Read Raven Cursed: A Jane Yellowrock Novel for Free Online Page B

tent far back from the others. It was close to a runnel of water that emptied into Big Creek, and the tent had been in place for several weeks, grass beginning to grow up at the tent sides. The smell of grindy was strong here. So was the smell of black were-leopard. Kemnebi.
    Kem-cat’s wife was dead at the claws of her pet grindylow because she fell in love with Rick LaFleur and tried to turn him into a black were-leopard, like her. Spreading were-taint broke were-law, and killing Safia had fulfilled the grindy’s primary function—protecting humans. Kem was taking it out on Safia’s lover boy. My boyfriend. Ex. Whatever. Rick’s scent still carried some of the wolf-taint too.He’d suffered—been tortured by werewolves—because I hadn’t figured out he was in trouble. I didn’t know if I loved him, but I knew that I owed him.
    “Hello the tent,” I said softly.
    “I heard when you bring that machine into the park,” a cultured, accented voice said.
    I followed the dulcet tones to the back of the tent where a woven, dark green hammock hung between two trees, a long, lean man lazing in it. One leg was draped over the side, bare foot and calf dangling. A matching arm, equally naked, held a bottle of beer. The body between the two was hidden by hammock, and hammock and beer were banned in the park, hence the positioning of them behind the tent. I grinned, skipping the niceties. “You are dressed, aren’t you?”
    He toasted me with the beer and wiggled his toes at me in a drunken wave, which didn’t answer my question. The dark skin of both limbs was smooth and unscarred, the flesh of a shape-changer, forever untouched by damage, remade with every shift. Given a few more hundred shifts, my own skin would be as perfect again, assuming I stayed out of mortal danger. For reasons I didn’t know, scars from a lethal wound were hard to heal. “Jane Yellowrock, Rogue Hunter,” he said. “My
alpha
.” I had made Kem my beta, forced him to bring Rick here, and care for him until he shifted into his big-cat. Kem wanted me to understand that he didn’t have to like it. “My alpha, who smells of catamount and Eurasian owl and
dog
.”
    The last was a slur and I let a hint of my grin out. “Kemnebi, of the Party of African Weres,
my beta
, who smells of black leopard and sweat and very strongly of beer.”
    He lifted his hand, the bottle disappearing behind the hammock edge. I heard a slurping sound and the bottle reappeared, now half empty. “Good beer. Samuel Adams makes the most acceptable beer I have yet discovered in America. I have been tasting all of them. Extensively.” He sipped again. “There are more in the cooler.”
    “No thanks, I’m driving.” I dropped my jacket, plopped into a folding sling chair, which was far less comfortable than it looked, and lifted the cooler lid anyway. “I’ll take one of these, though.” I opened another Coke and sipped,wondering how much beer it took to keep a shape-shifter drunk. Our metabolisms are fast, and it had to be a lot of beer. With a toe, I lifted the lid of a large, blue recycle pail. It was three-quarters full of broken beer bottles. Yeah. A
lot
of beer. After a companionable moment of silence I said, “How long ago did the grindy get here?”
    “Safia’s pet arrive two week ago.” The words held no inflection, but were carefully, drunkenly enunciated. Interesting.
    “It was a long swim, I take it.”
    The hammock moved with what may have been a shrug, noncommittal. “He was most unhappy with me at first. But
he forgave me
.” There was a heavy dose of bitter irony in the words. I wasn’t real sure about the symbiotic relationship between the two races, but it would seem difficult to maintain, when one was always in danger from the other. I didn’t know what to say to that, but Kem was drunkenly loquacious and carried on the conversation without my contribution. “They are like pets until we err.
Affectionate . . .
” The words trailed