Free Half a Dose of Fury by Zenina Masters

Chapter One
     
     
    Yval crept silently through the compound; her dark fur kept her from standing out in the shadows as she moved into position.
    The orgy inside the main building was putting scents in the air that she was going to have to flush out of her nose. The fey that had joined her team were producing a barrier around the party room. Yval wasn’t sure how she felt about hunting fey with elves watching her back.
    When the barrier was set, she got a signal and the shifters moved in with the fey at their sides.
    Yval crept into the room and watched shifters in collars flinching away from the attentions of their fey lovers. She did her party trick and kept her body shifted while her head went human.
    “Enough! All shifters move to one side, and all fey put your hands in the air.”
    The master of the party was reclining with a woman who rolled to the side as rapidly as she could. He scowled at her. “Who are you, what are you and why are you at this party? You were definitely not invited, all fur.”
    “Nice. This isn’t even the ninth time I have heard that. Get up, Stealik. Do not make me tell you again.”
    He moved suddenly, and Yval was ready for it. She ran her clawed hand up his naked abdomen, shifted her head into her half-form and put her teeth around his throat. He froze in her grip as her teeth dug in; she leaned forward and took him to the ground.
    “Hunter Maddox, you can let him go. I believe he has learned his lesson.” Fey Hunter Arrowheart put his hand on her shoulder.
    She snarled and released her target, shifting to human and spitting out the fey blood. “I hope so. Next time, I go into the gut and I make a wish.”
    The ancient noble looked into her eyes, and she smiled. It was not a nice smile.
    Stealik held his hand to his bleeding throat. “I surrender to my people and their laws.”
    Arrowheart flipped him over to his stomach and cuffed him with wide silver bands. “That is too bad. The Shifter Guild has jurisdiction over this. By the treaty signed at the Crossroads, you are under arrest for the unlawful confinement and restriction of shifters for sexual or entertainment purposes.”
    Yval looked down at him and his shocked expression. “Asshole.”
    Arrowheart hauled him to his feet and pushed him toward the door where the six other fey were lining up.
    Yval went to the shifters and unclasped their cuffs and collars. She found them fabric to drape around their nakedness, and they left the building before the fey were allowed to move.
    Yval half shifted and guarded the prisoners as the survivors were escorted to a medical facility for treatment and assessment.
    Stealik’s bleeding had gotten sluggish, and if he didn’t get proper healing, he would bear those marks until he died. She felt her lips curve in a pleased snarl as she imagined how he would feel about that.
    It had been painful to have magic bonded into her bite, and it had also cut her off from her beast. She could wear her devil on the outside of her skin, but the bitchy little critter wasn’t speaking to her; the magic had ticked her off.
    When she had gotten the magic embedded in her body, it had been a decision made in fury and loss. Her cousin Nara had been one of the victims of the lion shifters using other shifters as fuel for spell supplies. She had not been thinking of a future when she had gone to the purveyor of dark magic. She had wanted the power to leave her mark, and he gave it to her. The loss of full use of her beast was the price.
    Three years later and she was still getting used to it.
    Outside, the transporters were plying their trade, and when the final victim was safe, the fey were herded outside for their movement to the guildhall for processing.
    “Hunter Maddox, are you ready to leave?”
    Arrowheart was as graceful as the rest of his species and very handsome. If she was something else, or someone else, she would definitely make a play for him. As it was, he was a co-worker, an elf who had her