Bitten 2 Read Free Page A

baseball cap while brown eyes squinted at me accusingly behind a pair of oval glasses. He couldn’t have been more than 21.
    How can someone so young be filled with so much hate?
    “God hates fangs!” He almost bounced with zealous energy, his eyes shining with hate fueled conviction.
    “Yeah? Well, I’m sure he doesn’t like hate-mongering douche bags much either,” I replied, baring my teeth in the beginnings of a snarl.
    I could feel the wolf floating up out of the darkness, all too happy to teach those idiots a lesson, and had to exert far more effort than I would have liked to keep her at bay. The burning itch in my eyes signaled their shift from human greyish-blue to gold, and I watched with a flicker of amusement as the fanatic waving his sign at me recoiled, horror-stricken.
    “Werewolf!” He pointed a shaking finger at me. From the way he reacted, anyone would think I’d sprouted a second head or belched a swarm of locusts. A smirk curved my lips when he crowed his warning again, but my amusement quickly withered as the cry of “Werewolf!” spread through the group like wildfire. Before I knew it, the protesters were glaring and waving their signs in my direction, all while shouting insults.
    “Beast of Satan!”
    “Flesh not fur!”
    “Not blessed, just cursed!”
    Biting my tongue, I shouldered my way through the crowd, “accidently” shoving a few of them aside with a well-placed elbow. A smug smile tugged at my lips as they stumbled over one another in an attempt to get out of my way. None of them moved to come after me, but the volley of shouted insults followed me all the way to the entrance of the club.
    Stepping up to the door, I dug my I.D. out of my pocket and handed it over to the doorman. If it hadn’t been for the unmistakable dry and musty stink of the undead that wafted off him in a noxious cloud, I might have mistaken the great hulking behemoth manning the door for a mountain troll rather than a vampire. Then again, the smell of a mountain troll would have been enough to clear the streets for a three block radius. Personal hygiene was not high on their list of priorities.
    Topping out somewhere just under seven feet tall, he was easily one of the largest men I’d ever seen. Broad shoulders strained against the fabric of his black t-shirt emblazoned with the club’s logo, looking like even the smallest flex of his muscles would reduce it to shreds. The bulging muscles of his shoulders flowed up into a neck as thick and solid as a tree trunk. The neon glow from the sign above the door gleamed on the skin of his bald head, accentuating his deathly pallor and the creepy milky white of his eyes that alternated between tracking my approach and keeping a watchful eye on the protesters.
    “Dancer auditions were last night,” he said in a gruff monotone, baring fangs in a smile that didn’t come remotely close to reaching his colorless eyes. His surly manner instantly made me feel that he deserved some kind of nickname, and I decided that Chuckles was the most appropriate.
    Baring my own canines I said, “I’m here to see Cordova.”
    Brows as hairless as the rest of his head knit into a disbelieving frown. “Do you have an appointment?”
    Huffing in irritation I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the business card that had been included with the employment documents couriered over earlier that day. The back of the card bore Chrismer’s flowing script indicating the date and time of my appointment with Cordova. Plucking the card out of my fingers, Chuckles peered at it closely, the crease between his eyes remaining firmly in place.
    Reaching down to thumb a button on a small device clipped to his belt, he turned his head away to say something in a hushed voice. He spoke in such a low and rapid whisper that even with my wolf hearing I couldn’t figure out what he was saying. After a moment he turned to me and handed back the card.
    “The Shepherd is expecting you.”
    No