Free A Bit of Bite by Cynthia Eden

Chapter One
     
    Two days until Halloween, or, as the not-so-gentle folks in Crossroads, Mississippi, liked to say…two days until hell came calling.
     
    Sheriff Ava Dushaine climbed slowly out of her patrol car. She could smell death in the air. It was a dank scent she’d grown used to since being appointed as a paranormal liaison in the Crossroads area just over six months ago.
     
    Liaison, my ass.
More like watch dog.
She straightened her shoulders, checked her gun, and walked toward the dead body that had been tossed right in the middle of the road. A deliberate position, one that placed half of the body in the territory marked by the werewolves and half in the territory claimed by the vampires.
     
    The deputy who’d followed beside her began to gag as soon as he got a good look at the vic.
     
    “Suck it up, Billings,” she told the young guy, making her voice snap. Ken Billings was too green for this scene. A new transfer in her department, he obviously wasn’t accustomed to the stiffs. If he stayed with her, he would be soon enough.
     
    But this kill…it was particularly brutal. She wanted to recoil from the sight, too, but Ava knew that wasn’t an option for her. Putting on the brave face, yeah, that was her bit. “Call for backup and tell the team we need them out here ASAP.”
     
    Not that backup would do any good for the poor stiff on the ground. His throat had been torn out. His eyes stared in frozen horror, and his lips were parted in a soundless scream of terror.
     
    There’d be no helping him.
     
    Blood soaked the ground beneath his body. There were scratches and deep gouges all along his face and arms. This guy—he’d fought back. Death hadn’t been easy for him.
     
    Jaw clenching, she paced a few feet away. The rising sun looked like a ball of fire in the distance, with streaks of red skating along the sky.
     
    Those streaks looked just like blood in the sky. Blood followed her everywhere these days.
     
    Dammit, this job was getting
old.
     
    She knew the deal. The werewolves waited to the left. The vampires to the right. She’d been doing her best to keep peace between the two factions, and they’d been pretending to follow the rules that the government set up for them when the supernaturals had thrown their big coming out party ten years before.
     
    Stay on your designated land.
     
    Don’t kill humans.
     
    Enjoy only willing prey.
     
    But someone was breaking the rules. This was the third dead body she’d found in a month, and Ava was tired of humans dying on her watch.
     
    She was also tired of having the folks in Crossroads talking almost constantly about the destruction that was waiting for everyone. According to them and their good old gossip mill, the town would be facing a freaking apocalypse come All Hallow’s Eve.
     
    Just what she needed. An impending apocalypse
and
a dead journalist. Because, yeah, she’d recognized the mangled human on the ground. Kyle Powell, investigative journalist. A guy who’d been digging for the wrong story. A guy who
hadn’t
listened to her warnings.
     
    A twig snapped a few feet away from her. Ava didn’t jump and spin toward the sound, but her right hand did rise slowly to curl around the butt of her gun. The problem with all the supernaturals was that they could just move too fast.
     
    “Easy.” His deep, dark voice washed over her and, just like that, werewolf alpha Julian Kasey stood in front of her. The light, woodsy scent that marked his kind clung to him as he towered over her.
     
    But this wasn’t her first ball game. Or monster hunt. Even as Julian closed that last bit of space between them, she shoved the barrel of her gun right at his heart.
     
    Ava offered the handsome wolf a smile. “Do I need to remind you that these bullets are made of silver?” Like she’d really carry anything else.
     
    His face—hard, square jaw, cheekbones sharp enough to cut, and lips that hinted at both cruelty and