Barafnir roared, reached over his head, grabbed Kyter and threw him. Kyter hit the basalt ground hard and skidded across it, grimacing and grunting as a thousand sharp pebbles sliced into his skin and his side burned from the impact.
Iolanthe appeared beside him, crouched to check him and then lifted her head and hissed at Barafnir. She teleported before Kyter could stop her, reappearing behind the demon, already swinging her blade. It slashed up the demon’s bare back and across his right wing, cutting into the muscle and bone.
Barafnir twisted at the waist, bringing his sword around with him, and Iolanthe nimbly flipped backwards, evading the blow, and sprang forwards the second she landed on her feet, her black blade zooming ahead of her, aimed at the demon’s chest.
Kyter was on his feet and running for the demon’s back, his gaze locked on the male’s left wing.
Bleu staggered onto his feet, shook his head and teleported just as the immense demon smashed a thick arm into Iolanthe’s chest, sending her flying. Bleu appeared in mid-air, caught her and landed hard, setting her down before sprinting towards Kyter and the demon.
Barafnir turned on his heel and swung his sword, cutting through the air towards Kyter.
Kyter hit the deck, sliding feet first across the black ground beneath the blow, and grabbed Barafnir’s left leg as he shot past it. He clutched it, using it as an anchor to pivot himself around behind the demon. He pressed his free hand into the dirt, shoved hard as he used all of his agility to twist his body and swing his legs up, and grunted as he launched himself feet first at Barafnir’s left wing.
The soles of his boots connected hard with the base of the wing, sending Barafnir staggering forwards. Bone crunched and snapped, and Barafnir roared, the vicious sound echoing off the jagged black mountains surrounding the valley. Black smoke swirled around the demon again and he disappeared. Kyter’s feet fell forwards, he arched his back and flipped onto them, landing in a crouch.
His gaze immediately sought Iolanthe. She swayed on her feet, her left arm tucked against her chest, and he growled as he felt her pain radiating through his bones. The demon had broken it.
Bleu skidded to a halt halfway between him and Iolanthe and looked back at his sister.
Kyter’s stomach dropped.
Black shadows shimmered behind her.
“Iolanthe!” He bolted for her, growling as his legs burned from the exertion.
Bleu teleported.
Neither reached her in time.
Barafnir appeared behind her, grabbed the blade she held in her right hand and had twisted it free of her grip before she could move an inch. Kyter bellowed as the demon grinned and slashed down her back and she screamed and arched forwards, her pain blazing through him.
Kyter sprinted harder, pushing himself to the limit and beyond it as he saw red, anger exploding through his veins and darkness consuming him. He closed in on Barafnir, his sights locked on him even as Iolanthe collapsed onto the black ground.
The fucking bastard would pay for hurting his mate.
He would pay for hurting his pride.
He would pay for killing his mother.
Bleu appeared as the demon was about to deal a second blow, his spear coming up fast to knock the black blade from the male’s hand and send it tumbling through the air. He snarled something in the elf tongue, grabbed Iolanthe around her waist and teleported with her.
Kyter swept through the spot where they had been a split-second later and roared as he launched himself at his father, his claws at the ready. They grew longer, black talons that matched the ones tipping his father’s fingers. A demon’s claws.
A demon had killed his mother.
A demon had devastated his pride.
A demon had harmed his mate.
He was no demon.
He was a jaguar.
He transformed in the air, roaring as his body shifted much faster than it had ever done before, his gold and black fur covering him in the span of a heartbeat as he leaped free of his clothing.
Barafnir stared at him through shocked wide eyes.
Kyter opened his jaw as his paws slammed into the demon’s chest, twisted his head and bit down hard on the male’s thick throat. The force of the blow took the male down beneath him and Kyter clamped his jaws tight, crushing his windpipe and suffocating him as he landed on top of him. The demon battered him, clawing at his flank and trying to break free of his grip.
He held on, weathering the blows and the pain, not feeling them as everything faded away leaving only raw agony behind, the grief of losing his mother, and the fury of seeing his mate injured. Those violent emotions ruled him, keeping him in his jaguar form despite the pain of each slash and blow Barafnir dealt. His jaws ached, his limbs shook, and still he held on, sensing the life slowly draining from the demon beneath him.
He was no demon.
He was a jaguar.
He would never be a demon. He would never become his father.
He was born of a jaguar, to a long line of jaguars, each more powerful than the last. His lineage was pure and strong, and it beat within his heart with each breath he drew, instilling that strength in him. He was proud to be a jaguar. No one could take that away from him.
The demon’s hands closed around his neck, throttling him, but Kyter didn’t release him. He held on, using the last of his strength as it began to fade to keep his jaws clamped around the demon’s throat. His head spun and his muscles turned to water as he ran out of air, but he wouldn’t release the demon. He locked his jaws, refusing to surrender his prey. He would kill him and avenge his pride and his mother. He would set himself free from the tainted blood that ran in his veins. He would see his mate safe.
Even if he had to die with him to do that.
Barafnir’s fingers loosened and fell from Kyter’s neck.
The scent of death filled Kyter’s nostrils.
He collapsed against the demon’s body, his teeth still buried in his throat, his strength all but gone. His head swam, the sounds around him distorted and vague as fatigue crashed over him, threatening to drag him under the black waves.
“Kyter.” The soft female voice curled around him, broken and fragmented but luring his hearing into focusing on the sweet melody because he liked it. It was familiar and comforting. Everything he needed as he sank slowly into the gloom. Her words came clearer. “Let him go now.”
He couldn’t. He didn’t have the energy to move. It hurt too much.
Gentle hands bravely slipped into his mouth and prised his locked jaws open, and the demon’s neck fell from them. A tender palm cupped his face and fingers brushed through his fur.
“Come on, Kyter… you dare do this to me.” She stroked his forehead and his ears, her fear rushing through his blood together with the pain of every laceration that covered his body.
Every laceration that she experienced too.
His mate was in pain but she was focused on him, placing him before her own needs. His beautiful Iolanthe.
“Irritating cat.” She shook him hard with one hand and he managed a growl, baring one fang at her as his top lip curled.
She laughed but there was no joy in it. There was only immeasurable hurt and fear. He was frightening her. His brave and confident mate. He didn’t want to scare her. He didn’t like it when she was afraid. She stroked his fur again, harder this time, before clutching it in her fingers and holding on to him.
Her hand shook against him. “Stop playing dead… because Bleu is threatening to bring medicine.”
Kyter grunted and wearily rolled onto his front, sliding off the demon’s chest and landing on his side on the ground. He tried to get onto his paws but his legs gave out as the haze in his head cleared and a thousand emotions roared back to life, ripping away what little strength he had gathered. The agony of his injuries and the fatigue from the battle combined with the pain of his grief and the knowledge that he had brought so much death to his kin and it was too much for him to bear.
H
e chuffed, the sound mournful, filled with the ache he felt inside.
Iolanthe continued to stroke him with her good arm, offering comfort that he soaked up, absorbing every drop of it to help him battle the violent waves of his feelings and regain some control over his body so he could shift back. If he could shift back, he would be able to handle them all and they would no longer own him. His jaguar side was too sensitive to emotions. He needed to shift in order to tamp them and his pain down.
He focused on Iolanthe as she murmured to him in the elf tongue, picking up the word for fated male. Ki’aro. That word warmed him, filling his heart with light. His mate. He could feel her pain and her need to see he was alright. He mustered his strength for her sake, wanting to allay her fears and give her comfort too. His female needed him.
He pulled himself away from the demon and Iolanthe to give himself space to shift.
Kyter slowly opened his eyes and growled as he transformed back, using every drop of the strength he had gathered to complete the shift. When the final bone had cracked back into place and his fur was gone, he rolled onto his back and breathed hard, fighting the pain burning him to ashes inside.
Iolanthe covered him with something, concealing his hips, and kneeled beside him as her brother approached them.
“You worried me.” She stroked his brow and he issued an apologetic smile. He hadn’t meant to scare her. She had scared him too. “I thought you were going to die.”
“Never,” he croaked and she smiled but there were tears lining her lashes.
They cut at him, making the lie taste foul in his mouth. He hadn’t wanted to die, but he had been willing to, and he wasn’t sure what that made him, but he didn’t like it. He blamed the lack of air supply to his brain. It had made him forget what a wonderful and beautiful mate he had in this world.
He slowly raised his hand and cupped her cheek. “I’ve only just found you. I’m not going anywhere… not until I’ve had a thousand years with you and then a thousand more.”
Her smile wobbled on her lips and she clutched his hand to her face, her violet eyes searching his. “I will hold you to that.”
She lowered her gaze and he frowned at the sudden awkward edge her expression took on.
“What is it?” He swallowed hard as Bleu appeared above him, crouched and grabbed his shoulders, beginning to haul him up into a sitting position, no doubt so he could administer the foul and torturous medicine Iolanthe had mentioned.
Iolanthe looked down at her knees. “I am sorry that you did not get your vengeance.”
Kyter frowned, his heart starting off at a pace. The demon wasn’t dead? No. He was dead. Kyter had sensed it and scented it on him.
“What do you mean? I killed him.” Kyter grimaced as he shoved off Bleu and his eyes shot towards Barafnir, expecting to see him getting onto his feet or teleporting away.
The demon lay where Kyter had left him.
With Iolanthe’s black blade sticking out of his heart.
His gaze leaped back to her. She had killed his father.
“I could not stop myself. He was going to kill you. I had to choose whether to hold back and trust that you would survive or follow my heart and ensure you survived.” She raised her eyes to meet his, an apology in them that she had no need to give to him. “I do not wish to live in a world without you in it.”
Bleu might have gagged but Kyter wasn’t paying attention to the elf. He grabbed Iolanthe’s right arm and pulled her into his embrace, grimacing as every injury on his body burned white-hot. She grunted and hissed, her pain colliding with his as the deep wound on her back blazed and lightning shot up her left arm.
“Tell me this part of the bond disappears when we complete it,” he whispered into her ear and she shook her head.
“I am sorry,” she murmured against his bare chest, her voice laced with the pain he could feel flowing through her.
“Don’t be.” He stroked her braid and loosened his hold on her, not wanting to hurt her but unable to release her. He needed to feel her in his arms, safe now. Free from the assassins. “You saved me, Iolanthe… gods, you saved me. Not just from my father… but from a life filled with loneliness and pain, and a world where I had nothing left. You made me see that I had everything that I desired and needed if I only opened my eyes and looked beyond the dark shadows that clouded my mind to the light.”
He had wanted to blame himself when he had realised that he could have stopped the devastating attack on the village if he had only been there, and he could have saved his mother.
He could have handed himself over to his father and the demon might have let the others live.
He couldn’t take the blame though. He couldn’t let it rest solely on his shoulders. His pride had driven him away. The blame rested on their shoulders too. Rather than accepting him as the jaguar he was, they had seen only the demon blood in him, and they had persecuted him for it. They had taken everything he had ever strived to give to them—his strength, his loyalty, his love—and had thrown it in his face.
He had taken the blame enough in his short life, feeling it piled onto his shoulders from a tender age. It had taken meeting Iolanthe to give him the strength to stand up, cast aside all of his fears about his mixed blood and how others would judge him for it, and cast aside the need he felt to beg for scraps of affection from a pride who had acted more like his enemy than his family.
Iolanthe had accepted all of him, no questions asked and no scorn cast at him. She had accepted him not as a jaguar or a demon. She had accepted him as Kyter and she loved him as he was. It was there in her eyes as she looked at him, even though he knew that his were as they had been from the moment he had attacked his father.
Black irises with gold elliptical pupils.
He shouldn’t have feared she would judge him or turn away from him because of them. He should have known she would only hold him closer and love him more deeply, showing him that she didn’t care about where he had come from. She loved all of him. Unconditionally. Eternally.
And he loved her.
Kyter dipped his head to kiss her.
Bleu coughed and shoved a vial between them. “I am still here and I am not going anywhere until you two drink this.”
Kyter closed his eyes and sighed at the same time as Iolanthe laughed, the light sound teasing his ears. He had a feeling that Bleu was going to make his life hell for the next few years at least, but he would put up with it, because something told him that Iolanthe was going to put him through hell for eternity. It wouldn’t be long before he and Bleu bonded over being dragged on expeditions, exchanging stories about her treasure hunts gone wrong, and generally racing in to save the day and her backside.
First though, he had a promise to keep, one that he knew would help Bleu begin to overcome his dislike of seeing him with his sister.
He opened his now-golden eyes and pinned her with a hungry look.
They had dealt with his father, and they had dealt with her client.
Now they were going to deal with their bond.
By the next full moon, Iolanthe would be his mate.
CHAPTER 27
Kyter prowled through the trees, moving from limb to limb, a silent shadow above his prey. The monkey chatter died as he approached and they fled their refuge, breaking out in all directions and scattering to avoid him. They were safe today. He had no interest in anything other than his prey.
She walked the floor of the rainforest far below him, her black backpack shifting with each sensual step she took towards her destination. He flattened onto his belly and crawled along a thinner branch, spreading his weight.
A bird of paradise called and she stopped, her green eyes lifting to the canopy above her, seeking it.
She was beautiful.
And she was his.
A soft smile played on her rosy lips and then she started walking again, skilfully avoiding each root and rock that lay in her path, finding her way across the bumpy terrain with ease. Her booted fee
t made no sound. Not a single twig snapped beneath her light step.
She brushed a rogue strand of her blue-black hair back, neatening the long thick plait that hung down her back beside her black pack. It bounced with each step, shifting against her tight dark violet camisole and luring his gaze down to the small pair of black shorts she wore. He struggled to keep his eyes off them, knowing if he looked that he wouldn’t be able to tear his gaze away.
He had cursed her from the moment she had changed into them. They showed off far too much of her long toned legs and cupped her backside in a way that made him want to growl. The thought of her walking into his pride’s village dressed like that, so much flesh on show, made him want to growl for a different reason. He would kill any male who dared to look at his mate with desire in his eyes.
She had been made for his eyes only.
Another bird flitted across her path and she twisted at the waist, lifting her hand towards it. The tiny colourful creature turned towards her, wings fluttering as it darted around in front of her. She smiled, stealing his breath with her beauty as her lips curved and her eyes sparkled. The bird edged closer to her outstretched hand and he marvelled all over again at the incredible power and beauty of his mate as it landed on her fingertips.
He had never in all his existence seen a wild bird do such a thing.
They all fled him whenever he tried to get close to them, but they flocked to her.
She petted it and it lingered a moment longer and then took flight, disappearing into the trees.
Iolanthe brushed her hand around the back of her neck, drawing his gaze to it, awakening a deep hunger to press his fangs into that sweet spot. She caught her braid, swept it over her shoulder, and released it. It swayed across the left side of her chest. Her fingers followed the braid and brushed across her breast, a sensual and slow caress that had his heart beating faster.
He reached a paw down to the next branch, his focus locked on her as he closed in.
Hunted by a Jaguar Page 28
