bedeviled & beyond 07 - beset & bewildered Read Online Free PDF

I’d been expecting fangs. “My people are being assassinated. One by one. And I need your help to find out who it is and stop them. I tried investigating it myself but...” She sighed. “Someone doesn’t want me to find them.”
    “They sicced a ’goyle on you,” Slayer guessed.
    Caninra nodded.
    I frowned. “Obviously you’ve been negotiating with the King and Queen. Why don’t you just ask them for help?”
    Her bright brown eyes flashed orange for just a beat. So quickly I wasn’t even sure I’d seen what I thought I saw. “I cannot.”
    Slayer leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. All business. “Why not? Astra and Dialle have a lot more resources and power than we do.”
    The hound keeper’s elegant fingers twined together at her waist and she moved her feet as if she was thinking about resuming her pacing. I hoped she didn’t. All that pacing was setting my nerves on edge. “Just tell us,” I urged softly.
    She left off biting her lip and sighed. “I cannot go to your sister and her king for help because...” She straightened her shoulders, looking me right in the eye. “It is because of them that my people are dying.”
    I opened my mouth and then closed it because I didn’t know what to say. My instinct, amazingly, was to defend my sister. But nobody knew better than I what Astra was capable of. And she certainly hadn’t seemed happy to see my guest. “Explain.”
    Wringing her hands, Caninra commenced to pacing. She was apparently a very nervous breed of dog. Slayer and I swung our heads in sync, trying to keep her in view. “The recent shakeups in the ruling hierarchy, here and in the Hell environs, have put my hounds at a distinct disadvantage.”
    “How so?” I asked.
    She snapped me a quick glance. “Isn’t that obvious?”
    “Apparently not to me.”
    Though she seemed disgusted by my lack of knowledge, she went on. “For millennia our loyalties have been to the king of the devils. As the ruler of Hell, he’s made use of our skills against his enemies and, as such, has taken great pains to see to our breeding and care.”
    I wrinkled my nose. “Breeding?”
    Slayer threw up a hand. “Hold on. I thought you were queen of the hounds. Can’t you rule them on your own?”
    “ Technically I am, as Queen Astra so crassly put it, a keeper of sorts. But when we lost Dialle the First we were in disarray, aimless. I thought stepping up as leader would help.”
    “Why is Astra’s observation crass,” I asked very reasonably. “If that’s what you are?”
    She made a disgusted noise with her lips. “What I am,” she fairly growled, “Is the highest placed of all of the hounds. My family is one of only a handful that can shift from hound to human. I am a rare breed of Hellhound, to be respected for my royal birth. I am also an advocate for the species. A protector. A benefactor.” She tossed her thick mane of midnight hair. “Hellhounds have a deep and rich tradition of serving the royals. They’ve spilled blood, given their lives, charging into danger without thought in the protection of those who rule all the dark world. They are deserving of admiration.” Her lip curled. “They do not need to be ‘kept’.”
    Yeesh! Sensitive much? I said to Slayer.
    Prickly like a Martian spike apple , he responded.
    She eyed us as if she knew what we were thinking, staring long enough to make me shuffle my feet with embarrassment. “Okay, so I get it. When Astra and Dialle removed the previous king and potential queen, they upset your apple cart,” I said. “So why don’t you just declare allegiance to the new king and queen and Viola ! All is right again.”
    A soft rumble emerged from her delicate throat. “And here I thought your sister was the stupid one.”
    “Hey!” I straightened, letting my own growl throb between us. Unfortunately mine came from my stomach. All that talk about apples had gotten my empty belly to thinkin’. “Insulting me