Sherrilyn Kenyon - Dark Side of the Moon Read Free

the bones.
    Today was no different. The cat cages were lined along two walls where some of the felines slept while others played, ate, or groomed.
    All except one.
    That one crouched as if ready to kill and it watched everything around it with the sharp intellect of a vicious predator that belied its smaller size. It wasn’t like the others. Only a fool would make that assumption.
    At first glance, it appeared to be a regular Bengal house cat, but if one looked closer, it was obvious that it didn’t hold quite the same facial characteristics that marked the Bengal breed. In fact, it looked just like an Arabian leopard—only it weighed a scant fifteen pounds instead of sixty.
    More than that, its eyes were an eerie shade of black… an unnatural color for such a beast. And if one was really paying attention, they would definitely notice that while the other cats wore plain white collars, this one wore one of silver. It was a very special collar that caught the light and flashed with a preternatural gleam.
    And what made it so special? Certainly not the thinness of its strap or the fact that it had no buckle on it. No. It was the unseen circuitry that ran along the underside of the silver fabric. Circuitry that had been designed to send out inhibitors that couldn’t be felt by man or beast—unless the creature was both man
and
beast.
    A devilish invention by those who wanted some control over the magick of others, this collar kept this particular cat in its current feline form.
    And that seriously pissed the cat off.
    Ravyn hissed as a man ventured near his cage. If he could get out of this, he’d tear the bastard’s arms off and beat him with them. But unfortunately, he couldn’t—that would require him to actually have arms of his own, which in his current form he didn’t possess.
    And it was all his fault. Damn him and his libido anyway. If he’d simply trotted past the sex goddess in the extremely short skirt at dawn, he’d be happily home by now—well, maybe not happily, since he’d have to listen to Erika bitch, but certainly he’d be home in his own bed and not locked in this damned cage.
    What could one little stroking possibly hurt?
    He looked at the bars on the cage and hissed at the apparent answer. Yeah. Ash would have a field day with him on this one.
    Provided he got out of it. As it stood, he wasn’t so sure he was going to make it this time. So long as he wore the collar, his powers as both a Dark-Hunter and a Were-Hunter were seriously restricted. As an Arcadian Were-Hunter, his natural form was human. To be trapped as a cat during the light of day was both painful and extremely disconcerting. Even with the metriazo collar on that inhibited him from using his paranormal powers, there was only so long he could hold this form before his own magick turned on him and killed him.
    It was one frightfully sobering thought.
    “How’s he doing?”
    Ravyn narrowed his eyes on the tall, blond male veterinarian who was an Apollite. As a rule, most Apollites stayed out of the war that raged between the Daimons and the Dark-Hunters. It wasn’t until Apollites started stealing human souls to elongate their short lives and thereby becoming Daimons that Dark-Hunters bothered with them. After all, that was the whole reason Dark-Hunters had been created. They were the ones who killed the Daimons so that the stolen human souls could be released before the Daimon possession destroyed them.
    Obviously this Apollite wanted a head start on being hunted.
    The human assistant, who was a short man around the age of thirty with black hair and a shaggy beard, answered. “He’s pissed and glaring. What else?” He cocked his head as he studied Ravyn from a safe distance. “You think he’s Arcadian or Katagari?”
    The vet shrugged before he bent down to look into the cage. “I don’t know, but I’m hoping for Arcadian.”
    “Why?”
    Ravyn bared his teeth at the prick who smiled in response. “ ‘Cause if he is,