Hunted by a Jaguar

by Felicity Heaton

  Kyter had the feeling that the snow leopard was speaking from the heart for once, letting him see past the barriers, and that they had more in common than Kyter had ever thought possible.

  Broken ties with their bloodlines.

  “Go.” Cavanaugh shoved his shoulder. “You’re no use here if you can’t concentrate for shit anyway.”

  Kyter smiled. “True.”

  He had served people the wrong drink more times than he could count and had given up serving people two days ago when he had managed to get nine orders in a row wrong. He hadn’t wanted to shoot for double figures.

  “You got this?” The thought of leaving Underworld in someone else’s hands didn’t sit well with him, but Cavanaugh had come good on his promise to take care of the joint when Kyter had received the call that had taken him to the rainforest for two whole weeks.

  The first time off he’d had in decades and it hadn’t exactly been a vacation. He knew that whatever lay ahead of him, it wouldn’t be a vacation either. If he did find his father, he would be lucky to come away from a fight against him in one piece, but he had to do it.

  He had made a vow and he meant to keep it.

  “I’ve got this,” Cavanaugh said with a steady smile that became a smirk. “Besides, you’ll be texting me every minute to check the club hasn’t burned down, blown up, or been taken over by nymphs and turned into a harem. I’m really looking forward to experiencing that all over again.”

  Kyter hit the shifter with a solid right hook to his arm that barely made an impact. “I was worried.”

  “I think we were all glad when you hit the jungle and lost signal.” Cavanaugh’s face fell and Kyter looked down at his shoes. “Sorry, Man.”

  Kyter shrugged it off. “Just let me know if shit goes south.”

  He lifted his chin and forced a smile.

  Cavanaugh didn’t bother. His expression remained deadly serious, his stormy grey eyes holding Kyter’s golden ones. He resonated strength and power, and a lethalness that Kyter had never sensed in him before.

  “You let me know if shit goes south for you too, Boss, and I’ll be there.”

  Kyter didn’t doubt that Cavanaugh would come good on that promise. He was familiar with the darkness that shone in his eyes, that edge of menace and coldness that only warriors possessed, males who had been tested in battle and had survived.

  He nodded his thanks to the larger male as he edged past him and lifted the hinged section of wood at the end of the bar. He lowered it behind him and glanced back at Cavanaugh.

  “And enough with the boss thing already. It’s Kyter. Calling me boss makes me feel old.”

  Cavanaugh cracked a smile, drawing a few heated glances from the women lining the bar, sultry looks that the male didn’t notice.

  Kyter waved him away again and followed the black wall to his right that ran behind the bar, stalking into the shadows and ignoring the few couples who were making out in the quieter recess of the club. He paused at the black metal door halfway along the wall, made sure no one was watching as he punched the code into the silver security panel, and twisted the knob. He shoved the door open, stepped through into the brightly lit expansive back room and let it slam shut behind him. The thick metal muffled the music.

  He leaned his back against it and shook his head as he stared across the concrete floor to the far pale wall.

  It had been four years since Cavanaugh had come to Underworld, a shifter who had looked far from home and a little lost. Four years. In all that time, Kyter had barely been able to scratch the surface. Cavanaugh had held him at a distance and had shot down all his attempts to form a closer relationship with him.

  Now, Kyter had lost everything, but he felt he had gained a friend.

  He had found a way of bonding with the big male and he couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to Cavanaugh to make him leave his pride.

  Kyter pushed away from the door and crossed the large pale room to the metal staircase that lined the left wall and led up to the apartments where he and the other staff lived. He banked right at the top of the stairs and headed down the long corridor, past the communal kitchen and break rooms, to his small apartment at the end.

  He opened the dark wooden door and prowled through the living room to his bedroom.

  He kicked off his shoes, stripped off his white shirt and tossed it onto the dark covers of his double bed, and followed it with his trousers, leaving him in only his socks. He padded across the wooden floor to his wardrobe at the foot of his bed, opened it and grabbed his black backpack from the bottom, pausing for a heartbeat to look at it, still covered in dirt from his home village, before grabbing a pair of combats and stuffing them into it, together with some tanks and shirts. He threw in a few pairs of socks from his drawers and a hunting knife, and zipped it closed.

  He tossed it near the door and grabbed a pair of black combats from his wardrobe. He tugged them on and buttoned them, and paired them with a black t-shirt. As a shifter, he preferred to keep clothing to the bare minimum, forgoing underwear. It made emergency shifts a lot easier. While he could happily fight with his hind paws stuck in a pair of socks, he preferred not to have to fight looking like a jaguar wearing boxer shorts.

  He pulled on his black leather, stuffed his feet into his boots, and snatched his keys from the dresser beside the wardrobe.

  On his way out of the bedroom, he picked up the backpack and swung it over his shoulder, not breaking his stride. He slammed the apartment door behind him, jogged down the corridor and then the stairs that led down into the main back room of Underworld. He opened the emergency exit door near the bottom, closed it behind him and smiled at the sight that greeted him in the narrow alley.

  Kyter strode across the strip of worn tarmac and swung his leg over the motorbike parked near the red brick wall.

  It sank lower as it cushioned his weight and he patted the sleek black fuel tank of the classic motorcycle he had owned for almost two decades now. She was a thing of beauty and he doubted he could love anything as much as he loved her, or anything could come close to matching her looks. She was all spit and fire, chrome and black. A wild lady with a fierce growl.

  He turned the key and she roared to life.

  Kyter slung the backpack on, kicked the stand up, and switched the lights on. He revved the engine and pulled away, heading along the slick alley towards the main street, the bike’s growl reverberating around the brick buildings on either side of him.

  When he hit the main street, he banked left and accelerated, speeding through the quiet night towards his destination.

  A fae town.

  It was the closest one to his club and he had been there countless times. How many of those times had he crossed paths with the male he was going to look for tonight? He didn’t want to think about that or the fact he could have found out his father’s location years ago and his mother would have still been alive.

  The journey passed swiftly, a mixture of motorways and narrow country roads. Dawn was coming as he rolled down the gravel driveway of a palatial sandstone mansion and parked his bike beside a huge black Bentley. He turned off the engine and eased his leg over the bike, coming to face the mansion. Light fae lived in the grand estate. He wasn’t here to see them.

  He walked to the right of the mansion, into the woods there, and found the entrance to the town set into a large mound of rock. He pushed the heavy iron gate open and stepped into the darkness, following the slick steps in a sweeping curve downwards into the gloom.

  A golden glow lit the end of the tunnel as it levelled out and the scents of the town rolled over him. Herbs. Spices. Blood. Sex. This fae town dealt in everything. He followed the tunnel until it opened out onto a high ledge at the edge of the enormous cavern. Below him, stone buildings covered the huge base of the cavern, groups of different styles marking the different districts.

  To his left, the tightly packed hotchpotch collection of white square flat-roofed structures of different heights lef
t little room for the thousands of fae who passed along the narrow streets between them.

  The witches’ district.

  It was always bustling with activity, no matter the time of day or night. Most of the fae, demons and other species who visited the town headed there, looking for a potion or a spell.

  Amidst the single-storey dwellings were some with two or more levels and bright colourful signs painted on their walls. Others had tattered jewel-coloured canopies reaching out from them, almost touching the canopy of the building opposite as their owners fought for space in the cramped town.

  The scents wafting up to him grew stronger, rising from the copper stills, thatched baskets, and terracotta or stone jars that were on display outside the stores in the witches’ district.

  Kyter turned away from the town and walked down the carved stone steps to his left that followed the curve of the cavern wall and led down into the town, ending near the witches’ district. Before he reached the bottom, he stopped and scanned the buildings again, seeking the demons’ district.

  Banners hung on the walls of the largest buildings that lined the edges of the town, built into the rock. Some were covens, but most belonged to other fae species. He knew the mark of a local pride of tiger shifters and always avoided the area at the far end of the town because of it. He still remembered the day when a wolf pack had set up home right next to the tigers. It hadn’t gone down well. They had ended up dragging the ogres into the fight and several blocks of the town had been flattened.

  If it hadn’t been for the quick thinking of the local succubus clan who resided in the glaringly red four-storey building at that end of the town, the damage would have been far worse. They had employed their charms though, easily winning over the shifters and the ogres. Make love, not war. A motto he had lived by once.

  Now he was out to make war.

  He spotted the demons’ district off to his right on his side of the cavern. The single storey buildings differed in appearance from those of the witches and the rest of the town. Smoke curled from the crooked chimneys on the uneven dark tiled roofs of the black beam and white panelled buildings that had an almost medieval look to them, lazily drifting up into the air before disappearing. Everyone in the town worked as a merchant, selling something.

  Kyter hoped that demons sold information.

  Or methods of summoning their kin.

  He took the last few steps down to the cobbled floor of the town and banked right, making his way through the busy streets towards the demons’ district, hugging the wall of the cavern below the entrance where the road was wider to avoid the worst of the crowds.

  A flash of silver caught his attention and disappeared just as his eyes darted to it. He frowned and stood taller as he walked, trying to spot what had caused the brief flare.

  A woman.

  He stumbled into a small old witch and she jabbed him in the leg with her staff. He muttered something he thought might have been an apology and stared after the female he had spotted.

  She was stunning.

  He had never seen a female like her.

  She moved through the crowd like black smoke, disturbing none of the fae milling around as she slipped between them, nimble and graceful.

  On the hunt for something.

  He recognised hunting behaviour when he saw it.

  She sidestepped, turned so she curved around a woman who had looked back at her friend, not paying attention to where she was going, and slipped back into the crowd, reappearing further ahead of him.

  Heading towards the demons’ district.

  Kyter followed her, bumping into several more people as he pursued her, unable to ignore the compulsion to catch another glimpse of her face. The need was visceral and something he had no command over. He couldn’t stop himself from tracking her into the darker part of town and trying to catch her scent. Everything on sale and all the fae and demons packed into the town overpowered his senses, making it impossible for him to pinpoint her scent.

  She turned, her long black hair swaying with the sudden action, and ducked down an alley on the left of the thoroughfare, her back pressed to the dark brick building. Her gaze tracked someone in the crowd. Who?

  He found himself tiptoeing in an attempt to see.

  What the hell was he doing?

  He cursed when he looked back at her and found she was gone.

  His gaze scanned the crowd and he barged through them, shoving them aside as he hurried towards where she had been. Several of the people shoved back, almost knocking him off his feet, and at least one growled at him.

  He almost walked straight into a vampire male, saving himself at the last minute by ducking to one side, down the same alley she had used as a hiding spot.

  Kyter dragged the air over his teeth and huffed when he still couldn’t pick up her scent.

  He looked at the crowd and then at the alley behind him. If she was hunting, maybe she had gone that way, where the flow of traffic was weaker, only a few people coming and going. He chanced it and followed the alleyways that wove through the brick buildings between the witches’ and demons’ districts, and grinned when he spotted her ahead of him down a narrow path between a set of white panelled buildings of the demons’ district.

  The smile fell off his face when he finally got a good look at her.

  Stunning hadn’t been a good enough word to describe her.

  She stood at least six-feet tall, her dangerous curves clad in black combat trousers, boots made for kicking arse, and a tight black camisole. Black leather cuffs encased her forearms, elaborate silver swirls of metal covering them. Silver. The flash of that colour that had caught his eye. They were beautiful, but would offer her little protection from a blade.

  She lingered near the end of the alley, watching the people passing, her back to him so he couldn’t see her face.

  What he could see gave him pause.

  Strapped to her back was a vicious long black and silver blade.

  A merc?

  Or was the sword meant purely as a visible warning to the men of the town?

  She turned her face to her right and Kyter’s heart kicked in his chest.

  Beautiful wasn’t a good enough word either.

  She was otherworldly.

  Long black lashes framed luminous green eyes and below the fine slope of her nose, rosy lips curved with just enough pout to set a man’s heart racing.

  A goddess.

  He took it back. There was something in this world far more beautiful than his beloved motorbike.

  He took a step towards her and she melted into the crowd.

  Kyter bit out a curse.

  He had to stop letting her give him the slip. He strode to the end of the alley and halted there, scouring the throng for her. How the hell did she keep evading him? With his senses and her height, it should have been easy to keep track of her. Hell, he should have been able to just follow the wake of slavering men she no doubt left behind her.

  He eyed all of the men in the crowd, on the verge of growling at them to warn them to keep their eyes off the female.

  Kyter froze. What the hell was he doing?

  He hadn’t come here to chase a woman as if she was a bitch in heat. He had to find the demon and discover whether he finally had a lead he could follow to find his father. Just thinking about the bastard had his heart turning cold in his chest and his rage welling back to the surface, fuelled by the grief that he felt sure would never leave him, not even when he’d had his vengeance.

  He shoved into the crowd and scanned the buildings on either side of the wider street, reading the signs that hung above their painted doors. The demons’ district. He had taught himself to read the fae and common demon tongues a long time ago, unwilling to be caught off guard in any way during his visits to the fae towns. Jaguars didn’t like having wool pulled over their eyes and the towns often drew unsavoury characters who preyed on anyone who looked out of place.

  He studied the wooden signpost in t
he middle of the street. He was close.

  Another flash of silver caught his attention again and his eyes darted to it, quicker this time so she couldn’t evade him. She knocked on a door and it opened, allowing her to duck inside. The green door closed behind her.

  Kyter pushed through the crowd to the small building and growled as he saw the painted sign hanging from a black iron pole jutting out of the white wall.

  His mark.

  What did she want with the demon he had come to find?

  He pressed his back to the white wall close to the door, shut his eyes and focused hard, using his training to filter out all the sounds that covered the ones belonging to his prey. It was hard when people jostled him as they passed, shattering his focus. He clenched his jaw and drew in a deep breath, shifting the whole of his focus back to the building behind him. He sifted through the ruckus in the street until he found the soft melody of a female voice.

  He only caught the end of what she said.

  “Must find the key to Barafnir. My client desires it.”

  Kyter’s claws shot out and dug into the plaster at his back.

  He snarled as anger poured like acid through his veins, burning him up inside.

  His father.

  She was after the same object as he was, but he wouldn’t let her have it. He needed it more than she did.

  It was only a prize to her.

  It was everything to him.

  CHAPTER 3

  Iolanthe despised fae towns. They were always crowded with disgusting creatures and smelled of vile things. She curled her lip at a male approaching her. He was hideous, the rolls of his stomach spilling out from beneath a brown leather vest three sizes too small for him. The repugnant bald-headed thing should have been lurking in the shadows of a damp cave rather than parading himself in public. Huge pustules dotted his meaty and hairy bare shoulders.

  She grimaced as she quickly pinned her back against a wall to avoid brushing him. The last thing she needed was one of those blisters of pus bursting all over her. She would vomit and her mood would turn blacker than it already was.