“You’re sick,” she said, shaking her head and giving me a pitying look. “Are you really so obsessed with everyone loving you that you’ll believe your panther’s lies just so you don’t have to admit that you’re sleeping with a man whose family killed your own mother? That’s so sad, Itz.” She turned to Gabor and made an impatient gesture toward me. “Why are you just standing there, Gabor? I thought I told you to shoot her.”
I held up a hand, refusing to back down from Camila, even if she was the future queen. “Are you really so obsessed with power that you’ll order your puppet to shoot your own sister just to avoid the truth?”
“I’m no one’s puppet,” Gabor said, his voice quiet but laced with a chill that made the hair on the back of my neck rise.
“Then tell me what crime you’re executing me for?” I demanded. “And who determined I was guilty? I thought you were bound to the throne, not Camila. You have to know that you only love her because of the potion.”
To my shock, a bit of pink crept into his cheeks. My own heart died a little at the admission of guilt, the admission that he loved her, even if it wasn’t voluntary. It was still love.
“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” Gabor said, but he wasn’t speaking to me, though his eyes and gun remained trained on me. He was speaking to Camila. “I cannot shoot a member of the royal family. I am sworn to protect you—all of you.”
“Protect me from her,” she wailed as she pointed at me with a shaking finger, like I was the one with a gun leveled at her heart.
“She’s no threat to you,” Gabor said quietly.
I swallowed hard, trying not to feel the sting of the insult. If only he knew how powerful I was. But I wasn’t about to show him, or even Camila. If they didn’t know what I was, I was better off. I’d been underestimated and looked down on all my life. Why should this be any different?
“Kill her!” Camila shrieked. “I order you!”
“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” Gabor said. “I cannot.”
“Damn,” I muttered. “You really aren’t a puppet.”
He may have loved her, but he wasn’t a little girl on a leash eating out of a dog bowl like my father’s conquests. I should have remembered that Gabor never gave himself to love. It didn’t matter if he loved her or me or his sister. He would always put the ocelot throne first, before his own heart. Even if he could have been with Camila, he would have stopped himself, the same way he had when I’d offered myself to him.
The thudding sound of chopper blades drew our attention, and a second later, a small helicopter swept into view and banked toward us.
“Oh, excuse me, there’s my ride,” Camila said, giving me a triumphant smile. “Guess I’ll be going. Gabor, kill her and come with me. We can leave the rest of them here.”
Before Gabor could refuse again, a streak of black shot at him, and Shadow’s panther form slammed into him. They toppled across the stony ground, snarls ripping from Shadow’s throat.
“Don’t kill him,” I screamed, leaping at them.
The chopper descended quickly, squeezing into the space next to the towering boulders, the blades still spinning. Dust and bits of dried grass swirled up around the small craft, and the snarling cats and other supernaturals ceased their skirmish to back away.
“Kill him,” Camila yelled over the noise, then tucked her purse against her belly and ran for the chopper. Lord Balam started toward her, but two tigers leapt in front of him, and a vampire covered her retreating back, baring its fangs. I turned back to Shadow and Gabor.
I knew I should chase after my sister, try to get the amulets. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave Shadow to fight a man with a gun. He was more important than all the amulets combined.
He had Gabor pinned, his jaws around his throat. Blood ran from Gabor’s skin. With whatever strength remained in him, he raised the gun and pressed it to the side of Shadow’s head.
“No,” I screamed, wanting to stop the horror unfolding in front of me. I couldn’t make the impossible choice between the two men. I wanted them both to live.
Shadow’s head jerked up, and Gabor’s finger squeezed the trigger. The bullet buried itself in Shadow’s jaw. He lifted his head, his lips pulled back to display all his teeth in a fearsome snarl. His unearthly panther scream filled the air, sending goosebumps exploding over my skin and shivers racing through me. I knew Shadow was about to rip off Gabor’s head, and without thinking, I threw out my hand to stop him.
Gabor’s body shot out from under Shadow’s and smashed against the boulder tower, and Shadow went toppling head over heels down the mountain. For a second, I was too shocked to move. Then I heard a terrible groaning, grinding sound as the stack of boulders shifted, the top one teetering precariously. I screamed again, throwing my hands up. The boulder ground to a halt, balanced on the very tip of the next one at an impossible angle. I could feel the magic coursing through me, connecting me to the stone, the mountain, the whole world. Suddenly, sweat broke out along my forehead, but I didn’t dare drop my hands to wipe it away. I was stuck holding up a boulder, for fuck’s sake. I had no idea how to set it down gently, only that I was the one keeping it from crashing down and crushing Gabor to dust.
“Camila,” I screamed, not sure what else to do. “Get Gabor!”
She turned just as she reached the helicopter, looking back at me over her shoulder for one long moment. I had no idea if she knew what I was doing, what had happened. Maybe she hadn’t even heard me, or the boulder sliding, over the sound of the chopper.
Without a word, she turned and grabbed the hand that someone offered her from within, and then she disappeared into the chopper.
A second later, though, Kwame was at my side. His small eyes widened as his gaze swept from me, to the stone as big as a car, and back to me.
“Get Gabor,” I gritted out, my breath coming hard.
“If you drop that, it’s going to kill you, too,” he said, pointing out something I hadn’t even noticed. I’d been so focused on Gabor that I hadn’t realized my impossible position. I was standing under the giant stone, too.
“I won’t drop it,” I promised.
Prince Kwame darted in, grabbing Gabor’s limp body and slinging it over his shoulder before returning to me. “What should I do with him, my queen?”
“I don’t know,” I said, tears springing to my eyes. I knew what I should do. I should send him with Camila. He was her guard, and he loved her. It’s where he wanted to be, and even if I hated it, I had to respect it.
“Is he your mate, too?” asked Sir Kenosi, suddenly rounding the boulders.
I shook my head and repeated, “I don’t know.”
“There’s no way to know that unless they mate,” Lord Balam said, appearing with my other mates.
“Which we won’t,” I said. “Even if he’s my True Mate, it doesn’t matter. He loves Camila, and he always will.”
I didn’t know exactly how much those words would hurt until I spoke them aloud.
“What are you planning on doing with that thing?” Sir Kenosi asked, nodding at the suspended boulder.
I glared at him. Sweat trickled down my cheek, turning instantly cold in the mountain air. “Where’s Tadeu?” I asked. “And Jetsun?”
“Healing,” Lord Balam said, nodding toward the area where they’d fought, where now the helicopter sat waiting, Camila having disappeared inside.
“Fuck,” I muttered. I couldn’t push the boulder that way without risking them and whatever tigers and others had fought for Camila. And I couldn’t let it fall, because even if my mates and I could rush out of the way in the second before it hit the ground, it would roll down the mountain where Shadow had disappeared.
“What can we do to help?” Lord Balam said, his calm voice of reason dampening the edge of panic rising inside me. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold the heavy stone. I took a deep breath and did what I had to do, even though it was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to keep Gabor close, to protect him fr
om my family, to love him until he forgot Camila existed. But he didn’t want my love, and if my family knew he was with me, they would consider him a traitor, too, even if he wasn’t here by choice. So I told my men to deliver him to the princess who had stolen his heart.
As they carried his unconscious form away, my throat tightened to an unbearable ache. I wanted to scream, to break something the way my heart was breaking. But I could do nothing but watch them lift his body into the chopper. Another one of Camila’s hired hands tried to climb into the helicopter, too, but she waved them away. She was abandoning them on the mountain now that she had no need for them. She probably would have left Gabor, too, not caring what happened to him as a result.
Suddenly, the dam inside me broke. All the frustration and rage inside me erupted, blasting from my hands in a visible geyser of magic. The boulder flew through the air like I’d pitched it, hurling over the clearing where the chopper sat, its blades spinning, and slammed into the mountain. A loud, roaring crash sounded as other boulders and rocks around it broke and rolled away. They began to tumble down the side of the mountain, back the way Shadow had gone.
I spun around, my eyes scanning the rocks and scrubby grasses and spots of snow below, searching for a dark shape. Nothing stood out against the mountain, though. I knew if he was in the path of the boulders now bounding down the slope, bringing rocks and scree and small, twisted trees with them, that it was too late for him. And there was not one fucking thing I could do about it. If this kept up, there was no way I was going to displace my sister. She was the safer choice right now. I was a menace, my untrained magic escaping and hurting everyone in its path. I hadn’t even intended to let out magic, I’d just been pushed to the breaking point and out it came.
I turned back to see everyone in the clearing staring at me, not just my mates but Camila’s hired help. And the camera crew.
Fuck fuck fuck.
“Did you just… Cause an avalanche?” Prince Kwame asked, gaping at me.
“Apparently,” I muttered as the ground underfoot trembled. A roar built in the mountain as if it had come alive and was growling at us, upset at our disturbance. I remembered the sensation I’d had, for just a moment, that I was part of all of it. Again, the feeling tickled at me. I’d disrupted the natural balance of the mountain. A bare dirt path was left where the rocks and topsoil had slid down under the boulders, leaving it open to erosion just as all the natural disasters must have done.
Was I that destructive, a natural disaster in the body of a woman?
“Guess it’s a little late to hide your powers from your sister,” Sir Kenosi said. “Good thing no one was hurt.”
“Shadow’s down there,” I said, my voice cracking as I turned to Kwame, burying my face in his chest.
Behind him, I heard the helicopter rising into the air, out of danger, and whisking my sister away.
“He went straight down the mountain,” Lord Balam said quietly, having rejoined us. “He was directly below us, and we’re not in the path, so he won’t be, either.”
“We should get to shelter as soon as possible,” Jetsun said, limping over. “The mountain been disrupted, and there might be other, smaller disturbances until everything settles.”
As if to punctuate his words, the ground bucked beneath us, and we all froze, waiting until it settled before we breathed easy again.
I wiped my palms on my jeans, trying to hold in the tears that pressed behind my eyes. There was no time to cry. “We have to find Shadow,” I said. “Anyone unhurt can help. The rest of you should find a shelter for the night, so the injured can heal.” Turning to a tiger shifter I’d never met, I gave a small bow. “I assume you’re no longer bound to Camila, since she’s left you here. If you bear no ill will toward me and my party, you’re welcome to set up camp with us.”
They all nodded in agreement, which left only the news crew. They had stepped back to get a shot of Camila leaving while we remained, but when they rejoined us, the yellow-haired woman beamed at us. “This is some great TV,” she said. “You can’t make this shit up.”
“About that…” I started.
But Sir Kenosi, in all his naked, just shifted glory, swaggered over and dazzled her with his million-dollar smile. “Ebele,” he said, opening his arms.
A flare of jealousy shot through me when she stepped in and hugged my naked mate. Only I should be touching him before he got dressed.
“Sir Kenosi,” she squealed. “I’ve missed being your December!”
If I’d been a shifter, my hackles would have risen all the damn way at that. Of course Kenosi had fucked this girl. She was working on a news show produced by one of his companies. He’d probably fucked everyone on all his shows. I shouldn’t have been surprised. That’s what I got for claiming a world-renowned playboy as my lover.
“The producers treating you well?” he asked, holding her at arm’s length and smiling down at her like he was missing her in his bed as much as she missed it. “And your cameraman?”
“True professionals,” she said. “All of them. Like everyone you hire.”
“Only the best,” he said. “That’s why I hired you.”
She giggled and batted her eyes at him. I had to fight back a growl in my throat, and I didn’t even have a cat inside me.
“You’re too much,” she protested, batting at his arm.
“So, about this show,” he said, sliding an arm around her shoulders and lowering his head to confer with her. “Who sent you on this assignment?”
“Come on,” I said, grabbing Lord Balam and Prince Kwame and storming away from the clearing. “Let’s go find Shadow.”
We clambered over some low boulders and slid down an area of loose pebbles. I called out Shadow’s name, my heart hammering, trying to forget Sir Kenosi’s flirtations.
“You know he’s only flirting to get her to cut this segment,” Lord Balam said, his brow furrowed as he watched me fuming. “They can’t put that on international news sites. Everyone in the world would be freaking out, trying to figure out what you are. We don’t need that kind of attention. You’ll get plenty when you take the throne from your sister.”
“Is that what he was doing?” I asked. “Because it looked to me like he was about to fuck his December girl three months early.”
“You’re his True Mate,” Prince Kwame said. “He would not hurt you that way.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said, starting to relax now that they’d both reassured me. “Thank you.”
Lord Balam’s head snapped up, and he turned, his eyes alert as he scanned the mountain. “There,” he said, pointing to a dark shadow at the base of a boulder.
No, not a shadow.
“Shadow,” I cried, scrambling over loose rocks and stumbling to his side. I fell to my knees beside him, my stomach lurching at the stillness of his body. Blood pooled around his head from the gunshot wound in his jaw. Dizziness swam in my vision, but I pressed a hand to his throat, praying as I’d never prayed for anything in my life. I lay my hands on his fur, feeling a faint flicker of a pulse.
Magic leapt to the surface inside me, eager to pour out of my hands again. But I was too scared to use it. Scared something crazy would happen, like I’d cause another avalanche in my grief, or turn him into a frog, or just kill him.
“He’s alive,” I said, turning to look up at my mates, my mind blank on what to do next.
Prince Kwame stepped forward, his voice low and deep as he looked down at me with sympathy. “He’s still with us,” he said, taking my hand. “Let’s get him to safety with the others. Jetsun can get the bullet out, and Shadow’s panther can heal him.”
I nodded, tears of relief and gratitude filling my eyes. I may have new, unpredictable magic that scared the fuck out of me, but I wasn’t alone. My mates would be here with me every step of the way. Shadow probably wouldn’t even blame me for this, though he could have.
“Okay,” I said, letting Prince Kwame pull me to my feet and wrap a long, pro
tective arm around me.
Lord Balam bent to lift Shadow carefully in his arms, holding him as gently as if he were holding me. At the sight of my brutish, rough lover holding the panther with such care, almost tenderness, tears spilled down my cheeks. He was gentle only for me—and now for my other lovers. Because we were all part of this now. I may have lost my birth family, but I had a new family now, and they loved each other as well as loving me.
“Let’s get back to the others,” I said, relieved to have found Shadow but also uneasy with the distance between me and my group. I’d grown so attached to them that being separated felt wrong, especially in a crisis. We were stronger together—all of us. I needed to tell them that, tell them how I felt about all of them and what I wanted our life to be like. But now wasn’t the time. Now was the time to get back to my crew and do damage control.
Two
“Ready, Princess?”
I took one last look at the jungle around the luxury private helicopter before swinging the door closed. It latched with a satisfying click, and I turned to face my six mates, my heart caged in steel resolve. “I’m ready.”
“Then let’s go,” Shadow said, his raspy voice in stark contrast to his young, boyish features. He’d healed quickly, as had all my mates, and we’d descended the mountain only a day after Camila left. We weren’t far behind her.
Sir Kenosi nodded and spoke into the headset to let the pilot know we were all set.
If I took the throne, I’d be back to return the amulet to Shah Tiger within the next year, but for now, I was happy to leave the Tiger Empire behind. It already seemed a hundred years ago that I’d climbed out of Sir Kenosi’s helicopter and set foot on its soil for the first time.
So much had happened since then that my entire life had changed. I’d been killed, seen my mother in the spirit world, found out that I wasn’t the daughter of the ocelot king, and met my real father. I’d learned I had a half-brother, been brought back to life as a shifter, lost my cheetah lover, and reluctantly reunited with my childhood sweetheart. I’d gotten the tiger amulet, gone into heat, met my half-brother, and learned that I was a powerful sorceress. I’d brought my cheetah lover back to life, lost my shifting ability, and learned that the ocelot guard who stole a piece of my heart was now in love with my sister. And I’d decided to take the throne from my sister, the rightful heir.
Fallen Princess Page 2
