Raven Investigation 04 - Electric Legend by Stacey Brutger Page B

him to
pass as forgettable.  
    Until she saw his eyes.
    Guarded.
    Ruthless.
    No mercy.
    There would be no help from that quarter.
    “Touch her, and you die.” Taggert threw himself at the cage,
nearly upending it. Durant swung out with a massive paw, and the man easily
danced out of the way. Jackson worried her the most. He did nothing but watched,
his eyes cold and deadly.
    At the first opportunity, the man would be dead.
    “Ah, Greggory, see to the human. She can stay with Veronica until
they take their pledge.”
    Greggory stiffened slightly, then held his hand out, waiting
for Clancy to remove the key from around his neck and hand it over. Without
missing a beat, he opened the lock and straightened. She waited for him to grab
her and drag her out, but all he did was stand patiently by the door. Giving
her the opportunity to run or prove herself or just plain manners, she wasn’t
sure which. For now, she’d play with the hand she was dealt.
    In order to convince them that she was human, Raven hadn’t
allowed herself to heal.
    Now she paid the price.
    When she pulled herself toward the opening, her ribs creaked
in protest. Every movement, every breath sent agony rippling through her body as
she struggled to stand and walk. They almost reached the door when the
ringmaster spoke again.
    “Since you’re such an animal lover, you can work with the beasts.”
    Grunt work, not that Raven cared.
    They considered her human and therefore worthless.
    Good.
    That meant they wouldn’t see her coming.
    * * *
    Her escort didn’t talk or touch her as they wove their way through
the fairgrounds. They slipped through a small section in the canvas, more of a
cut than an opening, and entered a maze of trailers and tents.
    A tiny village where the workers lived.
    People stopped as they passed. Some smirked, while others
dropped their eyes, pity leaching them of all emotions. One trailer stood off
to the side, bigger than the others, and her guard pounded on the door.
    It opened to reveal the last person she expected.
    The mermaid.
    She filled the doorway, but not the woman Raven had seen
last night. Oh, the tail had morphed into legs, but it was more than that.
Instead of a young woman, she had aged a good ten years overnight. The glorious
fine blond hair now looked limp and oily. The flawless skin had drooped,
covering her in a layer of fine wrinkles, taking her from a beautiful princess
to a middle-aged crone in a matter of hours.
    Shifter aged slowly, but they can’t function at their peak
so far out of their natural habitat. Without water, this woman would die a
brutally slow death. She aged so fast, Raven could actually smell the death
around her.
    “The little human. You didn’t make it.”
    Raven shivered at the purr in the voice. The sound should’ve
been seductive, but the woman rubbed her the wrong way.
    “Clancy wants her to stay with you for the first week, show
her the ropes. She’s the new animal trainer.” The man gave nothing away as he
issued his instructions. “She’s human. Make sure you handle her with care.”
    A moue of disgust crossed the woman’s face, and she lowered
her eyes demurely. “He promised me my own trailer.”
    “Take that up with him.” The man turned and walked away, abandoning
Raven without another word. Some shifters resented humans, treating them as a
pest to be dealt with when they couldn’t avoid it. As she watched his lean form
disappear into the crowd, she realized he saw her as nothing more than a chore.
    The woman heaved a sigh and pushed the trailer door wider.
“You might as well come in, but don’t bother making yourself at home.”
    Veronica flounced away, the nightgown she wore flaring out
in her agitation. It appeared more than a hundred years old, something a woman might
wear in the Victorian age. She lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, nervously
flicking her nails. She parted the window curtain and peered outside.
     “It might look like your guard walked away,