Born to Bite Read Online Free PDF Page A

must have experienced to have come at her with a knife when she hadn’t done a thing to threaten him meant that to wipe the memory and keep it wiped, Paul would never be able to see either her or Lucian, or even this kitchen again without risking that memory’s return. There was even a chance that seeing Armand framed in a doorway could spark the memory and bring it back to life. Paul Williams had to be sent away to ensure the memory didn’t return.
    “I will handle Mr. Williams,” Lucian announced. “You have a calving cow in trouble to deal with.”
    Armand hesitated, and then nodded grimly. “Paul was bunking in the smaller house behind this one. The furniture stays, but everything else is his and will have to be packed onto his pickup. I’ll go write a generous severance check for him and drop it off to you at the house on my way back out to the barn.”
    Lucian glanced to Eshe. “Put away the blood and then meet me at the manager’s house.”
    Eshe nodded but then simply stood and watched as Armand turned and headed up the hall. Once he was gone, Lucian focused his attention on her and said, “When he comes back, I want you to try to read him.”
    Eshe frowned, but Lucian then marched Armand’s now ex–day manager out of the kitchen, and she moved around the island to continue with the work he’d started, retrieving bags of blood and stacking them in the mostly empty refrigerator. She was quick about the task, eager to get out to the house, get the manager on his way, and start this new job.
    Eshe was an enforcer and had been for some time. She hunted rogue vampires, finding their nests, capturing them and usually bringing them back to the Council for judgment. Although there had been the odd job Lucian led where the rogue had already been judged and there was no need to go to the trouble of bringing him back at all, alive or otherwise. Those jobs were usually fast-paced and brutal. However, this job wasn’t going to be anything like that. This was going to be more brainpower than muscle, and she had to take her time, ask the right questions, and follow the right leads. She just hoped she found the answers that would cause the least pain to everyone involved. She didn’t want to fail to find any answers at all, or find the ones they didn’t want and be the reason Nicholas Argeneau was executed.
     
    Armand gave the cow a reassuring pat on the side as she licked and cleaned her new calf. He was surprised she had the energy. It had been a hard birth. The calf had gotten itself turned around and tangled in the umbilical cord. For a while there he thought he wouldn’t be able to correct the situation in time to save the calf. There had even been a moment or two when he’d worried for the mother, but he’d managed to get the calf turned and all had worked out in the end.
    Straightening, he stripped off the rubber gloves he’d donned to try to turn the calf and glanced at his wristwatch, grimacing when he saw the time. It was just after midnight. It had been only a couple of hours since he’d come back out to the barn. It felt like it had been at least twice that. In fact, he was a little surprised to walk out of the barn into a starry night rather than predawn light.
    His eyes moved to the manager’s house first. He wasn’t surprised to see that the lights were out. In the short time it had taken him to walk to his office earlier, find his checkbook—which admittedly had taken a couple of minutes, Armand was always misplacing the thing—write a check, and carry it out to the manager’s house, Lucian had already gotten Paul there and had him half packed up. While Lucian himself had been working at the increased speed their people were capable of, he was also controlling Paul and making him work almost as quickly.
    Armand suspected they’d probably gotten the task done and Lucian had seen Paul off while he was still trying to calm the cow so he could help her. No doubt Lucian had been sitting around