Free Bitten to Death by Jennifer Rardin Page A

his coat, and then spent another minute trying to load up the stuff I’d dumped on him.
    I waited for him to disappear inside the villa, then I checked out the keys I’d lifted from his jacket pocket. Hey, it wasn’t in my nature to leave myself without wheels.
    While I listened to the music of the Range Rover rolling Kozma away from imminent danger, I noted that one set of keys belonged to the minibus I’d seen parked just outside the garage. A couple looked like house keys. One might’ve been to a lockbox or safe. And also hanging from the chain was a remote opener for the garage door.
    Looking back to make sure Rastus had committed himself to his delivery job, I went out the gate and thumbed the remote just enough to allow myself room to crouch down and get a good view of the floor.
    Like Kozma, the wolf had changed. He sprawled in a pool of his own blood as if he meant to swim in it. His lips were still drawn back in a snarl, his fighter’s eyes wide and angry.
    Wait a second. Shouldn’t they be empty? Is this sucker still alive? Can’t be. I don’t feel a presence . . . do I?
    I ducked under the door, closed it, and moved to his side. While I hunted for a pulse I reached out with that extra sense Vayl had been nurturing since day one. There it was, the smell of werewolf, so faint it barely penetrated the vampire din coming from the mansion. And the pulse—also hardly existent.
    “Aw, geez. Now what am I gonna do with you?” I whispered.
    I knew enough about Weres to kill them, and that was about it. So the bullet Rastus had used must’ve been silver. Even if it had gone completely through his body, it had probably left enough residue to cause a fatal poisoning. But Rastus had played it lazy with that single shot. If you want to make sure a Were is dead, you have to cut off his head. Because he’s capable of sending himself into a trance while he tries like hell to heal. Which is what this guy seemed to have done. I supposed that meant he had a chance. If we had a place to stow him. If we could find somebody to draw out the silver and pump in a buttload of antidote.
    I stared around the garage, searching for inspiration.
    A workbench stretched across the far wall. Shelves full of paint, oil, fertilizer, and whatnot filled both sides of the place. A garbage can full of shovels and rakes took up one corner. Other than that—only blood.
    “He must’ve lost half his supply already,” I whispered hopelessly. I was so bummed the Were was going to die I didn’t even blink when a face, that face, appeared again, swimming in his blood. “Great. Just when I think I’m pulling myself out of that pit of blackouts and nightmares that came after—after the Loss. I finally start pulling myself out of that hell and what happens? I go stark raving mad.”
    “I love the mad,” said the face with an anguished smile. “They are so much more interesting than the sane.”
    “Jesus Christ, could you at least not talk to me while I’m losing my mind?”
    The face twisted. “That name is anathema to me. And I am already in enough pain. Can we at least agree that you will abstain from holy references and I will treat you as if you were stable until after we have saved the Were?”
    “Only if you tell me your name.”
    “But I do not know. Every day it seems as if I lose more of myself. Soon there will be nothing left.”
    I could’ve told him he was already little more than narrowed eyes, pitted cheeks, and long drippy fangs protruding from a mass of spilled heart-fluid. But we didn’t have that kind of time. And I wanted the conversation to get saner, not weirder.
    “Okay. I have maybe five minutes until Rastus comes to dispose of this almost-corpse. So. Considering that he’s damn near dead, do you have any idea how to reverse that?”
    “Fresh blood.”
    “I’m not putting anything of mine near his mouth.”
    A breath of annoyance. “As if he could swallow it. No, woman, be direct. I can feel your powers