Free Tarnished by Rhiannon Held Page B

the rest for the human. He frowned and shook his head, but Silver started to pull away, so he gave in as he opened the minivan’s side door and handed her up inside.
    “It doesn’t have to be a silver bullet to kill a werewolf,” he explained. “Head shots are generally lethal.” As he knew from experience, but he wasn’t going to mention that. He’d executed Sacramento’s son that way. The Were stigma against guns aside, it had been the cleanest death he could offer the man. European claims about their favored beheading with a silver sword being quick and clean were so much bullshit. The guillotine had been necessary for a reason. “Or enough shots in a row can soak through our ability to heal another injury without rest and food.”
    Andrew scooted into the first row of seats beside Silver. The cut on her temple had stopped bleeding so he lifted her arm first to run his hand along it. She winced when he neared purpling finger marks at her wrist, but otherwise she showed no pain.
    Silver made a token effort to fend him off. “I’m fine.” She submitted to his touch after that, letting it calm them both down. He could feel her heartbeat pounding under her skin.
    The sound of Susan talking to John carried into the minivan. “No, Silver’s the one who got hurt. I was just stunned. I’ll have a goose egg there later, I guess.” The passenger door opened and slammed, though John stayed outside, probably to wait for the patrol. Susan knelt up on the seat to look back at them. “Is she okay?”
    Andrew shook his head. “She heals like a human.” Silver braced when he started to slide a hand down her back. He rolled up her top and growled at the ugly spread of the bruise he found low on her back. It was huge. Silver snapped her teeth at him when his fingers just brushed it. He took his hands away immediately and kissed the back of her neck in apology.
    Silver’s injuries cataloged, Andrew returned to the cut. He started by licking his thumb to clean away the blood, but that was inefficient and he switched to licking it directly. Silver’s heart slowed.
    Then the stupid human made some noise, maybe shock, maybe disgust, and Andrew realized that he’d let his exhaustion in the wake of fear for Silver make him slip into behavior unacceptable to humans. He raised his eyebrows at Susan, daring her to make a comment. She shrank back.
    Silver hit him. “Leave her alone. She called you all here quickly, didn’t she? She did well. Otherwise Sacramento might have had much more time alone with me to craft his ‘message.’”
    “If one of us had been with you instead, you wouldn’t have been in that situation at all.” Andrew smoothed Silver’s hair away from the cut again, even though it hadn’t fallen forward in the last few seconds. “Silver—” Words deserted him as the fear surged up again in a dozen mental pictures of what could have happened. “I’m sorry…”
    “You bear the marks of my enemies,” Silver murmured, and rested a hand on his chest for a moment. “You don’t control your enemies either.”
    The rest of the pack returned from their sweep of the area. One peeled off to drive Susan’s car home, and the rest piled into the van, except for the beta, who hesitated at the side door. Pierce cultivated a very pretty image to go with his slimness, one lock of dark, wavy hair dangling over his eyes, but his face was clouded now with annoyance. He added another couple finger marks to the crushed padding at the side of the first row of seats as he hoisted himself into the back. In the normal course of things, he should have been riding shotgun unless John specifically invited Andrew or Silver to join him. Susan had nowhere near the rank necessary for that position in the vehicle. There must be a standing order that the pack wasn’t supposed to call Susan on that kind of thing—Andrew couldn’t imagine that Pierce would have swallowed it otherwise.
    As John climbed in and started up the van,