Carnival of Hearts: BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance by Scarlett Rhone Page A

listening to them anymore; she was looking around the big top, trying to find Baptiste. But he was gone. He must have left as soon as her father had walked in. He’d gone back to hurt the wolf until he told him what he wanted to know, and her fears were confirmed: her father would use that information to lead them into another war.
    Even as people were talking to her, as her father was explaining his plan of attack, as the carnival was banding together to defend their strange home, Kat was getting to her feet and hurrying out of the big top. She heard her father’s voice rise up, shouting for her to come back, but she just limped faster, practically hopping to keep the weight off her wounded foot, but without slowing down. She burst back out of the big top and turned down the lane of animal cages. There, at the far end, was the cage holding Max, and Baptiste was inside it with him. He was still on the floor of the cage but Kat could see the silver glint of the edge of Baptiste’s whip, the length of it wrapped around Max’s throat.
    “Baptiste, stop!” she cried, waving her arms as she hurried over to the cage.
    Baptiste’s head came up, a scowl contorting his features, but his grip on Max loosened enough that the man dropped facedown in the straw on the floor of the cage.
    “What are you doing here?” Baptiste asked Kat sharply. “Get back in there!”
    “I told you not to hurt him!” Kat clambered up the steps and right into the cage. Baptiste hastily gathered up the whip and reached for her, but she ducked his arm and dropped to her knees in the straw, putting herself directly between the tamer and Max.
    Baptiste whirled around, staring at her. “What are you doing?”
    “I know they attacked us,” Kat said. She felt Max stir behind her, but he stayed down, and she was grateful for that since she wasn’t actually sure that he wouldn’t shred her to fleshy ribbons if given the chance. And this was a chance. She held Baptiste’s gaze, though. “I know that people were hurt. I was one of them! But this isn’t the way to do things! It’s just hurting and hurting and hurting, and when does it stop?”
    “It stops when our enemies are destroyed.” D’Orfeo was standing outside of the cage now, his arms folded, frowning fiercely at Kat through the bars. “Get out of there.”
    “No.” She shook her head. “No, I won’t let you torture him.”
    “Kat.” D’Orfeo’s voice rose; it echoed down the lane. Kat was all too familiar with that decibel. It meant she was in very real trouble. “Get out of the cage.”
    She didn’t move. She refused to let him bully her. She truly believed that this whole cycle of warring against other shifters was going to destroy them before it destroyed their enemies .
    “I’m not going anywhere,” she told her father. “I’m staying right here.”
    D’Orfeo’s expression darkened with fury. Then his eyes ticked from her to Baptiste, and he shot the man a short nod. Baptiste stared back at him and Kat saw his face flush with surprise.
    “Ringmaster,” Baptiste said in a low voice.
    “She wants to stay in the cage!” D’Orfeo bellowed furiously. It was so loud that Kat flinched back from the bars, landing on her ass in the straw, legs brushing Max. “So leave her in the bloody cage!”
    Baptiste ducked quickly out of the cage and, before Kat realized what he was doing, he’d pulled the cage door shut. And then he was locking it. And Kat sat there watching him do it with her mouth agape, shocked.
    “Dad,” she said, looking at the Ringmaster. “Dad, but, I—”
    “I’ll see you in the morning,” D’Orfeo all but snarled at her. “Assuming you’re still alive.”
    He turned, the black tails of his coat snapping behind his legs, to stalk down the lane and back towards the big top. Baptiste fell into step with him, though the fox-faced tamer did glance back once over his shoulder at her, and Kat thought she saw something like regret in his narrow face