If she went about it wrong with the shaman, she might lose her best chance at choosing a mate to form an alliance. And Camila, for all her lessons on diplomacy, had only one mode in public. Her bland, dignified smile was the stuff of memes. It approved of everything while promising nothing. She wasn't sneaky enough for this assignment. I resembled Father in more ways than my temperament.
I studied Lord Balam as the dinner wore on. He wasn’t the king, but to us, he was the most important player in this room. We could make alliances with the king when Camila took the throne. But in order to get her on the throne, we needed what Lord Balam had. He didn’t seem the least bit interested in my sister, though. He’d talked to me, and then the Prince Jaguar, and was now discussing horses with my father and the jaguar king.
Camila’s cold fingers brushed my arm, and she ducked her head and spoke low enough that only I could hear. “I’ll never get the amulet.”
“You will,” I said, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. “They’ll be here for another week. We have time.”
“What a wonderful visit this has been,” boomed King Jaguar, an older man than father. “I cannot thank you enough for your hospitality. May relations between our clans continue ever in such harmony and celebration.”
“Hear, hear,” came a chorus of voices as King Jaguar raised his glass. We all drank before he went on.
“It’s been a pleasure, but I’m afraid we must cut our visit short,” he said. “We will be leaving in the morning.”
I caught the flicker of anger cross my father’s face, but my attention was drawn away by the quaking in Camila’s hand as she gripped mine.
“Very well,” Father said, all boisterous good will. “But you must stay for the evening’s entertainment. I insist. We so seldom receive Your Majesty’s presence here, and I’ve arranged a special show for your enjoyment.”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” King Jaguar said. “Let us take in the evening’s show together. From now on, we must make sure that our clans joining for mutual business and entertainment shall not be such a rare occurrence.”
“Work all day, enjoy yourself all evening,” Father said. “That has always been my philosophy.”
Bullshit. His philosophy was to never stop working, never stop strategizing and scheming. We were all in it too deep to extricate ourselves. The only way to live without hating myself was to embrace it and join in the games by day, escape it and play with the other commoners by night.
“We have enjoyed the festivities greatly,” said King Jaguar as we trailed him and Father out of the dining hall, forming a procession as we wound through passages and chambers until we arrived on the upper deck of the arena. As the royals began to take their seats, I slipped away from Camila and squeezed through the guards to reach my father’s side. I had performed flawlessly at dinner. It was time to collect my prize.
Seven
“Where’s Tadeu?” I asked, grabbing Father’s elbow.
He regarded me with cold, disdainful eyes, and my heart began to pound. I tried to steady myself, meeting his hard gaze with emotionless calm.
“Have patience, my daughter,” he said. “You will have your answer in due time.”
“You promised,” I said through clenched teeth.
“You’re impulsive and rash,” he said. “You must learn to wait for the right moment. This is not the right moment.”
“When’s the right moment?” I asked. “I did what you ordered. When will you fulfill your end of the bargain?”
“Let us be seated,” he said, gesturing to Gabor, who waited to escort me to my seat two rows away. “We will discuss this at a later time.”
“When?” I asked, but he’d already turned away. I was tempted to push him down the arena steps, but that was a little obvious. Just because I was a princess didn’t mean they wouldn’t try me for treason if I tried to break the king’s neck. Anyone else was fair game, but not Father or Camila. They were important.
In truth, all shifters were important. It was only commoners who were expendable.
The stone-faced guard guided me into the row where two maidservants had appeared to help Camila sit down in her gown. Obviously no one had considered the difficulty of sitting on bench seats in a frosted cupcake of a dress before they’d arranged the evening’s wardrobe. When Camila was at last situated, I dropped onto the seat beside her.
“Once you take over, would it still be considered treason to murder Father?” I muttered under my breath.
“You mustn’t speak that way,” Camila said with a pretty frown. “You never know who can overhear you in a place like this.”
“Down on the floor, maybe,” I said. “We’re safe up here.”
“Still,” she said. “You never know when such words will come back to haunt you.”
A shiver went through me, and I glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one heard. It was one thing to sneak out of the castle to drink and dance with friends. The guards would overlook that. A threat on the king’s life? Not so much.
I’d spent enough time in the city to know that people were terrified of the king’s guards, and with good reason. They could go into people’s houses and arrest someone, drag them out of bed, and haul them away. The lucky ones just got tied to a post and beaten in front of their family, friends, or coworkers. The others were killed or disappeared and were never seen again. Some people speculated that the guards ate them, while others thought that they were served at the exclusive ocelot-only parties. Either way, the guards were universally abhorred and feared. Even I tried not to have much contact with them.
Of course, I hadn’t really meant that I’d kill the king, but they wouldn’t take even an idle threat lightly. Gabor had probably never taken anything lightly in his life. But I would never kill my father, trying as he could be. Sure, he was cold and calculating and used his daughters as pawns, but no parent was perfect.
Gabor was two rows above, his face set in its usual mask. Lord Balam, however, was watching me… Or was he? There was no unintentional spark of human connection when our eyes met, the one that could be disconcerting with a stranger or awkward with someone you’d fought with. His gaze was turned in our direction, but his eyes were shifted slightly. To Camila.
I turned back around and took her hand, squeezing it for my own comfort this time.
Focus, Itzel.
“No one can hear us,” I said quietly. “Are you going to be okay? I can’t believe Father made you come to this. How bad was the ball last night?”
“Bad,” she whispered, her soft fingers gripping mine. “I couldn’t think of a single thing to say when I danced with King Jaguar, and then I was so exhausted I sat out most of it. That’s what upset Father the most. He said, how could I run a country if I couldn’t even last through an evening of dancing?”
“He just doesn’t understand anyone who isn’t like him,” I said. “You will be a great queen because you have sympathy and empathy for everyone from the highest royal to the lowest commoner.”
She bowed her head, and I saw a tear fall from her gossamer lashes.
The stands below were filled with ocelot shifters, though we were separate, sitting on a special platform above the stands where the audience couldn’t reach us. It would have been dangerous for King Ocelot to walk among his people. Even Camila never left the palace except to walk the grounds, and always with her lady in waiting and a pair of guards.
Tadeu had told me how they filled the arena for every show. He and Josue liked to come and watch the gladiator-type battles between convicts, but commoners were only allowed entrance if the shifters didn’t fill them. Once the shifters had come in, enough commoners were allowed in to fill the remaining seats, so the king never saw an empty seat at his beloved shows. Hundreds of commoners would gather at the doors in hopes that they would be granted entrance to the exclusive audience.
Tadeu had only been to three or four of them. I didn’t care for the brutal ones like cockfighting or bullfighting, but others fas
cinated me. Magicians and illusionists were my favorites, while Camila was captivated by trapeze artists and tightrope walkers. And a hard day could end happily with a comedy routine or talented singer.
The Court Caller appeared on his platform in the center of the arena. He had been selected from thousands of applicants for the resonance and range of his voice, and when he spoke, the crowd of a thousand fell silent.
“We have a special guest with us tonight,” he said, gesturing grandly to our exclusive seating. “Please welcome King Jaguar himself.”
The crowd cheered and stomped until the stadium trembled with their adoration. Of course, it wasn’t real. No one wanted to risk offending a king, though.
The Caller held up a hand, and the crowd fell silent again. It may only be a thousand people, but it felt like ten times that many. The arena felt huge, too, as the silence ticked on second by second. Though I’d been here a thousand times, my heart pounded as we waited to see what would emerge from the tunnels around the arena floor. A pen had been set up around one of the doors, and all eyes turned that way.
The crowd leaned forward as one, wound tight with anticipation. A single, enormous form appeared from the shadows. A gasp went up. The tiger padded on silent feet into the arena, lowering its head to sniff at the smooth dirt floor. Probably smelling the blood that been spilled there over the years, the scent hidden from human detection by disinfectant baths. My heart had begun to hammer slow and painfully hard. Was Father going to kill this majestic beast? Dogs fights were bad enough but this… This was an endangered animal, not to mention a sort of evolutionary cousin to ocelots.
I had no idea how we’d even gotten a tiger. And if it wasn’t simply a tiger, if it was a shifter, then it was a prisoner. It seemed just as barbaric to kill another cat shifter, someone who was like a distant cousin, though I was certain that in the wild a tiger wouldn’t hesitate to kill an ocelot. Hell, on occasion Father had executed ocelot shifters in this very arena.
“Tonight, we have a favorite,” the Court Caller said, throwing up both arms. “Man versus beast—in a battle to the death.”
My stomach churned. When the panther rebels had returned Mother’s body, it had been so mangled that they’d had to use a DNA test to confirm her identity. They hadn’t let Camila and me see it, of course, but palace gossip said there was barely anything left of her. And yet, Father could subject a citizen of our nation to the same gruesome, violent end and call it entertainment. I held back the bile rising in my throat. I’d only seen one of these “shows” before, and it was by far the hardest thing I’d ever had to watch.
The crowd screamed their approval, though. The Caller went on about criminals, and how their lives would not be wasted because they would be serving their king in their last breaths, as entertainment not only for him but for all the people of the Ocelot Nation. The crowd responded to each outrageous claim with bloodthirsty cries for the show to begin. I barely heard any of it. How could Father make Camila endure this after what had happened to our mother? Rage boiled in my blood.
Camila whimpered beside me. Our linked fingers were sweating now, though I couldn’t tell if it was me or her that was more sick with nerves. “Close your eyes,” I whispered.
Before I could close mine, a man stumbled out of the tunnels, pushed by two men with bayonets against his proud, rigid back. His eyes rose to mine. Time froze.
My fingers went numb inside Camila’s grasp. I fought to swallow the sour, metallic bile that rose in my throat. The noise of the raucous crowd did not reach my ears. Their rapturous, bloodthirsty expressions melted from my vision. All I could see was the man. The proud set of his strong shoulders. The blood from the bayonets soaking his back as he resisted. His eyes fixed on mine with such hatred my blood froze in my veins.
In the distorted silence of the arena, all I could hear was my heartbeat like a doomed man’s footsteps.
Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump.
As if in slow motion, the tiger lifted its head and turned toward Tadeu. Toward the smell of blood.
I screamed.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was at the safety rail around our box, climbing over. Camila was screaming. Two guards seized me, pulling me back. I screamed again, and again, and again.
“Sit. Down,” King Ocelot commanded, his voice harsh as sandpaper against my skin. “You’re causing a scene.”
“Causing a scene? You’re killing my lover!” I dove at him, straining against the guards’ grip, my nails raking the air, wanting his blood. Wanting him to attract the tiger, so it would leave Tadeu. My skirt caught, ripping under my heel. The guards held me fast even as I kicked them furiously, threw punches, scratched, bit. I was a wild thing, more animal than any shifter. This was no idle threat, no angry fantasy. I would kill my father.
A roar rippled over the crowd, something more primal than I would ever be. My blood froze. I couldn’t look. If the tiger had gone mad, tearing into the crowd and shredding the bystanders, I wouldn’t know. Even if it meant he’d smelled the bleeding guards and was coming to rip them open, even if I went down with them, I wouldn’t look.
But maybe they’d given Tadeu a weapon to make it last longer. He could kill it. An armed man could kill a tiger. It wasn’t a fair fight, but he had a chance. Tadeu could do it.
Another roar burst from the arena below. He must have killed it. My knees gave way, but a guard held me up.
A hand cracked across my face, and my head rocked back. I didn’t realize I’d still been screaming until the slap knocked the voice from my throat.
Father stood before me, his eyes like liquid death.
“Let her watch,” Father said. “Then take her away.”
The guards turned me, pushing me against the railing, their grip punishing as they held me still. Tadeu held a quillon dagger. I cried out in relief.
“Don’t distract him, and maybe he’ll have half a chance,” Gabor said, so low I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it. The guards were shifters. They had no alliance to Tadeu or even to me. Their alliance was with the king.
The tiger stalked forward, blood dripping from a slash in his shoulder.
Come on, Tadeu, I urged silently, putting all the ache of my life into those words. Kill that tiger to be with me, and so help me god, I will kill my father to be with you.
Tadeu lunged sideways. The tiger leapt. I threw myself against the guards’ hold, but they yanked me back, pinning me to the railing. Below, Tadeu made one wild swipe with the knife. The tiger’s jaws closed around his throat. In that moment, his eyes met mine.
Then, he was gone.
The crowd erupted in bloodthirsty ecstasy, everyone out of their seats, people fainting with lust at the sight of the blood. The blood. So much blood. It swam before my vision. The dagger dropped from Tadeu’s hand. I heard it hit the floor, and my stomach heaved. The tiger clutched Tadeu’s throat between its powerful jaws, shaking his body until his neck snapped. I learned over the railing, sickness clutching my whole body. My legs went numb, limp. Gabor gripped my upper arm, holding me up while he bent me over the railing, letting me empty my stomach into the crowd below.
The tiger dragged Tadeu’s body to the corner of the pen and dropped him, sitting down to feed. I collapsed against the guards. I waited for the sadness, the anguish, the fury to grip me. But there was nothing. My body, my mind, my heart—it was all blank with shock, frozen in stillness.
Camila dabbed my mouth with her handkerchief, her eyes red and swollen with tears.
“Take her to her room and lock the door,” Father said. “Give her time to think about the consequences to her actions.”
He turned back to the jaguar king. The royals began discussing the show as they always did, pointing out Tadeu’s mistakes and the entertainment value of the night’s festivities. No doubt they would add my breakdown to the list of memorable moments for the evening as soon as they were out of Father’s earshot.
“Can I go with her?” Camila asked, glancing from me to Fa
ther.
“Stay and have a drink with our guests,” Father said. “Whiskey always helps to smooth the evening’s rough moments, and the shaman here was just telling me how much you impressed him at dinner, my princess.” He smiled proudly at Camila as the guards dragged me up the few steps toward the corridor that led back to the palace. Lord Balam’s eyes met mine, his gaze filled with sympathy and horror. His face was pale beneath the tattoos and paint.
“Really?” I heard Camila say, her voice tremulous with hope.
No, not really, I wanted to scream. Does Balam’s face look like one that’s been kissing the king’s ass while an innocent man was brutally murdered in front of him?
But Camila didn’t notice, and I couldn’t seem to find my voice. We were in the corridor now, but Father’s voice followed us, haunting me.
“Of course,” Father boomed. “Not only are you a skilled diplomat, but you are an incomparable, sensual beauty.”
Gabor had looped his arm under mine, my feet dragging the floor as he pulled me along. After a few steps, he bent and slid an arm behind my knees, scooping me up. I closed my eyes and laid my head against his granite chest. I didn’t care that he was a palace guard, the gestapo of my father’s court, a man who had probably murdered dozens of my father’s enemies in cold blood. In that moment, I wouldn’t have protested if he’d said he was feeding me to the next beast in line, maybe a captured rebel. Like mother, like daughter.
I realized I hadn’t heard my sister’s response, but I didn’t care. I could imagine her blush, her lowered lashes, the glow of warmth inside her at the compliment. I could feel no warmth inside my own heart. My heart had died with Tadeu.
Eight
I didn’t know where the next hours went, what happened after Gabor laid me gently on my bed and stepped back, letting my maidservant take over. I had no memory of it later. I only knew that I heard a key rattle in the lock, and my door swung open. It was dark in my room except for the moonlight streaming in the window. I didn’t think I’d been sleeping, but I hadn’t been awake, either.
Broken Princess: A Dark Paranormal Romance (Feline Royals Book 1) Page 5
