by finish them, I mean I’m going to come so deep inside you that it feels like I’m ripping your pussy in half.”

  My heart pumped hard in my chest, red flags dropping like flies in my mind. Everything I’d ever been told about the way a man was supposed to treat a woman told me to get out and leave this arrogant, vulgar man to find some other woman to fuck.

  But I’d never been good at doing what I was told.

  Lord Balam leaned closer, sliding his hand behind my head. “Don’t worry, Princess,” he purred. “I’ll make sure you come, too.”

  My thighs were slick with moisture, my clit throbbing at his words. I knew this decision carried beyond tonight. If I walked out now, it wouldn’t be like the night before, when he’d flirted with me at dinner and asked with a wink if I wanted a repeat. Tonight, he’d told me who he was, and my choice was to accept it or not. He wouldn’t ask me like this again. He’d find another woman as easily as he’d made it sound. Women loved men like him. I knew, because women loved Tadeu, and Lord Balam was what Tadeu could have become if he’d lived longer and had more power.

  That was enough to make me nod my head mutely. I needed him. I needed his strong arms around me, needed both the pleasure and the pain of him fucking me. I needed to simultaneously forget Tadeu for a moment and hold onto him in whatever capacity Balam let me.

  He lifted my hair, his full lips brushing along my collarbone. Everything about him oozed sexuality, and I was not immune. Shivers ran through my body, and I dropped my head back with a sigh. The jaguar’s teeth grazed my throat, and the realization of what he was shuddered through me. The last time, I’d been too mad with the amulet’s power to think of the implications.

  This wasn’t like being with an alternate version of Tadeu. Lord Balam wasn’t human. Not entirely. He could lose control and turn into a ferocious predator, one who could rip my throat out with his teeth, shred my skin and muscle with his claws, and physically eat my flesh. A shifter woman could have shifted with him, defended herself if that happened. But I couldn’t. I was prey.

  I twisted on his lap, meaning to climb off him, but my body had other plans. I ended up straddling his lap, the hard length of his cock throbbing against my sex. My mind was nudging my body, telling me there was something I needed to rememb
er, but for a moment, all I could do was feel. The heat of Balam’s cock through his pants, his rough hand sliding under my shirt, thumbing my nipple until I gasped and arched against him, wetness soaking my panties.

  Balam moaned, grabbing my ass with both hands and grinding me against him.

  “I can smell how wet you are,” he said, his powerful arm circling my back and flipping me in one quick motion. His muscular body crushed down on mine, his hips pressing between my thighs. His eyes flashed an inhuman shade of gold, glowing with a triumphant, ravenous light.

  And then I remembered again. I was prey to his jaguar. I was prey, and instead of running, I’d opened my legs, begged this predator to fuck me but not kill me.

  A wave of sickness gripped me at the thought. Lord Balam wasn’t just a man. He was a shifter, and shifters were a completely different species from both humans and their animal counterpart. They couldn’t reproduce with either humans or jaguars. Him fucking me was just as wrong as him finding a jaguar in the forest and fucking it.

  He slid a hand inside my jeans, finding my wet slit and sinking his fingers into me. Waves of pleasure rushed through me, starting from his fingers and spreading out through my limbs. My toes curled, my scalp tingling as he thrust his fingers into me quicker. His mouth found mine, his tongue thrusting into my mouth in rhythm with his fingers. I whimpered, unsure whether to tear myself free or let my body have what it wanted so badly.

  An animal growl built low in his throat, and I struggled to free myself of his touch so I could clear my head. But his fingers slipped out before I could, spreading my folds and teasing my clit until I was panting for more. He sucked my lower lip between his teeth, running his tongue along it as his fingers moved in slow circles around my clit. I couldn’t hold back the moan of pleasure as his fingers slicked across my swollen nub and sank into me again.

  I remembered what he’d said about being quiet, about Gabor hearing us, but instead of shame, excitement raced through me. The thought of Camila’s stone-faced guard standing out there listening to our panting, growling, moaning desperation made my entrance tighten around Lord Balam’s fluttering fingers. I cried out, arching up to allow his fingers deeper into my pulsing sheath.