Hunted Princess: A Paranormal Dark Romance (Feline Royals Book 3)

by Alexa B. James

  Suddenly, bright light shot out of me, filling the entire place with a blinding burst of magic, and I screamed as I came again, and again, and again.

  Thirty-Two

  A few days later, I woke and sat up with a start. My head was clear. My body felt cold, and there was a gaping absence inside me. For the first time in days, my body felt like it was truly mine again. Mine, and sore as fuck, like I’d just run a marathon. The marathon sex for the past week must have done it.

  “The heat broke,” I blurted. I was lying on a mat in the middle of Jetsun’s cavern, candlelight flickering around me.

  “We were bound to fuck it all out of you eventually,” Sir Kenosi said with a grin, straightening from one of Jetsun’s microscopes.

  “Don’t speak to our queen that way,” Kwame said, pushing past him and coming to kneel beside me. Something felt wrong in my body, as if I were forgetting something that I should remember. I looked around, searching for the others.

  “Where are they?” I asked, my chest squeezing. That couldn’t have been a dream. Kenosi was here, so it must have been real.

  “They’re all here,” Kwame said. “Your heat broke in the night a few days ago, but you needed rest, so we let you sleep.”

  “A few nights?” I asked, jumping to my feet. Ouch. Maybe it was a good thing I’d slept through a few days of the worst pain. Looking down at myself, I saw a hundred little scratches and cuts. Black and blue bruises covering most of my skin, and I had two bandages on my shoulders. The price I paid for fucking a feline as young and temperamental as Shadow.

  “Calm down,” Sir Kenosi said. “What’s the rush, Princess? You got somewhere important to be?”

  “Where are the others?” I asked, glancing around. The room had been cleaned up. No glass or blood or other fluids were apparent, though the glass wall we’d broken was now a gaping hole.

  “Gao Jetsun went off with Shadow to teach him meditation,” Sir Kenosi said. “It’s about time that little panther learned some chill.”

  “Lord Balam is consulting the oracle,” Kwame said. “He’s quite upset that it didn’t tell him how powerful you are.”

  “Oh,” I said with a little laugh. I searched around for some clothes but found nothing. “Jetsun told you about that, huh?”

  “No,” Sir Kenosi said with a scowl. “You summoned me from the dead. You summoned all of them from wherever they were. That’s a fuck-load of power there, Itzel.”

  Kwame rubbed his chin. “What are you, exactly?”

  So, Jetsun hadn’t told them. I was grateful that he’d let me do that myself.

  “We’ll talk about that,” I said. “But first, what about Tadeu? And some clothes.”

  “There is something we should talk to you about, too,” Kwame said.

  My stomach knotted, but I managed to stay on my feet. “He left?” I whispered.

  “You could probably use a shower,” Sir Kenosi said. “There’s clothes in the bathroom.”

  “I’ll get the others while you do that,” Kwame said, turning for the door. The huge stone was ajar, and daylight streamed in.

  Tadeu had left. Was that the hollowness I’d felt when I woke? As I showered, I tried to pull myself together. I still had five mates. Five.

  I should have been overwhelmed by that. I was happy to have them and to have Sir Kenosi back. But Tadeu should be here, too. He was as much my mate as the rest of them.

  When I stepped out of the bathroom dressed in the simple jeans and sweater I’d found waiting for me, I was greeted with the scent of spicy food cooking in the room Jetsun had off the side of his big cavern. I made my way there to find four of my mates sitting at a table while Jetsun stood over the stove, wearing a pair of jeans and a button-up shirt instead of his orange uniform. Tadeu was setting a stack of plates on the table.

  “You’re here,” I said, skidding to a stop in the doorway.

  “Don’t cream your panties,” he said, his face unsmiling and unreadable as he looked up from the table. “I’m not interested in being your mate. I’m only here because you summoned me with your magical heat.”

  “Oh,” I said, swallowing hard. “But you could have left, and you didn’t.”

  “I had nowhere else to go,” he said with a shrug. “And I was injured. It took a few days to heal.”

  “I know this is simple fare,” Jetsun interrupted, setting a huge pot of steaming rice and vegetables in the center of the table. “I don’t usually have guests.”

  “It looks amazing,” I said, scooting in at the table where Prince Kwame had risen to pull out a chair. “I’ve never been so hungry in my life.”

  “Fucking for a week straight will do that to you,” Sir Kenosi said, heaping a giant helping onto my plate before serving himself.

  “You know, you talk and act like an asshole, but I know you’re a big softie on the inside,” I said. “You gave up your life for me.”

  That’s when the ache of emptiness hit me again, and I realized what it was. It wasn’t a mate’s absence. It was the cheetah’s. At first, it had been disconcerting to feel like I shared my body with another being. But now that she was gone—or he? I wasn’t sure—the loss ached inside me.

  “Maybe I just wanted to see what it was like to fuck a dead girl,” Kenosi said, flashing me his movie-star smile. “I’ve fucked every other type.”

  I rolled my eyes and turned to the others, changing the subject before digging into my food. “I guess I’m not a shifter anymore.”

  “You raised people from the dead,” Shadow said, eyeing me warily. “Are you a necromancer?” I remembered when I’d tried to catch him, how he’d called me witchy woman.

  “I’ve been told I’m the High Priestess,” I said. “Whatever that is.”

  Everyone gaped except for Jetsun and Lord Balam, who nodded. “I thought as much,” he said. “I’ve been circling that for a while, but I didn’t think it was possible until the last few days.”

  “Well, then,” Sir Kenosi said, digging into his food. “If anyone here’s intimidated by being with a woman stronger than you, now might be a good time to leave.”

  “If anyone here was intimidated by a woman who’s stronger than them, they would have left a long time ago,” Lord Balam said, frowning at Kenosi.

  “No one can question Itzel’s strength,” Shadow said. “We just didn’t know what magic she possessed.”

  “Why didn’t you think I could be a priestess?” I asked Lord Balam, pausing from shoveling food into my mouth. I felt like I could eat forever.

  “The High Priestess role is often passed down in families,” he said. “Simply because oftentimes, powerful parents create a powerful child, one who has enough magic to become such a being. But since no one is supposed to know who the High Priestess is, I had no way of knowing that the last one had been your mother. And you told us you were only human, not a witch or even a shifter. I assumed you’d have shown more signs if you were her.”

  “Apparently my magic was bound,” I said. “And it came loose when I came of age, and then completely broke out when I went into heat.”

  He nodded. “We must not let anyone else find out about this. Only your mates.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I never knew before, so I don’t think it’ll be hard to hide it now.”

  “Your magic is unbound now,” Sir Kenosi said. “You’re pretty much the most powerful being in the entire world, and you’ve never been trained to control your magic. It’ll be really fucking hard to hide.”

  I looked around at them all, realizing he was right. This wasn’t just something to talk about over a meal and go on as if nothing had happened. The last week felt like a dream, but it wasn’t. It was real. The life I’d lived up until this point was over. Everything would be different.

  “We could stay here,” Kwame said. “Until you learn to control it.”

  Jetsun cleared his throat. “Actually, this all belongs to the monastery. I’ve broken every vow that I made to them. I am no longer a part of th
is order.”

  “Oh my god,” I said, dropping my fork and staring at him. But of course he’d forsaken his oaths when we were together. To say nothing of the fact that he was my brother.

  Holy fuck. What had we done?

  “It’s alright,” he said quietly. “I was ready for a change.”

  “So, what now?” I asked. “I’m… Dangerous somehow?”

  “Maybe,” Lord Balam said.

  “Just don’t piss her off, and you’ll be fine,” Sir Kenosi said.

  I swallowed hard despite the joking tone in his voice. I’d always been the least dangerous person in my family—practically impotent without magic.

  “Speaking of…” Tadeu shifted in his seat. I still couldn’t get over what a giant he’d become.

  “What?” I asked.

  He glanced at Kwame. “I was out looking for your sister for the past few days.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You’re going back to her?”

  “Fuck, no,” he said. “She shot me in the leg and threw me out of her group.”

  “She’s also the one who ordered your execution,” I said, glaring at him. “I guess she wanted to get you out of the way. Away from me. You may not believe it, but I had nothing to do with that.”

  “I thought you were fucking with my head all that time,” he admitted, staring down at his plate.

  I pushed my plate away. “Well, I wasn’t.”

  He nodded. “I guess that makes more sense. I was pissed. I didn’t think your sister even knew who I was. I didn’t see any reason she’d want me dead. She told me you had ordered it, and she showed me you and Balam…”

  “I know what she did,” I said, lifting a hand to cut him off. “I know she’s dangerous. But she’s still the heir.”

  “Tell her why Camila shot you,” Shadow growled.

  Tadeu nodded. “I objected to her opening the ocelot amulet.”

  “What?” I breathed, my heart stopping in my chest. Camila didn’t want anyone to love her. Not like that. Not in a love potion kind of way. She wanted people to respect and fear her, to serve her. She wanted blind loyalty, and I’d given it all our lives. She’d never wanted a man to fall in love with her, to follow her around like a lovesick puppy, blinded to her faults and even the fact that his love was manufactured by magic.

  Then a worse thought entered my mind, and my heart stumbled in my chest. “You’re in love with her?” I asked. “Even though we’re mates, and I was able to call you here?”

  His lips tightened, and he shook his head. “No. She made us swear loyalty to her. Everyone in her hunting party. As if she were forming a rebel group to take out the king.”

  “That’s not possible,” I said. “She’d never go against our father.”

  “I’m just telling you what happened,” he said. “Everyone in the group swore loyalty to her under the threat of death. I swore.”

  I swallowed hard. “You’re bound to her?”

  Tadeu snorted. “My word means nothing. I broke it five minutes after I swore when I dared to disagree with her. And if you’re still worried about it, she dismissed me from her group when she shot me.”

  “Wait, so she threatened to open the amulet unless everyone swore loyalty? The choice was to swear an oath to be bound to her, or be bound to her as her love slave? That’s sick!”

  “Shut up for one fucking minute, and I’ll tell you,” Tadeu said.

  Kwame shot up from the table, his eyes blazing. “Don’t speak to our mate that way.”

  “Calm the fuck down, Little Prince,” Tadeu said, shaking his head. “Itzel knows how I talk.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “One person in the group refused to swear loyalty to her, and that’s when she got out the amulet. He said he was already sworn to something else.”

  “Gabor,” I breathed, gripping the edge of the table.

  Tadeu nodded. “She threatened to open the amulet if he didn’t swear she came before his other oath. He refused.”

  My head spun, and I thought I’d be sick. Gabor was in love with my sister. Not because he loved her. I could have dealt with that. But because she’d forced him to fall in love. She’d done the thing my father had done to all those girls. I’d known it was wrong when I found out he was doing that, but I hadn’t known them. I knew Gabor. I knew him down to his proud, strong, immovable heart. A heart she had tampered with, tricked, seduced against his will.

  That wasn’t the only thing Camila had in common with my father. All this time, I’d vowed to get her to the throne so that his reign would end. But hers would be nothing but a continuation of his. She wouldn’t listen to me. I wouldn’t be an advisor. Father would be her advisor. Together, they would bring twice the terror and evil that he’d brought on his own.

  “No,” I whispered. “I can’t let her take the throne.”

  “Then let’s stop her,” Shadow said. He’d pushed me more than anyone else, pushed me to open my eyes and see Camila for what she really was. But I’d refused.

  Only now did I realize. She was her father’s daughter through and through. She was manipulative and cruel, delighting in the pain of others if it would benefit her, not caring about anyone but herself, not just humans but other ocelots. People, all people, were just pawns to her, pieces in the game of her reign, pieces she could pit against each other the way she had me and Tadeu, playing us both for her advantage.

  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” Kwame said, shifting in his chair.

  “It was never simple,” I said. “But whatever arises, we’ll just have to overcome it. She can’t be allowed to rule a country. Not if she’d take away someone’s free will when they refuse to bow to her if doing so means betraying their own—and her own—country. A queen is never more important than her nation.”

  I looked around at the six faces around me. No one gasped at my treasonous words. No one said I was getting too big for my britches, or that I was a backstabbing usurper. They all nodded in solemn agreement. My chest tightened with emotion as I looked at my mates. I was the one with a rebel army. There may only be seven of us, but I knew how strong we were.

  Shadow, my young, idealistic but volatile panther with pain in his past and conviction in his heart, who could disappear in the time it took to blink.

  Lord Balam, my rock, who could read the oracle and never hesitated to do what needed to be done to protect me or seek justice. A man who was highly respected by the king of the second most powerful Feline Nation in the world.

  Sir Kenosi, the dirty joker who used rude comments to hide what he truly was—a man who would give his cheetah and even his life to save mine. A man who had used the injustices he’d suffered to make himself stronger and better, who had enough income to fund any army and enough business sense to charm anyone who might oppose him.

  Prince Kwame, the dreamer and lover who needed no reason to believe in me but did so with complete confidence because I had restored his life. A bridge between this world and the spirit world, a prince with strong alliances in other Feline Nations, a man who would believe in me and love me even when I couldn’t love myself.

  And Gao Jetsun, a god who had powers I didn’t yet know and a man I barely knew at all, a monk whose beliefs were so opposed to mine. And yet, after what we’d been through, a man I knew shared a bond with me that could never be broken. Now, I just had to start seeing him as a brother, not a lover.

  Last, Tadeu sat opposite me, the man I knew best out of all of them, and yet, the man I trusted least. He was a giant of a man with anger and resentment we hadn’t yet worked through, who had loved me and hurt me. A man who could dwarf any other fighter, whose anger could fuel him to cause great destruction when aimed at the right target.

  We were all bound by what had happened these past few days. They were a fearsome and scrappy, mismatched, broken, and perfect army. And there was one more member of that army.

  Me. The High Priestess, the bearer of life-giving magic, the wielder of unknown power.
Once I harnessed it, learned to control it, I would be every bit as fearsome and worthy an opponent as my lovers. If I was going to keep Camila from the throne, I’d need it.

  Because she was a worthy opponent, too. For so long, I’d let her deceive me. I’d believed she was weak because she wanted me to believe it. Now I knew the truth. She was strong and determined, more cunning than I’d ever be. It might take every one of my men and all my strength to do what needed to be done. But I was ready to do it.

  “Okay,” I said, nodding. “Let’s do it. Let’s take down Camila.”

  Kwame cleared his throat. “There’s a slight complication,” he said. “When you summoned me here, I was brought with only the clothes on my back.”

  “We went back to the camp yesterday,” Tadeu said. “All your things were gone.”

  Jetsun set a folded orange cloth on the table and slid it toward me. “I know it’s not much,” he said. “But this is for you.”

  “Holy fuck,” I whispered, realization dawning. “Camila has all the other amulets.”

  From the Author

  Not all is as it seems. Everything will be revealed in book 4! Mwhahaha! Yes, I’m still evil.

  Click here to order the final book in this series. Please note, the release date is subject to change (sooner, not later!)

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  You can also join the B-Team on Facebook for day-to-day musings, character inspo, and fun and games.

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  If you’re looking for a fun book to tide you over, check out Academy of Sorcery, my steamy college series set in the same world as Feline Royals. You will definitely recognize when you hit the crossover point between the two series!

  Academy of Sorcery, Term 1: Unleashing Trials

  Magic is dangerous.

  I should know. It got me a thirty-year sentence scrubbing toilets for a scumbag wizard.