Fallen Princess

by Alexa B. James

  Fallen Princess

  Feline Royals

  Book Four

  Alexa B. James

  Fallen Princess

  Copyright © 2021 Alexa B. James

  First Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher, except in cases of reviewer quoting brief passages in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, and events are entirely coincidental. Use of any copyrighted, trademarked, or brand names in this work of fiction does not imply endorsement of that brand.

  Published in the United States by Alexa B. James and Speak Now.

  Cover by Kadee Brianna of Everly Yours Cover Design

  ISBN: 978-1-945780-57-8

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  One

  (Trigger warning: This book features material that may be difficult for some. If you have hard limits, I recommend returning this title for a refund).

  *

  Itzel

  High Priestess

  We crouched behind a jagged barricade of tumbled boulders, glancing at each other as if making sure we were all accounted for. My heart was hammering hard in my chest, but I wasn’t scared. I was too fueled with adrenaline to feel fear.

  “I should go first,” Shadow whispered in his papery voice. “I’m hardest to detect.”

  Panther powers gave him that distinction, and none of us could argue his logic. Still, I wanted to protest, to keep my young lover from risking himself.

  He started to rise when no one spoke, and a bullet immediately zinged past him and ricocheted off the sandstone beside his head.

  “Get down,” Lord Balam barked, grabbing his arm and yanking him back.

  Now I felt the fear. The thought of losing any one of my mates was too horrible to contemplate. I’d never even told them all how I felt. I’d told Shadow I loved him, but what if I lost one of the others? What if it was Sir Kenosi, who had given his life for me, or Gao Jetsun, who had endured the insanity of a High Priestess going into heat with me? What if it was Lord Balam, who had been my rock and my silent supporter since my first step on the amulet tour? Or Tadeu, who I’d loved since childhood, but had never had a chance to reconcile with, despite his participation when I’d been in heat?

  No. Fuck that. I was not losing any of my mates.

  “They know where we are,” Shadow said. “That shot came as soon as I stood up, like they were watching for us.”

  “Did you see where it came from?” Prince Kwame asked.

  Unlike our opponents, we were unarmed. The men had come to me with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and Gao Jetsun was a monk who didn’t believe in violence or, apparently, even having weapons for self-defense. It was hard to imagine a life like that after spending eighteen years in the Ocelot Nation, where even the royal family learned perfect marksmanship and slept with handguns in our bedside tables in case the dozen guards in the palace weren’t enough protection.

  “If they’re using guns, we’ll just have to wait them out,” I said. “We can’t fight as shifters if they’re shooting.”

  “Cowards,” Lord Balam muttered. “An honorable shifter would fight in his skin.”

  “Did you expect Camila to fight honorably?” Shadow asked.

  “Well, it’s not really a fair fight,” I pointed out. “She’s half your size in her animal form.”

  Shadow leveled me with a hooded gaze, reminding me that I was no longer on the same side as my sister. I shouldn’t be defending her. It just came naturally, automatically, after doing it for my entire life.

  “Right,” I muttered, dropping my gaze. “She’s on the other side of this fight.”

  “Besides, they have tigers,” Tadeu said, shifting his enormous body against the boulder. “We’re bigger than any other cat in the world, in human and animal form.”

  “They’re also extremely hard to kill,” Lord Balam pointed out. “Being undead, they’re immortal unless killed in very specific ways.”

  “Well, we have a tiger, too,” I said, raising my chin. “And a lion, who’s a ghost. He should be hard to kill as well.”

  “I’m not sure of my physical limitations since returning to this world,” Prince Kwame admitted. “I would hate to find out my solid body can be killed as easily this time as it did the first.”

  “Let’s not risk it,” I said with a shudder. I hadn’t known Prince Kwame as long as Shadow or Lord Balam, but in a lot of ways, I knew him better. Kwame was mostly an open book, which I appreciated after the reticent attitude of Shadow and the need-to-know basis of Lord Balam’s personal stories. Also, the lion prince was openly doting, always showing his devotion to and care for me, and I’d needed that after my visit to the Tiger Empire. I could put up with a lot of rough treatment, but it was nice to have a man who gave me relief from that, a man who was gentle and loving to contrast with all my rough and wild lovers.

  “Surprise, surprise,” Tadeu said, glaring at me. “You want to sacrifice me. Why does this sound familiar?”

  “No,” I said firmly. “We’re not sacrificing anyone. But you can tell us how many she has in her party.”

  “Who the fuck knows?” Tadeu said. “She started out with a dozen supernaturals of different races, but she started losing them the day she cracked up and shot me. She lost two others that same day. It might be down to just her and that guard she enchanted.”

  My heart twisted in pain at the reminder that Camila had opened the ocelot mating amulet, forcing Gabor to fall in love with her.

  “Are you going to come out and fight or just hide like cowards all day?” my sister’s voice taunted, echoing over the bounders and down into the valley below. We’d tracked her through the mountains of Snow Leopard Territory for two days before finding her near the base of the mountains, almost back to the town where Tadeu said she’d left transportation and supplies.

  “If you stop shooting, we’ll come out,” I called back.

  “Why would I do that?” she asked. “So you can kill me?”

  “Who’s the coward hiding behind a gun?” Sir Kenosi asked.

  “We can’t sit here all day,” Shadow said. “I’ll distract them.”

  “No,” I cried, but he’d already stepped away, dropping to all fours and sliding from his human to his animal in that way that was so unnaturally quick and effortless that I was reminded, as always, how close to an animal he really was. One second, he was a man with a beautiful, defiant face and straight black hair falling around his shoulders and down his back. The next, he was a panther, his inky black coat glistening as he took a step, his powerful big cat muscles moving like liquid under his skin as he prowled forward, his head lowered as he made his way along the row of boulders we hid behind.

  “Shadow!” I hissed, terror hammering into me at the realization that he was going out there alone, drawing my sister’s gunfire so we could ambush her. I hadn’t even said goodbye.

  He stopped at the end of the row of boulders, looking back over his shoulder. H
is unearthly, glowing green eyes, the only feature that didn’t change much from his man to animal form, swept over our group and met mine. I started to move toward him on hands and knees, but he bared his long, sharp teeth in response. Then he turned and streaked out from the shelter, scrambling over bounders and loose scree toward the place where Camila must be hiding.

  Around me, I heard the ripping of clothes and the popping of ligaments as my other mates shifted into their feline forms. I didn’t waste any time to grief and panic. I didn’t think about the sacrifice Shadow was making, the danger he was in. I couldn’t let myself, or I’d crumble. I didn’t even look when I heard the first gunshot. If he was giving us a chance, we had to take it.

  Now.

  I jumped up and darted around our boulders, racing across the open ground. I couldn’t see Camila, but I trusted that my mates could smell her with their shifter senses. A second later, Sir Kenosi streaked past me, his cheetah a golden blur against the grey backdrop of the mountain. I heard another gunshot, but I kept running. My other mates emerged, bounding past me into the open area as two tigers emerged from behind a towering stack of boulders that looked like it might topple and kill us all, no doubt an anomaly created during the earthquakes that had disrupted the region for decades.

  A jaguar and lion slammed into the first tiger, and I swerved aside, heading for the base of their hiding place. I was sure Camila would be there, peeking out from behind the boulder, gnawing on her nails and letting her hired help do the dirty work. The other tiger leapt at me, and fear spiked inside me. I wasn’t a helpless human anymore, but I had no idea how to use the magic inside me. I knew it was lower now than during my heat, and I didn’t think I could just raise my arms to the sky and command something, the way I had then.

  I’d summoned all my mates through time and space, even from the Spirit World. But I didn’t think I could dispel Camila’s army as easily, and if I could, I didn’t even know how to start. I could feel the magic inside me now that I knew what it was, but I didn’t know any spells. While I was frozen mid-stride, a snow leopard sailed past me and tackled the tiger as it leapt, wrapping his huge, snow white paws around the tiger’s middle. Together, they crashed to the ground, rolling over and over, tails whipping the air, fangs flashing and razor claws opening furrows in each other’s pelts.

  Fuck. I’d just frozen up, the one thing I couldn’t afford to do.

  While I wanted to jump in and help Jetsun, who had just saved my fucking life, I had no time. I raced for Camila’s hiding spot again. The tigers were decoys. The future queen was the real goal.

  A woman with black hair leapt out at me, her body in a weird, predatory crouch that reminded me of a spider. My hand shot out defensively, and to my shock, a ball of crackling, white-hot energy shot from my fingertips. The woman howled as she went flying, toppling down the mountain. I’d admire my handiwork later. For now, I had made it to the stacked boulders. I flattened my back against the sandstone and took a shaky breath, letting the cold, gritty feeling of the stone ground me.

  A vampire leapt into the fray, as well as a few other humanoid supernaturals and a huge werewolf. I wanted to stay and help, but my mates were fending off the attack so that I could get the amulets, so that’s what I had to do. If I didn’t get them, this would all be for nothing.

  I took a deep breath and darted around the tower of boulders.

  I jerked to a halt, my heart in my throat as I stared down the barrel of a gun.

  “Hello, usurper,” Camila said snidely, smirking at me from behind Gabor’s back. The only other people there were a young woman with brown skin and lemon-yellow hair and a man with a camera pointed our way.

  My gaze didn’t stray to them, though. It raised to Gabor’s. He held the gun leveled at my chest, his face as blank and stony as usual. I searched his eyes, somehow expecting to see something different, a glassy stare that showed he was bewitched, as drugged as I had been when Lord Balam pushed the jaguar amulet into my virgin entrance.

  Instead, Gabor looked as he always did. Remote. Emotionless. Cold.

  Was Tadeu wrong? Or worse, was he lying? Had he told us the story of Camila enslaving Gabor’s heart because he knew—because Camila knew, and had told him—that I loved Gabor as much as my True Mates? Was it all a plan to lead us here, into a death trap?

  “Your Grace,” Gabor said, his voice as hard as his face. “Step back the way you came, or I’ll be forced to defend our queen by any means necessary.”

  “Don’t call her that anymore,” Camila snapped. “She’s no longer a princess. She’s a traitor to the Ocelot crown, which means she’s stripped of all titles except one—war criminal.”

  “Would you like me to take her into custody, Your Grace?” he asked. “Should I arrest her?”

  “No,” Camila said. “Shoot her.”

  I flinched, my hands flying up. “Don’t,” I gasped. My eyes meet Gabor’s rich brown ones, but all I saw there was conviction, just like always.

  So, maybe the amulet had changed him. Before Camila opened it, I didn’t think he could have kept his guard mask in place as he leveled a gun at me. His eyes would have given something away, if only for the briefest moment. Now, his eyes gave me only blank indifference. He no longer felt anything for me, not even the things he had told me didn’t matter because he could never act on them.

  Now, he loved Camila.

  The pain of it trembled inside me, and I stood before his gun, part of me wanting him to pull the trigger just so I wouldn’t have to hurt this way anymore. I’d know then that he could never love me, that I could never love him. The amulet’s love potion wasn’t temporary. Death was the only release from its grip. Until the day he died, Gabor would only love Camila. Not me.

  Even if she never loved him, never made him hers—which she wouldn’t—he would love her. He would guard her all his days, loving her from afar, never able to act on it or even express it. He would watch her marry someone from the clan the amulets indicated, and he would stand in silent, dutiful obedience, observing the wedding as if it didn’t break his heart. He would die alone, as all guards must. He would spend his whole life loving someone who would never love him back. And she’d done this to him knowing full well the affects. She had known that he would love her forever, that he would know nothing but heartbreak and unfulfilled yearning. That his life would be nothing but misery. And she’d done it anyway.

  She’d probably excused it in her mind, justified it by telling herself that guards didn’t marry, anyway. So what did it matter if he spent his life alone? And he’d be a better, more devoted guard if he loved her than if he were bound by duty alone. Camila enjoyed being adored as much as anyone else. She’d probably enjoy the knowledge that he loved her, even when she was married to someone else, even if he never showed it. She’d know. She would sit on her throne pretending she didn’t, but every now and then, she wouldn’t be able to resist gloating, and she’d let him know with smug satisfaction that his heart was hers to toy with and cast aside whenever she pleased.

  Rage swelled inside my chest, and I glared over Gabor’s shoulder at Camila. “I’m here to peacefully negotiate for my amulets. I’m not even armed. You’re going to hide behind your guard and have him kill your own flesh and blood for daring to track you down and ask you to return something that you stole from me?”

  She snorted. “I didn’t steal anything. You’re here to steal my amulets.”

  “They were given to me.”

  “And you gave them to me,” she pointed out. “Which makes them mine.”

  A loud roar interrupted our argument, and my insides twisted with anxiety. I couldn’t see who had screamed, and my heart stopped at the possibilities. Loving six men meant that I had six times the chance of being devastated if this fight went the wrong way.

  I stared into Camila’s pale blue eyes, my heart suddenly aching for her, too. For the loss of what we’d had. For the ways we’d changed, grown apart until she was ordering my execution on the side
of a mountain in the middle of nowhere.

  “What happened to us?” I whispered, tears aching in my throat. “You’re still my sister, Camila. I’ll always love you, even if you can’t love me. Even if I don’t want you taking our father’s place, that doesn’t mean I hate you or want any harm to come to you.”

  She snorted. “What happened is that you crossed the wrong person,” she said. “You always underestimated me, Itzel. You think I’m weak, just like everyone else. But I’m not.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She huffed and crossed her arms, and I thought for a second she might reconsider, that she still felt some warmth for the sister who had stood by her all those years, the one who had given her strength when she had been weak. And maybe it made me weak, but there was still some tiny sliver of hope in me that she’d forgive me, and I’d forgive her, and we’d come out on the other side of this tour stronger than ever, two sisters bound by love and principle, ready to stand up to our father and rule justly.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I said, because I knew she had more pride than I did, and she couldn’t take the first step. “You can still do the right thing here, Camila.”

  “And what’s that?” she asked, tossing her blonde locks. “Let the common little upstart steal the crown from under my nose? Am I supposed to sit back and give you my blessing?”

  “No,” I said. “You could promise to rule for everyone, not just the ocelot shifters. You could be better than our father and not make people fall in love with you just to stroke your ego. Do you know he killed our mother?”

  Her eyes narrowed, her nostrils flaring as she glared at me. “How dare you speak like that of our father?” she asked. “Need I remind you, he’s also a king.”

  “Did you know?” I pressed.

  “You’re lying,” she snapped. “He loved our mother more than anything.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t have to admit it out loud, but I saw Mom, and she told me. And I think you’ll admit it’s not so far from the realm of possibility if you think about it.”