Read Lure of the Jaguar: Hades' Carnival, Book 7 for Free Online Page B

didn’t want to waste time with a lengthy interrogation.
    Paul whimpered and Stavros began to shift, intentionally keeping the process slow to add to the man’s terror. Paul was crying and calling out to his deity for help by the time Stavros was a man once again. Stavros could have warned him to save his breath. He suspected that Paul and his buddies had aligned themselves with a dark god who would never let them go.
    They’d sealed their own fate.
    “Who are you?” Paul asked. “What are you?” Tears ran down his face and snot ran from his nose.
    “Who sent you?” Stavros asked. “And don’t lie to me.” He tapped the side of his nose. “I can smell a lie.”
    Toni was hyperventilating. She only realized that startling fact when her vision started to dim. That was no cougar in the clearing behind the house. The cat was enormous. Too huge to be real. Yet it was very real. And its coat was black.
    Jaguar.
    She’d caught a glimpse when the moon had momentarily peeked out from behind the clouds, and another when the large cat settled in front of the light from Roy’s flashlight.
    Impossible. Jaguars didn’t exist in this part of the world. And, as far as she knew, there were none as gigantic as this one.
    The animal made quick work of two of the men. Toni cringed, feeling pity in spite of the fact these men had come to harm her. Dying at the hands, or rather the claws, of a big cat was a hard way to go.
    The animal prowled closer to the injured man, hunkering down in front of him. Toni was surprised the beast didn’t just attack, especially because of the bloody wound on the man’s leg.
    Toni blinked when the animal began to change. She rubbed her eyes with her free hand, unable to believe what she was seeing. There was no longer a large cat in the clearing, but a man. And not just any man. Stavros.
    And he was stark naked.
    She swallowed hard. Okay, she’d either just gone on a bad drug trip—and she’d never done drugs in her life—or she was hallucinating. There was no other explanation for a giant jaguar to become a man.
    Then she remembered the jaguar tattoo she’d seen on Stavros’ back. That had to be it. Her mind was obviously manufacturing the connection. Toni pinched her arm and frowned when it hurt.
    She was awake. Stavros was still in the clearing with the injured man. And he was still naked.
    Had it been Stavros all along? Had she created the jaguar to protect her out of her imagination? Toni was too scared and confused to make sense of any of this.
    “Who sent you?” Stavros asked. “And don’t lie to me. I can smell a lie.” It was his tone more than his words that sent a shiver down Toni’s spine. Slowly, she came to her feet. The muscles in her legs protested after being in an uncomfortable position for so long. She inched closer to the men, unable to take her eyes away from the macabre scene unfolding before her. She kept her gaze averted from Roy’s dead body.
    “A guy. I don’t know who he is,” Paul hurriedly added. “Honest. He asks us to do stuff for him from time to time.”
    “And what do you get in return?” Stavros asked. His tone was calm, but Toni heard the underlying fury.
    Paul shrugged and rubbed his hand across his face. He was trying to act tough, but even Toni could tell he was scared. His hands were noticeably shaking. “Money.”
    “Money.” Stavros chuffed and it sounded exactly like a big cat.
    Toni’s chest was rapidly heaving and she forced herself to breathe in through her nose, hold it for a second and then slowly release it through her mouth.
    “For that you’d kill a woman.” Stavros raised his hand and it morphed into a giant black paw complete with razor-sharp claws.
    Toni froze in place and blinked, but the image didn’t change. Her breathing quickened again.
    “No. He didn’t want her dead. He just wanted her.” The man clutched at his leg and tried to pull himself away.
    “What does this man look like?” Stavros asked. He didn’t