Playing with him.
Hope lit the soldier’s face as he neared the safety of the circus, his legs pumping faster, his chest heaving as his breath billowed in and out.
A movement at the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she saw the hunter lift his gun and take aim.
“Hey!” Raven drew back her arm and heaved her sword. It spun end over end through the air before landing with a juicy thunk into his chest and straight through his heart. Shock dropped open his mouth, and he grabbed the sword as he lifted hate-filled eyes in her direction before he dropped dead to the ground.
Clancy smiled in glee and marched toward the man, leaning over to wrench the sword from the dead body.
Her fingers tingled, the tainted magic swirling inside her at the thought of anyone else touching her sword. Even as she watched, the blade vanished before he could wrap his grubby hands around the pummel.
His eyes bulged in surprise when his hand clutched nothing but air.
As if she called it, the sword filled her hand.
She fumbled under the weight, surprise almost making her drop it. She tightened her hold on the weapon, possessive of the damned thing, taking comfort from its solid weight.
A vicious roar rented the air.
Raven whirled to see the lion pounce.
A terrified scream echoed in the small clearing, only to be cut off abruptly by a brutal snapping of bones.
The mangy lion lifted his bloody muzzle, and Raven immediately recognized Leo, the nearly feral beast she released from the cage. The shifter appeared ragged, but he’d gained a few pounds, his fur not quite so matted. A bit of craziness still gleamed in his black eyes as he surveyed the fairground in search of his next target.
“He’s been hunting the soldiers. Every time Clancy sent his men into the forest, not all of them returned.” Her words brought his big head swinging in her direction and he prowled toward her, his form nearly hidden in the long, swaying grass.
He stopped a few feet away and roared, the booming sound vibrating in her chest.
Then he promptly sat.
One … two … five more of the caged animals crept from the darkness of the forest. Blood coated a few of them, one clearly bleeding from a gunshot wound, but most of the blood was not theirs. Taggert emerged a few steps behind them, not a scratch on him. Elation soared through her. She’d never seen anything look so good. A ragged boy, no more than sixteen and covered in dirt, stumbled after him.
“He did it.” Greggory didn’t say anything more, but turned on his heel and charged her at full speed, rage and ferocity etched on his face. His body began to shift, fur sprouting along his arms, bones snapping.
Stumbling away from his attack, Raven braced to feel claws to rend her in half. The sword blazed red, the demand to defend herself a compulsion. It took all her concentration to force her fingers to release their hold, and the metal landed on the ground with a heavy thump.
Greggory changed into a full-grown grizzly, his shift slowing him down enough for her to crouch and meet the attack head-on.
Muscles flexed as he gained speed, and he leapt clear over her head.
Raven dropped to the ground, then twisted, rolling over to see that she’d never been his intended target.
Clancy spotted him in the same instant. He reached for the gun the soldier dropped, and he drew down on Greggory. Then his gazed landed on her. Pure hatred brimmed in his eyes. He knew he was going to die, but he was determined to take her with him, blaming her for all his trouble.
In slow motion, he lifted the barrel of the weapon in her direction, and she heard him pull the trigger. The cylinder turned on the revolver and the bullets exploded from the gun, hurtling toward her.
He managed to pull the trigger three times before the enormous bear slammed into him.
Then he disappeared in a mass of brown fur.
Raven twisted to evade the line of fire, but knew she’d never get out of the way in time. Jackson charged toward her, when it didn’t appear he could close the gap between them, he threw himself in the way of the bullets.
Two bullets passed harmlessly, while a third winged him before continuing on its deadly course toward her.
Durant roared in denial.
The ghost wolf flared to life, blazing with energy gained from the storm. The beast leapt toward her, slamming into her seconds before the bullets, knocking her out of the way.
Her skin tingled at the contract.
The beast gazed down at her, satisfaction shining in his eyes as his body slowly began to disintegrate into thousands of fireflies before burning away into the night. With his quest for revenge gone, there was no need for him to stay.
Durant and Jackson skidded to a stop at her side a second later. Durant searched her for injures, then thrust out his hand to help her to stand. One tug and she found herself practically swept off her feet. He kept pulling until she was snug in his arms, plastered against his chest. Not that he seemed to mind, wrapping his arms around her like he never wanted to let her go.
Durant patted her down, searching for injuries, while Jackson held back. Satisfied that she remained unhurt, Durant rested his forehead against hers. “Thank God.”
Raven snuggled in his arms, surprised to find a faint tremor running through him. She brushed her hands a down his sides. Her fingers met warm, smooth skin, while in her mind his beast rubbed his full body against her, his tail twining around her legs, seeking comfort before he finally pulled away.
She held on for a few seconds more, reluctant to release him, not after all the near misses they had so recently. Only when she heard his beast give a little rumbling purr did she finally let go.
Jackson stood within touching distance, not moving, the enforcer still in control. His arm bled sluggishly, and all her confusion and anger at him melted away.
He sensed the change in an instant and lunged toward her, crushing her to his chest. “What happened?”
Her wounds protested, but Raven didn’t complain, glad to just be in his arms. “The wolf wanted vengeance against Clancy so badly that when the beast died, he remained behind as a ghost. When they shoved me in that cage, I must have woken him up. He could’ve gone for Clancy, but he must have used the last of his energy to save my life.”
Speaking of Clancy, she shoved away from the men see the two shifters still fighting a pretty even battle. Both men were torn to shreds, blood flowing freely. Raven grabbed her sword and ran toward the fight.
It was all the incentive the others needed.
The rest of the shifters waded into the fight, teeth and claws flashing, each intent on taking their own pound of flesh. The one-ton bull didn’t stand a chance.
Clancy bellowed in anger and denial.
He threw off the first few shifters, his body rippling as he began to shift.
Durant grabbed her arm and held her back. “Leave them their justice.”
Raven hesitated, then did as told.
Her people were no longer in danger.
She was tired of fighting.
Black twisted horns, at least a foot long, formed out of Clancy’s head, the pointed tips created for gouging. With a swing of his head, one man was nearly cut in half. Another was impaled, his body lifted off the ground, sliding farther on the horns before Clancy tossed the body ten feet through the air with a twist of his head.
The giant grizzly didn’t let him finish, bodily picking him up between massive jaws and shaking him like a ragdoll until every bone in his body had to be pulverized. Then he dropped the still form, and continued to maul him, powerful shoulders bunching and straining. With each swipe of those razor-sharp, inch-long claws, blood and flesh flew as he dug into the body.
With the death of the alpha, the bindings caught fire and unwound like a frayed string, leaving deep scorch marks throughout the pack as the final strands seared away.
The rest of the people didn’t hesitate, going after the sadistic soldiers who’d taken such pleasure in torturing them o
ver the years. A few men ran, managed a yard or two before getting caught, and shredded by teeth and claws.
Raven turned away.
She should be pleased, the threat was over, but the viciousness left her reeling. Most of the shifters had remained human, but they’d lost all their humanity in their attack. The dragon wanted to join them, but Raven held the beast back, wondering how long she would remain human if she ever gave in to the craving for violence.
Durant limped over to her, his body bloody and bruised, bumping his shoulder into hers as if unable to stand near and not touch her. She understood the sentiment exactly and leaned into his strength.
“You did it.” His words of praise were whispered in her ear.
“No, they did.” Raven glanced down at her sword, unsettled by how much influence the blade had over her when in contact with her skin. Now that the battle was over, all she felt was cool metal.
The threat was over, so why wasn’t she relieved?
The overwhelming urge to protect the pack kept her on edge, her senses jumping to high alert as she searched for the threat. She studied the shadows, wondering what could be hiding behind the trees or waiting for them in the long grass.
Durant stepped into her line of sight. “The storm is affecting you.”
Raven rubbed her temple at the building ache, not disagreeing. “Maybe.”
“You’re worrying for nothing.” But even as he said it, he began assessing the crowd, jumping from one person to the next as he noted the possible threats.
Both men took up a protective circle around her … all but Taggert.
Her heart squeezed so hard she couldn’t catch her breath. “Where’s Taggert?”
Raven whirled, pushing through the crowd.
People grunted as static soaked into her skin in the form of a nasty shock and scrambled to get out of her way.
The storm was messing with her ability to track him.
Her shields were shut down too damned tight to be able to track him through the pack connection.
Her stomach churned with the only option left to her.
She dropped her shields, nearly doubling over in agony as the storm locked in on her. The pain sucker-punched her in the chest, stealing her breath as if she grabbed a live power line with her bare hands. Energy surged toward her in an avalanche of raw current.
It didn’t want to kill her. It wanted her to use it, and her fingers tingled with the temptation.
Everyone around her fell silent, slowly shuffling away, heads bowed in submission.
The beast hummed in pleasure at the action, sipping the current like a fine wine, each second growing stronger … growing unstoppable and Raven could do nothing to cut the flow.
But maybe she could distract the dragon.
We need to find Taggert.
Though they were fully intertwined, she treated her beast like a separate creature. Something outside herself but connected on an elemental level. She so rarely communicated with her more primitive side, she didn’t even know if the dragon would notice her plea.
Much to her surprise, the dragon shot to attention, lifted her big head, and inhaled a deep breath. Thousands of smells inundated her, way too many to analyze, and she struggled to suppress a wave of nausea that threatened to overtake her. The beast had no such problems, quickly categorizing everything. Then, moving as one, they turned toward a series of small tents … or more precisely, the shadows between them.
“Are you looking for your little pet?” The mermaid dragged an unresponsive Taggert after her.
Worry riddled Raven, and she struggled to keep thinking, keep functioning and not just react.
Something was wrong with Taggert.
He wouldn’t go meekly without a fight.
He panted heavily, his eyes glazed, his body moving sluggishly.
Raven searched him for any injuries, but couldn’t detect anything that would make him obey Veronica. It was as if he was under some sort of trance.
The dragon forced her vision to change.
She expected to see a web of energy, some spell controlling him that she could sever.
But she found nothing that would hold him in place.
The only energy around him came from his beast as it struggled to rise.
Since he couldn’t shift, the sudden influx had to be sheer torture.
“What’s wrong?” Raven could barely speak past the tightness in her throat. “Why doesn’t he stop and pull back his beast?”
Durant came to a stop at her side, his expression grim. “He’s cresting.”
Cresting takes place at puberty, when a shifter changes into his beast form for the first time. It could also be trigged by stress.
If a shifter was more human than beast, they would never shift.
Taggert was one of those people.
If he tried to shift, his beast would rip him apart.
The urgent need to go to him beat at her like a compulsion.
She could help him.
Raven lunged forward. Before she managed to take two steps, Durant wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back against his body.
No matter how she struggled, he refused to loosen his hold.
“Release him.” Raven’s hand tightened on her sword, a red mist rising from the blade as the magic sensed the coming battle and lusted for another taste of blood.
Veronica smiled, revealing needle-like teeth. She lifted wickedly sharp claws and pressed them against Taggert’s throat. “No.”
Raven stilled, her eyes dropping to the talon resting directly over his pulse.
Only when she stopped struggling did Durant released her, then stood back to give them both room to maneuver.
“You’re not a mermaid.” The saltwater tank had kept her alive, but just barely. It was why her scales turned the water slimy and gave her a sickly look as soon as she left.
“Smart girl. I’m a siren. Clancy and I learned about the circus and challenged for control.” She kicked Taggert behind the knees, dropping him to the ground.
Durant and Jackson kept close, waiting for her signal. To her shock, Greggory and the other shifters followed suit until Raven had a veritable army at her back.
Taggert’s eyes blazed yellow, his beast surging toward the surface. Veronica laughed, grabbed his snarled hair and yanked his head back. “Worthless.”
Raven lunged, her body rematerializing and cutting the distance between them in half. It all happened in less than a second.
Veronica crouched, setting her lips against his throat. “Ah-ah. Careful.”
Saliva pooled in the siren’s mouth, and she slowly licked his throat.
Tasting.
Raven halted abruptly. All the missing shifters now made sense. They weren’t hunted, and they sure as hell didn’t leave. “You took over the circus not to run it, but so you had a continuous supply of shifters. You’re cannibalizing your own pack.”
“A girl’s gotta eat.” Veronica licked her lips.
Horror rippled through Raven, and she swallowed compulsively against the urge to gag. “Bindings connect you to the pack. You and Clancy had to have felt every horrible, torturous thing you did to them.”
“Ah, but fear adds a bit of spice.” Veronica leaned forward, sniffing Taggert’s hair. “Yum.”
The dragon hunkered down, ready to leap the distance.
Mine.
“You wear them down until they’re so weak they can’t fight back. You need live flesh to survive. What better than a bunch of shifters nobody would miss?” All the hunts, all the missing people … they were dead. Raven tried to keep her attention off Taggert. She wouldn’t let him die the same way. “Have any shifters ever been released or did you just kill them all?”
“I’m the one in charge. I decide who lives or dies.” A snarl curled Veronica’s lips. “Dead meat left me sick, the tiny land animals offered no more than a snack. I was starving. I couldn’t go back to the ocean. Together Clancy and I found the perfect solution
. You should be thanking me. I’m doing the shifter community a favor by getting rid of the unwanted, the very dredges of the shifter society. I put them out of their misery, giving a purpose to their pathetic lives.”
“You pretend you’re an apex predator when you’re nothing more than scum. You can’t even hunt on your own, but have them drugged and weakened before you take advantage of them. Pathetic.” Raven didn’t just poke at the psychopath but beat her with a stick, waiting for even the slightest mistake, the perfect moment to strike, but the woman kept herself too close to Taggert for her to take the risk.
Raven debated if she could close the distance between them before the siren could kill Taggert, but she just couldn’t risk his life on a gamble.
Veronica hissed in fury, the taunt pushing her over the edge. “You’ve ruined everything. You took my mate. Now I’m going to take yours.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Instead of attacking, Veronica opened her mouth and sang.
The hairs on the back of Raven’s neck stood on end at the first note. She didn’t understand the words to the hauntingly beautiful song, but the reaction was immediate.
The fighting stopped.
Not slowly, no winding down.
Just stopped from one second to the next.
The animals from the cage growled, shifting restlessly, something in the air disturbing them. They looked ready to bolt at the least provocation.
The boy fell under the spell first, quickly followed by those nearest the siren.
One by one, the men straightened and shuffled toward Veronica, their faces enraptured.
Greggory threw the kid over his shoulder and staggered, the extra weight having nothing to do with it as he struggled to fight the siren’s pull. He shook his head, stumbling a few steps and their eyes connected.
The flare of panic consuming him faded as he lost his hold on reality.
He only needed to go a couple more yards to get out of range. She held her breath with hope, only to have it plummet when he staggered to a stop. The kid slipped unheeded from his grip to crash to the ground. Her heart dropped to her knees when he turned and trudged toward the siren like all the rest.
Electric series- Raven Investigations BoxSet Page 23