Night of the Tiger (Hades' Carnival) Read Online Free PDF

past dusk, and the stars were starting to twinkle in the night sky. The air was crisp and clean, as it can be only in the fall of the year. It was early October. The time of year she loved the most.
    It had been a week since she’d had her last nightmare, for which she was eternally grateful. She’d certainly dreamed since then, but her latest dream had taken on a different tone entirely.
      “Come on, Aimee. We don’t want to miss any of the fun.” Sandra was already several steps ahead, leading Aimee toward the bright lights and sounds of the carnival.
    Even she had to admit that it was impressive for a traveling show. They’d parked their trucks and vehicles around the perimeter of the field, using the natural barrier of the woods to surround the fairgrounds. A ticket booth stood at the entrance beneath a brightly lit marquee that proclaimed it to be SHADE’S CARNIVAL .
    As she watched, the red lights flickered and, for a moment, the lights that made up the first S and the apostrophe went dark. Aimee blinked as she read the sign again. HADES CARNIVAL . A shiver ran down her spine, and she stopped dead in her tracks. People continued to move around her, heading to the ticket booth to purchase tickets for the rides and attractions. The S and apostrophe suddenly lit up again, and the moment was past.
    “Must be bad bulbs.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, glad she’d worn a heavy sweater over her long-sleeved shirt. Even though the days were still relatively warm, the nights cooled off quickly here in the mountains.
    Following the crowd, she tried to ignore the sidelong glances she received from some of the townspeople. Even after all these years, she was self-conscious about the faint scars that traced over the left side of her face. Aimee nodded to some folks and said hello to others. They returned her greeting, but then they all looked away. None of them stopped to speak.
    A miracle. That’s what she was. A miracle. Or so the doctors had said. By rights, she should have died in the crash with her parents. She’d been in a coma for several weeks and everyone had given up hope of her ever coming out of it. Then suddenly, one morning she’d opened her eyes and spoken to the nurse hovering over her. She could still remember the poor woman’s cry of surprise.
    Maybe the accident had been the catalyst for her nightmares. Not surprising in view of everything she’d been through. Most would say that her bad dreams were normal considering she’d lost both her parents in one split second. But it went much further than that. She’d begun seeing creatures that shouldn’t exist. They haunted her sleeping hours and the dim recesses of her mind.
    She supposed she should be grateful. Setting those images on paper had led to her getting a job she loved. Something good had come from something bad. A trade-off of sorts.
    Her dreams were almost all sinister, except for the ones with the white tiger. Just the thought of the great beast made her smile. She’d dreamed of the tiger for a long time, starting when she was still in the hospital all those years ago.
    Huge and deadly and beautiful, the tiger came to her when she was most afraid, offering silent comfort in her sleep. They couldn’t communicate in words, but Aimee sensed the connection that existed between them, and she was glad for it. It gave her a break from the constant barrage of disturbing images that constantly troubled her sleep. She always awoke after one of her tiger dreams feeling not quite so alone in the world.
    The tiger dreams were the only regular dreams she had that weren’t nightmares. That is until last night.  
    A shiver went down her spine, but this one wasn’t due to fear or unease. No, this one had everything to do with that particular dream. It had been unlike any she’d ever experienced before.
     
    He came to her from out of the darkness, a vision of potent, raw masculinity. Incredibly tall and broad, he strode toward the end