The Jaguar's Bride (The Necklace Chronicles Book 5) Read online

  “My sister’s name is Anne. If you open the text app, I already had a conversation going with her.”

  He opened the app and found the conversation, pressing the screen to open it. “Ready.”

  Thea blew out a breath. “Okay. Say ‘Sorry it’s so late, sis, but wanted to let you know I’m bringing a guy friend home with me. We can talk in the morning. Didn’t want you to be surprised.’ Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  After a minute, he read the message back to her.

  “You can send it,” she said. “Can you find the group text with my mom and dad? Tell them I found the flowers, and am also bringing a friend home with me, and that we can talk tomorrow.”

  When she’d approved the text, he sent it and closed the app. Placing the phone in the cupholder, he said, “Do you want to talk now or wait until we get to your place?”

  “Now’s fine. I have so many freaking questions.”

  “I promise I’ll answer truthfully. How about I start at the beginning and then you can ask any questions that I didn’t answer directly.”

  “That sounds good.”

  “First,” he said, taking her hand from his knee and bringing it to his lips, “I want to thank you for trusting me. I’m a stranger, and you’re taking me to your home. I’m humbled.”

  “I don’t think I could have left without you, actually. I feel drawn to you. It’s weird, but it also feels right. I just want to go on record that I’m not promising anything’s going to happen tonight. But I do believe we were meant to find each other.”

  He’d take it. It wasn’t ideal, because the clock was ticking, and he’d have to head back to his prowl eventually. If he and Thea weren’t truly mated by then, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep her. Which was something he very much wanted to do. Forever.

  “Let me start at the beginning,” he said.

  Chapter Five

  Thea’s mind was a jumble. So much had happened in the last two hours that she could hardly believe it was real. If someone had told her that she’d meet a man under these circumstances she would have said they were ridiculous. But she couldn’t deny that being with Savage felt right, and the thought of leaving him behind hadn’t even crossed her mind.

  He was a shifter, and she didn’t doubt that he found it easier to subscribe to the “fated mate” ideology than she did, but that was partly because she couldn’t recall any witch in her coven’s history who stumbled into the arms of their future husband the way she had. The witches who were married in the coven were either with other witches or humans. There weren’t any shifters. Until now, of course. The question was, how far would she let things go with Savage tonight when, as he’d pointed out, they were virtual strangers. It was one thing to find a guy sexy as hell and want to take him for a tumble in the sheets, but it was an entirely different thing to become his mate and expect to spend the rest of her life with him.

  And then there was that princess-bitch. She might have scurried off into the woods after they threatened her, but Thea didn’t believe for a second that she was going to give up that easily. Thea had a feeling that she’d be hearing from that female, and it wouldn’t be because she wanted to have a friendly chat over tea. She’d learned defensive spells as a youngster; her parents wanted her to be prepared to defend herself if necessary. Though she’d never needed to use one before, she was thankful she had them at her disposal.

  “Let me start at the beginning,” Savage said, giving her hand a squeeze.

  She squeezed back, enjoying the connection that bloomed between them, and concentrated on the road.

  “I’m all ears,” she promised.

  “In nature, jaguars are solitary animals. As shifters, though, we stay together in groups called prowls. Our prowls are always matriarchal. The queen is the head of everyone, and if she has any daughters or female family members, they’re under her in the hierarchy. We’re not like wolf shifters who rank their members down to the lowest one. Only the queen has a rank, and her female family members are above the others in the prowl. The queen isn’t elected; the position is hereditary. Queen Angmar inherited it from her mother, and so on.”

  “Does she have more than one daughter?”

  “No, just Sybil. She does have some nieces, though.”

  “Where is the queen’s sister?”

  “She died during the battle for leadership of the prowl when their mother passed away.”

  “Angmar killed her sister so she could run the prowl? That’s crazy. Anne drives me bonkers sometimes, but I’d never kill her for a job.”

  “Leadership battles are often to the death unless one of them bows out. But if a female refuses to fight, she faces expulsion from the prowl. Without the prowl, a female wouldn’t be able to claim a mate or have children.”

  She mused on that for a moment. “I’m guessing that your people don’t normally choose mates outside of your own kind.”

  “Nope. At any rate, Queen Angmar is the be-all and end-all of the prowl. Related females often act as enforcers, ensuring that the prowl stays in line.”

  “What do the males in your prowl do?”

  “We’re guards, hunters, protectors. We just don’t have authority.”

  “Do you all live in the territory?”

  “Yes. I live in a house with my best friend Cannon, in between both our parents’ homes.”

  “Is Cannon mated?”

  “No. He’s twenty-four. This time next year, he’ll be twenty-five and he’ll have to participate in the Hunt if he hasn’t found his mate.”

  “Which leads us to tonight.”

  “Yeah.”

  He sighed deeply and she glanced at him. His head was leaning back against the headrest and his eyes were closed. She could practically feel how disheartened he was at his situation.

  “It’s not like anything I’ve ever heard of before,” she said. “Of course, it’s not like I spend a ton of time around shifters. I live in Ingot’s Mill, and the town is home to our coven and mostly humans.”

  “Mostly?”

  “There’s a family of fae that runs a pharmacy in town, they’re pretty cool. There’s a vampire couple who run a B&B. And a wolf pack, but they stay mostly to the other side of town.”

  “I’ve never met anyone but other shifters and humans,” he said. There was a significant pause, and then he started to talk about the Mate Hunt. How the males could find their own mate before the Hunt the year of their twenty-fifth birthday, but after that, they lost the right to choose for themselves. During the Hunt, the single girls in the prowl had until dawn to find a male and take his mating necklace. Once a guy was “found” by the girl, he had no choice in whether he accepted mating her or not.

  “The queen would punish a male who refused to mate a female who caught him. And then he’d have to mate her anyway.”

  Although she had an idea of what he meant, she asked the question anyway. “Punish how?”

  He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand in small circles and when she looked at him, he dropped his head to stare down at his lap. “It’s been a long time since a male refused a mating. I was too young to watch the proceedings, but I remember hearing my parents talk about it. The male left the territory and the female tracked him with some of her friends. They brought him back to the queen, and she had him stripped and whipped in front of the unmated males and left naked and bleeding until dawn as a reminder that her word was law and refusal to abide by the rules was punishable in any way she chose.”

  “And he had to mate the girl anyway?”

  He hummed in agreement.

  She pulled over to the side of the road and parked, turning on the caution lights and twisting in her seat until she could face him. “I want to ask you something, but I don’t want to offend you.”

  He stared at his lap for a moment longer, then lifted his gaze to hers. “You won’t.”

  “Why don’t the guys in your prowl revolt? Half of your people are mistreated. I can’t imagine a
nything worse than not having a say in who I marry, but what you go through is a hundred times more difficult than that. Not only do you not have a say in your life mate, but you’re hunted.”

  “It’s always been this way for jaguars.”

  “That doesn’t make it right.”

  “I can’t change things, Thea. While I might be able to gather some younger males to rise up against the females, the older ones wouldn’t stand for it. It may seem barbaric to you, but it’s the way of my people. I don’t like it. I dreaded this night. But it is what it is.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but she was at a loss for words. It was a heart-breaking situation for Savage to be in.

  “I want to tell you that I understand, but the truth is I don’t.”

  “I didn’t expect you to understand. I just wonder...”

  “Wonder what?” she prompted when he didn’t finish the sentence.

  “If you think less of me because of it.”

  He raised his head and looked at her. She gazed back, his features highlighted by the glow of the GPS screen. He was so sexy. So very much everything she’d ever wanted in a guy, and she hadn’t even been looking for him. He was ashamed of his people and the role he played, perhaps even the lack of authority with his own people. But that didn’t make him less of a man in her mind. If she hadn’t thought he was worth the effort, she would have left him in the woods. But she didn’t, and she wasn’t sure that she even could have if it had crossed her mind. She was inexplicably drawn to the man in the passenger seat. His people had rules, and he was bound to follow them or face any number of hardships.

  “I think it’s unfair, but I don’t think less of you.”

  She wasn’t sure he believed her, so she unbuckled her seat belt and kissed him. She’d intended for it to be a brief kiss, just a punctuation to the words she’d said. Yes, she found him sexy. No, she didn’t think him less of a man because his people were run by an asshole queen who used force and horrible punishments to keep the prowl in line. But the kiss was so much more than that. She was instantly surrounded by the cinnamon sugar scent of him, her brain misfiring as her body heated and her skin felt like it was pinched in a vise. He sank his fingers into her hair and cupped her head, a purr rumbling in his chest as the kiss deepened, their tongues dancing together. She leaned in further and slid her hands over his shoulders, tracing the muscles that bunched and contracted under her touch.

  He eased from the kiss and she couldn’t stop the wanton moan that left her lips, or the curse that was on the tip of her tongue at the inconvenience of being in a car instead of in a bed.

  “I’ve never wanted anyone more,” she blurted, her cheeks heating with blush.

  He smiled and brushed his lips sweetly over hers. “Me, either.” He stared at her intently, his eyes practically glowing with emotion. “I don’t want you to misunderstand me or this situation. Yes, my prowl has crazy mating laws, and I was hiding like a fucking coward so Sybil wouldn’t find me. But I didn’t expose myself to save you just because I wanted to be saved myself from the Hunt. I didn’t know until you were in my arms that you were my mate, and that’s the honest truth. You’re not a convenient way out of mating a female from my prowl, you’re my mate.”

  “I know. I know what you risked to catch me when I fell, and I don’t believe you’re a coward for hiding yourself away so you could have the time to find your real mate on your own terms. And for the record, I wouldn’t be taking you home if I didn’t think you and I were meant to find each other. I stood by your side because I honestly don’t think I would have been able to walk away from you.”

  “I’ll be forever grateful.”

  She grasped his wrists and gave them a squeeze, before easing his warm touch away from her face. She twisted back in her seat. “Let’s get home.”

  Chapter Six

  Thea’s home was a quaint cottage, covered with ivy and flowers, with a stone sidewalk leading to a cheery yellow door.

  “I’ve never seen a door that color,” he said, keeping his voice low as he unbuckled and opened the car door. It was nearly midnight and he didn’t want to wake Thea’s sister.

  “It’s supposed to bring joy to the house.”

  He smiled at her. “Does it work?”

  “Yeah. It’s also my favorite color, so every time I see it, it makes me happy.”

  “Door colors matter, I guess.”

  “I think it’s more of a statement than anything. Like a purple door might mean someone of noble birth lives there. Red might mean the person is passionate. I’m nothing if not cheerful. Once I’ve had my coffee, anyway.”

  “Did your family ever text back?” he asked, meeting her in front of the car. He held the bundle of flowers loosely as she unlocked the front door and opened it.

  She glanced at her phone. “Just my mom. She said she’d talk to me in the morning.”

  She shut and locked the door and led him to the family room, where she set the bag down and took the flowers. “I need to get these in water and chilling in the fridge, then we can go to my room.”

  He nodded and stayed in the room while she disappeared down a hall. There was an overstuffed chair and matching couch, with a fluffy rug underneath a glass coffee table. A flat-screen TV hung over an electric fireplace with a wide mantel laden with candles and ropes of crystals and pearls. The large picture window was framed with gauzy curtains tied at the sides with twisted ropes. He walked to it and looked out at a home a few yards away. Thea had said she lived near her parents, and he assumed it was their house.

  “Are you hungry or thirsty?” Thea asked quietly as she joined him. When she leaned into his side, he put his arm around her shoulder.

  “No.”

  “Let’s go to my room. I’ll give you the tour in the morning.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  They walked down the hall, past a kitchen, small library, and an empty bedroom, stopping before an ornately carved wooden door. A scene was carved into the light wood of a forest with a mountain in the background and a creek. It was so finely detailed that he felt like he could hear the water babbling along the rocks.

  “This is awesome,” he said.

  “Thanks. My uncle made it for me when Anne and I built the house.”

  She opened the door, and instead of turning on an overhead light, she whispered a few words and flicked her fingers. Candles on every flat surface caught fire.

  He sucked in a surprised breath. He’d never seen anyone light candles like that before. Thea was definitely a powerful female.

  She closed and locked the door behind them, then walked to the bed and lifted a piece of paper someone had placed on the pillow.

  “Anne left.” She said, reading the note. “She got the text and didn’t want to bother me while I was driving, and she promised to wait to come back until I text her that it’s okay.”

  “Did she go to your parents?”

  “Probably.” She crumpled the paper and tossed it into a wicker trash basket. “That’s sweet of her. It also means we don’t have to keep whispering. Her bedroom is on the second floor. The house is small, but it’s got enough room for us to not be on top of each other all the time.”

  “It’s a cute place.”

  “I designed it. I wanted something really quaint, but with room to grow. There’s a screened-in porch off the kitchen. It’s my favorite place to have coffee in the morning.”

  “I just realized that I spent our whole drive here talking about myself. You must think I’m an egomaniac.” He planted his hands on his hips and purposely turned away from the enticing bed. He had no idea what the night would bring, and he didn’t want to push Thea into anything physical until she understood what being a jaguar’s mate meant.

  She chuckled and bent to unlace her hiking boots. “Not at all. I asked you to tell me everything about your people, and while I’m sure there’s still much to learn, I needed to hear what I did. We can flip the script now. Ask me anything.”

>   He watched her movements in silence. She undid the jacket around her waist and tossed it into a hamper. For the first time, he saw the mating necklace on her, and his cat liked it a hell of a lot.

  “I guess I don’t know what it means for you to be a witch. You’ve clearly got powerful magic, but where does that power come from?”

  She pulled her hair from the ponytail and put the band on her wrist, combing the long strands out with her fingers. “It’s hereditary. Your average human could do some of what I do with the right ingredients under the right circumstances – cast spells, call spirits, divine the future, that kind of thing – but what I can do as a natural witch is align myself to one of the Corners and harness that power. My family and I are the Corners for our coven. My father is North, my mother is South, my sister is West, and I’m East, which means I have access to the power of the air. To an extent, I can control natural phenomena like I did with Sybil, bring in some thunder, lightning, and wind. I can’t fully change a weather pattern that occurs naturally. Like if a tornado is headed our way, I can’t alter its path.”

  “Does your whole coven live here?”

  “Yes. Our coven has twenty members. We have monthly meetings, plus we get together for spell casting like we’re doing in four days, to celebrate the coven’s one-hundredth anniversary. My parents own a store that sells coven supplies called Witchy Things. Anne and I work there.”

  “Supplies like potion ingredients and stuff?”

  She smiled. “Yep. People can also hire us to perform spells on their behalf, like blessings or protections.”

  “Listen, Thea.” He sat on the bed and clenched his hands into fists. She’d said in the car that she understood what being his mate meant, but he knew he still had things to share with her, including the proverbial ax that was dangling over his neck if he didn’t mate her properly. But he was entirely at a loss for words. How did he start a conversation like this? How did he convince her that while she was saving him from a terrible future, he didn’t want her solely based on that? He wanted her because she was gorgeous and kind and fierce, and so very much his.