“What the fuck are you doing here?” Lord Balam asked, grabbing Shadow by the throat.
“You came back,” I whispered, my fingers fluttering to my heart. I knew I should feel only horror and fear upon seeing him, but something else sung inside me. He’d come back for me. Maybe no one would ever understand what we’d weathered that night, but we’d endured something powerful together, and it had bound us in some way.
“I came to warn you,” Shadow said, yanking free of Lord Balam’s grip and glaring at him. “Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered.”
“Warn me?” I asked, my heart racing with dread. “Warn me of what?”
“The clan wasn’t happy about losing the amulet to your people,” Shadow said.
“What does that mean?” I asked. “You’re the Keeper, and you gave it to me.”
“They consider it unfair circumstances, since I was not in my right mind,” he said. “They want it back.”
“Wait, can they do that?” I asked, turning to Balam.
“If you won’t return it, I won’t take it by force,” Shadow said. “But I can’t speak for the rest of the clan.”
I thought about it for about two seconds. “Yeah, fuck that,” I said. “I earned that amulet, and you didn’t give it to me until the drug wore off. No way in hell are we giving it back.”
“I thought you’d say that,” Shadow said, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “That’s why I came to warn you. You should leave panther territory as quickly and quietly as possible. They’re already on their way here.”
“We were just on our way out.”
“How do they know where to find us?” Lord Balam said, his eyes narrowing in suspicion at Shadow. “Did you lead them to us?”
Shadow’s eyes shuttered half closed, and he cast a withering glare at Lord Balam. “We may not live in luxury, but just as you have your curandero, we have our shaman. Just as you have your oracle, we have ways of seeing.”
“Wait,” I said, my heart suddenly thudding in my ears. “What are they after? Me, or the amulet?”
“They want back what is ours,” Shadow said. “If you give it willingly, they have no reason to harm you. You mean nothing to them.”
They’d no reason to harm my mother, either, but Shadow didn’t need to know that about me. She’d been important, after all—a shifter and a queen. I was none of those things.
“Good,” Lord Balam said. “If they’re not after revenge, they can leave us alone. We don’t have the amulet.”
“No, no, no,” I said, clutching my head as realization dawned. “We have to help her.”
“Help who?” Shadow asked.
“If they’re following the amulet, they’re not coming here,” I said, grabbing both their hands and holding on for dear life. “They’re going after Camila.”
*
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Captive Princess (Excerpt)
One
Itzel
Princess, Ocelot Nation
I clung to Shadow’s back as his motorcycle rocketed along the endless, cracked pavement toward an old hangar on the edge of the city. The road itself looked like a runway. If only we could fly, I could be by my sister’s side already, our squabble forgotten, defending her from Shadow’s fellow panthers.
Silently, I urged him to go, go, go faster. I searched the nearby trees in the swamp for a glimpse of Balam’s spotted fur as he ran alongside the bike, but I didn’t see him. He probably couldn’t keep up with the speed with which we were shooting along the road.
Suddenly, the hangar appeared in the distance, and relief flooded through me. I would get my sister on the private flight King Ocelot had booked for her. I would make sure of it. If anyone got in my way, I’d kill them with my bare hands.
My heart hammered so loud in my ears that I barely heard the motor beneath me, the wind rushing past my ears. I had to get there. I had to protect Camila. I closed my eyes, saying a silent prayer. If she was okay, I’d be agreeable and never argue with her again. I would meekly go back home if she told me to, would say nothing more than “Yes, Ma’am.”
As if sensing my terror, Shadow gunned the engine even faster. I should probably not have trusted him to get me here, or anywhere else for that matter. But somehow, I knew that he was an honest man. When he’d kidnapped me, he’d made no pretense about it. He hadn’t lured me. He’d dragged me off to his trailer in the swamp and told me exactly what was coming. Now, he’d told me the panther clan was pissed. They didn’t want my sister to take their mating amulet, and they’d gone after her despite the fact that she was the princess of the Ocelot Nation.
As we drew closer to the hangar, my heart sank. A chain-link fence surrounded the place, and only a keypad allowed entrance. The hangar sat back from the gate, and outside it…
I swallowed. There were at least half a dozen vehicles, and was that… a body on the ground? Bile rose in my throat, and I clutched Shadow’s leather jacket. “Go through,” I said.
“Are you sure?” he asked, turning to speak to me over the roar of the engine. “You’re human. It might hurt.”
Ahead, I heard an ear-splitting shriek, and my heart stopped dead in my chest. “I’m sure,” I screamed, my arms clenching around Shadow’s thin build.
He gunned the engine, and the bike roared like a beast and leapt forward, speeding toward the twisted metal links of the fence. I closed my eyes and pressed my face to his back so I wouldn’t get my eyes ripped out by stray wires. The bike lunged at the fence, ripping through in a screech of tires gripping the pavement and metal protesting as it was shredded and snapped. We hit the ground and skidded before Shadow righted the bike.
“Go,” I screamed, lifting my head and pointing to the cars ahead, a haphazard handful of dusty sedans and faded pickups all parked around a sleek, black SUV. A small plane sat on the runway behind them, the ladder lowered to the ground from the door.
Shadow’s bike leapt forward, eating up the distance in seconds before skidding to a stop in a swirl of dust and smoke. The smell of the burning tires filled my nostrils as I leapt from the bike and sprinted for the cars. My heart froze in an instant when I saw the doors to the SUV hanging at odd, twisted angles. One of them had been ripped off altogether. A dozen cats were fighting, screaming and snarling, tearing at each other with teeth and claws. Half a dozen human bodies littered the pavement. My stomach lurched as I saw a panther swipe its powerful paw at an ocelot that snarled with its long teeth showing. It was no match for the oversized panther, which raked claws through its spotted fur, leaving furrows of torn and bloody muscle exposed.
“Camila,” I screamed, charging forward, not knowing if that was my sister. Maybe she was safely on the plane already.
I tripped over one of the many piles of clothes strewn across the pavement from where the shifters had stripped before changing to animal form. I flew forward, my feet tangling in the jeans, cursing my damned human fallibilities. A cat would never trip. I landed hard but scrambled to rise, my adrenaline fueling my fear and masking any pain. My hand landed on something hard beneath a stack of neatly folded clothes, grinding along the pavement.
I was already on my feet before I realized what I’d touched, and my heart somersaulted as I snatched up the navy-blue guard uniform. Heat and terror shimmered through my chest.
Gabor.
Gabor. Fuck, yes. I tore through his clothes and yanked out the pistol he had once tried to give me so I could protect myself. I hadn’t taken it then, but I was damn sure taking it now. Blood rushed in my ears at the thought of what this meant, this abandoned pile of clothes. But the fall and the discovery had knocked sense into me. I was
no longer an animal driven by blind panic and fear, rushing into a fight unarmed like a death wish.
I scanned the dwindling fight. Six panthers and two ocelots remained. The mangled ocelot was leaping out of the way of the panther who had backed it against the SUV. Another panther was swiping a long, sleek front leg under the SUV, trying to get what I assumed was another living ocelot. One panther stalked around the SUV to get to the other side, and another two panthers were snarling and leaping at Shadow, who had shifted and joined the fight behind me. I trusted him to keep them occupied as the last panther stalked toward me, its gleaming fangs bared.
“Not today, fucker,” I said, clicking off the safety, taking aim, and popping it right between the eyes. As it fell to the ground, I turned to the one who had clamped its jaws around the skull of the mangled ocelot who had so bravely fought a hopeless battle.
“I may not have big teeth and claws, but I’ve got years of target practice under my belt,” I muttered, steadying my right hand in my left. I knew the mangled ocelot had precious seconds, if that, but shooting the SUV wasn’t going to help it any. I took careful aim and put a bullet in the panther’s eye. Its body tensed, and it dropped the ocelot to the bloody pavement. Its head swung in my direction, but it only managed one step before crumpling to the ground.
“Little sister don’t miss when she aims her gun,” I said, swinging in the direction of the next panther. The one I’d just shot was still twitching, and to my horror, it began shifting into a human. What I’d just done hit me then. I hadn’t just shot panthers, but people, too.
I fought the urge to fling the gun away from myself in horror.
A roar sounded behind me, and I spun to find Lord Balam charging at the two panthers who had leapt onto Shadow. Balam knocked one away, rolling across the pavement in a blur of claws and fur. I wiped one trembling palm on my pants at a time, switching the pistol from one hand to the other. My brain was still in shock, and for a second, I didn’t know what to do. A breathless whimper sounded from somewhere nearby, and my head shot up, my horror forgotten. Whatever I had to do was worth it if Camila was alive. To save her, I would have killed all the people in Florida.
“Camila,” I cried, racing around the SUV. Two panthers were swiping their razor claws at something in the undercarriage.
“Back off or I shoot,” I said, my voice coming out firm and loud. Its strength seemed to steady my hands, and I cradled the pistol, taking careful aim.
One of the panthers lifted its head, staring at me with unblinking green eyes that shone out of its sleek black coat. The intelligence behind them made me want to drop the gun, but I didn’t. I might not be able to shoot now that the panic had subsided, and my mind had cleared to what I was doing. But he didn’t need to know that.
Lord Balam ran straight for the SUV, leaping through the open doors. His powerful front and back legs stretched out straight, and he came soaring through and landed between me and the panther. He whipped around to face the panther, snarling with his huge incisors on full display. The panther snarled back, and Balam dove for him, slamming into him. They both rose onto their hind legs, their front paws batting at each other as they each tried to grab their opponent’s throat.
I turned to the last panther, the one who had crawled halfway under the SUV. It snarled, and I heard a hiss and then an animal howl of pain. Rage slammed through me, and I lowered the pistol to aim at its hind leg. I pulled the trigger, and the bullet pierced through his leg and buried itself in the pavement. Blood splattered the ground, and my stomach lurched.
The panther squirmed out from under the car and turned to snarl at me, its fangs sending an instinctual flood of adrenaline through me. For a second, I was reminded of the tiger that had ripped Tadeu’s head off, and my legs nearly gave way. Even with a gun, I was no match for a direct attack.
“Go or I’ll shoot,” I said, my hands shaking as I aimed the gun.
It sprang at me.
I squeezed the trigger instinctively. The bullet missed by inches, and before I could get off another shot, the beast barreled into me. I hit the ground, the breath crushed from my lungs. The panther snarled, sinking his teeth into my shoulder. A scream of pain tore from my throat as he ripped through skin and muscle. My head swam with dizziness, but I gripped the gun, pushing it into the panther’s side. Before I could shoot, another panther sailed through the air, slamming into my attacker. My shoulder popped as it was wrenched, and then he tore free. I screamed again as blood splattered the ground around me. Rolling over, I gripped my shoulder, holding back my screams. Blood oozed between my fingers. A second later, a bloody panther head landed beside me.
*
Click here to read Captive Princess, available on Amazon.
Broken Princess: A Dark Paranormal Romance (Feline Royals Book 1) Page 21
