Hunted by a Jaguar Read online

  Because he hated being dirty.

  But he could be dirty for her.

  She blinked and her mouth flapped but no words came out. Her gaze betrayed her and fell to his chest as he swept his hand across it. The heat on her cheeks flared hotter. She turned her back on him and every inch of her went rigid.

  “Put some clothes on.”

  He smirked. “I have clothes on. I’m damned if I’m going to boil to death for you. Prude. You don’t like what you see, get out of my territory.”

  She turned on him, her green eyes flashing fire.

  “I am not a prude… and this is not your territory.” Her left eyebrow slowly rose and she murmured, “Territory. You have said that twice now.”

  And he wouldn’t say it again, because he preferred it when people couldn’t tell what he was. His mixed genes normally masked his jaguar scent, making it impossible for all but the most experienced fae and demons to detect his species. At her age, she had probably met several jaguars, and he was surprised she hadn’t figured him out yet.

  He still didn’t have a damn clue what she was.

  She lowered the blade to her side and smiled at him, fluttering her eyelashes. Trying to play at his game? She was an awful actress. Too forced. Even the stupidest of males would have seen through her attempt to charm him.

  She was going to be a tricky customer though. She wanted the artefact. He could see it in her eyes. He had animal magnetism to his advantage, and a better ability at acting, but something about her had him hungry for a taste of her, and he wasn’t sure it was purely her beauty or her gracefulness. If she took the stick out of her arse and really turned on the charm, he didn’t think he would be able to resist the fierce desire she stirred in him with only a look. Just thinking about it had him aching for her, growing hard in his combats.

  He cursed himself for being too damn easy and turned away from her to look at the fresco, giving himself a moment to get his body back under control. He had to keep building on the foundations he had laid. He couldn’t give her a chance to pull herself back together. The quickest way to get in her good graces and get information out of her would be pretending to fall for her charms, giving her the impression she was in control of the situation, and then turning the tables on her.

  The trouble was, he probably wouldn’t be pretending to fall for her poor attempts at seduction and he would probably forget all about the turning the tables part.

  He felt her gaze roaming his back, intent and focused.

  The scars on it burned.

  Kyter whirled to face her, a growl rumbling through his chest, and she dropped her eyes to her boots.

  “You not left yet?” he snapped and she straightened, pinning him with a glare.

  “You have to leave.”

  He shook his head and took a swig from his canteen. “Nope. I like it here.”

  She pointed her blade at him again. “I have a weapon. You do not.”

  Kyter slowly smiled. “Oh, I have a weapon. It’s around this big.”

  He spaced his hands ten inches apart.

  She blushed beautifully again. “You disgust me.”

  “I was talking about a knife. I don’t know what you thought I was talking about… oh… man… you have a dirty mind.” He smirked as she huffed and turned away from him. Giving him her back? She either felt confident she could defend herself if he attacked, or she was beginning to feel he wasn’t a threat to her and was starting to trust him. “Name’s Kyter.”

  “I have no interest in your name.” She swung her blade up onto her shoulder again and looked over it at him. “I shall call you Disgusting Pig.”

  Kyter shrugged, luring her eyes back down to his body. “I’m not a pig.”

  Her gaze jumped back up to his face and narrowed. “What are you?”

  He shot her another smile. “I told you. I’m Kyter.”

  Her huff filled the quiet room. “I should have named you Irritating.”

  She looked as if she was considering leaving. Oddly, he didn’t want that to happen. He was enjoying playing with her. She had the most alluring little crinkle between her brows when he was frustrating her and he liked the way her eyes flashed green fire flecked with gold.

  “Irritating is my middle name.” Kyter held his free hand out to her. “Most people call me Kyter.”

  She slowly turned back to face him, looked at his hand, but didn’t take it. “Iolanthe.”

  He bet a thousand men had told her what a pretty name she had. It suited her beauty. He was damned if he was going to be number one thousand and one though.

  “So, Io.” He flinched when she shot down that attempt at friendliness with an icy glare and tried again. “Lanthe?”

  She scowled and the sense of danger she constantly emitted grew stronger. “Do not shorten my name without permission.”

  Tough customer.

  He cleared his throat. If they were back at his bar, he would have offered her a drink to break the ice between them and get her to lower her guard. He cast a glance around the empty room, thinking about the arid ruins beyond it and the fact she wasn’t likely to want to leave this place to find a joint where they could share a drink. He didn’t want to leave either. He would have to do this the hard way.

  Kyter offered her his canteen.

  She raised an eyebrow at it. “What do you expect me to do with that?”

  The unsteady edge to her eyes and her heartbeat said that she thought he meant her to toss water over herself in some sort of private wet t-shirt competition for his eyes only. While he wouldn’t say no to seeing her wet all over, it hadn’t been his intention and it was probably a little too soon for trying anything so risqué.

  “Drink it.” He waggled the round container, feeling the water sloshing around inside it.

  She shoved her palm towards it. “No, thank you.”

  “You have no water. I saw your gear. You have a pick and nothing else.” He kept holding the canteen out to her. “You need to drink. You must be thirsty.”

  She shook her head. “I have survived weeks without water before. I do not need it.”

  Weeks? Impossible.

  “You must need liquid to survive. There isn’t a species out there, fae or demon, or otherwise, that doesn’t need to replenish their liquid levels. If you survived weeks without water, what did you drink?”

  Her green gaze slipped to his throat and quickly darted away.

  Kyter’s pulse hammered frantically against his neck, his heart slamming against his ribs.

  All of his rushed south at the thought of this lithe female wrapped around him and sucking on his throat.

  He stared at her, mouth hanging open.

  Giving her the opportunity she had been waiting for.

  She was before him in a flash, one leg around his and her free palm slamming like a freight train against his chest. She had him pinned on his back beneath her before he had even expelled the breath she had knocked from him with her blow.

  He stared up at her where she crouched on his chest, her knees splayed and her arms between them, holding her black blade against his throat.

  What the hell?

  Little kitty had claws and it made the jaguar in him roar to the surface, shifting beneath his skin and itching to emerge and play with her.

  “What are you?” she hissed, her green eyes narrowed with deadly intent on his. Dangerous. Beautiful. He breathed hard beneath her, stunned by how little she seemed to weigh as she sat perched on top of him. She growled through her teeth at him. “Why do you insist on going after the same artefact as I am?”

  She pressed the blade harder against his throat when he didn’t respond, drawing blood when he swallowed.

  Her eyes fell to her blade and his throat and widened, her rosy lips parting as she stared at the blood he could feel blooming from the shallow cut.

  She was agile, and dangerous, and intelligent, and fast too. Graceful. Incredible. Otherworldly.

  His heart beat wildly. His blood t
hundered.

  A primal urge to roar rushed through him and he was as hard as steel in his black combat trousers, aroused by the scent of her that swirled around him and her majesty as she held him pinned beneath her, a flicker of deadly intent in her eyes.

  Gods. She was so damned hot. He wanted to sink his fangs into the nape of her neck and impale her on his cock at the same time, hearing her cry out her climax as he claimed her.

  Kyter stilled.

  Claimed her?

  He reeled, staring up into her eyes through ones slowly growing wider as the answer beat within him like a drum. She tensed and pushed the sharp blade harder against his throat.

  “I will not ask again.” A flicker of nerves danced in her eyes. Her hand trembled, making the blade shake.

  Why? Had she felt it too?

  It was undeniable.

  But impossible.

  He didn’t have a fated mate.

  She hissed and shoved off him, leaving him lying in the dirt as she disappeared from his senses. Gone.

  Kyter stared at the ceiling and the sliver of sky he could see through the gap between the roof and the building. Stars emerged, spotting the inky canvas with diamonds.

  Every molecule of blood in his body and every instinct he possessed roared that he had a mate.

  And she had just got away.

  His blood heated at that. A primal urge to give chase went through him and he was on his feet in an instant, breathing hard as it consumed him. He growled low, letting the sound curl from his lips as he eyed the exit. The scent of the night washed over him, carrying her unique fragrance of rare flowers.

  He wanted to hunt.

  He wanted to hunt her.

  The desire ran deep, driving him to stalk towards the exit and out into the cooling night. He tipped his head back and drew the air over his teeth, catching her scent. He savoured it, putting it to memory, taking his time as he drew her into his body. Just the scent of her had him painfully hard for her, salivating and hungry for more.

  He still wasn’t sure what she was.

  But she was his.

  She belonged to him.

  She would belong to him.

  A slow smile spread across his lips.

  She would come back to this place.

  The hunt was on.

  She could run, but she could never hide from him.

  He always caught his prey.

  CHAPTER 6

  Iolanthe appeared at the edge of the ruins and couldn’t stop herself from looking back. She couldn’t see the male, but she could feel him, and she knew he would be coming for her. She cursed him for wanting what she was after. He couldn’t have it. She needed it. Fernandez wasn’t the sort of male who changed his mind once he had set it on something. He wanted the item and she had promised to deliver it, and she meant to keep that promise.

  She stepped forwards to leave but hesitated, looking back again.

  She wasn’t sure what Kyter was, other than irritating and too handsome for his own good. She had tried several times to piece together all the clues he had given to her about his breed, but she had failed to draw a solid conclusion. The evidence was too scattered. She couldn’t scent or sense it on him either.

  He was against her though, and that made him an enemy.

  She turned on her heel to face the ruins. Moonlight bathed it, turning the crumbling buildings cold pale blue.

  He wouldn’t leave the ruins. She knew that much. He seemed a rather stubborn man.

  A rather gorgeous stubborn man.

  She couldn’t get his image out of her head, how he had looked at her with intense golden eyes that shimmered with banked heat and had held her immobile. Those eyes had spoken to her of desire, setting her blood alight. She had been too entranced by him before he had poured the water over his fair, softly spiked hair, and it had run over his sculpted cheekbones, down the fine slope of his straight nose, and rolled along the sharp strong line of his jaw. It had been impossible to stop herself from tracking those beads of moisture over his honed body, watching them as they darted down the hard square slabs of his pectorals and rippled over the powerful muscles of his abdomen, marking his golden skin.

  Just thinking about it heated her blood and had her breathing harder, her heart beating quicker.

  Iolanthe shoved him out of her mind and shut down her sudden flush of arousal, mastering herself once more.

  She picked out the building where they had talked.

  Her control slipped again.

  She didn’t like how she had felt in that moment when they had been against each other. She rubbed her hands over her bare arms and swallowed her racing heart. It unsettled her. She hadn’t felt in control of herself. She had experienced an overwhelming compulsion to drop her lips to his throat and run her tongue over the slender red line that marked it, tasting his strong blood. It had an intoxicating scent. He had an intoxicating scent.

  And a seriously powerful physique that had felt better beneath her hands than she had thought possible.

  Iolanthe cleared her throat and pushed that thought and the images of him pouring water over his sandy hair from her head. They persisted, replaying again how the drops had trickled down his chest, curling around his left nipple before skating down the ridges of his stomach, luring her gaze downwards to the fine trail of fair hair that led down from the sensual dip of his navel to the waist of his black combats.

  A need to follow each rivulet with her tongue and tease his golden skin had flooded her in that moment, driving her to cross the room to him, slam his back against the column closest to him, and obey that urge.

  The irritating male had done it on purpose. His golden eyes had flashed with satisfaction when she had blushed. Egotistical and disgusting male. He had been playing her. That knowledge should have been enough to douse any desire she felt for him.

  But his reaction to her when she had pinned him to the ground had felt real. As real as her reaction to him.

  The feel of his hard body beneath hers, his heart hammering against her palm where it pressed into his chest, and his golden eyes locked with hers, flooded and dark with desire, had triggered an alarming response within her.

  More than just a desire to taste his blood.

  She had desired to let her feet slide from his broad chest, allowing them to land on either side of him, and settle herself against his body. She had hungered to feel his hands claiming her hips, drawing her down against the apex of his thighs.

  She had burned with a need to kiss him.

  Iolanthe spat out a black curse in her native tongue.

  Perhaps he was a sorcerer.

  She felt as if he had bewitched her and hijacked her body, bending it to his will and enslaving her.

  She took a step back and then another. She would give him his victory tonight, but she would return tomorrow and hope that he had moved on. She didn’t want to meet him again, but she had no choice but to risk it and return. She had to investigate the area where he had been.

  Whether he knew it or not, he had chosen one of two spots that matched the riddle her demon contact had given her.

  The fresco he had been admiring was of Minerva, Juno and Hercules. Minerva. The ancient Roman goddess of wisdom. She looked off to her right, towards the darkness that concealed Vesuvius.

  Knowledge in the shadow of a volcano.

  Perhaps she should have chosen to look in the most obvious spot first, but the one she had chosen to explore had been one she had recalled from her visits to this place before the city had been decimated. The room she had been digging in had another room beneath it. That chamber had once held a statue of Minerva on a small marble plinth.

  She wanted to go back and finish digging, but just the thought of running into the male again had her backing away from the site. He was sinfully handsome and strong. She flushed as she recalled the feel of his hard muscles beneath her fingers and the way he had smiled at her, his sensual lips lopsided and a wicked twinkle in his eyes.

&nbs
p; Iolanthe burned inside, aching to press her hands to his golden skin again and feel his heart pounding against them, speaking of his harnessed power.

  She took another step back instead and shook her head. It had been too long since she had been with a man, but she wasn’t about to sleep with the enemy.

  She would return tomorrow night, when the ruins closed, and in the meantime she would build up her defences against the male and she would send a prayer to her gods.

  A prayer that the male had moved on.

  CHAPTER 7

  Kyter smiled to himself, feeling a little smug as he snuck up on the female under the veil of darkness. He had made swift work of crossing the moonlit ruins of Herculaneum, not needing to follow her scent to know where he would find her.

  He could hear her digging in the room she had been in before, her pick working overtime with strokes that sounded frantic and rushed when compared with the measured ones she had used yesterday. Why was she in a hurry? Because of him?

  He stalked silently towards the open door.

  When the sun had risen, he had concealed himself in an underground room in the ruins on the opposite side of Herculaneum, as far from her dig site as possible. He had passed the day there, allowing his scent to clear from the area so she would think he was gone. It hadn’t been difficult to remain in one spot all day. He had limitless patience when stalking his prey. He had once waited three days straight to ambush an enemy.

  The female had fallen for his ruse and he had caught her scent just five minutes ago as it had drifted down into his makeshift den. She was already hard at work. Either she could conceal her scent, could move extremely quickly, or she had other methods of travelling at her disposal, because he had been on high alert since sunset. He should have picked up her scent the moment she had arrived back at the ruins.

  She came into view as his eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the room. She stood with her back to him, her pick coming down hard. Her black combats clung to her backside as she worked, cupping pure perfection and making him a little jealous. He wanted that job. Hell, he wanted to step up behind her, slide his hands around her waist, and play at being her bra by cupping her breasts through her silver-grey camisole.