Camila whimpered.
“Slut?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Whore? Common woman?” I felt fearless, almost weightless, as if I might float out of my body at any moment. Father had hurt me deeper than he realized, so deeply he’d pushed me over some edge. I no longer feared his wrath. I almost relished it. And I was definitely provoking it.
“What will I do with you?” Father asked. “My daughter, a ruined woman. When news of this spreads, not even the lowest duke will look at you. Not because you debased yourself for that amulet—a convincing performance and a prick of the finger can convince a man of your virginity if he wants to believe it. But the political disaster you have caused? No one wants a wife who is not only a worthless human, but an incompetent, reckless, strong-willed commoner.”
“Maybe she can go into hiding,” Camila said. “Join the convent until this blows over.”
I snorted. “I don’t think the convent would take me.”
“I will have you locked in your chambers until your sister takes over,” Father said. “I can’t risk what you would say to someone in a convent.”
“You could exile me,” I volunteered. “I’m not even a shifter, so it would be easy. I’ll just go live among humans. If I go far enough, they won’t even know I was ever part of the Ocelot Clan. Say, down to Brazil…”
“Do not toy with me, human,” Father said, stalking toward me. He towered over my chair, his eyes glowing an eerie blue with his white-hot rage. “You think this is a game, like all of life. You saw how that mistake cost your friend.”
My fists tightened. How dare he mention Tadeu to me? How dare he blame Tadeu for what happened?
“Are you threatening to feed me to the tiger?” I snarled. “Try it, Father. I dare you. You might think you’ve gotten away with Tadeu’s murder, but you won’t be able to pretend with mine.”
“Are you threatening your king?” he asked, his eyes calculating.
“I’m the only member of this family who walks among the people, talks to them, treats them like equals. If they don’t think you’re a monster and a tyrant now, they will when you murder your own flesh and blood for sport.”
“I never claimed you as my flesh and blood,” Father roared, grabbing me and shaking me. “Your body and title were a bargaining chip, and now that you let your weak human urges control you and went spreading your virgin thighs for any man who walks through my doors, you’re nothing but a filthy, worthless slattern. Top that with being an interfering, reckless, irresponsible meddler…”
“If you think Camila can run this nation alone, you just go ahead and try to kill me,” I snarled at him, wrenching free of his grasp.
For a moment, we stared each other down, both of us breathing hard. Father was so angry his pupils had stretched to slits, something I’d only seen once or twice in my entire life. I wasn’t afraid, though. Power swelled inside me. I had done this. I had made my cold father so angry he almost lost control and shifted in front of me.
“I can’t look at your face without knowing what you’ve done,” Father said at last, turning away.
“That makes two of us,” I shot back.
“Itz,” Camila said, her sweet voice full of horror. I’d forgotten she was there. She was so quiet, so still, like a scared rabbit hiding while the big dogs fought. Her shaking hand reached out and grasped mine. I sank back into myself, realizing what I’d done, how far I’d pushed my father. As he paced the room, my hands began shaking, too. Camila clung tighter, letting out a little hiccup, but I’d never let Father see how terrified I was. I might be as hot-tempered and rash as he thought, but I was no fool. Now that he couldn’t use me the way he wanted, now that I’d humiliated him, he would have no qualms about killing his flesh in blood. He’d do it in a heartbeat if he could get away with it.
Which meant I had to make sure he couldn’t get away with it.
He was so angry right now, I wasn’t sure what he’d do. He had murdered a man in cold blood just to teach me a lesson. I wrestled to get myself under control. I had to think rationally, strategically. I had to make myself indispensable. Because he was right. In his eyes, I was ruined. In gaining the amulet for Camila, I’d destroyed his chances at arranging an advantageous marriage for me. If I didn’t make my case instead of arguing with him, he’d do whatever suited him. I wouldn’t put it above him to kill me and cover it up.
“Maybe I really could escort Camila on her journey to get the next amulet,” I said. “It’s just one stop on her tour, just to protect her and get her ready for the rest of the tour. Lord Balam is older, and he’s probably have experience with the other clans. It really would be beneficial to have him along.”
“I will not let those blustering fools make my decisions,” Father growled.
“It’s not their idea,” I said. “Camila mentioned it herself just yesterday. She can negotiate with the royalty in each nation, and if we can’t get the amulet the easy way… I’m prepared to make sacrifices.”
“I’ll bet,” Father sneered, stalking to the window.
Camila turned wide eyes to me. “You’d do that for me? Again?”
“I’d do anything for you.” Catching sight of Father’s broad back as he stood gripping the windowsill, I added, “For the Ocelot Nation.”
Did I want to go whoring myself out for my sister’s gain? Not really. But it was better than staying here, locked in a room for nine months, waiting for Father to realize he had no use for me. And it wasn’t like I’d have to sleep with a bunch of different guys. I’d get her started on her tour, just helping with the first amulet to get her confidence up. Camila might get it herself, anyway. I would just be there as an escort. We’d be together, so I could make sure she was safe on her quest.
Father straightened and turned from the window. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll send along a convoy of guards, and you will accompany and protect your sister at all cost.”
I swallowed, barely able to believe it. He was really sending me. I was getting out of here. I wasn’t going to be murdered or even imprisoned in the palace. It was too good to be true.
“Yes, of course,” I said quickly, before he could change his mind.
“I’ll send some of my best guards,” he said, turning to Camila. “Gabor will go as your personal guard.”
“Not him,” I groaned. He would ruin any chance we had at enjoyment on the trip. I couldn’t think of a more stiff, stuffy chaperone if I tried.
“Quiet,” Father snapped at me before continuing to address Camila. “The rest will guard you to the death if necessary. If anything goes wrong, Itzel will act as a decoy.”
“A decoy?” I asked, dread knotting my stomach. I’d known there would be a catch.
“Yes,” Father said, a cruel smile twisting his lips. “You might as well join her on the stop where she’ll need most assistance, and she can get the most difficult task out of the way first. You’ll be joining her on her quest to the Panther Nation.”
My heart nearly stopped, and uncontrollable shaking seized my limbs.
The Panther Nation. Fuck. Panthers had killed my mother.
Fourteen
I sat on my bed, still stunned, Camila sobbing in my arms. My eyes landed on the Wheel of Nations tapestry hanging on my wall. When the world had erupted into chaos following a series of more and more violent natural disasters, shifters in many parts of the world revealed themselves to humans for the first time. Some now lived peacefully alongside humans while others had fallen under attack. Panther territory had flooded, and they’d tried to invade neighboring countries and seize our land, pillaging towns and killing ocelot shifters.
I knew all this, and yet, I’d never been outside the Ocelot Nation, an area that covered what had once been several small countries in Central America and southern Mexico. Compared to the other Feline Nations, ours was miniscule. We were the only small cat shifters in International Council of Feline Nations, too, so it was no wonder that our nation had been snubbed and considered insignificant
until Father’s reign. When he’d conquered the human population under the guise of protecting them, though, the other feline nations had taken notice.
“We need to talk about this,” I said at last, nudging Camila to sit up. “Anything you can tell me will help. Even if you think it’s not important. I’m a human, remember. I don’t know anything about these mating rituals or the amulets.”
Mocking them was a thing of the past. Two days ago, I had been running around playing paint-darts with my friends. Now, my entire life had changed so rapidly, so drastically, I hardly recognized it. Or myself.
Father had gotten his wish. I had grown up. I was no longer a child playing games. Now, my life depended on these amulets. Unless the other Feline Nations gave Camila a chance to prove she was not her father’s daughter, we might not make it back.
We had to make it back. Camila had to take the throne. And I had to make it back. For Camila, for our nation. Without me, Camila would be pulled in a dozen directions until her advisors tore her apart.
“I know you’re not supposed to reveal these secrets to a human, not even your sister,” I said, gripping my sister’s shoulders and forcing her to look at me. “But you’re also not supposed to let a human go with you to collect them. If you want me to do this with you, to keep you safe and protect you from the panthers, you have to tell me everything you know. Even if you think it’s not important, it might save our lives.”
She nodded, dabbing at her red eyes with a handkerchief before answering. “Okay,” she said, drawing a shaky breath. “I don’t want to have to do this, Itzel. I wish you could stay here with me, and we could send someone else to get them.”
“It’s your Amulet Tour,” I said. “I think you have to at least be on it. The other clans want to meet you. Once they see how amazing you are, they’ll want to trade with us all the time. You’ll see.”
I could only hope they’d give us a chance, that they’d get to know my sister without judging her based on where we came from. But in order to do that, we had to get into their courts. Right now, she hadn’t thought through all that. She was thinking only of how uncomfortable she would be meeting all these new people and facing the dangers of the Panther Nation. My sister could be wonderfully kind, but she was not brave or selfless. She was, after all, a princess before all else.
“Now,” I said, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “What does the panther amulet do?”
“I don’t know,” Camila admitted. “They’re supposed to be a secret until you gain them.”
“That’s not going to help us,” I said, gnawing on my lip.
“You know what the jaguar amulet does,” Camila said, turning pink at the mere mention. “Our amulet contains something similar, but it is more…psychological. Mother called it Love Potion, but of course it’s not that simple.”
“How so?” I asked.
“I don’t really know,” Camila said. “I haven’t used it, of course. When all eight are fitted together, they open on their own. The contents of each combine to show a true leader her destined mate. For a regular ocelot shifter, they use only our amulet.”
“And it makes them fall in love with…who? The first person they see?”
“Basically,” Camila said.
“Who has ours?” I asked.
“Father has it,” she said. “In our tradition, it belongs to our king or queen.”
“How do you open it?”
“The owner has control of it,” Camila said. “For a regular shifter who doesn’t need a marriage arranged for political purposes, they have a mating ceremony when they come of age, at about fourteen. They’re blindfolded, and Father opens the amulet and lets them inhale the magic. They walk into the crowd, the magic leading them to their mate. Theoretically.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. “It doesn’t work?”
“Usually, it does,” Camila said, twisting at her silk handkerchief as she spoke. “But it can be manipulated by your human will. Even in animal form, we retain some of our human side. If someone is in love already, they can seek that person before taking off the blindfold. Or a person who wants them to fall in love can put themselves in the path of the one having the ceremony.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
Camila nodded, tugging at the lace edging on her handkerchief. “Sometimes it’s not. And once you use it, you can never use it again. It only works once, and it never wears off until one of the two people dies.”
“Well, it doesn’t sound like very good magic if you can manipulate it like that.”
“I think, if you don’t have interference from humans, it works in the purest sense,” Camila said. “As it was always meant to, as it did in ancient times.”
“But shifters have perverted it to suit their desires,” I said. “Doesn’t sound much different than what regular humans do.”
Camila sighed. “I suppose we’re all slaves to our desires.”
I tried not to laugh. I really couldn’t imagine Camila desiring anything except a warm bath and to be left alone. But I supposed that wasn’t any less real than wanting to be queen, or for a certain person to fall in love with you against the wishes of fate, or anything else, for that matter. In fact, Camila’s desires were probably less harmful than almost anyone’s—including mine.
“Did Father ever use it?” I asked. “Did he use it on Mom?”
“Of course,” she said. “He says he was already in love, and that’s why he sought out an ordinary shifter and not another royal. His parents were furious because he didn’t improve our relations with another nation by marrying a feline princess. Instead, he elevated Mom to queen.”
“He made her fall in love with him, too,” I said, my throat tight. It had never made sense to me, how different they were. How she could love him.
It wasn’t just Mom that he’d manipulated, though. I shuddered thinking of all the young women who fawned over the king, his mistresses who threw themselves at him shamelessly, degraded themselves at his command. Once, he’d decided a girl would be his dog. He’d collared her and led her around on a leash for weeks, laughing as she crawled after him on all fours wherever he went. I’d been disgusted when he made her eat from a bowl on the floor while we had dinner. When he grew bored of her, he’d kick her when she got in his way. Eventually, even that grew tiresome for him, and he’d had her committed to a convent. I still remembered her wails of anguish as they hauled her away.
She wasn’t the only one with a story like that. I had always found their desperation sad. Now, a different feeling gripped me at these memories. I hadn’t understood how women could want to be treated that way. How they could love him. But they were not women enamored with a powerful man or scheming for a position in the court. He had used his power as keeper of the amulet, no doubt letting the blindfold slip or some other manner of trickery to make sure she saw him first. And who would dare question him or protest what he’d done? He was the king.
There was no point in it, anyway. It would be too late then. One look, and she’d be convinced he was fated to be her mate for life. I wondered if it was a battle in some of them, if they knew something wasn’t right, or if they spent their life in a dazed stupor of love. When I’d used the jaguar amulet, I hadn’t thought it was odd that I wanted a stranger to fuck me so badly. I’d been consumed by desire until I came. Maybe the love spell worked the same way, and whoever was under it thought themselves madly in love until the other person died. Only then could they be free—or even realize they’d been enslaved.
The knowledge that Father had done something so twisted not only to my mother but to dozens of girls, some of them as young as fourteen, made my stomach churn and my blood boil with rage. I would not let this continue. I would get Camila on the throne. Whatever it took, I would get those fucking amulets, and no one would ever have to be Father’s obedient dog, sitting when he said sit and eating when he said eat. Not some naïve little ocelot shifter, not me, and not my sister. The panther rebels could kidnap me
and eat me alive before I’d do his bidding again.
Fifteen
I strode out of the castle beside my sister, reckless determination gripping my body. I knew she wasn’t as excited as I was, but no one else would have known. Her tears were gone, and she looked every inch the poised princess that Father expected. It had taken us only three days to prepare for the trip, which we hoped would only take a few weeks.
“Ready for the real fun to begin?” Lord Balam asked, grinning at me as I slid into the seat opposite him. Father had provided an armored limo for our trip, so I didn’t have to sit right next to the shaman. The way my body was behaving, that was a very good thing. My damn libido did a happy dance at the very sight of his tattooed face. I was still sore three days later, but one look at those strong thighs and all I could think about was them pumping his enormous cock into me. Apparently, the amulet was not the only thing to blame for my lust.
Camila slid into the seat beside me, calming my desirous thoughts.
“I don’t know about it being fun, but I’m ready,” I said. Anything that would get Father off the throne and out of power would be worth it. No more death for entertainment. No more innocent girls’ lives ruined by his lust and greed. Camila would rule justly.
“You must be,” Lord Balam said. “I expected a few more days of negotiations with King Ocelot, maybe even weeks.” He reached behind him and slid closed the partition between us and the driver, so it was just the three of us and stone-faced Gabor, the guard assigned to our car. Another two cars made up the procession, those ones not armored but filled with guards for the royal heir.
“I think Father was tired of looking at my face,” I said as the car began to move.
Lord Balam gave me a sympathetic smile. “Your father doesn’t think very highly of you, does he?”
“No,” I said lightly. “But the feeling is entirely mutual.”
“Perhaps he’s scared of you,” Balam said.
Broken Princess: A Dark Paranormal Romance (Feline Royals Book 1) Page 9
