ZeninaMasters
Read our Blog
Home Viola Grace
Categories
  • Books (70)
  • Darkest Star Saga (7)
  • Enchanted Crossroads (0)
  • Four Ever More (8)
  • Nakedella Series (5)
  • New Releases (53)
  • Shifting Crossroads (49)
  • Viola Masters - Dark Tales (1)
Home » Books » Heart's Bandit
Heart's Bandit
+Enlarge Image
Heart's Bandit
Add to Wish List
0 reviews
0 reviews
Write a review
Share
Tweet
More from this series (48)
Owl's Fair
Owl's Fair
Lion Time
Lion Time
Deer Heart
Deer Heart
Dragon Around
Dragon Around
Poisoned Pen
Poisoned Pen
Bearing It
Bearing It
Born Cheetah
Born Cheetah
Ocelot of Trouble
Ocelot of Trouble
Little Prick
Little Prick
2 reviews
Getting Wet
Getting Wet
Christmas Goose
Christmas Goose
Lost Roar
Lost Roar
Vixen's Run
Vixen's Run
Snake Charmer
Snake Charmer
Black and White
Black and White
Spike's Day Out
Spike's Day Out
Misenchanted Shifter
Misenchanted Shifter
Big Flight
Big Flight
Lost Howl
Lost Howl
Batty for You
Batty for You
A Life Less Pink
A Life Less Pink
Flying Fur
Flying Fur
Seeing Spots
Seeing Spots
Snow Time for Love
Snow Time for Love
Snarling at the Moon
Snarling at the Moon
Half a Dose of Fury
Half a Dose of Fury
Hawking a Future
Hawking a Future
Waking Her Tiger
Waking Her Tiger
Roar of Magic
Roar of Magic
Feathers Fur and Fey
Feathers Fur and Fey
Stripes of Fury
Stripes of Fury
Blue Skies on Fire
Blue Skies on Fire
Laughing at Danger
Laughing at Danger
Pathway to Love
Pathway to Love
Butting In
Butting In
Running for Home
Running for Home
Wet and Wired
Wet and Wired
Sealed with a Kick
Sealed with a Kick
Floating Alone
Floating Alone
Flipped Off
Flipped Off
Bright Tail
Bright Tail
Desperately Seeking Starlight
Desperately Seeking Starlight
New Moon Howl
New Moon Howl
Wood Be Magic
Wood Be Magic
Scarlet's Dilemma
Scarlet's Dilemma
Dark Side
Dark Side
Bright Side
Bright Side
Crying Fire
Crying Fire
Description Reviews (0)

Wanting to make her family proud takes a turn when she has to break-in for work, including snagging an elf who roars.

 

 

Karo wants to be in the shifter’s guild, and she wants to be a hunter. With her animal form lacking certain ferocity, she chooses to focus on stealth. Her aunt sets her on a training circuit, and when the time comes, she gets the position of hunter with no hesitation.

Spending her life finding things lost or stolen is her niche, and when she is offered a job while on holiday, she couldn’t imagine what sequence of events are kicked off.

Looking for a lost fey-lion becomes a rescue mission for a flock of shifters and makes her exit a tangle of exposure, desperation, and exhaustion. Karo never thought she would see him again, but the fey are tricky creatures, and she was no longer the predator but the prey.

 

Excerpt:

Karo grabbed the picks she had carefully crafted, and she balanced while she slid the steel into the keyhole. Her hands shook, she inhaled and exhaled slowly and carefully while she felt for the tumblers.

Being two hours out past her curfew had been essential to this part of the process. One couldn’t break-in if one wasn’t locked out.

The first two tumblers clicked easily, and she worked at the third carefully, finally feeling it move into position. Her giggle came out as a hiss, and she continued on to the fourth protrusion inside the lock. It was open. She just needed to turn the knob to open it.

Her small hands gripped the knob, and she twisted. It rattled in her grasp, but she couldn’t turn it. She tried for two minutes, but the slick metal slid against her skin.

She wanted to curse, but she didn’t have any good words. She crossed her arms and tried to think of another option.

The door opened and light spilled over the dark porch. Her cousin smiled and spoke softly. “Come inside, I will put the chair away.”

Karo knew when it was time to give up. She watched her cousin remove the picks from the lock, and then, Karo ran past her and up to her room. Pushing the door shut took a lot of effort, but when she was done, she ran to her bed and burrowed into the sleep shirt that she had left out on the bed.

The shift from raccoon to human was still new enough to hurt, but once she got her arms into the sleeves, she was ready to face her punishment for the nocturnal excursion.

When Delia pushed her door open and flicked the light on, Karo flinched. “Ow.”

“You are lucky that Mom is at the Field’s farm delivering a calf. She wouldn’t have found it as funny as I do.”

Delia handed over the lock picks. “These are cute. Did you make them yourself?”

“Yes. It took a while to get them strong enough but small enough to work in my smaller hands.” Karo flexed her fingers.

“Why did you disobey curfew?”

Karo’s Aunt Laura was standing behind her daughter, her disapproving voice stern and darkly irritated.

Karo looked up at her aunty, and she lifted her chin. “I needed the door locked so that no one would open and lock it again while I was working.”

Her aunt looked her over and held out her hand. “Come with me.”

Karo straightened to the height her fourteen-year-old body could manage, and she took her aunt’s hand, walking past Delia with a guilty shrug.

When they were past the rooms where the other foster kids slept, Karo murmured. “You are home early, Aunt Laura.”

“The calf was cooperative.”

Her aunt didn’t say anything else until they got into her study with the door closed.

“Sit down, Karo.”

Karo had a seat across from her aunt’s position behind her desk.

Her aunt looked at her with dark versions of her own pale green eyes. “Karo, what do you want to do with your life?”

Karo tilted her head. “You have never asked me before.”

“You were late to your first transformation, so I wasn’t sure what world you would end up in. As you are heading to use your fur form more frequently, I think that life in the shifter world will be for you.”

Karo nodded. “I want to be a hunter, like my dad.”

Laura let out a sigh that was part groan. “I thought you would say that. You know, my brother Terrence wasn’t a good hunter.”

Karo stiffened, but she nodded. “I know. My father meant well, but he was still one of the only raccoons in guild service. That is what I want for me. I want to take up a position there, and I want to make it my own. I have been teaching myself skills since I was first able to transform, and now, I want to learn how to use them properly.”

Her aunt leaned back in her chair and tented her fingers. “Were you able to open the door?”

“I was able to unlock it. I couldn’t turn the knob.”

Laura nodded. “When you can open the door on your own, we will talk.”

“Wait. What? You are going to let me do this?”

Laura chuckled. “I am your aunt and your guardian. I am giving you full rein to do what you want as long as your grades don’t suffer and you keep up with your chores. By the way, you are now going to get more chores, as you are training to become something more. The guild demands a lot of you, and you need to be ready to multitask at a moment’s notice. If you are sure that this is what you want, I will start training you.”

“You will train me?”

Laura smiled. “Before I had Delia, I was also involved in the guild. I can get you into shape to pass the exams and tests they will put in your path. You will earn your place to represent our family in the guild, and if you can manage to finish your training to my satisfaction, I will send you on with a clan recommendation.”

Wow. That was huge. A clan recommendation would get her application in front of the hunter council, and she would have a leg up on getting into action.

“When do I start?”

“I will prepare a listing of what you need to do and what form you need to do it in. When you finish the chores in the shapes that I order, you will be ready for the recommendation.”

Karo waited for the answer.

“You start at dawn, and you can’t be late for school. Get some rest.”

Write a review

Your Name:


Your Review: Note: HTML is not translated!

Rating: Bad            Good

Enter the code in the box below:



Continue
Tags: shifters, Shifting Crossroads, Crossroads, elves, fey,
Viola Grace Copyright © 2010-2019 All rights reserved
Web Development by OscWebDev.com