Hunted Princess: A Paranormal Dark Romance (Feline Royals Book 3) Read online

  Mom nodded for me to go on.

  “And I’m not sure about two of these.” I ran my fingers over the marks, watching as the full-moon glow flickered under my fingertips. Both the marks and my fingers tingled for a second when they came in contact with each other. Lord Balam had told me outside Sir Kenosi’s that he didn’t have a mate, and I’d seen every inch of his glorious body a hundred times. I’d also seen Sir Kenosi, who had no mark and who said the panther amulet hadn’t shown him a True Mate.

  “The last one?” Mom asked, looking at me with unsettling intensity.

  “I accidentally opened the panther amulet, and it marked a panther named Shadow,” I said. “Though he said he’d already opened the amulet and knew we were mates. But I saw his body, and he didn’t have the mark. It only appeared when I opened it.”

  Mom looked stricken. “You opened the panther amulet, and it marked someone?”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Were you marked when he opened the amulet before that?”

  “No,” I said, a creeping unease settling into me. “Why?”

  Mom swallowed. “So, he opened the amulet and saw that you were his True Mate, but it didn’t mark you,” she said, speaking slowly as if to clarify to us both. “But when you opened it, he was marked.”

  My eyes narrowed as I stared back at my mother. “I thought only panthers knew about the curse on their amulet.”

  “There is one other person who knows about the curse.”

  “You,” I said slowly, tension coiling inside me. I had believed Shadow’s insistence that his people didn’t kill my mother, and she’d confirmed as much. But had she come in contact with the panthers? “Mom, how do you know about the curse? Are you the queen who opened the amulet too soon?”

  She shook her head. “I was a queen, but I was never an heir. I have no royal blood. Your father had an Amulet Tour, not me.”

  “And you’re not a panther,” I said. “So how do you know about the curse?”

  “Itzel.” Mom set her tea down on the saucer. “I know about the curse… Because I’m the one who cursed it.”

  I stared at my mother, trying to make sense of the words that had just come from her mouth, trying to back up and remember what Shadow and Lord Balam had said about the person who cursed the amulet.

  “Wait,” I said. “Let me get this straight. You’re not a shifter? You’re some kind of sorceress?”

  “I was both of these things in your world,” she said. “I can answer your questions about that if you stay. But if you go, there’s something else you should know about this curse.”

  “What?” I asked. “Because it already seems pretty unfair that a random, unsuspecting human can get caught up in it so easily.”

  “There’s only one person who wouldn’t be marked as a True Mate when someone else opens the amulet,” she said. “Only one person who the curse should affect at all. And it’s not a random human.”

  “It’s Camila,” I whispered, horror rising inside me. Even after all she’d done, Camila was my sister. I couldn’t undo eighteen years of wanting to protect her.

  Mom’s lips tightened. “No, Itzel. The curse only falls on the one who opens it. You can’t hurt your sister with it. You can only hurt yourself.”

  “Then I don’t understand,” I said, jumping to my feet, wishing I could feel a heartbeat drumming the rhythm of my dread inside me. “The curse is supposed to fall on the heir if she opens it too soon, but Camila is the heir, so how can I be cursed?”

  “She may be the heir now,” Mom said slowly. “But the magic is never wrong. You will be the one to take the throne, Itzel. You will be the next ocelot queen.”

  Two

  Lord Balam

  Curandero, Jaguar Nation

  Itzel was dead. It was clear in my mind even though my jaguar hadn’t caught up yet, even as I clutched her to me and snarled at the others when they tried to pull her away. They crowded around me, each as panicked and hopeless as I was. None could question whether she might recover. This was not an infection, not a jagged panther bite torn during rough sex. This was an execution.

  “Put something on the wound,” Sir Kenosi ordered, desperation in his voice. “Maybe we can stop the bleeding.”

  There was no stopping the bleeding. She was human, and most of her neck had been torn away. Only her spine was intact, keeping her from a complete beheading.

  Fate could not be this fucking cruel. My heart thudded in my chest, beating hard enough for both of us. It pounded out the rhythm of my jaguar’s claim.

  My mate. My mate. My mate.

  I knew it, but she didn’t. I hadn’t gotten the chance to tell her, and now I never would. It shouldn’t have happened this way. It was all wrong from the start. The way we’d started out just fucking because it was what she needed, and I wasn’t the type to feel used. I was the type to fuck a beautiful princess if that’s what she wanted. But it hadn’t marked us. That was what I didn’t understand. We’d been fucking for months, until it was more than just fucking, and no mark had appeared.

  Until it did.

  I had wanted to tell her, but someone had interrupted each time I drew close. It wasn’t something to blurt out as if meaningless. A True Mate was a bond deeper than love, than life and death. I knew that now. I felt it now. But I hadn’t told her. I had been waiting for the right moment, and now that moment would never come.

  Had she known? And if she had, was she pleased?

  It didn’t matter now. That was the truth of it. It didn’t matter if she’d been happy, or pissed, or scared out of her mind. Now she was none of those things. She was only dead.

  “I’m going after him,” Prince Kwame said in his deep, accented voice.

  My brain began to wake from its shock. Sticky warmth trickled down my chest, plastering Itzel’s wild mane to my bare skin.

  “There’s a chance,” Sir Kenosi said, staring at her as if her death had ripped out a part of him, too. “It was a tiger.”

  “Was it?” Shadow rasped.

  “I’ll go with you,” I said, feeling the tremor in my sanity at the thought that this was more than a random animal attack. At the thought that someone had done this intentionally, with knowledge and foresight. That it really was an execution.

  “I’ll stay,” Sir Kenosi said, prying the body from my arms.

  Instinct drew my lips back in a feral snarl. Sir Kenosi’s stricken face turned savage, and he bared his teeth back at me, a sharp hiss flying off his tongue.

  “Whoa, there,” Prince Kwame said. “We’re all on the same side.”

  “Right,” I said, forcing my jaguar down. “Apologies, Sir Kenosi. My jaguar wasn’t ready to let her go.”

  “Understood,” he murmured, his eyes locked on the princess. He accepted her body as if he were taking something as fragile as a dove instead of a sturdy human body, one who had withstood our poundings night after night. In this moment, she could have been a butterfly, and I wouldn’t have treated her with any more care.

  “I’ll keep watch,” Shadow said. “I can cloak us with invisibility if anyone tries to get to her again.”

  I didn’t say anything, but I knew his concern was unwarranted. No one was coming after Itzel. They’d already done the job.

  “Hurry,” Kwame said. “We can’t let the killer escape. Either they will have answers, or we will have revenge.”

  Revenge. Such a hollow concept now.

  Revenge didn’t reverse time or even erase regret. Revenge didn’t replace a throat that had been torn out or replace her with one of us. I would have stepped into that tiger’s path, would have taken her place, in an instant. Revenge couldn’t make that happen. It could only add one more to the death count.

  But I understood the desire to act. We could do nothing here, and the helplessness was torture. We had two choices. Sit here and accept this new reality, or go after her killer.

  I pulled my jaguar cloak around my shoulders and let it sink into me, wrap around me, hold me l
ike a pair of arms. My jaguar accepted me like an old friend, a friend who offered comfort and a sense of oblivion. Though I retained much of my human mind, the pain and shock were numbed by my animal senses taking over. I welcomed the relief.

  With a hiss of magic that distorted the air around him, Prince Kwame became a lion. I had never seen him shift, and it was different than my own transformation. I would consider it later. Now, we had a tiger to catch.

  Together, Prince Kwame and I bounded into the forest. There was one answer that could make this better, one answer that could bring our mate back. That hope drove me forward through the unfamiliar, sweltering jungle. If the tiger had no answers, if it was simply an animal, its victim would become a tiger shifter, undead as all tiger shifters were. But if it was not an animal, if it was a tiger shifter, answers were no better than revenge. Knowing who or why didn’t bring breath into Itzel’s lungs, didn’t put the fierceness, loyalty, and spark back in her eyes. Only her spirit could do that, and her spirit had already passed through the veil.

  A scent found my nostrils, caressing my muzzle, and I turned and let out a huff to the great lion who bounded beside me. I had found the trail. Prince Kwame veered right to follow me, and we scrambled over logs and squirmed under vines, our bellies scraping dirt, our pelts scratched by thorns.

  As the scent grew stronger, so did the sick sense of dread gripping my gut like a malady. It seemed more and more unlikely that an animal had randomly attacked Itzel out of everyone in our group. I realized as I closed in on the attacker that this could very well be a trap. If Shah Tiger knew we were coming, and he very well should, he might want to lure us in. But he already had the upper hand. He had the amulet. Why assassinate a princess instead of making her bargain for it? Itzel wasn’t a commoner, despite her human blood. She was royalty. If this was ordered by the shah, it was an act of war.

  Still, a trap wouldn’t stop me. I’d walk into hell if it gave me a chance to get Itzel back. If it gave me a chance to do it over, to read the oracle and see what was coming. Why hadn’t it shown me this? Her death was the death of my soul. The oracle should have told me, so that I could prevent this. I didn’t care if it meant interfering in fate. I would have disrupted the entire cosmos to stop her death.

  Prince Kwame bounded past me, skidding to a stop below a sprawling tree, its trunk as wide as we were long. Vines wound up the trunk, and in the canopy above, I could hear a shrill bird call.

  I could also smell the trail I had been following. The bastard had gone up a tree, knowing only one of us could follow. Lions didn’t climb trees.

  But I did.

  I gripped the trunk, my claws extended for purchase, and began to climb. Prince Kwame growled his frustration behind me, but I didn’t slow. I should have foreseen this, should have brought Shadow with me. There was nothing to be done about it now, though.

  Leaves showered down as I scrambled over a branch, catching my first glimpse of the enormous orange cat above me. I was a big man and a big cat, but tigers were bigger. I’d had dealings with the Tiger Empire before, but rarely a tiger in its animal form. I couldn’t help but be impressed by their size, despite the advantage it gave them.

  I snarled at the tiger, which had reached the highest limb that would support its weight. It twisted its head around, baring saber teeth as its lips pulled back in a warning snarl. Gripping the bark, I scrambled up a few more feet. The tree groaned under our combined weight, but I inched forward, reaching up to slash at the tiger’s hind leg. My claws raked through its fur and flesh, and blood splattered down on me. The tiger screeched in fury and twisted around, dropping onto a branch below me.

  I leapt after it, a growl tearing from my throat. The bastard wouldn’t get away.

  The branch sank under us, but I crept out along it, backing the tiger toward the end. Suddenly, it slashed out with its massive paw, clubbing me and slicing open deep furrows in the muscle of my shoulder. I lunged forward, sinking my teeth into its leg. The tiger growled in fury and clamped its teeth down on the back of my head. I wrenched away, ripping my skin and ear to tatters on its teeth.

  The tiger leapt at me, but I darted out of the way, throwing myself at the trunk of the tree. His teeth sank into my haunch, and I turned and slashed at his neck, my claws sinking into the thick ruff around his face and neck. I dug in, burrowing the sharp points into his flesh, seeking an artery. The tiger jerked backwards, opening its mouth in a snarl that showed blood-streaked teeth. But I could see the fear in his eyes.

  I sprang from the tree and slammed into the tiger. My teeth and claws sank through skin, ripped into muscle, spilled blood. The tiger jerked backward, and I went with it, slashing and snapping. I heard the crack of the tree’s limb a second too late.

  Before either of us could react, we were falling through the air. My body twisted to land, but I kept my teeth clamped into the tiger, refusing to release him. We hit the ground in a spray of leaves and twigs. The tiger instantly went limp, still as death in my grip. I unclamped my jaws and stepped back.

  Prince Kwame, now in human form, bent and pressed a hand to the tiger’s throat. He looked up at me and shook his head. Frustrated, I shook my head back. Fuck if I was going to return to human form and risk the tiger playing a trick, waiting to jump up and rip my throat out the way he had Itzel.

  “He’s gone,” Prince Kwame said. “To the spirit world.”

  I shifted back to a man, adjusting my cloak over my shoulders. “You’re sure? I killed him?”

  The lion shook his head. “He’s already dead. Feel how his blood is cold? Only his spirit went back. He’s a bridge, like me.”

  “Fuck,” I said, burying my hands in my hair and staring down at the massive, still form. “Fuck. Fuck.”

  “I will follow him,” Prince Kwame said. “He’s not the only one who can move between worlds.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I growled. “I can cut his fucking throat out and burn his body so he can’t come back here, but she’ll still be gone.”

  “I don’t care,” Kwame said, his eyes burning with his lion. “I had a mate for one day, Lord Balam. Nothing can stop me from avenging her killer. And in that world… We can be together again.”

  “You just got your human life back,” I said. “You’d give it up to stay there with her.”

  “I’d give up the life of every human on earth to be with her again,” he said. “Believe me when I say it’s worth it.”

  A growl threatened to tear from my throat. At least he’d gotten a mate for one day. I’d had her for months, and I’d squandered it all. I hadn’t been her mate for even a day. Not even a moment when she knew, when we were together as True Mates. It had happened amid the chaos, so that the only one who had a chance to be with her since we’d been claimed as True Mates was this guy. This guy who didn’t even know Itzel, who now acted as if he alone mourned her loss and treasured their bond.

  I knew Itzel. I knew what she was worth, far more than I’d ever shown her. I knew every inch of her inside and out, the way her eyes burned with ferocity when someone threatened her sister, the taste of her sweet cunt, the force of her determination, the moans that escaped her throat when she was cumming on my cock, the wildness of her laugh. I knew her. I should have seen this coming. I should have known she would destroy me.

  “Carry him back,” he said quietly. “Tie him up in case he escapes me in the spirit world and returns here. Do not kill him. I want answers.”

  I dropped my hands to my sides and stared at my companion. “Answers won’t bring her back, Prince Kwame.”

  “If there is even a one-percent chance that they will, I’ll take that over the ninety-nine percent chance that you’re right.”

  I nodded, understanding him even as my own hopes died. As hard as it was, I had learned long ago to accept things as they were. That didn’t mean other people didn’t need answers, didn’t need closure. And he deserved that even if it was meaningless to me. To me, all that mattered was that this fucking bastard t
iger wasn’t a wild animal. It was a shifter, one who had committed premeditated murder. No matter what he had to say for himself, no matter if we followed him to the ends of the earth and the spirit world and the heavens above, it wouldn’t change what truly mattered. This time, I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to accept the reality. My mate was dead, and she wasn’t coming back.

  Three

  Itzel

  Princess, Ocelot Nation

  “Okay, I don’t know how to respond to that,” I said to Mom, my tea and cake forgotten as I stared at nothing, trying to comprehend the impossible thing she’d just told me. “When you said you were going to tell me who I really am, I wasn’t expecting to be told I was going to usurp the throne. I mean… What?”

  “I wish I had all the answers,” Mom said, staring off with me. “I don’t know what the future holds. I only know the intricacies of my own curse. It has to be so.”

  “But… How? I’m not a shifter, Mom. I’m not an ocelot.”

  We sat in silence for a long while, staring at the foggy nothingness beyond the cherry blossoms hanging over us like an umbrella.

  At last, she spoke. “If it hasn’t been too long, and your body is still in a state to sustain life, it’s possible you could live again. But you should hurry. If your body goes without life for too long, your organs will be too far gone, and you cannot inhabit your human form again.”

  “Is there any way to get back from here?” I asked.

  She bit at her lip. “No,” she said at last. “Lilith is the only one who might be able to help us, and we are not allowed to ask for an audience with her. When she’s ready to see you, she’ll come to you.”

  “Then what can we do?”

  “We’ll have to wait for Prince Kwame,” she said, wringing her hands. “I pray he’s resourceful enough to figure out a way to get you back in time.”

  I swallowed hard, frustration and helplessness gnawing at me.

  Come on, Kwame. You’re a bridge. Come and see me. Take me back.