Free Hell's Menagerie by Kelly Gay Page B

was breathless and low, determined, but with a small note of trepidation.
    Rex had a few spotty memories of small faires and festivals in his first life, but nothing like what rose up before him. This was wild, dangerous, and chaotic, a spectacle of fire and darkness, shadows and light.
    Freak shows, menageries, performers . . . Jinn strongmen performed feats. Darkling fae used their thin bodies to twist and bend and tumble on wires strung taut above the square. Some wielded fire and blades. Death matches were advertised outside of the larger tents. In the arena, one could pit oneself against beast or being to win prizes. This wasn’t any carnival the human world would ever allow.
    Ghouls with faces painted white—stark within the frames of their dark cloaks—weaved through the crowd, taunting, advertising,luring spectators. To Rex, their mannerisms and presence seemed more predatory than not.
    Rex stepped closer to Emma. Alert and protective, he scanned the crowd. His thoughts and senses went sharp as his warrior traits surfaced with blinding speed.
    Emma did that to him. Being her protector, her caretaker, did that to him.
    He placed a hand on her small shoulder.
    â€”
    REX’S HAND ON her shoulder pulled Emma out of her awestruck daze. She glanced at him, his profile grim. A muscle flexed in his jaw as he surveyed the crowd. A lump formed in her throat and her heart beat wildly.
    Oh God. She was in so much trouble!
    Her hand shook as she stroked Brim’s neck, his presence helping to calm her and remind her of why she’d come here, why she’d done something so monumentally crazy . . .
    If the League found out she’d used their portal, she’d be expelled from their school. If her mom found out, she’d be expelled from the world forever. Grounded forever. Guilt had a firm, almost painful grip on her chest ever since yesterday.
    Just get in, get out. Save them.
    She knew the pups were here. She knew it because Brim knew it. All she had to do was sink into his thoughts and she could feel what he felt. And right now he was still, almost frozen, as his mind weeded through the sensory overload of the carnival. Through the sights, the scents, the sounds . . .
    He’d find the female and those pups. They were his, after all.
    Emma had visited the mother in the kennel and had gone again when the puppies were born. Three of them. Two males, one female. Three tiny, gray, hairless, short-eared, no-tailed pups withwrinkly skin and thick, heavy bones. One day they’d be as big as tigers, with jaws like pit bulls’ times ten. They were intelligent, loyal, and brave. But wild and deadly and feared. Hellhounds were banned from the human world. If one was found illegally imported or, worse, got loose in her world, it was killed. Her mom had pulled some major strings to get the pregnant hellhound slated for the trip back to Charbydon instead of something worse, and she’d pulled even bigger strings to get Brim an official permit to stay with them under some bogus research K-9–type training allowance.
    Brim hadn’t been allowed in the kennel to see the pups, but the happiness and longing he felt when Emma returned home told her all she needed to know. He couldn’t stop sniffing her. And it broke her heart.
    Honestly, she was scared to death, coming here, putting not only herself but Brim, and now Rex, in danger. But she couldn’t leave Brim’s babies to chance, to the fate she’d learned was awaiting them. And she was afraid if she told Rex or anyone else, they’d prevent her from coming, or not take her seriously, or, worse, wait too long by going through proper channels—the pups and their mother would disappear for sure if that happened.
    Brim had put his life on the line for her mother when Emma asked him to. No hesitation. He gave his all. How could she not do the same for him?
    She might be young, but she knew a lot. She knew