We curled up together on the soft bed of clover beneath me. All the orgasms had left me drowsy, but Jetsun had questions about how the others had found us.
“We saw your magic,” Lord Balam said. “You really should get out of here.”
“Especially now that you busted out the window,” I said, making no move to get up from between his body and Shadow’s.
“That was me,” Shadow admitted.
“Little Panther here needs to learn some self-control,” Lord Balam said with a chuckle. “He smelled your cunt and just about went feral.”
“You can smell me from outside the shop?”
“When you cum,” Shadow said.
Neither of them had mentioned who was making me come, and I wasn’t about to bring it up.
“Then we should definitely leave,” Jetsun said. “If you can smell it, a guard out on the street could.”
“And the window’s busted in,” Lord Balam reminded us. “We should definitely get going.”
“What are we going to do about this?” Jetsun asked, plucking a handful of clover from the floor. It was literally growing through the floorboards, across the wood. Flowers were exploding from pots, nearly dripping onto the floor, exploding into ridiculous sized blossoms.
“Is that from Itzel?” Shadow asked.
“Apparently so,” Jetsun said. “Life magic makes things bloom.”
“Fuck,” I said, sitting up. “After all Magda did for us, we ruined her shop.”
Somewhere down the street, we heard the telltale clack of a guard’s shoes on the paving stones.
“Shit,” Lord Balam swore, jumping up and pulling up his pants. He grabbed my clothes and stuffed them into my hands. “Shadow, you have the invisibility magic. Get Itzel out of here and make sure no guards see her.”
“What about you?” I asked, yanking my nightgown over my head as the echo of footfalls drew nearer.
“We’ll be right behind you,” he said, pulling me in and kissing me roughly. “We’ll come back tomorrow to clean this up and repair the damage. Now go.”
Shadow grabbed my hand, and for the first time, I felt his magic. It was cool and damp and still, like the chill air coming off a cold spring in summer. He pulled me out of the shop and darted across the street. There, we flattened our backs on a stone wall. An ocelot guard approached, and my heart beat so hard I thought he’d hear it, even if he couldn’t see us. He swung his flashlight, the beam cutting across the road as he went. For one breathless second, all I could see was the uniform, and my heart throbbed with hope that I’d see Gabor’s stony face above the navy jacket.
The light skimmed over us, and I thought it would stop there, that he must have seen us. But then it caught on the sparkling broken glass littering the other side of the street, and his footsteps hurried that way. Not Gabor.
Of course not. He’d be guarding Camila in the palace.
But it wasn’t impossible, I told myself. He’d been a palace guard for years, and I’d seen him out in the street a half dozen times, just a glimpse of a familiar face behind me when I turned a corner and glanced back or when I looked up from the dance floor and saw one of Father’s guards checking the club. If my father were anyone else, I might have thought he sent a guard to watch over me, but he wouldn’t go for subtle. He’d have ordered Gabor to drag me home if he’d known I was out all those nights.
Shadow gave my hand a slight tug, and together, we crept along the street, away from the guard who wasn’t Gabor. His back was turned, and through he swept his light in either direction as he approached the broken window, he didn’t seem to notice us. I was glad for my bare feet as I crept along the familiar dark streets I’d walked so many times in the last five years.
I had a moment of deja vous when we passed an alley I’d run down with Tadeu on the last night we’d been together, the last night before my life spun out of control, when we’d played paint darts, and I’d promised myself to him. It seemed like a lifetime ago, a night when I’d been a normal teenager, barely more than a kid, out running around with my friends after curfew.
I heard another set of boots on the cobblestones and pulled Shadow into an alcove below a set of metal stairs. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me close. I curled my fingers into his shirt, pressing my nose to his flat, hard chest and inhaling the fresh, dewy scent of him. I’d barely had time to say hello to him and Lord Balam before the guard had come. Now, in this stolen moment of stillness, I savored our reunion—the warmth of his body against mine, the tickle of his long hair brushing my cheek, the way his long arms fit protectively around me, making me feel safe.
“Are you okay?” he rasped, his head dipping to speak close to my ear.
I nodded, holding onto him for one more moment before we had to duck out of our shelter and move on. “Come on,” I said. “The guard is gone. We’ve got another five or ten minutes before the next one makes his rounds.”
“Do you know where you’re going?” he asked, linking his fingers into mine as we hurried along the dark, deserted street.
“I don’t know where Kwame and Kenosi are,” I said. “I just know they’re safe. But I think I might know where Tadeu’s hiding out.”
He’d be just brave and just stupid enough to go back to the stables after steeling my father’s horses. He had friends there, though, people who were more loyal to him than the king. They knew how hard he’d always worked, how much he loved the horses and how much pride he put into his work. Even the workers who weren’t his friends respected him enough to keep quiet and look the other way, especially when they knew what punishment would befall him if they didn’t.
We reached the stables without incident, but as soon as we did, I pulled up short, tugging Shadow behind a small palm. I’d never been so grateful that my panther lover could disappear at will. Around the stables roamed at least a dozen guards, no doubt put there after Father’s prized horses were stolen.
Well, shit.
We definitely wouldn’t find Tadeu here.
And even though I knew Gabor would not be out here, either, my eyes roamed their cruel, stony faces nonetheless. I would probably never stop looking for him every time I saw a guard in uniform.
Even if he had been here, he wouldn’t have helped us, I reminded myself. I wouldn’t have asked him to, either, knowing Father would execute anyone found helping me.
“What now?” Shadow whispered against my ear.
“Now we give them a wide berth and go to the servants’ quarters,” I said. Tadeu’s old place had no doubt been given to someone else months ago, but I knew other places to hide. I knew enough other humans there to know they’d probably hide us, but even better, I knew they wouldn’t say anything if they saw us looking around. We just needed to open a few doors before we found an empty apartment.
Shadow’s hand gripped mine, and his cool, soothing magic swept over us before we stepped out from behind the palm and ran for the far side of the stables. We circled wide and came back to the servants’ quarters, the housing Father had built so the humans who worked on the grounds didn’t have to sleep in the palace or waste time commuting. We’d almost reached the end of the building when a guard stepped out of the walkway that led between rows of the entrances.
Gabor.
My heart stopped, and my feet stumbled over themselves. Only Shadow’s grip tightening on my hand kept me from falling to my knees. I wanted to cry out, to run to the guard, to make him see.
Instead, Shadow dragged me against the end of the building. Gabor paused for a second, scanning the area. He would never see, though. My love was as invisible to him as we were under Shadow’s magic.
His jaw was tense, and dark circles rimmed his eyes. I wondered what was keeping him from sleep—his unrequited, unnatural love for Camila or too many shifts as he strove to prove his loyalty after the tour.
A frown creased his brow, and he started away, back toward the stables. My chest caved in as he walked away, not even sparing a backwards glance. Once,
his gaze had lingered on me. Even before the amulet tour, if I spotted him monitoring a club, his eyes were on me—at least until I caught him watching and he looked away. If I came in late with liquor on my breath, he saw that I made it to my room. And on the tour, I’d felt the weight of his gaze too many times to count, and if I looked up quick enough, I might catch his eye before he pretended to be simply scanning past me.
But now, he had eyes only for my sister.
Shadow’s arms slid around me, and he pulled me in again, the way he’d done in the alcove. There was no reason to linger this time, but he stood with me anyway, holding me while my heart shattered the way it always did when Gabor walked away from me. I let myself take solace in his embrace for one minute, and then I pulled away. It was time to put Gabor behind me. I had six incredible mates, and he wasn’t one of them. And I’d have to be okay with that. He had chosen the king and Camila long before she’d opened the amulet. He had told me time and again that he couldn’t love me, that nothing would ever come of my crush.
It was time to put that behind me, the way I had my other childish fancies. I no longer saw Tadeu as the perfect man, beside whom I’d live out a simple life. I no longer saw Camila as the pretty, delicate queen who would rule benignly with me by her side to advise. So why hold onto this dream, the one that had never been possible, even when the others had?
Eight
“Come on,” I said, pulling myself up tall and vowing to never dwell on what I couldn’t have again. I had more than enough already. I took Shadow’s hand and led him up the set of steps to the second floor of the servants’ apartments. We moved along the walkway, deserted now even though Father allowed the humans to hang out on the balconies and doorsteps of their homes. It was late, though, and they were no doubt hunkering down while he was in a volatile state.
“No one’s in there,” Shadow said, stopping to nod at one of the doors.
“How do you know?” I whispered. Though it was good that we wouldn’t be seen by loitering night owls out for a smoke, we were also conspicuous as the lone couple outside the apartments. Even with Shadow’s disguising magic, we weren’t entirely invisible, he had explained. It was more like camouflage.
Shadow shrugged. “Shifter senses.”
“Can your shifter senses tell where the key is?” I asked with a grin.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. I knew he could smell an embarrassing amount of things about my body, from when I was turned on to when I had my period to, apparently, when I was coming. But I’d be a little pissed at the unfair advantage if he could even smell that. While his eyes were closed, I reached out and ran my fingertips along the bottom of the windowsill until they found the cool metal square. I tugged it free and folded my hands in front of me, waiting for Shadow. After a moment, he opened his eyes and smiled. “In your hand.”
“You cheated,” I protested, sliding the card into the lock. It popped open, and I ducked inside, pulling Shadow with me.
“I didn’t cheat,” he said. “You made it easy. Before that, there was too much metal around to pick out a key. But when you picked it up, I knew that had to be it.”
“Lucky for us, my father keeps the spares in the same place for all the empty apartments,” I said. “I’ve had a little fun in some of them.”
“With Tadeu?” he asked, his voice going a little icy at the edges.
“Yes,” I said, poking him in the ribs. “Are you jealous?”
“No,” he said, scowling down at me. “I just think he’s an asshole.”
“Well, that asshole is my mate, same as you,” I reminded him.
“I know,” he said. “That doesn’t mean he deserves you. Or that you deserve to be treated the way he treats you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “For always protecting me, and wanting what’s best for me, even when I don’t.”
“You’re my mate,” he said with a shrug, turning away.
I grabbed his shirt and pulled him back, wrapping my arms around his neck and melding my body to his. “I’m a lot of people’s mate,” I whispered, standing on tiptoes and pulling him down for a kiss. “And not all of them treat me like you do.”
“Well, they should.”
“Well, they don’t,” I shot back. “Even if you prefer to wait in the wings and not take center stage, I know you’re here. I want you to know that. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and tried to do for me. You might think you’re just doing what any mate would do, but you’re a good man, Shadow. I know that, and I hope you do, too. I hope you know how much I appreciate the way you love me.”
He stilled for a minute before kissing me back, gentle but firm. “Thank you.”
“Now, how do we get the others back here without the ocelot guard turning the firing squad on them?”
“I’ll go get them,” he said. “I can use my magic for at least one person besides myself at once. I’ll bring them back one by one.”
“I’m going to see if I can summon the others,” I said. “Not the way I did in snow leopard territory, where you transported to me, but more like… A calling. Lilith said to trust myself, and that I could find you with my magic. You guys found me before I had the chance, but I’m going to try it on the others. Maybe they can hear me somehow, if I try to communicate with them.”
Shadow frowned before nodding. “Be careful,” he said. “You don’t want to accidentally summon everyone in the palace while you’re alone and vulnerable.”
*
By morning, all seven of us were reunited. I’d traveled into the spirit world, where Kwame had come through and joined me. His ghost status apparently let him come and go in a way that my other mates couldn’t, even those who could travel to the spirit world. Too many of them had that ability now, thanks to me. That was a guilt I had to bear, though. Tadeu’s presence would never let me forget.
He’d come to the door after I focused on him for a while, and Shadow had brought back Lord Balam and Jetsun one by one during the early hours of the morning, before daylight took their cover. Sir Kenosi had come strutting in last, claiming that the almighty bank account could get you anything, including supernatural snoops and an invisibility spell that got him past the guards.
So, we all gathered in the small apartment, waiting for an answer to a message I’d sent via demonling just after dawn.
“Why hasn’t she answered?” Prince Kwame answered, pacing the tiny room in a few strides.
“She’s probably still sleeping,” Tadeu said with a scoff. “Her Grace’s royal ass doesn’t get up and around until she’s been properly pampered.”
“He’s right,” I said. “Let’s just eat and try to get some rest while we wait.”
I knew sleep was impossible for most of us. We’d contacted my sister for the first time since arriving back in the Ocelot Nation, and even I couldn’t predict how she’d react.
“Maybe the demonling got lost,” Prince Kwame said. “They’re not too bright.”
“They’re the best messengers,” I insisted. “The only ones who can’t be bribed or beaten to give up our info.”
“Mostly because they can’t remember it,” Lord Balam pointed out.
Demonlings were odd little creatures, and my father wasn’t very fond of them, since he didn’t generally like anyone who wasn’t an ocelot or indebted to him in some way. He found them useful enough to keep a couple around the palace in case he needed to send a confidential message, though, probably to tell his guards to execute someone who had looked at him funny. Demonlings had notoriously blank memories, so if you needed something done and then forgotten without leaving a trail, they were the way to go. This time, I was the one benefitting from their services.
At least I hoped I would.
“Do you think she’ll agree to our terms?” Jetsun asked, leaning back against the wall, his long legs stretched in front of him on the floor of the unfurnished room.
“What could she object to?” Shadow growled. “All we asked was a meeting.�
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“She could say no,” Prince Kwame pointed out.
“She won’t,” Lord Balam said. “She wants those last two amulets.”
“There were a few terms,” Sir Kenosi said. “She may not want to meet in a secluded spot.”
“Itzel shouldn’t, either,” Shadow said.
“Well, it’s not like I can waltz into the palace and ask for an audience with the king,” I said. “Unless I want to be hanged.”
“Let’s just wait and see what she has to say,” Jetsun said. “Maybe she’ll be reasonable[LH1].”
Tadeu snorted. “And we’ll all ride unicorns into battle.”
Jetsun shrugged. “A pardon in exchange for an amulet seems fair.”
“But we don’t want just a pardon,” Shadow said. “We want to put Itzel on the throne.”
“If I can be a policy advisor…” I started. All six of my men glared at me until I shut up. But I knew this country better than they did. Camila did, too. She’d worked all her life for this. I was the upstart. If I could have veto power, and sign off on any major policies, I’d be happy to just influence the country. I didn’t have to rule it.
“No use speculating,” Lord Balam said. “Itzel’s right. Let’s eat and lay low until we get an answer.”
Sir Kenosi had shown up with pastries, so we all grabbed one and settled against the wall. I took a cherry filled one and bit into it, enjoying the sweetness even though I was so exhausted I wasn’t sure I could chew properly.
Sir Kenosi slid down the wall next to me, laying an arm over my shoulder. It was an uncharacteristically intimate gesture for him, so I lay my head on his shoulder to make it last.
“My cheetah must have had as good a time inside you as I did,” he said. “He’s been pissy since we got separated.”
“I missed you, too.” I patted his chest and snuggled closer. “And him.”
“Do you think you’re a shifter now?” he asked. “Could you shift into an ocelot?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I can feel the emptiness inside where he was. It’s like he made a spot inside me where I should have an animal side, a companion like you do. But now that he’s gone… I just miss having him there.”
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