“Good luck with that,” she snapped.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, turning to the door.
“Yeah, well, me too,” she said. “You have no idea how worried I’ve been for the last twelve hours.”
Worried. If that was the worst she had to endure, I could live with it.
“You should call Father,” I said. “I’m going to take a shower now, if that’s okay.”
“Fine,” she said. “Make sure you wash out the tub when you’re done. You’re filthy.” She made a face at the last word, as if she smelled something unpleasant. Considering the night I’d had, I shouldn’t have cared. But shame washed over me as I stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. Could she smell it on me, what we’d done? And if she could, that meant the men could, too. They’d had the decency to spare me that knowledge, but that didn’t make it better. If anything, it was worse knowing they’d been secretly disgusted.
As the hot water hit my skin, I closed my eyes and let is scald me, washing away my shame with the blood and fluids. Washing away the last night altogether. I could do this. I could convince Father to let me go on in Camila’s stead. I could get the amulets for her while she was safe at home. The other Feline Nations didn’t even have to know she wasn’t there with me.
Lord Balam would be with me. The thought of him made my chest fill with warmth. He had become so much more to me than I’d ever imagined when we met. He was the one person in the world I could count on, my anchor, my steadying force. I would take him on the Amulet Tour. Him, and maybe one guard.
When the water no longer burned, and I’d soaped myself half a dozen times, I wrapped myself in a towel and stepped out of the bathroom, prepared to confront Camila. I jolted to a stop, almost dropping the towel wrapped around me when I saw I wasn’t alone.
“Your Grace,” Gabor said, jumping to his feet so fast that he actually stumbled. Maybe he wasn’t a robot after all. He fumbled the necklace he held in an attempt to get it back on my nightstand, then quickly bent to pick it up. When he straightened, his face held just a hint of pink.
“I didn’t know you’d be coming out in…that…state.”
His awkwardness was both endearing and irresistibly tempting. I loosened my grip on the towel and stepped closer, fluttering my lashes at him. Some part of me was careening recklessly toward an edge, but I didn’t care. I wanted to erase what had happened, to replace the memories with something lighter, more palatable. I wanted us to be how we had been for the last two weeks, careless and young. Not for him to look at me with pity and concern and horror. “You mean naked… And wet?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he cleared his throat. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“Is that all I am to you?” I asked, cocking my head. “A princess for you to guard?” I tried to make it sound flirtatious, but a bit of my own curiosity crept into my words.
No, not curiosity. It was more than that. I found my heart pounding as I waited for his answer, my chest squeezing with longing for him to say the words I needed to hear. I’d needed Lord Balam to say that he’d searched for me. And if I wanted to get up from this fall, I needed something from Gabor, too.
Gabor swallowed again, lowering his eyes. “Yes, Your Grace,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
I hadn’t realized how much I had hoped he’d say something different until he didn’t. I opened my shaking fingers and let the towel fall.
Gabor’s hands shot out and caught it before it had passed my hips. God, he was good.
He stared down at me, his eyes so incredibly blank that I wanted to scream. More than that, I wanted to wrap my arms around him and force him to feel something, anything. To fill all that emptiness inside him. I didn’t care about the nights before this one. We could make each other forget. There would be no nights but the ones we shared from now on. “And now?” I whispered. “Can I be Itzel to you now?”
Slowly, he drew the towel closed around my hips. His knuckles brushed my lower belly as he held the damp towel, and longing fluttered inside me, a longing I didn’t know would ever again feel in a way so pure, so innocent.
“No, Your Grace,” he said, drawing the towel up my body. “I will always be your guard and your protector. I cannot be anything else.”
“Why?” I asked, letting him tuck the end of the tower under my arm. “Tell me you don’t want more than that, Gabor. Tell me the truth just one time.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his fingers trailing slowly across my collarbone. An anguished grimace tugged at his mouth when he reached the bite mark on my shoulder.
“I want more,” I said. “Is that what you need? For me to say it’s okay, that I want it, too? Because I do. I…” I choked on the word. It was so different from what had happened with the other two. With Lord Balam, feelings came after the physical. With Shadow, the feelings were too complicated to extricate from the physical.
“I think I love you,” I whispered.
Gabor wrapped an arm around me, pulling me in. He pressed his lips to my forehead, his nose into my damp hair, and drew a long, slow breath. Then he stepped back, and I saw that hardness shutter down over his eyes.
“Just tell me if you feel the same,” I said, desperate for that stony wall to disappear again. With me, at least, he must know he could be himself.
His jaw worked back and forth in that grinding motion, but his eyes stayed as blank as a flat grey sky. “I cannot allow myself that freedom.”
I stared at him a moment, but his gaze never shifted, his stance unyielding.
“I’m going to ask Father if I can go on to Africa and send Camila home to safety,” I said. “I was going to ask you if you wanted to come with me.”
Gabor backed toward the door. “Thank you, Your Grace. I am honored that you would consider me. But I think it would be best if I stayed.”
I turned away, the hope draining out of me. “Of course,” I said. “I shouldn’t have asked. The future queen deserves the best guards we have.”
“Thank you,” Gabor said, hesitating with his hand on the doorknob. “I’m flattered that you consider me among the best.”
I picked up the necklace he’d set on the nightstand. My mother’s necklace. I lifted it and laid it around my neck, reaching back to fumble with the clasp.
After a moment, Gabor strode across the room. Hope exploded in my chest as he took the clasp from my shaking fingers. For a fleeting moment, I saw his face in the mirror, without the guard’s mask. As he gently closed the necklace and laid it on the nape of my neck, I saw everything I’d known was there. The heat of his gaze melted me even as a chill of fevered longing swept through me from the brush of his fingertips.
“To be more than a guard to you would compromise your safety and the safety of the queen,” he said, his knuckles brushing between my shoulder blades. “If you were both in danger, and I could only protect one of you, I would not make the right choice.”
For the briefest second, our eyes met in the mirror. I remembered last night in the alley, the moment that seemed a hundred nights ago now. He’d stepped in front of me, leaving Camila exposed. There was my answer, even if he couldn’t say it in words. Tears sprang to my eyes, and I swallowed past the ache in my throat. He was right. We had to protect Camila. I would never want her left unguarded. I could live with what had happened to me last night, but I could not have lived with knowing I’d let it happen to Camila.
“Goodbye, Princess Itzel,” Gabor said. He stood straight and tall, his heels snapping together like a soldier before he turned abruptly and left the room.
Twenty-Nine
Shadow
Keeper, Panther Nation
“I fucked up, okay?” I finished, having told the clan an abbreviated version of the past four nights. For a minute, no one spoke. Blood pounded in my ears as I waited for their reprimand.
I didn’t have to tell them, but it was clan business. We may not have used the amulet, but it belonged to everyone. It was my job to keep it safe, even
if it was nothing but a symbol or an artifact. They’d entrusted my family with it, and I had betrayed that trust.
“What happened to making them pay?” a woman asked. “They killed my husband.”
“I know,” I said. “We’ve all lost family.”
“We lost family to them,” a man said. “Not just their nation. That family.”
It was true. The girl I’d fucked, the girl who’d drugged me, she was the daughter of the man who had ordered the death of my parents. The thought made me sway on my feet, sickness churning in my belly. I had wanted to believe I wasn’t an animal, that I could control myself now. But the first woman who came along to seduce me, I’d crumbled. I’d wanted to believe I was an island, that I didn’t need anyone. But one night with her had proved otherwise. She was all I could think about, and I didn’t think it was the effects of the drug lingering. I wanted more. Much more. Even knowing it was her family that had turned a blind eye to our suffering, who had refused asylum to our clan, causing far more casualties than the few desperate souls who had risked sneaking into their territory.
“They’re supposed to negotiate for that,” an older man said. “We could have gotten something for it.”
Guilt twisted hard inside me, and I dropped my head further, speaking to the ground. “I didn’t mean to give it to them. After what I did, it was the only thing I had to make it better.”
“Let me get this straight,” said a woman with long braids. “This princess comes in and basically date-rapes you, and you feel so bad about it you give her the one thing our clan has that anybody’s ever gonna want.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I muttered. I wanted to regret telling them, but they had a right to know. Sure, I preferred to live alone on my little island, but they were my clan. My people. If I needed them, they were there. When my parents had been killed, they had taken me in, stretching what little they had to feed me, moving me from house to house so I wouldn’t burden anyone too much. After a year of that, they’d let me move to my own place even though I’d been only fourteen. They’d checked in on me from time to time to make sure I was surviving.
Telling them I’d given away their only bargaining chip was the least I owed them.
“That’s not fair,” said the girl I’d sat beside last time. “It’s not his fault. It’s hers. She tricked him, and not only that, but he wasn’t in his right mind. I don’t think that should count.”
“Count for what?” I asked. “It’s hers now. I gave it up.”
Shame burned along my limbs like the fur begging to come through. My panther was close to the surface, agitated that I was in distress. I longed to sink into him, to be an animal again, one who felt no shame for the pain he’d caused his clan. But I’d made this mistake as a human. Why had I held onto that part of myself so doggedly, as if it were in any way preferable to my animal form? My panther would never have taken the last bite of food from a starving cub.
The crushing weight of what I’d done settled onto me, but I would not take the easy way out. I hadn’t just betrayed my clan’s trust. What I’d done could cause the extinction of our people. I had taken their last hope and handed it to a girl who didn’t even know what hunger meant. She didn’t understand what rode on that. Our last chance to ask for assistance, to bargain for something better for our children than we’d had ourselves. I had handed that over for nothing more than a night of mindless fucking.
“We’ve got to get it back,” a guy said.
“We can’t,” said the older man. “It’s done. The rules allow for cheating and stealing and anything else.”
“Then they allow for us to steal it back,” the guy said, standing from his log. “Now, let’s go get it and make them bargain for it fair and square. If they want it so bad, they can pay for it. Give us some decent land or at least some money to buy a little bit from the wolf pack up north of here.”
I remembered the trembling of that fragile human body in my arms. The soft helplessness in her eyes when she asked me to take her back. She had been at my mercy, and like her people, I had shown none. I had taken what I wanted, what I needed, forcing her submission whether she wanted it or not, taking everything from her. I had used her and possessed her while she begged me to stop, bending her to my will until she broke. I had twisted her until she stopped asking for mercy and begged for more.
She had paid.
“What if they won’t give it back?” I asked.
“We’re not asking please,” the guy said, his eyes hard. “We’re taking it back. If they want it, they’ll have to trade for it like the civilized people they pretend to be.”
“They won’t pay us for it,” the woman with braids said. “They’ll say we took it unfairly, and they’ll just attack us and wipe out the rest of our clan.”
“If they won’t pay with money, they can pay the way we have,” the man said, his jaw set. “With blood.”
Thirty
Itzel
Princess, Ocelot Nation
I felt like I’d eaten stones for breakfast as I watched Camila walk down the stairs in an ice-blue sheath dress. Her face was the face of a queen, her stride graceful yet purposeful. She paused, her gloved hands opening her clutch and slipping out a pair of designer shades. She slid them on, hiding her eyes, before she approached the SUV, flanked on either side by a pair of guards.
“Camila,” I said, breaking away from Lord Balam. “Don’t do this. Don’t leave angry.”
“Oh, I’m not angry,” she said, freezing me solid with her smile. “You’re ambitious. Of course you’d want to do my job for me while I stay in hiding like a little mouse. Isn’t that what you always wanted, Itzel?”
I drew back, the sting of her words greater because they bordered on the truth. I’d had plans to help her run her kingdom since we were little girls, when she didn’t want to be the queen at all. I’d always wanted to be someone important. If I couldn’t be important, I’d thought, at least I could do something important.
And there was nothing so important as getting my sister to safety. Even if it cost us our friendship, it was worth it to know that she would be protected at home while I faced the dangers of her tour. I hadn’t expected her to send me home so promptly after I’d gotten her the panther amulet. I hadn’t expected my suggestion to hurt her so much.
I understood her anger. I was supposed to take her side, agree with her without question. I was supposed to put her first, above all else—even myself. In my mind, that’s what I’d been doing, but Camila didn’t see it that way. She thought I wanted to steal her glory.
I saw now that I would never be influential. Maybe I never would have been, despite what I’d always believed. As a human, I was too vulnerable, too helpless. I was always at the mercy of the shifters, standing back while they fought because I could contribute nothing. At last I truly understood why they looked down on mere humans.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I hope one day you’ll see that I always want what’s best for you, even if it hurts us both.”
“If it hurts me, it’s not best,” she said. With that, she slid into the back seat of the SUV and nodded to Gabor, who closed the door behind her.
“Take care of her,” I said, though the words sounded as hollow as my heart this time. Camila was my reason for everything. Without her support, her love, her friendship and sisterhood, I had nothing. I didn’t even have Tadeu waiting for me to come back to him. It was over. I would go home, and Lord Balam would return to the Jaguar Nation.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Gabor said, snapping his heels together. He started to turn, but I reached out, touching his forearm with my fingertips. He looked down, as if I’d touched his skin instead of the blue and gold guard uniform he’d worn as long as I could remember.
Just for a second, I had seen the man inside that uniform, and I couldn’t forget him.
“And take care of yourself,” I said. It wasn’t enough, not even close to what I wanted to say. I’d tossed and turned thinking about him, think
ing about what I would say when this moment arrived. I had been sure something would come to me. But nothing seemed right.
“You, as well,” Gabor said, raising his eyes to mine.
For a long moment, we stood close, understanding passing between us. No matter what I felt for Lord Balam or any other man, no one could truly understand our lives in the Ocelot Nation except others who lived the same lies. We were both duty-bound, trapped in our traces and unable to break free.
With a quick nod, Gabor climbed into the SUV and closed the door. I couldn’t see my sister through the tinted windows, but I imagined her cool expression, every bit as infuriating and remote as Gabor’s. Maybe on this leg of their journey, they would realize how perfect they were for each other.
The thought made my heart crumble in my chest. I wouldn’t be there for Camila as she fell in love. And Gabor… I wouldn’t think about Gabor. He had done what he had to do, and now I had to obey my own set of orders.
“I guess that’s really it,” I said as the SUV disappeared down the street. “It’s really over.”
I’d wanted to travel and have adventures, but it was far less romantic than I’d envisioned. I’d been attacked, and now I was going home emptyhanded. Father would lock me up in a convent until Camila’s coronation, leaving her to decide my fate. She’d no doubt marry me off for whatever meager advantage she could get as part of negotiations with another clan. She’d send me to live somewhere else, so she didn’t have to think of my betrayal. I had told her the truth, but it hadn’t set me free. It made me feel sick.
She had been the one to set me free. She didn’t want a sister who thought she was weak. She thought I was undermining her. Maybe I had been, however unintentionally.
A flicker of movement caught my eye, and suddenly a familiar figure was standing beside me, one I had grown to know so well in such a short time. His long hair hung straight and silky around his shoulders, his smooth, angular face serious as his bright green eyes drank in every inch of me. My heart flipped in my chest, flooding me with adrenaline.
Broken Princess: A Dark Paranormal Romance (Feline Royals Book 1) Page 20
