The Deadliest Bite Read Online Free Page B

deep breath. “I can’t be sure without touching the boy, but I consulted the tarot while he and I were speaking. It points to the same signs the Enkyklios has been showing me. I have to do more research, but—”
    “What are you trying to tel me?”
    “Whatever you do, don’t hurt him,” she repeated, this time in such a sober tone that I looked at him with less anger and more curiosity. Which was why I didn’t shove his head into the wal like I’d been planning to when she said, “I believe that, in another life, he was Vayl’s son.” I stared at the guy, who looked so much younger than me that it was hard not to think of him as a kid. He glared back. And then, al at once, his face crumpled. It was like he’d only brought enough adrenaline with him to get him through fifteen minutes of action. After that the bravado shattered like an old piece of glass. I said, “You’re lucky to be alive.”
    He tried to answer. I could tel he wanted to say something smartass and slightly witty. Instead his jaw dropped and he keeled over, his head hitting the floor with a satisfying clunk .
    I looked at Raoul. “Cassandra says that’s Vayl’s son.”
    Raoul studied the unconscious young man. Then he said, “We should break it to him gently.” CHAPTER TWO
    Wednesday, June 13, 1:30 a.m .
    I sat next to Raoul on the second-to-last step of the main stairs, watching the boy who would be kil er sponge up Vayl’s blood and squeeze it into a bucket of bleach water between bouts of gagging that never quite turned into a pukefest. Soooo satisfying to see him gross out on an aftermath he hadn’t planned for. But not quite enough to leash the urge to impale him on the lance artful y displayed in the corner next to the front-door topiary and the chair Aaron had previously sat down in before he’d fal en and given himself a goose egg right in the middle of his forehead.
    Frankly, I couldn’t wait for him to look in the mirror. I felt it would be the big blue bow on a gift that just kept giving.
    So, for now, I kept one hand buried in Jack’s soft fur, and when the rage rose to heights that felt a little too violent for Aaron’s personal safety, I reminded myself to imagine that goose egg at about three times its current size. I also glanced at Raoul every thirty seconds or so. In life he’d been a Ranger, so at his core he was a fierce fighting man. That was why he’d chosen to battle on into the afterlife. Stil , around that core existed a serenity that calmed me. So just rubbing shoulders with him helped me remember that now was the time to live up to the nickname our department’s warlock, Sterling, had dumped on me, and Chil .
    “What’s he going to do to me?” Aaron asked, trying not to look down the hal but darting his eyes in that direction anyway. He couldn’t see the kitchen door from where he crouched because you had to go through the dining room to get there. Which was a good thing. Better to spook him with his own wild imagination. Let him think Vayl was sharpening up a set of butcher knives, or cal ing in a whole slew of slavering revenants to tear into Aaron like a Christmas turkey. Unless, of course, he spil ed his employer’s name, address, and current Facebook status.
    So Raoul and I just mustered up our most baleful expressions and kept silent on the news that Vayl had taken his massive headache back to the fridge, where he’d found some prepackaged, government-distributed blood to nuke in his favorite coffee cup. Though it would speed healing, what he needed most was a good day’s sleep. Knowing him like I did, I figured that while he ate he’d probably take the servants’ stairs to our room, which had a connecting bath the size of my entire first apartment, where he’d clean up before he came back down. It wasn’t just that he didn’t care to walk around with blood caked behind his ears. Like me, he needed some time to decompress or he would, without even thinking, tear a hole in Aaron’s