Once Bitten (An Anya Maynard Novel)

Chapter Thirteen

I was gasping in pain by the time Brad set me on the foyer floor, lightheaded because I couldn’t tell if my lungs were working any longer. It isn’t something one normally has to think about doing, breathing, but these weren’t normal circumstances.  I wasn’t just thinking, I was panicking because all sense had been lost to me. Everything except the suffocating heat as the effects of the silver traveled through my body.

Nearly Brad’s entire group had followed us out of the surveillance room with weapons drawn. Only a select few stayed, their eyes glued to the screen as they tracked that wolf’s progress down the mountainside.

“Let me go!” I could hear Jess struggling from somewhere behind me, “She’s dying!”

Clenching my teeth I managed to move just enough that I could put her in my sights again. It wasn’t more than a subtle twist of my body but I cried out from the pain. Nikko had one firm hand wrapped around her bicep, Jess beating uselessly against his in an effort to get him to let her go. At my cry her frightened face turned to me, her eyes begging me to tell her what to do when Brad walked up to her with open arms.

“Oh my Jessie, I told you, she’ll be fine,” his tone was all reassurance.

And I didn’t believe a bit of it.

Through my pain I felt a flittering of satisfaction when Brad’s head snapped to the side, Jess slapping him and spitting in his face. “Fine like me?” she said furiously.

I felt so proud.

The feeling was only short-lived because Brad’s face turned dark, returning Jess’s favor he backhanded her before snatching her roughly by the back of her neck away from Nikko.

“You don’t believe me, babe,” he growled and held his free hand out behind him, “Then why don’t I show you how fine she is?” His hand wasn’t empty for long as one of his guards pressed a pistol into palm, in one movement he cocked the pin back and pressed it into Jess’s stomach. “Of course this might hurt you a little more since you’re not as strong as your dog.”

Before I could utter any protest, before Brad could pull the trigger, the front doors shook violently. A large something hitting against them with a crack.

Nikko strolled to one of the gabled windows, pushing aside the curtain with the muzzle of his gun. “Well whattaya know,” he joked, “the old man still has the decency to knock.”

“Get ready boys,” Brad smiled and tossed Jess to the floor beside me, discarding her as if she was nothing, “I don’t imagine he’s going to be too happy.”

To her credit she didn’t hesitate, she crawled right over to me and lifted my head, one hand going back to my stomach. I really didn’t deserve someone as selfless as her in my life. “Anya, oh god, what can I do?”

The doors shuddered for a second time before I could answer, dust sprinkling down from the stone archway as the threshold tried to pull out. The only one not distracted by this was my own wolf. She was writhing in pain as much as I was, maybe more.

Get it out, she pleaded in my head. Get the silver out of me!

I couldn’t have agreed more.

“The bullet,” I slurred through clenched teeth, “Jess you’ve got to get it out!”

She looked hesitantly to my stomach, peeling her hand up just enough to look at the hole. “Are you sure? I mean, won’t that hurt more?”

I shook my head in a jerky movement, “No. No I’ve lost feeling, please Jessie just do it!”

Her chest heaved as she inhaled deeply, her gaze moving around us quickly to see if anyone was paying attention to us. They weren’t. They were too concerned about the growling monster on the other side of the door. Jess turned back to me, tears ready to break their banks again as she pushed my blood soaked shirt aside. “I’m sorry,” she whispered and then drove two fingers inside my wound.