Broken Princess: A Dark Paranormal Romance (Feline Royals Book 1) Read online

  “Itzel?” Camila whispered, tiptoeing into the room.

  I made a noise to let her know I was awake. I didn’t know if I could speak yet. I kept seeing Tadeu’s eyes lock on mine. Not with anguish or love, but with icy hatred. It was my fault. It was my fault, and he knew it.

  No, he didn’t know it. He’d known it. I would never make it up to him. He was gone.

  Camila sank onto the edge of the bed. “Father wants me to get the amulet,” she said with a little hiccup. “I have to do it tonight, Itz. They’re leaving in the morning.”

  “I know.” I guess I could speak. My voice sounded wooden and monotonous, not like mine at all. Or maybe I was just hearing it clearly for the first time as someone else would hear it. I didn’t seem to be inside my body, though I was aware of what was happening around it. The morning’s conversation with Father about feline mating rituals seemed like another life, my real life, not this nightmare.

  “I can’t do it,” Camila said. “I tried all night, but Lord Balam was barely cordial. He won’t give me the amulet. I didn’t earn his trust. I didn’t have time!”

  “You can,” I said, but I didn’t even convince myself.

  “I can’t,” Camila wailed. “He doesn’t like me. He liked you more.”

  The words hung in the air for a long minute. “You want me to get it.”

  It wasn’t a question. I knew my sister. I knew my place. I did hard things she couldn’t.

  “Would you?” she squeaked.

  “I would do anything for you,” I said. “You know that.”

  She leaned down and pulled me up, wrapping her arms around me. A whiff of whiskey found me.

  “Oh, but it won’t work,” Camila cried suddenly, pulling away.

  “What won’t?”

  “I talked to him about the amulet,” she said, her voice going low with excitement.

  “You did?”

  “Once I had a drink, I got braver,” she said with a giggle. “He said it could only be opened with a virgin’s blood.”

  “Okay…” I was trying to keep up, to force my mind back to where it had been, but I couldn’t seem to care about anything.

  The fucking amulet, my traitorous mind reminded me. Tadeu’s words. I winced.

  Since it was used in mating ceremonies, it made a certain sense that the rules around it related to whether a person had mated already. I didn’t know why it had to be opened by blood, but whatever. Shifter rituals made zero sense to me.

  “That means I have to get it,” Camila sniffled.

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

  Camila slumped against me. “I have to get it because I’m a virgin.”

  “I’m a virgin,” I said.

  “You are?” Camila asked, pulling back to look at me, her eyes wide. “How?”

  “Because I’ve never had sex.”

  “You haven’t? But what about—him?”

  She couldn’t even say his name. But I would say it. I would never forget him. I would do whatever I had to do to get Camila on the throne. Father would continue to rule even after her twentieth birthday if she couldn’t get all the amulets. There had been stories of clans at war that refused to give the amulet for so long that the reigning queen died before the new one could take over.

  I would not let that happen to Camila. I had promised Tadeu that if he lived for me, I would kill father for him. He hadn’t lived for me. But I would kill father for him, anyway. I would kill him by taking him off the throne, by sending him to live on an estate somewhere far from us where we could forget him. I would kill him by making laws that were just for all the people, not just shifters. I would kill him by marrying a common man, maybe even finding a good one for Camila to marry.

  “I did other things with Tadeu,” I said. “But not that.”

  “But the rumors…”

  “I would have told you,” I said, taking her hands. “I’m a virgin. Now tell me how to get the amulet. Tell me everything you know, everything you’ve heard from Father or other shifters…”

  She shook her head. “I only know about ours.”

  Of course we had one, too. It was the first one I’d heard of, the one that spawned the title Fucking Amulet.

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  “Only shifters can touch ours,” she said. “Ocelot shifters.”

  “Then how could another clan get it when a new queen or king takes over?”

  “It fits together with the others,” she said. “They all link into each other. Each has its own rules and conditions. To prove that ours was given willingly, only an ocelot can place it into the puzzle. Once it’s in, it won’t come out until an ocelot takes it out, but another king or queen can carry the larger puzzle. They just can’t touch it.”

  “What happens if they do?”

  “They would die.”

  I swallowed. That was pretty intense magic. I wondered how many people had touched it by accident. No wonder people hated the Ocelot Nation. We’d probably killed lots of their royal heirs. I could only hope the one I was about to steal didn’t have a similar protection.

  “Oh, god,” Camila said, reading my mind the way she sometimes did. “You don’t think…”

  “I don’t care,” I said. “I’ll get it for you. It would be worth it.”

  “No, Father would have told us,” she muttered, twisting a ring around her little finger. “He had to get it once, after all. He survived it.”

  “But did he have to steal it? Back then, the Ocelot Nation was on better terms. He probably just made a trade bargain.”

  Camila shook her head. “It would have to be something more…personal. The mating amulets are from a primitive time. A bargain would have to be something like an arranged marriage. That kind of thing.”

  “So, you want to trade me to the Jaguar Court? I don’t think you’d get an amulet for me.”

  “Of course not,” Camila said.

  “Did you find out anything else from the shaman? Anything besides it has to be given to a virgin?”

  Camila shook her head. “Not really.”

  “Father said to seduce it from the shaman,” I said.

  “He didn’t mean it literally,” Camila said. “If you’re still a virgin, he wouldn’t ask you go give that up just to get an amulet for me.”

  Of course he would. He would whore me out to the three-times-my-age jaguar king if it helped Camila. Hell, he’d whore me out to the entire Jaguar Court for her. I could see in her eyes that she knew it, too. She was asking me, though, not demanding it.

  And what did it matter now? Before last night, I had always planned to wait until Camila’s coronation and my marriage to Tadeu. I’d gotten tired of waiting and decided to do it sooner, knowing we’d be married in under a year.

  But now? I had no one to wait for now. No one to tempt with my “cherry.” No one who would treat it like a treasure, who would tease me about it but under all the bravado would set a table with stolen candles for our date. Without Tadeu, I had no reason. My virginity wasn’t special without a man I loved to give it to. I might as well use it for political gain the same way my father would, the same way Camila would.

  “I’ll do it,” I said, rising from the bed. If I couldn’t do it for love, I might as well do it on my own terms. “But how can I seduce him into giving me the amulet and remain a virgin so I can take it?”

  “Can you get it first?” she asked. “Tell him that if he gives it to you, you’ll give him your virginity?”

  “And if he says no?”

  “Then I’ll sneak in and steal it while you’re…you know. Occupied.” She cast her eyes down, not even daring to say the words for what we were doing.

  “Wait outside the door,” I said. “I’ll make noise.”

  “One more thing,” Camila said. “Father told him…” She broke off with a gulp, turning big, guilty eyes up at me. “He told him I’d come by to discuss the amulet later tonight.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll wait u
ntil he turns off the lights, and I’ll pretend to be you.”

  “Do you think he’ll believe it?”

  “Why wouldn’t he?” I said. “He doesn’t know us that well. We have the same accent. I’ll keep the talking to a minimum, and he’ll think he’s deflowering the future queen, not her common sister.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  “You know I would,” I said, my voice flat. She did know that. It was why she’d asked this of me.

  “What if he figures it out?”

  “Give me your dress,” I said. “I’ll squeeze into it. As Tadeu once said, the only thing that feels as good as fucking a virgin is fucking another virgin.”

  Camila blushed so hard I could see it in the silvery moonlight. “What?”

  “Lord Balam will be too busy congratulating himself to notice you slipping in to take the amulet. By the time he realizes it’s gone, it’ll be too late.”

  “Oh, thank you, Itz,” she said, standing and throwing her arms around me. We quickly changed dresses. Mine was torn and had drops of blood on it from where I’d scratched the guards. The bust and hips hung strangely on Camila’s straight, slender figure. I couldn’t get her dress zipped past the small of my back, but since it was only meant to be taken off, it didn’t matter.

  Together, we slipped out of the room and down the hall toward the guest wing.

  Nine

  We turned into the hallway where the jaguars were staying, hoping not to be seen sneaking around the palace in the middle of the night wearing each other’s clothes. The guards were used to turning a blind eye to me, but they’d never let Camila by so easily. Gabor stood watch, his back against the wall and a studied blankness on his face. When I stepped into the hallway, his eyes fixed on me, though.

  “Your Grace,” he said. “We’ve been instructed to keep an eye on your room and make sure you do not leave.”

  “If Father didn’t want me to leave, would he have given Camila a key to my room?” I asked.

  “It’s true,” Camila said. “We’re on official business.”

  Somehow, she managed to sound imperious even though she’d just been a simpering mess. And though she wore a ragged dress, she stood straight and tall like the queen she would become.

  Gabor hesitated, his eyes narrowed. “Where are you going?”

  “To the shaman’s room,” I said. “Is he asleep?”

  “The servant put out his light half an hour ago.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “Camila will be keeping watch outside his chambers. If she goes in, come to the door and make sure she gets out safely.”

  “And you, Your Grace?” he asked. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I saw sympathy flickering over his stoic expression.

  “Don’t worry about me,” I said. “Your duty is to the future queen, is it not?”

  I didn’t know Gabor well enough to know if he’d bristle at taking orders from a human. For a second, I thought he’d refuse me, and my heart skipped.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Gabor said, returning his blank gaze to the wall over my head.

  “Thank you,” I said, relieved. Having a purpose drove me forward, past what had happened to Tadeu. Nothing would stop me until I’d had my revenge, until I’d seen my father brought to his knees.

  I tapped on Lord Balam’s door. None of the nervousness I’d felt when knocking on Tadeu’s door remained. I may have been calling on a man to perform the same task, but I was not a woman knocking on a lover’s door, trembling with anticipation. My resolve was hard as stone; my clarity arctic cold.

  Lord Balam’s answer was immediate, as if he’d been expecting me. He spoke just one word. “Come.”

  I pulled open the door and slipped inside as quickly as I could, shutting the door before too much light could come in with me. Balam’s bed was in the center of the room, mosquito netting hanging around it like a funeral shroud.

  There would be no funeral for Tadeu. He’d died a disgraced man, a criminal dragged away by the guards and fed to a tiger for entertainment. This was his funeral.

  I pulled back the netting, grateful that the moonlight wouldn’t hit the windows in this room until close to dawn. It was inky black, just as I’d hoped.

  “I’ve been expecting you,” Lord Balam said.

  “I’m here for the amulet.”

  That fucking amulet, my mind whispered. I stifled the sudden urge to break into hysterical giggles. Wrestling myself under control, I slid a hand across the bed until I found Lord Balam’s leg under the sheets. I crawled across the bed, climbing onto him.

  “This is quite a way to get it,” he said.

  “You like to negotiate,” I said. “You said only a virgin can have it. So here I am. You give that up, and I’ll give this up.”

  “That’s not what I said. I said only virgin blood can open it.”

  I felt his cock throb at the words, and a dart of something from the old Itzel quaked inside me. I remembered his cock, so alive, so animalistic. The same man who had intimidated me with his cock was under me now, growing harder as we spoke. The heat of his body seemed to be thawing the shock in mine.

  I had to get this over with before that happened.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked. “Cut me?”

  “No,” he said, laughing softly in the darkness. He was unnerving me more each moment, unraveling my iron resolve.

  “Well, if you fuck me to make me bleed, I won’t be a virgin, now will I?”

  “You’re getting closer,” he said, his hands moving up my thighs.

  “Tell me,” I said. “Tell me how it works.”

  “You want to open it?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you open it, you won’t be a virgin for long,” he said, his hands going still. There was a note of warning in his voice.

  “I have nothing better to save it for,” I said. I had decided when I walked into this room that I wouldn’t walk out a virgin. It didn’t matter. I’d make lots of noise, and Camila could sneak in and take it.

  He sat up, his strong thighs flexing under me, his cock grinding against my clit with the movement. I gasped at the sensation of his hot, calloused palm sliding up my bare back. He flattened it between my shoulder blades, pulling my chest to his. My body thrummed with life, with energy. My heart may have died tonight, but my body was still very much alive. I wished Lord Balam wasn’t reminding me of that. I wished he’d just thrown me on the bed and stood beside it while he fucked me, touching only my hips to hold me in place while he thrust his cock into my numb body.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said, his breath hot against my lips, his nose pressed to mine. His skin was smooth, the paint gone.

  “Tell me,” I said again. “Tell me the secret of the amulet. What is its power?”

  “It will only open for the blood of your virginity,” he said. “I’d have to put it inside you to open it.”

  Some primal part of me thrilled at the ache in his voice, the thickness of his desire almost slurring his words. I’d only have to let him pierce the barrier of my virginity, though. I didn’t even have to fuck him. I may not have had sex, but I knew breaking the membrane inside me with an instrument wasn’t sex. I wasn’t going to burst Lord Balam’s bubble, though. If he wanted to claim he’d taken my virginity in exchange for the amulet, I’d let him.

  I pictured him at a mating ceremony in his clan, a virgin laid on a slab of stone while he slid the amulet inside her. My sheath fluttered at the image, and I felt my sex begin to swell with arousal.

  “Okay,” I whispered, my voice almost choked. He fumbled for something on the nightstand, and I grabbed his arm, my heart hammering. “No light.”

  “You really are a virgin,” he said, gripping me around the waist to steady me while he felt around. At last, he straightened and pressed something cold and hard into my hand. It felt like polished marble carved into a smoothed shape I couldn’t determine. Maybe a human body? One end was a rounded point, and it thickened from there to ab
out twice the width of a finger before tapering at the other end and then coming to what felt like a cross guard of a sword. I supposed that kept it from getting stuck inside some poor virgin.

  I couldn’t feel even the slightest seam where it would open, though.

  “You want this inside you?” Lord Balam asked, his voice husky, his hand on mine as I explored the amulet.

  My mind raced. Obviously Camila wouldn’t be able to come in and steal it if it was inside me. But that didn’t matter. I had it in my hand. If he put it inside me, I could leave with it and my virginity intact. Would it be enough for him to feel me up a little, stick his little magical dildo inside me?

  “Yes,” I whispered. That part wasn’t a lie. Lord Balam’s touch did things to me that I was ashamed to admit, made me feel things I hadn’t expected to feel again in my lifetime, let alone so soon. Not love. There was no emotion between us. It was more carnal, instinctual. This felt good, and I needed to feel good, to feel alive.

  He took my hand, moving it down his muscled abdomen and burying it under the blanket. His cock was bare, throbbing into my palm. I gasped at the rawness of it.

  “And this?” he asked.

  “Yes.” This part was a lie—at least partially. My body wanted that, too, wanted everything. It wanted to forget what I’d witnessed tonight, consequences be damned. It wanted to forget even for a moment, though I’d hate myself for it later. But my mind knew it would be a mistake. My mind knew that if I could get out of there without losing my virginity, maybe I could use it to get the next one. After all, this was only the second of eight amulets Camila needed to take the throne from our father.

  Lord Balam was breathing hard as he ran my hand down his shaft, letting me feel every inch of his straining length. My own arousal increased as I wrapped my hand around him, shuddering with longing at the thickness of his cock. My fingers didn’t come close to touching around his girth. Good thing I was only going to have that four-inch stone amulet inside me. I could only hope the next amulet was kept by a man with a tiny penis.