Carnival of Hearts: BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (11 page)

By the time Max could fully open his eyes again, morning had eased into midafternoon. Whatever that bearded woman had given him had knocked him well and truly on his ass. He had a blazing headache that was actually worse than the pain in his side. He managed to crawl to the bars of the cage, where they’d left him a tray of food that had long since gone cold, but there was a cup of coffee and he guzzled it down. Then he ate all the food on the plate and tasted none of it, but some of the throbbing in his head subsided, at least enough that he could shove himself up to a seat against the side of the cage. The morning was something of a blur, but he knew that Kat had been let out of the cage, and that she’d changed his bandages before she left. He remembered that clearly enough because he remembered her touching him.

Max realized, as he sat there, that the carnival was quiet. They must not have opened at all today, and he knew that was the fault of his pack. They’d done enough damage to shut the carnival down entirely. In the distance, he thought he could hear some music, but he couldn’t make it out or tell precisely where it was coming from, only that it wasn’t the music played by a carnival open to the public. He couldn’t hear the sounds of people anywhere. The carnival members must have all been ensconced in their trailers and tents, recovering. Or, in D’Orfeo’s case, he knew, planning.

He remembered asking Kat to set him free, but she wouldn’t. He also remembered telling her that she was beautiful, and that he’d dreamed of her. He winced at that memory. He should not have said that. He blamed the drugs. And she hadn’t gone for it anyway. She’d left him alone in the cage even when he’d asked her not to. Maybe she truly was just too human to have cared for someone like him—especially someone who’d hurt the people she cared about. He had to stop himself from caring about it, somehow. He had to focus on getting better so that he could escape and warn Thomas and the pack that the carnival was going to attack.

Escape
. He sighed and looked at the locked door of the cage. Escape was going to require keys. The only person he’d seen with keys to the cage was the tamer, Baptiste. So long as he had that silver-tipped whip, Max wasn’t sure he’d be able to overpower him. As it was, Max was still too weak to shift. Between the drugs and the wounds, it might be another day before he could manage it. That left him feeling more vulnerable than he had ever felt in his life. Alone, unable to use the wolf to defend himself, and already wounded. Where before, he’d felt angry and dangerous, now he just felt like what he was: on his own.

He sat for another hour brooding on his circumstances and coming up with no real answers, and then he saw the bearded woman coming down the lane again with another tray. To his shame, he looked past her and hoped to see Kat walking behind her, but she wasn’t there. The blonde woman walked up to the edge of the cage and slid another tray of food under the bars to him.

“Dinner,” she said simply. “How is your bandage?”

He glanced at his side. “Not bleeding through.”

She pulled a bundle from beneath her arm and slid that under the cage too. “Clothes.”

He watched her step back from the bars and then he grabbed the clothes, working his way carefully to his feet so that he could lean against the bars and climb into the jeans she’d brought him. As he pulled the ratty t-shirt over his head, he told her, “I have to pee.”

She arched an eyebrow. “There’s straw.”

Max had to swallow the growl that surged into his throat. “I refuse to
piss
on the straw that you’ve left me to sleep on. I’m hurt, I’m fucked up from whatever crap you gave me while I was in your care, I can barely stand on my own two feet without holding on to something. Just let me out to
pee
, you heartless bitch!”

He got dizzy by the end and had to sit back down. He put his head between his knees and thought about how helpless and ashamed of himself he was, how inhuman he actually felt in that moment. Even if Thomas and the pack came to save him, he wasn’t sure he could bear for them to see him like this. Then he heard the rattle of keys, and the heavy rollover of the lock on the cage door snapping loose, and lifted his head. Mabel stood in the cage doorway. She back down the steps, pulling the door open, and inclined her head.

“Get it done, then,” she said.

He looked at her, and then past her to the wide lane beyond the cage, and then past that to the edges of the carnival grounds, and then past those to the tree line beyond. Just the sight of that tree line, and the hope and freedom it represented, made Max’s heart seize in his chest. Suddenly the wolf was awake inside him and howling for action. Before he could think it through, before he really knew what he was doing, he charged the bearded woman, knocking her to the ground, and barreled out of the cage. And then he ran, head spinning and side screaming in pain. He ran as fast and as hard as he could, as the Mabel woman’s shrieks hit the air behind him. He ran towards the tree line.

He would have made it, too. He had a head start before Mabel started shouting that he’d escaped. It was a straight shot down the lane to the carnival’s perimeter, no obstructions. Wherever the rest of the carnival members were, they were not close enough to have run him down. Even if he couldn’t shift into the wolf, it was running with him, inside him, pushing his body past its human limits. He would have made it.

But Kat appeared at the end of the lane, directly in his path.

The wolf bellowed for him to just mow her down. He could try to just blow past her. Maybe she would move. She
had
to move. The wolf thought she was weak and unworthy, and that he should knock her aside and be done with it. But Max didn’t agree with the beast in his heart this time. He’d told her he wouldn’t hurt her. He didn’t
want
to hurt her.

And then he realized that she was running, too. Towards him.

She was going to try to fucking tackle him. He couldn’t believe it. She was five foot nothing; she was a little,
human
girl, and she thought she was going to take him down on her own?

No. No, that wasn’t what she was doing. She was waving her arms as she ran towards him. And she was shouting something.

“Stop! Please! Stop! No!”

He started to slow down, confused. She looked afraid, not murderous. She was running with a limp, but she was still running.

He turned sharply to look behind him, and several things happened at once.

He felt the furious bite of that silver-tipped whip as the tamer caught up to him and his whip snapped against Max’s bandaged side. Even as he howled and stumbled, staggering, and pitched towards the grass, clutching at his side in blinding pain, a pair of hawks swooped right out of the sky, their talons digging into his arms and shoulders. He tried to duck his head, and then clawed at him, and the pain in his side was unbearable. Then he jerked, feeling the whip again, as it snaked around his ankles, binding his feet together. The hawks hovered, crying out, calling to their masters, he supposed. He was in too much pain to really care anymore.

Except, as he felt the whip pull taut and he started being dragged across the grass, Kat’s voice broke through the cloud of agony overwhelming his body.

“Uncle Baptiste!” she shouted, and Max felt the whip slacken. “You let him go right now! Stop it! And you two! Shoo! Shoo! He’s hurt!”

“Not as hurt as he’s going to be,” the tamer replied.

“He’s down,” Kat snapped. “He’s down, he hasn’t escaped and you’ve hurt him enough he can’t, so just
stop
with the whip!”

Max’s head reeled. The pain in his side, the pain from the silver on his legs, and the pain from the cuts leaking blood on his arms and shoulders was too much. He struggled to stay conscious. Kat was defending him.

“You’re going to
kill
him!” Max heard her cry. Was that actual fear he heard in her voice? Did she care if he died?

And then he heard a new voice. The Ringmaster.

“He is going to die,” the Ringmaster said to his daughter, and dread opened like a bottomless pit in Max’s stomach. “At dawn, he’s going to die. We’re sending his pack a message.”

Max didn’t hear whatever Kat’s reaction to that might have been, because he passed out from the pain. Perhaps, he thought, as blackness crept in, that was for the best.

D’Orfeo had to drag her away from him. After Max passed out, Baptiste removed the whip and he and the twins started hauling him back to the cage, and Kat burst into tears. She didn’t know if it was more for the fact that her father was going to kill Max, or for the fact that it was
her father
who thought he was justified in killing Max.

She tried to push Baptiste away from the fallen wolf, but her father grabbed her by both arms and lifted her feet right off the ground, hauling her away and down the lane. She crumpled against him. She was exhausted from having gotten no sleep, her foot hurt again from running, and she felt like everything she knew about her father was wrong. There had never been a shred of decency in him, not if he was so willing to kill someone over what she thought amounted to a miscommunication.

She was dimly aware, as her father dragged her through the carnival to his trailer, that people were watching them. Mabel, some of the roadies, the fun house ghosts. She tried to stop crying, but it was a dam broken and she just couldn’t. She thought that part of it had to be her fault for trying to stop Max from running. But she’d been watching it. He wasn’t running fast enough, and he was swerving, still likely too drugged to realize it. Baptiste would’ve taken his head off and the hawks would’ve taken out his eyes if she hadn’t intervened. But it still felt like her fault.

In D’Orfeo’s trailer, he sat her down on the little sofa bench and then stepped back, hands on his hips, and stared down at her, a concerned look on his face.

“This is my fault,” he said. “I shouldn’t have made you stay in the cage last night. You’re overtired.”

“You’ve got to be
kidding
me!” she cried, staring up at him. He was blurry through her tears. “This is your fault because you’re going to
kill
someone! That’s why this is your fault! You can’t kill him, Dad. It’s wrong!”

“It’s what has to happen to keep this carnival safe,” D’Orfeo said.

“Killing people is not
safe
.”

“It is a show of dominance,” he snapped. “Which you would understand if you were a shifter, but you’re not. It’s what has to happen. I’m sorry that it upsets you, Kitty, but—”

“Don’t call me Kitty!” She shoved herself to her feet, wiping furiously at her face. “Don’t call me that! I hate you right now! Just because I’m not a shifter doesn’t mean I don’t know right from fucking wrong!”

“Don’t you speak to me that way,” he said, scowling.

“Don’t you speak to
me
that way!” she shot back. “I’m not stupid and I’m not a child! Shifters have mouths and vocal chords and they can
talk
too! And you’re just going to murder that man because you can’t be bothered to try and talk to the wolves who attacked us! And you think I’m wrong, and that I’m naive, but if I’m naive,
you
made me that way by trying to shelter me from
life
!”

D’Orfeo folded his arms across his chest. “I’ve made my decision, Kat.”

“Well, it’s a stupid decision!” She turned and stomped for the door.

“Get back here,” he shouted. “You’re not allowed to walk away from me!”

She whirled around. “Yes, I am!” she shouted back. “Because you’re not my father!”

Then she shoved through the door and back outside, slamming it shut. She waited for a few seconds, listening, but he didn’t follow her. She’d taken the cheapest, meanest shot that she could think of because she hadn’t wanted him to follow her. Now that it had worked, she felt terrible. She just felt terrible, about everything, all the things, and now she was alone and the sun was setting, and soon the lamps would flicker on and the night would sink in. And then the night would end, and the sun would rise once more, and her father would kill Max.

Her father had told the rest of the carnival to bed down early and stay inside their trailers and tents, to secure themselves and be ready for anything. So the carnival was quiet and dark, empty in the way that Kat usually loved. When it was like this, she took special pleasure in climbing to the top of the Ferris wheel and sitting, watching the sky and the horizon, and living in her imagination for a while. But not tonight.

Tonight there was a sense of dread that floated like a hungry ghost through the carnival grounds, touching them all. And Kat knew that the dread would turn swiftly into fear and panic and violence if her father killed Max at dawn. She had to stop it. She had to help him escape the carnival. And she knew she couldn’t do it alone.

After Marcus, D’Orfeo would take precautions in case Kat decided to try and free his newest prisoner. And after she’d openly tried to stop them from hurting him, those precautions would no doubt take the shape of one man: Baptiste. Kat couldn’t get past him without help. And after Max’s escape attempt, Mabel wouldn’t help her. The twins wouldn’t help her.

Kat found herself walking towards the roadies’ camp without really thinking about it, because she only had one ally left in the world who was brave enough to go up against her father. As she walked between the bears’ tents, she saw lights and shadows flickering from within them, roadies sitting up to sniff when they heard her footsteps passing by. Hushed whispers, probably about the scene she’d made over Max when he’d tried to escape. She ignored it. She had no defense for her actions that would satisfy any of them.

Liam’s tent was the largest, and it was lit from within. Kat paused outside it, giving him the chance to catch her scent and make a decision well before she bent down to scratch lightly at the tent door. She waited until she heard his low voice invite her in, and then she unzipped the tent and climbed over the base, right onto a plush carpeting of sleeping bags and blankets.

Liam was propped up on at least five pillows across from the zip door, a book in his lap, and Kat sat down hard on the ground as she took in the sight of him. There were abrasions all over his face and he was very pale, his dark eyes glassy, probably from painkillers Mabel had given him. His wide, square jaw was unshaven and his arm was in a sling. Kat noted, with quiet sadness, that he certainly did not have a left hand anymore.

“Hi,” she said quietly.

He gave her a tired smile. “I’m going to be fine, Kit Kat.”

She felt her eyes burn with a fresh round of impending tears, but she sniffed and tried to hold them back. “I’m really glad you will be.”

“Takes more than a few dumb wolves to do me in.”

She gulped down a breath. “He’s going to kill the one I caught. At dawn, Liam. He’s just going to kill him.”

“I heard.” Liam frowned. “Most people seem to think it’s a good idea.”

“Those people are cold-hearted, or they haven’t thought it through, or they don’t understand.” She wound her hands together. “Liam, I don’t want him to kill that wolf. I don’t want the wolf to die and I don’t want my father killing him. You have to help me.”

Liam’s expression changed swiftly, from confusion to astonishment. “You want me to help you turn him loose.”

She nodded. “In exchange, I’ll get him to talk his pack into
negotiating
so there’s no more bloodshed. It’s stupid! We’re not even going to stay in their territory! We can make them understand that. I don’t want more fighting or more death, I just want it all to stop.”

Liam was looking at her strangely. “You care about the wolf.”

She felt like her stomach and her heart were having a boxing match inside her. She nodded. “Yes. I don’t know. I don’t know why. He said I was beautiful.”

Liam bared his teeth. “You are, but I don’t like that he was saying such things to you.”

“He said he wouldn’t hurt me,” Kat insisted. “And I believe him.”

“Kat—”

“Liam, I’m not a kid anymore. And I know that I’m not a
shifter
, but I can’t be wrong for wanting to stop all the fighting, I can’t be. Look at you. And what happens if you die? What happens if my father dies? The carnival will die with you.”

Liam gazed back at her, his black eyes glimmering with thoughts she couldn’t read. A long moment of silence stretched between them, and just as she inhaled a breath to launch into the next phase of her argument, he held up his good hand, cutting her off.

“Two conditions,” he said softly.

She nodded. “Anything.”

“Firstly, when your father asks, you cop to having done this.” He arched his eyebrows. “And secondly, you set him free, and then he leaves, and you have nothing further to do with him.”

Kat’s heart officially got KO’d by her stomach. But she nodded. Because whatever she was feeling for Max had to take a backseat. Her focus now was on saving his life. “I promise. To both those things.”

“I’ll back you up,” Liam assured her. “When it comes to your father, I’ll back you up.”

“Thank you, Liam.”

He nodded, knocking the book from his lap, and began the awkward struggle of trying to find his feet with only one working arm. Kat hurried forward and helped him up, then out of the tent altogether. He leaned on her as they passed between the other tents, and he bent his head to hers.

“I’ll distract Baptiste. That’s all I can do right now. How are you going to get the cage open?”

Kat winced and then admitted, “I may have had Dad’s keys copied when we stopped at that little town outside Charlotte.”

Liam blinked and stared down at her. “His head is going to explode when he figures that out.”

“Hopefully, he won’t.”

Liam snorted. “Yeah, hold on to that hope, honey.”

Kat helped Liam deeper into the carnival, towards the lane of cages. Once they got close, he took his arm from her shoulders and gave her back a pat. “You’ll only have minutes. I can distract him, but this is some serious shit. So hurry up.”

Kat nodded and then, after a moment’s hesitation, she stepped in and hugged Liam, being careful of his wounded arm. “You’re the best,” she whispered. “Thanks.”

“
Hurry
,” he said again, and then he started to slowly make his way around the corner and down the lane, his movements stiff and clearly pained. Kat watched him and then hurried to the carnival’s perimeter to sneak along the edge and then over to the cage lane from behind.