I’d accepted the fact that I might die on this expedition. In fact, it was likely, as far as I was concerned. I wouldn’t give up my position by my queen’s side, let alone in her heart, easily. If the jaguar god wanted to have her, he would have to go through me first.

But my very worst nightmare was now unfolding before me. My queen looked up from the mirror, but it wasn’t her. Her eyes were completely black. She didn’t know me. She didn’t even know herself.

“Mayte? My queen?”

Ignoring me, she stood and walked into the water.

I plunged after her and seized her arm, but I couldn’t seem to hold on to her. She wasn’t fighting or resisting me—my hands simply slid off her. I couldn’t stop her. She walked deeper and deeper into the water, and I could only watch in horror as the water inched up to her neck. Then to her chin.

She’s going to drown. Just like her mother.

No. I couldn’t bear to lose her. If anyone had to die tonight, it should be me. I had already envisioned it countless times. I would gladly die so she could have her heart’s desire. I could already see her smiling down at a baby girl, a tiny mirror image of her mother.

Her head sank beneath the water and I roared with fury. I grabbed for her again and touched her. I felt her skin against my fingers, but my grip wouldn’t hold. I couldn’t pull her back to me, to safety, no matter how hard I tried. Her hair swirled in the water, sweeping over my fingers one last time. Then she was gone.

I dived into the water, straining to see even a glimpse of her skin. I had to find her. My queen. My heart. My soul. If I lost her…

Something slammed into me like a freight train. I stared up at a night sky glittering with thousands of diamonds. But I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt like it’d been caved in by a heavy weight.

No, that was merely my empty ribcage. My heart was gone. Dead. With my queen.

“You would die for her?” The low voice came from nowhere. Everywhere.

I strained to move. To even breathe. I had to get up. I had to find her. Drag her out of the water. She was an Aima queen. My queen. It wasn’t too late to save her.

But all I managed to do was tip my chin down slightly. A massive dark shape sat on top of my chest. No wonder I couldn’t breathe.

The shape moved, lowering its heavy head down toward me. Jaguar. The biggest fucking cat I’d ever seen in my life. I was alpha, but this cat was…

God.

His coat was jet black and as shiny as the obsidian mirror. Instead of large golden eyes, he had two black eyes that reflected my own image back at me. I could see myself in his eyes. The stunned look on my face. Lines of grief etched around my eyes and mouth. The tears shining in my eyes. I couldn’t bear to live without my queen. Better that I died, and she lived, happy with this god she’d managed to call, than for me to live a single moment without her.

“Interesting,” the giant jaguar said. Then as casually as if he were a house cat, he stepped down off me, and went to sniff her other jaguars.

I pushed to my feet and wavered a moment, my head spinning. My queen. I had to find her.

“Sit,” the jaguar growled, not even looking at me, though I felt his command roll through my body like an earthquake.

I sat. Hard. On the ground, right where I’d been standing.

I might be alpha, but he was the jaguar god, and my beast didn’t hesitate to obey him. I didn’t even remember shifting back to my human form.

“Think, alpha,” he said mockingly. “Remember exactly what you saw. What is real? What is only a vision?”

I jerked my gaze away from the lake and looked back to where my queen had been sitting. She still sat on the log, staring intently into the obsidian mirror on her lap.

When her head sank beneath the water, her hair had been loose, even though I had braided her hair with my own hands this morning. The whole thing had been a vision. Now I couldn’t breathe because of relief, not agony.

The black jaguar sat on his haunches and watched her, his tail flicking back and forth. He watched her so intently that the hairs on my nape prickled. Other than his tail, he didn’t move, but he was poised, ready to pounce. To feast? To rip her to shreds? I had no idea.

“What are you waiting for?” I asked hesitantly.

He didn’t look away from her. “To see if she lives or dies.”

Mayte

I stared at the empty mirror, my mind shaken. What did it mean? Was I dead? Would I be trapped here in this gray nothingness forever?

“What is your name?” A deep voice rumbled through the fog.

Shivering, I clutched the mirror harder and willed my voice not to falter. “Mayte Zaniyah.”

“You have passed the first test, Mayte Zaniyah.”

I didn’t know whether to feel relieved that I’d passed—or sick with dread at the thought of more tests. I didn’t know how much more my mind could take.

I’d never been so alone. So lost. It was a terrible feeling.

Even growing up without my mother or father, I’d had Grandmama. I’d had my twin brothers. There were countless people in our nest that I’d seen every single day. I couldn’t recall a time where I’d been as alone as I was in this moment, surrounded by endless gray fog. My mind kept searching for something recognizable, like a landmark, or at least a color. Something other than the fog swirling from nowhere.

“You called me, Mayte Zaniyah. What do you want?”

Tezcatlipoca. I’d done it. I’d managed to call him from his resting place. I gulped with nerves, frantically searching the fog. Where was he? What did he look like? What would he do to me?

“Well? I grow impatient, queen.”

At least he knew what I was, though I thought I detected a bit of sarcasm in his voice, as if his lip had curled with disdain. “I want a child. A daughter. To carry on the Zaniyah line.”

A rough sound echoed through the fog. At first, my nerves shrilled with terror, but then I realized he was laughing.

And that pissed me off.

“I’ve looked for you for twenty years.”

He grunted with disgust. “You looked with your eyes. You made your plans and plotted your maps and wasted twenty years looking for a fairytale. You didn’t look with your heart. You didn’t look with your blood. Because you knew if you looked with magic, you would find what you sought immediately. Aztlán isn’t a place on a map. It’s not at this lake you’ve searched for so diligently. Aztlán is accessed through the mirror. Through yourself. You could have touched Aztlán at any time once you had the mirror at your disposal.”

Blinking rapidly, I hunched my shoulders, my arms curling over my chest as if he’d struck me. I couldn’t breathe.

He’d wounded me, definitely, but only with the truth.

“I’m a coward,” I whispered, brushing tears away.

The mirror suddenly lit up, drawing my gaze to the image unfolding. I stared at my bedroom at home. My bed, covered with the quilt Grandmama had made for me ages ago. Eztli strode into the room, carrying me. He tossed me onto the bed, and I squealed with laughter. It made me smile, my eyes filling with happy tears.

“You were given much to love. Yet you never embraced it fully.”

I wasn’t sure what Tezcatlipoca meant, until the image blurred, and I was in the hotel bed with all four of my Blood. My cheeks heated at the raw sexuality. The mirror confronted me with my desire.

But they touched me differently this time. Eztli didn’t seduce me with a slow, gentle massage.

He had his hand fisted in my hair so tightly that my scalp screamed with sensation, my head pinned back against him.

Luis and Diego didn’t carefully suck on my nipples. They bit. They tugged. It hurt.

Even here, on the smoky side of the mirror, I felt that pain throb through my breasts, shooting fiery streams of lust straight down to my pussy.

I swallowed hard, fighting down the lust. That wasn’t me. Was it? Shame squeezed my throat shut. I averted my face, refusing to look at the image any longer, though I could feel the dampness between my thighs. I ached with need. To be touched.

To be hurt.

Tezcatlipoca let out a rumbling growl that made the hairs on my arms stand up. My heart thudded and skipped with terror. I had never heard a wild jaguar make that sound before, but I recognized it for what it was.

A warning that my time was up. He was going to kill me.

I had failed the test.

I made myself look back at the mirror, hoping that would quell his anger, but the mirror had gone black again.

Fur brushed my arm, making me twitch with surprise. I jerked my head around, but he wasn’t there. I could smell him, though. Jaguar, mixed with the pungent smell of burning copal incense. I couldn’t quite place all the different resins that had been used in that incense. Everyone’s blend of tree resins was slightly different. Grandmama’s always smelled slightly of lemon, but his scent smelled more like smoking chocolate and coffee.

Something sharp grazed my arm and I recoiled, my hand clamping over the spot automatically. Thick blood welled between my fingers.

“Wait,” I gasped. “I still want to try. I want to know the truth.”

I felt the moist, hot blast of his breath against my nape. Shivering, I held firm. I wouldn’t run away. I wouldn’t scream. Even if he bit my spine in half.

“Why would a queen descended from the Mother of the Gods feel shame at anything in her heart? That is what I want to know, Mayte Zaniyah.” He paused a moment and gripped the back of my neck in his mighty jaws. I could feel every vicious tooth scratching my skin. A fraction more pressure from his jaws, and he would tear my head off. “I want to know why you only allowed one of your jaguars to love you at a time. Why you hide, even from the alpha who would die to save you. Why would you deny him anything? Especially the truth?”

His words cut worse than his claws and teeth. He was right. I hid, even from Eztli. My alpha. I loved him. We’d made love countless times, but somehow, I had always managed to hold back one small piece of myself.

One small, devastating truth.

“I’m a queen,” I whispered, my throat shredding as if I’d swallowed sharp shards of obsidian. “Queens are fearless. Strong. Protective. They wield their magic to protect their people. Queens take what they want. What they need. They don’t…” I swallowed, wincing at the sour, bitter taste of fear on my tongue. “They aren’t weak. They aren’t afraid. They don’t need to be hurt, even with love. They certainly don’t submit. Ever.”

“Who says these lies?” Tezcatlipoca whispered, dragging his canines back and forth over the bumps of my spine.

“Me.” My teeth chattered, and I clutched the mirror so hard my fingers ached. “I say these lies. To myself.”

“Use this truth, queen, and take your jaguar god. If you dare.”

He sank his teeth into my spine, and the mirror shattered into a thousand pieces.