That wasn’t like her. She wouldn’t do anything that could keep her from her family.
Someone cleared their throat nearby, bringing Kael’s focus back. The music quieted, and the clamor of the crowd dulled to a whisper. This was it. It was time.
“People of Sajra,” Kael began, his voice loud and booming in the sudden stillness. He thought about the way his father used to speak out to his citizens—full of charm and animation. An act to convince the audience of his lies. He’d watched him make the Hunt announcements so many times, but only as his shadow. He didn’t want to play a part. He needed to be himself and show all of Sajra that as their new rei, he was determined to restore order again to the city.
With that in mind, a pleasant calm trickled through him.
A few scarves still twirled in the air, and hands reached up, grabbing at the space in front of him. “This morning I awoke your prince, but as I stand here now, in front of every one of Sajra’s precious children, I can proudly say that I accept the commitment and responsibilities as your rei. I will do everything in my power to lead this city into an era of peace and brotherhood, and I will forever rule with honesty.”
The crowd erupted in applause and cheers. His mother stepped forward, along with the guard from before, who now held Salus’s burgundy robes. Bowing her head, Jaleh draped the heavy mass of fabric around Kael’s shoulders. His skin prickled at the climbing temperature. Because his father had been shorter than him, the robe’s edges didn’t touch the floor, and the tassels and layers of material made him miss his tunic, trousers, and boots in the heat.
“My son,” Jaleh whispered. “The rei of Sajra.” She pecked kisses on both his cheeks.
Kael stared into her icy blue eyes and saw the unsaid warning hovering there.
“And your regis?” she asked in a single breath.
“Soon,” was all he said.
Before Jaleh could reply, the leopard guard raised his hands to the crowd, causing her to shrink back to her place behind Kael. In a deep, rumbling voice, the guard bellowed, “He is now and forever will be Rei Kael, the ruler of Sajra.”
Drums banged, rattles shook, and pipes blared. The people hooted with joy. His people. They were his people now.
Admiration swelled inside him, and his heart fluttered. He scanned the crowd again for any sign of Cara and found only unfamiliar faces staring back at him. The panthers remained still in their spots. He didn’t expect them to be excited to see him, the son of the man who’d damned them, become their rei. They were here because they had to be. But he would change how they viewed him. He would make things right.
“First, as your new rei, I must confess to you there has been some injustice in our past.” He heard his mother’s gasp, but he didn’t look her way. Lifting his chin, he continued, “My father, Salus, was wrong to drive the panthers to the end of the river and introduce the coins into the marketplace. It’s caused nothing but animosity between species. I admit I was blind at first, too, but I have learned so much over these last few days. I can see the truth. The blessed mother created us all. We were meant to care for one another, not poison our beautiful city with hatred.”
The crowd grew deathly silent. Every eye was on him now, even the panther’s glowing yellow ones from afar.
“Kael—” Jaleh’s angry whisper buzzed behind him, like a pestering wasp. “Don’t do this.”
But he didn’t hesitate. His inner tiger reared up, his heartbeat galloping, reminding him who he was and what he had to do. “During my time as rei, I will do whatever is in my power to return Sajra to the golden era, when trade ruled the marketplace and we could depend on our fellow man.” Kael gestured to the statue. “No fear or poverty. Just the life Sajra wanted for her people, full of happiness and love.”
Corbin stepped forward with Cara’s Hunt dress folded delicately on the pillow. He gave one more look onto the people below and prayed she was there, somewhere, just out of sight.
“I have found my love, my true mate, as fate would have it, amongst the panthers,” he said. “Cara, will you run with me, stand by my side, and help me rule Sajra as my equal? As my regis?”
Suddenly, in one united breath, the city let out a mighty, boisterous cry. To his left, a young man spewed a waterfall of curses and slammed his fists onto the stage. Four richly dressed cheetah women pressed their heads together and whispered fervently to one another. A few others shouted towards the back of the marketplace.
“He’s chosen one of them?” they cried at the panthers standing there. “One of those thieves? Filth!”
More yelling and threats. A group of angry citizens pushed toward the panthers, hands raised, wanting to fight, but his royal guards quickly stepped in between, ordering them back. Their massive numbers had the rowdiness settled down in seconds, but it still left a twisting feeling in Kael’s abdomen. He had expected resistance to the change, possibly an uprising, but he certainly didn’t want anyone hurt.
When Kael looked out onto the crowd again, he reveled at what else he saw before him, besides the shock and anger. Women embraced their children and friends, and men turned to their neighbors of different species and slapped their backs. More faces reflected relief and excitement than concern. Rapturous sounds filled the air, muffling the hateful shouts. The panthers, too, clapped and hollered, as if Kael, with his few words on the stage, had won a battle that’d been fought for half a century.
He glanced over his shoulder at his mother, who remained frozen with a hand over her mouth, mid-gasp.
Grinning, he gazed in between the two merchant tents again, hoping to see Cara there. Movement from the tree line caught his eye. In the distance the brush trembled.
His chest squeezed. Was it her? Had she been hiding out in the woods the entire time?
Kael snatched the Hunt dress from Cobrin and leaped off the dais, landing in the swarm of civilians. Some patted his shoulders and cried out in gratitude, while others pleaded with him to change his decision. He acknowledged them in passing with a swift nod and smile but stayed focused on the movement ahead as he pushed through the throng.
Footsteps followed behind him—his guards, he assumed—but he didn’t slow. Once he passed the last of the tents, and the crowd thinned, he sprinted toward the trees, thinking only of scooping Cara into his arms and kissing her until they were both out of breath. He had done everything he could to prove to her he wanted things to change—that he would use all of his power to make life fair again for her people. If he could feel her body against his and hear her say that she wanted nothing more than to be his, then he’d know what he’d done was truly enough.
But, to Kael’s surprise, a boy stumbled out of the vegetation on wobbly legs, making him skid to a halt. The boy fell onto his knees. Mud streaked his skin, and scraps of moss and twigs stuck out of the tight curls on the top of his head. He looked up at Kael with fearful eyes, his chest heaving.
“P-Prince Kael—” he stammered, still gasping for breath.
“Who are you?” Kael peered into the woods where he had appeared but saw no one else behind him. Cara wasn’t there.
The panther boy tried to lift himself up, but his arms trembled too much to hold his weight. When Kael offered him a hand, he noticed a brown leather satchel lying by his feet. Colorful painted beads and feathers hung from its sides.
His heart dove. Feathers. Large speckled ones, like the one Corbin had found in the prison cell the day Cara had been shot with the dart.
“You?” Kael shouted, anger pushing through him like a tidal wave. A mere child had killed Salus and wanted to murder him? He sniffed the air, and smelled mint latched to the boy. He cursed. “It was you?”
Body shaking, the boy scrambled onto his bottom and scooted back, trying to get as far away from Kael as he could. An assassin? He was nothing more than a coward. “No, please! It wasn’t me!”
His thoughts jumped to Cara, and his tiger roared at the idea of her being harmed. He’d rip out his throat if he’d done anything to
her. “Where’s Cara?”
He said nothing. Only stared up at him, stiff with terror.
“Where is she?” Kael bellowed. The rippling power of the change surged forward, ready for a fight.
As the panther boy opened his mouth to answer, a piercing scream shot through the woods, icing over his entire being.
Cara… He dropped the beautiful dress onto the ground and was off running without another thought.
Chapter Nineteen
A stampede of footsteps followed Kael into the Bilha Forest. Not slowing, he glanced over his shoulder to see Corbin leading a half dozen guards into the shadowy woods. Kael opened his mouth and let out a deafening roar.
The group of men at his heels echoed his warrior cry, and the ferocious sounds bounced off every trunk, engulfing the wood. He prayed that wherever Cara was, she could hear it and know they were coming for her.
Adrenaline shot through his veins, pushing his legs faster. He leaped over roots and dodged branches with ease. His tiger reared up, longing to take over in the chase, but Kael was trained in human combat. His skills centered on having a weapon in hand. He couldn’t rely on the tiger part of him in a fight yet, and there was no way he was going to risk it, not with Cara’s life hovering in the balance.
He sniffed the air, hoping to catch her spice and earthy scent. He found it—faint but there—along with the crisp smell of mint leaves. Following it, he turned right and picked up speed.
His heart slammed against his ribs as he ran deeper into the forest. What if she was severely hurt by the time he reached her, or if he was too late and she was… No, he refused to think that way. He’d reach her in time, and tear anyone who’d hurt her to shreds.
Snap.
The sudden crunch of something solid under his boot made him halt. Kael lifted his foot, seeing nothing at first but a mere twig snapped in a few pieces in the dirt, but then, he noticed the smooth and glossy finish to it. It was a wooden tube of some kind, and it reeked of mint leaves. Hollowed out and small, like a flute. No holes, though, to produce a sound.
His men were quick to his side.
“My rei.” Corbin’s warning tone didn’t stop Kael from picking up the broken parts for a closer examination. A blowpipe and the perfect size for the assassin’s handmade darts. But how had it gotten here? Had the panther boy dropped it running this way? All the clues pointed to him, but Kael had a difficult time believing such a terrified child could devise such a treacherous plan.
“What is it?” asked Corbin, peering at it with a frown.
“The very thing that killed my father,” Kael replied. And almost killed Cara. “Broken now. It’ll never hurt anyone ever again.”
Suddenly, two men burst through the trees a few yards in front of them, panting hard, with sweat glossing their skin. One had unruly dark hair and a thin goatee. The other Kael had seen—during his first venture into the panther village—short with bulging arms, a bald head, and a handful of throwing knives. Rafé’s men.
As their wide-eyed gazes jumped from Kael, to his armed guards behind him, to the wooden fragments in his hand, their faces twisted in rage. The taller of the two fell to all fours, snarling as the shift overtook him. His trousers ripped as muscles bunched and grew. Black fur cloaked his tan skin, and in the next second, Kael was staring into the blazing-yellow eyes of an enormous panther. It snapped its mouthful of sharp canines toward them.
Before a command could form on Kael’s tongue, a knife whizzed past his ear, just missing his flesh. A shuddering gasp and thud sounded behind him, and he turned to see the snow leopard from the dais lying on the ground with the blade stuck in his shoulder. Blood oozed through his guard uniform.
The rest of his guards rushed forward, and at the same time, the panther leaped at them.
The shorter, boxy one chucked another knife Kael’s way. He spun out of its path just in time. A hard clunk told him it had hit a tree behind him. Across his shoulder, the thick fabric of his father’s robes was sliced.
At least it wasn’t his skin.
Growling, Kael ripped his own dagger out of his pocket just as another blur of silver hurled toward him. He ducked and felt it skim through his hair, tickling his scalp.
Shivers dove down his spine. Too close.
With an angry, guttural cry, the square, bald man rushed at Kael, two blades flicking in and out of their sheaths at mind-numbing speed.
Kael dropped low and swiped out his leg, catching his opponent’s feet. The man stumbled, his weight sending him forward. As he fell, Kael struck the back of his head with the handle of his dagger. The blow sent him face first into a mound of uplifted roots.
A slicing pain tore into Kael’s calf, sending him to his knees. He gritted his teeth and glanced over his shoulder to see the short man leaning on his elbows with a smug grin on his face and the blade in his fist gleaming red.
Kael kicked back, ignoring the pain seizing his leg muscles. The heel of his boot collided with the enemy’s head. The man roared, dropping one of his knives and grasping his nose. Blood streamed through his dirty fingers. Without thought, Kael snatched the fallen knife and plunged it into the back of the man’s hand. He screamed, trying to wrench himself free, but the blade had impaled a thick root, trapping him in place.
“Don’t move too much. You may not have a hand left.” Kael smirked, climbing to his feet. Pain shot through his lower left side, making his knee wobble. He gritted his teeth. Warm liquid slid down his leg.
As the man looked up at him, fury burned in his stare.
“Tell me where Cara is.” Kael’s voice rumbled.
The man responded by pitching his last knife at him. Kael jumped to dodge it, but his leg protested, buckling under him. A sharp pinch nicked the top of his ear. He touched the spot, and when he looked at his fingers, fresh blood shone on the tips. Although the slight, nipping pain was nothing compared to his leg, annoyance itched at him, the last of his thin patience gone.
Kael fisted his hand and punched the man square in the mouth. “The girl,” Kael grunted, standing over him, “Cara. Tell me where you’re hiding her.”
The bald man spit a combination of saliva and blood at him before smiling up with red-stained teeth.
Kael clenched his jaw. He wanted nothing more than to beat him until he couldn’t breathe anymore, but that wasn’t how a rei acted. He was supposed to show mercy. Lead by example. More importantly, he needed to know where Cara was, so that meant keeping him alive.
Kael stepped on the man’s free wrist. He didn’t care about the throbbing ache that gripped his wounded calf, or the line of curses the brute spewed at him when he used all his weight to crush his bones under his boot. They had already wasted too much time on these two panthers. Cara was still somewhere in the forest. He had to get to her.
The sound of an agonized whimper caused Kael to look back, to where his guards battled the monstrous animal. Even though blood seeped out of a jagged gash on the panther’s chest, and a cluster of arrows protruded from its back, it still managed to snatch a spear out of Corbin’s hands and chomp it in two pieces. Its lips curled, and drool dripped from sharp teeth. Another guard came up and smacked the beast in the temple with the end of his empty crossbow, sending the panther toppling over. Wheezing, it lay in a heap, its tongue dangling from its mouth.
Slowly, the creature shed its black fur, revealing tan skin. Its muzzle receded. Bones popped, and the panther morphed back into the body a man curled on his side in the dirt. His limbs convulsed as he sucked in his last breath.
Corbin stood beside him, his head-wrap off and his blond hair pasted across his sweaty forehead. Blood stained his hands.
“Your friend is dead. You’ve lost.” Kael peered down at the box-shaped man still pinned to the ground. “Tell me where Cara is, and I’ll let you live.”
But he remained silent, grinning. Blood from his smashed nose spilled past his lips, dripping off his chin.
Kael growled, grabbed the handle of the knife stuck in
his hand, and gave it a good twist.
He howled.
“I’m giving you one more chance,” Kael barked.
He touched the handle again, but before he could give it another turn, the man yelped, “Rafé. He has her. Straight back. In the clearing.”
Rafé. His inner tiger roared. Kael had known he was trouble the moment he saw the cretin. He should have killed him in the center of the village, when he’d yanked him from Cara’s hut. Raw anger boiled inside him. When he got his hands on that greasy snake, he’d make him wish his life had ended then.
Corbin and the other guard rushed to his side. Behind them, the rest of his men checked for any signs of life from the fallen, naked panther.
“You’re wounded, Rei Kael,” Corbin sputtered, his chest still heaving. He wiped his palms on his uniform, smearing blood down the front. “We should get you back and dress your leg. Stop the bleeding.”
Kael shook his head. Nothing was going to stop him from bringing Cara back safe, especially if Rafé had her. The way he looked at her—like a tasty meal or like a predator toying with trapped prey—had made his intentions clear before. Rafé had always wanted to claim Cara. The thought of his hands on her made Kael’s vision haze with rage. Rei or not, he’d kill him.
“Take this one back to the prisons.” He pointed at the squirming panther on the ground. “I need to get to Cara.”
“But Rei Kael—”
“She could be hurt, Corbin.” His throat tightened as the guilt and panic began to set in. “Or dead.” It hurt to even say.
“Then I’m coming with you.” Corbin puffed out his chest but winced. He must have been harmed in a way that couldn’t be seen.
“No.” He admired his loyalty, but the cheetah had already done so much for him. Not to mention Kael wanted to face Rafé alone to strangle him with his own two hands.
Then, Kael remembered the intimidating man with the disfigured eye standing beside Cara’s grandmother and sister in the marketplace. He had a feeling he belonged to Rafé’s hellish group of followers, too. “I need you to go back to the marketplace. Gather more guards and arrest a panther with a scar over one eye. He’s hovering near an older woman and a little girl.”
The Hunt (Shifter Origins) Page 20
