Bite: A Shifters of Theria Novel Read Online Free PDF

they don’t make any soap for that.
     
    That lingering smell keeps Freddie’s face at the forefront of my mind—his gym-toned abs, his presumably steroid-enhanced pecs, that big, hard throbber between his legs. Ugh—and all of those tattoos—those stupid prison-style tattoos that he think make him look so tough.
     
    I can still hear his voice. “Wanna suck my dick?” his voice echoes inside of my head—the sleazy piece of shit. I watch the steam rise up from my shower and wonder if it’s from the water or my blood.
     
    I’m turning into a sociopath. Hitting Freddie over the head with the motel lamp was far too satisfying. Watching that smirking idiot slump over the edge of the bed brought me the first glimmer of joy I’ve had in days—maybe even years.
     
    How much money is in that leather bag?
     

     
    I grudgingly end my shower and retrieve Freddie’s bag, which sits in a puddle at my front door. I forgot how heavy the bag was, grunting as I lift it from the floor and drop it down on my bed.
     
    Open it, Olivia. I’m afraid the bag won’t have any money in it at all—full of nothing but condoms, a Frisbee, and a stack of shitty-tattoo magazines.
     
    There’s cash inside of the bag. What a relief. I turn the bag upside down and dump its contents onto my bed. Only a few bundles of cash and a bunch of small velvet sacs fall out, and rattle as if full of coins.
     
    What the hell? Who gambles in small change?
     
    Coins fill the bags—but not any coins I’ve ever seen. They’re heavy, chunky things, with no inscribed value anywhere on them—just a bunch of blank, useless golden coins. Even it is real gold, it probably isn’t worth much. When my grandma died, my dad took all of her jewellery and sent it to one of those “dollars for gold” services. I think he only got something like forty bucks for all of it.
     
    In the few stacks of cash, there’s ten grand. Ten thousand measly dollars—half of which was mine to begin with. I went through all that shit for five grand? I almost slept with that creep for a few months’ rent?
     
    The morning sun begins bleeding into my little apartment. I stash the cash in my closet and return the velvet sacs to the leather messenger bag. I’ve spent enough time and energy with this bum deal. I’m ready to cut my losses and get some sleep.
     

     
    I wake up feeling like crap. As my alarm goes off, I try to remember whether I even fell asleep at all. The complete lack of strength in my legs suggests not.
     
    On my way to work. I stop at the No Hold Gold on Main Street. The twenty-four hour security guard nods his tired head at me as I enter. I nod my tired head back.
     
    Inside, there’s an old Filipino man working behind a thick pane of glass. Walking in, I expect the place to smell like a bank—that chemical money and leather smell. Instead, it smells like a bottle depot—like cheap beer and sour milk. The Filipino man doesn’t seem to notice the foul odour.
     
    He stares at the pile of chunky golden coins and scratches the small patch of hair still on his head. He scrapes the pile onto a scale and scribbles some illegible numbers down on a scrap piece of paper.
     
    “It’s gold, right?” I ask, breaking the silence.
     
    “Hm, yes. There’s gold in there. Not much, but some.” His voice is surprisingly high-pitched, considering how slow he speaks. His face is very expressive. One moment his eyes are wide, and the next, his eyebrows are pinched together. “I can give you five hundred,” he finally says.
     
    “Five hundred? That’s it? There has to be fifty pounds of gold there.”
     
    “There’s less than one pound of gold. The rest, I think, is palladium.” Palladium? What the hell is palladium?
     
    “You’re telling me all of that is only worth five hundred?”
     
    The Filipino man is silent for a moment. “Value of gold is low right now.” He takes a full five seconds to say the word low. “For us to sell, we have to melt it