Free The Curse by Sherrilyn Kenyon, Dianna Love Page A

the Svarts, but changed her mind. Until Tristan gave her a reason to share more, he had all he needed to know for now. “But you met up with Webster and Aaron before the sentient fog was released. Where’d you find those two Rías?”
    “Remember when you and I first met? And I was here with the Kujoo?”
    She looked up in a mock show of trying to remember. “Let me think. You mean the very first time in Piedmont Park when you turned Nightstalkers into demented ghouls that attacked me?”
    “ I didn’t change them. The Kujoo warlord did that.”
    “I don’t see the difference since you were working with the warlord.”
    Tristan rolled his eyes. “Do you want to know how I met Webster and Aaron or not?” He waited for her noisy sigh before continuing. “When I got a chance to slip away from the warlord, I was down in the project housing late at night when Webster and Aaron tried to mug me. I didn’t want to hurt them since they were human, but the demented ghouls had followed me and swarmed those two, then Webster and Aaron started shifting.”
    “So maybe it takes an unnatural source of hostility like the sentient fog or aggressive ghouls to cause the Rías to shift.”
    “Maybe.”
    That supported the theory she’d worked out with Quinn. She’d have to let him and Tzader know. “The Rías I know about had no control. They just shifted and killed immediately. What about Webster and Aaron?”
    “They would have, but I shifted into my Alterant beast the minute they changed.”
    Evalle groaned. “VIPER would have gone crazy if they’d heard about that.”
    “Screw VIPER. I can control my beast and I have no doubt you can control yours. The minute I grabbed those two guys and made it clear that I was the dominant beast, they immediately changed back into their human forms, scared shitless.”
    She wasn’t acknowledging or denying that she could control her beast since no one could know that she had fully shifted once. “So fear of something more powerful that forces back their aggression snaps them out of the change?”
    “That’s a possibility,” Tristan said, more to himself than her. “I spent a couple of hours with Webster and Aaron, making them shift back and forth, then explained the danger of being exposed to VIPER agents. Once I believed they could control their shifting, I stuck them in the Maze of Death to hide them.”
    She remembered that place beneath the underground MARTA rail system all too well. “Weren’t you worried a dangerous spirit in there would trigger their change?”
    “Not where I put them. You met the passive spirits in the chamber where I’d left those two.”
    “I also met that crazy spirit with a pitchfork who stabbed you.” But she lifted her hand, stalling any further talk on the Maze. “Back to my original question. How are Rías different from Alterants?”
    “From what I’ve figured out, they have super strength and some weak kinetics, but nothing like an Alterant’s powers.”
    “I beg to differ. I fought one three weeks ago that slammed me with a kinetic punch that knocked me off my feet.”
    “Really? That’s new. Maybe it’s hit or miss on their powers, because I haven’t met one like that.”
    She tucked that into her ongoing mental file on Rías. “What else can you tell me?”
    “Like I said about you and me, I think Alterants can control their beasts from the first time they change, but the Rías seem to immediately turn into aggressive beasts on attack.” Tristan paused. “I think the difference is our blood. We carry Belador blood, but maybe they don’t.”
    Evalle considered everything he said, then argued, “But there were reports of Alterants who shifted and killed, several in the Southeast in the past year.”
    “I heard about those reports ,” Tristan echoed with a heavy dose of accusation. “Who says so? Macha and Brina? But you haven’t witnessed an Alterant turning into a mindless beast, have you?”
    “No.” Much as she