The Deadliest Bite Read Online Free

him and Vayl. For now.
    Jack growled menacingly and began to approach the man, his fur standing on end so that he looked like the miniature bear he sounded most like when he vocalized.
    The gun wavered as the man said, “You tel that dog to stop, or I wil shoot it.”
    “No, Jack,” I said. “Sit.”
    He came to an unhappy stop beside me. Once again I stood staring at my ultimate end.
    Because my Spirit Guide had informed me that my body couldn’t take another rise to life. If this scumbag capped me, I’d be done. And I so wasn’t ready.
    I said, “I don’t know you. And I thought I’d pegged al of our enemies. You’re not a werewolf.
    You’re not Vampere. You’re definitely no pro.”
    His eyebrows went up. So. He hadn’t been told about our work. Baffling. Stil , whoever picked him had chosen wel . Amateurs occasional y succeeded where professionals failed because they were unpredictable. And motivated. This one definitely had his reasons for being here. I could see it in the way his eyebrows kept twitching down toward his nose. He was a time bomb ready to blow everyone in the room to bloody bits.
    He raised the gun. Uh-oh. While I’d been thinking, so had he. And it looked like he’d made a decision. “You need to walk away from that vampire,” he said.
    “No.”
    He pushed the revolver toward me, to make sure I understood he could pul the trigger. “I’m not playing. I wil kil you if that’s what it takes to smoke him.”
    “Doesn’t matter. I’l die if you do that anyway.”
    The remark confused him. Upset him. This isn’t a bad man, but damn, something has pushed him way past his limit . I watched his finger tighten on the trigger. I said, “Don’t. Dude, you’l be kil ing a federal agent. They put you in jail forever for that kind of shit.”
    “Jail?” He laughed, his voice rising into girl-land as he said, “I’m already in hel .” Which was when I knew there was nothing I could say to divert him. I looked down at Jack, touched the soft fur on the top of his head in farewel . Glanced over my shoulder at Vayl, only long enough for the pain to lance through my heart.
    I could pul on him, make my final moments an epic shootout. But Jack could get hurt in the crossfire, and I’d never forgive myself if that happened. “Get it over with then.”
    “NOT SO FAST!!”
    I slammed my hands over my ears, though I was pretty sure the voice came from inside my head until I saw that the intruder was wincing and wiping blood from his earlobes as wel .
    The floor started to shake. Jack yelped and tried to hide between my legs as the polished pine floorboards between me and the intruder began to splinter and the fiery outline of an arched doorway pushed itself up from the basement below.
    “Wel ,” I whispered to my dog. “This is new.”
    I was pretty sure the intruder couldn’t see the plane portal rising to stand between us. Most humans never did. But he did get a load of the five-by-six-foot gap developing in the floor. And when Raoul seemed to step out of thin air, I didn’t blame him for needing to sit down. Which he did. On a plush, round-cushioned chair that was currently covered with wood chips.
    My Spirit Guide recovered Vayl’s attacker’s weapon so easily I felt a little stupid that I’d ever been paralyzed by it. Maybe I was getting soft in my old age. Maybe seeing Vayl halfway dead had freaked me out more than I should’ve let it.
    Raoul reversed the gun and lightly tapped the intruder on the forehead with it. “Wrong choice, Aaron. And I thought you knew better.” He lifted the back of his jungle camouflage jacket and stuck the .38 in the waistband of his matching pants as Aaron tried to get his face to stop twitching. Raoul regarded him quietly for a while and then turned to face me. “Stop trying to get yourself kil ed. Even the Eminent agreed with me on this one. It isn’t your time yet.” the Eminent agreed with me on this one. It isn’t your time yet.”
    “I