Hunted by a Jaguar

by Felicity Heaton

  Green-purple light flashed across his vision and he passed straight through where she should have been, landing hard on his face. His senses blared a warning and he rolled to his left just as her blade punched deep into the dirt beside his head.

  “Iolanthe,” he said and she didn’t even spare him a glance.

  She twisted her blade and brought it hard to her right, aiming for his head again.

  Kyter growled, pressed his right hand into the dirt behind his shoulder, and shoved hard. He arched in the air, landed on his feet and swept his left leg around in a high kick. It caught her in the back and she stumbled forwards, rolled and turned halfway through it. She sprang at him, her violet eyes flashing as she hissed, revealing her fangs.

  He stood his ground.

  She thrust the blade ahead of her and he ducked to one side, caught her arm between his side and his arm, and grabbed hold of her shoulder. She snarled and brought her leg over her back in a scorpion kick.

  Kyter released her shoulder, swiftly blocked her ankle with his forearm, and twisted his hand. He grabbed her leg, released her arm, and threw her, sending her slamming into the hard ground beside him.

  “Iolanthe,” he warned and prepared himself again. He refused to fight her all out. He didn’t want to hurt her, but she wasn’t pulling her punches.

  His mate wanted to kill him.

  She hissed and teleported. He waited, his senses scanning. Above. He kicked off and hurled himself forwards into a slide that had him skidding across the dusty earth, the sharper stones biting into his right leg. He twisted and pressed one hand into the dirt, righting himself and rising to his full height as he stopped skidding, coming to face her. She frowned, twirled her blade and launched herself at him. It hadn’t worked the first time she had tried it and it wasn’t going to work the second time.

  The moment she was within reach, he sprang into the air, flipped heels over head above her, and came down hard on her back. He kicked, sending her slamming into the ground. She grunted and the scent of her blood filled the air, tugging at his gut.

  Dammit. He hadn’t meant to hurt her.

  He landed and turned to check on her.

  Big mistake.

  She appeared behind him and kicked him in the head, the front of her booted foot connecting hard with his temple and taking him down onto the thick flagstones of the path. His vision swam and when it came back, she had him pinned to the ground again, her black hair hanging forwards and caressing his bare chest as she loomed over him.

  He was beginning to hate it when she did that.

  He didn’t give her a chance to get her blade against his throat this time.

  He shoved his palm into her wrist, hard enough that she loosed a muffled cry and lost her grip on her sword. It tumbled through the air and clattered across the road behind her. Kyter grabbed her around the back of her neck, used his other forearm to pin her arms against her chest, and rolled.

  He ended up wedged between her thighs, one hand against her throat and the other clutching both of her wrists.

  She hissed at him, baring her fangs, and her pointed ears flared back against the sides of her head, visible through her hair as it fanned out across the flagstones beneath her.

  She was one angry little kitty.

  Her violet eyes shot wide and she sharply looked to her left. Kyter refused to fall for her feint. She would attack him if he did.

  A boot connected hard with his ribs, lifting him off her and sending him violently spinning through the air. What the hell? He twisted and turned, and landed on his feet, skidding backwards across the dirt.

  Kyter lifted his head and growled at the male standing between him and Iolanthe.

  Not the sort in the Devil’s service. This one had all the hallmarks of a demon from one of the seven kingdoms and the small blue-grey horns that stuck out of his black hair, curling from behind his ears down to the tip of their lobes, and his matching eyes said that he was from the Seventh Realm. He was head to toe in black, his leather trousers encasing legs that resembled tree trunks, and his long-sleeved t-shirt stretched tight over powerful immense muscles.

  The question of the day was whether he was here to hunt for the artefact?

  Kyter slid his gaze down to Iolanthe where she was picking herself up off the floor behind the large demon male.

  Or was he here because of her?

  Either way, the demon was going down.

  The second the demon shifted his blue-grey eyes to his left, towards Iolanthe, Kyter sprang forwards and barrelled into him. He wrapped his arms around the demon’s meaty waist and sprinted, taking the male with him and slamming him into a thick stone wall. The male grunted, brought his right fist down hard on Kyter’s back, knocking the wind from him, and shoved him away, sending him crashing into the wall.

  He landed sprawled out on the dirt.

  Claws like talons grew from the male’s fingertips and Kyter huffed as he used the wall to pull himself back onto his feet.

  He really hated demons.

  But they weren’t the only species to come equipped with built in weapons.

  He growled and flexed his fingers as his claws extended. They were shorter than the demon’s ones but just as deadly when you knew how to use them. The bigger male smirked and advanced on him.

  “No.” Iolanthe wobbled on her feet and threw her hand out to one side. Her blade shot into it. “Leave him.”

  Kyter wasn’t sure whether she was talking to him or the demon, but she was shit out of luck either way. Neither of them listened to her. The demon kicked off. Kyter kicked off too, slammed into him in mid-air and landed the first blow, carving his claws down the demon’s left cheek. The male growled and bared his huge fangs, and grappled with him. They hit the ground, rolled together and Kyter barely dodged the left hook the demon threw at him. The male’s fist hit the dirt, leaving an impact crater in it.

  Kyter decided to avoid the demon’s punches at all costs. He liked his face the way it was and the way she looked at him at times told him that his mate did too.

  He rolled with the demon and slashed across the male’s side, ripping through his t-shirt and his skin beneath it, leaving deep gashes in the wake of his claws. The male repaid him in kind, clawing upwards from Kyter’s right hip, cleaving diagonal lines across his stomach.

  He growled through the pain and grabbed the male’s arm as he brought his legs up. He wrapped them around the demon’s neck and twisted with him, clamping his thighs at the same time and pulling on his arm. The demon’s eyes bulged out of his head, his face turning red as Kyter squeezed harder, blocking his air supply.

  Kyter grinned. He was one mean son-of-a-bitch kitty. Even demons couldn’t mess with him.

  The demon smirked.

  Kyter’s smile disappeared at the same time as the male did, sucking him down into a black hole with him. Shit. He grabbed the demon as darkness enveloped them and the male tried to shove him away. No damn way he was going to get tossed out of the demon’s portal in a random place in Hell. He dug his claws in and clung to the bastard, doing his best impression of a cat being dragged somewhere it didn’t want to go.

  The demon grunted and wrestled with him, but Kyter refused to give. Whenever the male got one of Kyter’s hands off him and tried to work on the other, he gripped hold of him again.

  Light engulfed them, driving back the darkness of the teleport. Pain ricocheted through Kyter and he snarled as the demon landed on top of him, rushing to figure out where they had ended up.

  Iolanthe’s battle cry was the sweetest thing he had ever heard.

  He tipped his head back, watching her upside down as she blazed towards him and threw her left hand forwards. The demon flew off him and roared as he slammed into a column. The stone exploded, showering the area in fragments and white dust.

  She appeared above Kyter and frowned down at him.

  “Get up,” she snapped and kicked him in the side.

  It was a gentle kick, but it still pissed him
off. He was fighting to protect her and she was kicking him for it.

  He pressed both hands into the dirt above his shoulders and flipped onto his feet, landing just in time to see Iolanthe flying sideways across the courtyard. She smashed into a wall and collapsed in a heap.

  Kyter turned a deadly glare on the demon where he stood with his arm still outstretched from the backhand he had delivered.

  “You die for that,” Kyter growled through his fangs and darkness swirled through him, twisting along his bones and twining with his muscles.

  His jaguar shifted inside him and his claws grew longer, turning black as they emerged, ripping through his skin. He snarled as his canines extended and the darkness swirled stronger, flooding through his veins now. He fought the seductive lure of it, the temptation of all that power at his fingertips, refusing to give in to that demonic part of himself. He would never use it.

  Iolanthe moaned.

  His control shattered.

  His vision sharpened and burned crimson.

  The demon stared at him as if he was looking at a monster.

  Kyter supposed that he was.

  And it was the last thing he would see.

  He kicked off and was behind the demon before he could blink, his clawed hands braced against the sides of the male’s head beneath his horns. He squeezed hard and gave it a vicious jerk, growling in satisfaction as bones cracked and the male managed to loose the start of a grunt before falling silent.

  The darkness within Kyter said to keep twisting until the demon’s head popped clean off.

  Bathe his hands in blood.

  Kyter dropped the body and staggered backwards, breathing hard as he shunned that urge, unwilling to take things that far. The male was dead. Iolanthe was safe. That was enough for him.

  His claws shrank back and his vision dimmed, the colour returning to the world. He looked towards Iolanthe, praying to his ancestors that she hadn’t witnessed that dark part of himself that he despised.

  Born of blood he didn’t want.

  She finished pulling herself onto her feet and looked across at him. Her violet eyes went impossibly wide and she blinked slowly as she stared at the fallen male.

  “No!” She shook her head, light traced over her body, and she suddenly appeared in front of Kyter and the dead demon.

  She looked between them, her mouth opening and closing, a maelstrom of emotions swirling like a storm in her eyes and through her scent.

  Her gaze finally stopped on Kyter.

  She slapped him hard, snapping his head to his left. He closed his eyes, his cheek stinging, and clenched his jaw as he growled. Not quite the thank you he had expected.

  “What the hell is your problem?” He flicked his eyes open and growled again when he saw she was walking away from him.

  Not a chance.

  He stormed after her, grabbed her wrist and twisted her into his arms, pinning her arms between them. The black serrated claws of her armour pressed into his bare chest. A silent warning. He didn’t heed it.

  Kyter’s breathing slowed as he took in the feel of her against him, in his arms. He couldn’t deny the pressing urge to touch her. He uncurled one arm and skated his palm down her spine. She felt naked in her black armour, all of her supple curves on show, every dip and swell of her body right there for his eyes and his fingers to explore.

  Her breathing quickened and she swallowed hard.

  She stared up into his eyes, her violet ones dark, her pupils devouring her irises as they dilated in response to the desire he could smell on her.

  He knew what she was feeling. He knew how her blood thundered and her body shook with need, an uncontrollable hunger born of the fight and the fear, and the incredible surge of endorphins when the battle was done and you were the one still standing.

  He was hot as hell too.

  There was nothing like having your life on the line to get your blood pumping.

  Kyter’s gaze dropped to her lips.

  And make you a little reckless.

  He dipped his head and claimed the prize for his victory.

  CHAPTER 9

  The voice in Iolanthe’s head screamed at her to push Kyter away but her hands had a different idea as his lips descended on hers. Her armour peeled away from them as they snaked up to his neck and clutched it, her short nails digging into his bare skin and his scalp as the hard demanding press of his lips sent a violent hot shiver through her blood. She barely stifled the moan that rose in her throat and clung to him as he kissed her, his tongue demanding entrance, stroking the seam of her lips.

  She granted it, her lips parting to welcome his invasion. The coppery dark tang of his blood filled her senses, tearing a moan from her before she could contain it. His answering groan was a deep rumble against her breasts.

  His hands pressed into her spine, pulling her hard against him, so she had to bend backwards to keep their mouths fused. She ached in response to the feel of his powerful honed body against hers, the ridges of his muscles pressing into her armour and awakening a deep throbbing between her thighs.

  Gods help her.

  She wasn’t strong enough to stop him, even when she dimly recognised that she should. Her hands left his neck to skim over his bare muscular shoulders, her body quivering at the feel of them. Tensed. Strong. Seductive.

  His tongue tangled with hers, his head slanting as he brought them into firmer contact, and she felt as if he would devour her. She wanted him to devour her. She wasn’t sure whether she was coming or going anymore, or what she was doing, but something about this felt right.

  She kissed him harder, stirring his passion as she stroked her tongue along his and flicked the tip of it down the back of one of his fangs.

  He had fangs.

  He growled like a beast too, a powerful predator. He was agile, fast, and strong.

  Iolanthe clung to his shoulders, feeling that strength in his sinewy muscles and in his hands as they claimed her waist, his thumbs pressing into her stomach and his fingers into her back, holding her in a tight grip that warned he wouldn’t let her go now.

  She didn’t want him to release her. She needed this moment of madness. She needed it more than she could bear because everything was falling apart and he felt so strong beneath her fingers.

  His claws pressed into her armour, unable to penetrate the black metal scales.

  He had raked them over the demon. The demon he had killed.

  No. What had he done?

  The implications of it loomed over her, a towering wall of darkness and despair that stole her breath, and then came crashing down on her with the force of a tidal wave, dousing her desire and ripping her focus away from Kyter. She couldn’t hide in his arms as she wished, as a weaker female would, believing that nothing bad would happen to her if she just shut it out of her mind and pretended it didn’t exist.

  Kyter had killed one of Fernandez’s men.

  A chill blasted through her, freezing her blood and numbing her heart.

  Fernandez would ensure she knew the full extent of his wrath.

  There would be no escaping it.

  No appeal she could make would stop him from exacting his punishment for what she had allowed to happen.

  She found the strength to shove Kyter away from her as her chest constricted, squeezing the air from her lungs, and cursed him in the elf tongue.

  He didn’t let her escape him as she had wanted to. He had her back in his arms before she could stop him, wrapping them around her like steel bands and pinning hers between them again, leaving her vulnerable to him.

  “You do not understand what you have done!” She wriggled but stopped when it only rubbed his body against hers, reawakening her passion and threatening to cloud her mind with lust once more.

  Kyter’s sandy eyebrows dropped low above stunning golden eyes. “Was he your partner or something? You said you didn’t have partners.”

  She shook her head and dropped her eyes to his throat. It still bore the mark from
her blade. The rich taste of his blood still filled her senses. She stared at his neck, the world and all of her fears fading away again, leaving only Kyter behind. His heart beat steady and strong against her palms, that strength curling around her together with his scent, stealing away the panic that had filled her just seconds ago and leaving her feeling a little dazed.

  Her fangs itched to taste his blood.

  The scent of it was strong, far stronger than it should have been from something as small as a damaged tooth or split lip.

  Her eyes widened as she recalled that the demon had injured him, slashing across his stomach and chest. She tried to push out of his arms, filled with a sudden fear that he was hurting himself by holding her so tightly against his wounds. He refused to let her go, his arms tightening around her, pressing her closer.

  “Who was he?” Kyter growled and she had the feeling that he had mistaken her attempt to break free of him for an act of anger.

  She only wanted to stop him from hurting himself.

  She relaxed against him, hoping he would loosen his grip if she did and he felt she wasn’t going to attempt to escape his arms.

  “He worked for my client. I knew he was there, spying on me and reporting to him.” She lifted her eyes back to his. They were softer now but eerily yellow in the moonlight. What was he? A shifter of some sort? He felt too strong to be one of that breed. She had met plenty of shifters from many different breeds, and none of them had been as strong as he was. “When he fails to report on my progress, my client will send more of his men.”

  The thought of them tracking her down sent a chill through her and revived the anger that had faded again, stoking it until it burned like an inferno within her. Fear joined it, panic that she was wasting time in Kyter’s arms when she should have been taking action. She needed to hide the body. She had to teleport it away from this place to somewhere Fernandez would never find it.

  A foolish idea, one that the rational part of her knew wouldn’t make a difference even as the panicked part of her screamed at her to carry it out.

  Whether she hid it or not, Fernandez would discover what had happened.