Moon Called Read Online Free PDF Page B

“It gets cold ’round December, even in this desert.”
    I stifled a growl as I tried to determine the best way to help Mac.
    â€œI’m working here,” Mac said, with a gesture at the garage. “If it gets colder, I think she’ll let me sleep in the garage until I find somewhere to live if I ask her.”
    â€œAsk her?” Short-hair looked sympathetic. “She kept you here for us. She’s one of us, kid. How else do you think we found you?”
    Mac smelled of shock first, then defeat. Emotions have a smell, but only in my coyote form is my nose good enough to distinguish more than the strongest feelings. My lips curled back over my teeth—I don’t like liars, especially when they are lying about me.
    The werewolf’s voice was dreamy. “When the moon comes, you can’t stop the change.” He swayed back and forth. “Then you can run and drink the fear of your prey before they die beneath your fangs.”
    Moonstruck , I thought, shocked out of my anger. If this wolf was so new that he was moonstruck, he certainly wasn’t Adam’s, and whoever had sent him out was an idiot.
    â€œI’m not coming,” said Mac, taking a step away from them. He took another step back—putting his back against the bus. He stiffened, drew in a deep breath, and looked around. “Mercy?”
    But neither of the men paid attention when Mac caught my scent. The werewolf was still held in his moon dreams, and the human was drawing his gun.
    â€œWe tried to do this the easy way,” he said, and I could smell his pleasure. He might have tried the easy way first, but he liked the hard way better. His gun was the kind you find in military catalogues for wanna-be mercenaries, where what it looks like is at least as important as how wellit performs. “Get in the car, kid. I’m packing silver bullets. If I shoot you, you’ll be dead.” He sounded like a thug from a fifties gangster movie; I wondered if it was deliberate.
    â€œIf I get in the car, I’ll be dead anyway, won’t I?” Mac said slowly. “Did you kill the other two who were in the cages by me? Is that why they disappeared?”
    None of them had noticed that the werewolf was starting to change, not even the werewolf himself. I could see his eyes gleaming brightly in the darkness and smell the musk of wolf and magic. He growled.
    â€œQuiet,” snapped the human, then he looked. He paused, swallowed, and turned his gun, ever so slightly, toward his erstwhile partner.
    As a human, the werewolf probably weighed in at about two hundred pounds. Werewolves, fully changed, weigh upward of two hundred and fifty pounds. No, I don’t know where the extra weight comes from. It’s magic, not science. I’m a little large for the average coyote—but that meant that the werewolf was still five times my weight.
    I’d been trying to figure out a way to turn my speed to advantage, but when the werewolf, his elongating jaws stretching around sharp, white fangs, focused on Mac and growled again, I knew I’d just run out of time.
    I threw myself off the top of the car and onto the werewolf, who was still slowed by his ongoing change. I snapped at him to get his attention and caught his throat, still barren of the thick ruff designed to protect him from such an attack.
    I felt my eyeteeth snag flesh, and blood spurted, pushed by his heart and the increased blood pressure that accompanies the change. It wasn’t a mortal wound—werewolves heal too fast—but it should slow him down, giving me a head start while he bound the wound.
    Only he didn’t stop.
    He was hot on my heels as I dashed past Stefan’s bus, across the alley that allowed access to my garage bays, and leapt over the chain-link fence surrounding the Sav U More Self-Storage facility. If he’d been in full wolf form,he’d have cleared the fence easier than I did, but he was