The Fangs of Bloodhaven Read Online Free PDF

bringing a small smile to her face. “That many wrinkles are only appealing on a Sharpei.”
    Everett chuckled. “Leave it to a werewolf to know wrinkled dogs.”
    She snorted, but her eyes creased with the smile she kept from her face.
    Everett shoved his hands in his pockets. It felt strange to walk through the city with Adrielle at his side. The few people left hurrying home before curfew still moved around him as though he was invisible, but with her, it was almost as if they shared the invisibility together. Nobody wanted to look too closely at someone with pale skin in case their curiosity revealed something more sinister.
    Monsters had surfaced near the conclusion of the Ending War. Too much chemical warfare combined with the nuclear fallout had created more subspecies than the government wanted to admit. The seventy-five years following saw the construction of the Pentagrin, the five great cities of the survivors. The Kingship had done what it could to reduce the number of monsters with drastic measures. Everett knew there had to be others in the cities, but he had never met one besides Adrielle.
    A little girl clutched her mother’s hand as they hurried past. Everett ducked his head, reminding himself not to smile at her curious gaze. He led Adrielle down a side alley and to the tunnels.
    “Are you sure we should go in there?” she asked, hesitating at the long steps to the network of underground passageways.
    Though they had once been a vast subway system, the tunnels had been converted into survival housing during the Ending War. Everett peered into the darkness, grateful the war had ended before his time. He couldn’t imagine living beneath the earth for nearly a decade while the survivors waited for the fallout to dissipate. Vines snaked into the depths, the continuation of the jungle that attempted to reclaim the five cities for its own.
    “It’s okay,” Everett told her. “We’re the monsters everyone is afraid to see in the shadows.”
    She gave him a sharp look. Everett ducked into the tunnel.

Chapter Three
     
    Though walking through the darkness wasn’t Everett’s favorite thing, he knew the tunnels well enough to bring them to the Neighborhoods without making any wrong turns. When they climbed the stairs back to the city streets, the sun had set and a few stars even peered through the light-polluted sky.
    He heard Adrielle’s sigh of relief and fought back a smile. He had never met a werewolf before, but had heard plenty of rumors about the subspecies. Realizing that she wasn’t an instinct-driven rabid mongrel like the werewolves on the news was an eye-opener for him.
    He caught the look of wonder on Adrielle’s face when he led her through the cul-de-sacs that made up the Neighborhoods.
    “You grew up here?” she asked, unable to hide the shock in her tone.
    Everett nodded. Families in the Neighborhoods were notoriously rich. Those families who had survived the Ending War with their wealth still intact had retreated as far from the crammed apartments and buildings of Nectaris as they could get and still be within the safety of the protected zones. He definitely understood her amazement that he had grown up within the Neighborhoods.
    The Neighborhoods had been lucky to escape the worst of the wars, and the spacious luxury of the houses was a vast counterbalance to the space-conserving minimalist direction the rebuilding crews within the city had adopted. Everett always found it much easier to breathe away from the packed streets and dirty alleys.
    The sound of chaos grew the closer they got to the house at the end of one of the furthest cul-de-sacs. Everett took a steeling breath and glanced at Adrielle.
    “Ready?”
    She shook her head, her eyes wide.
    The bright moonlight reflected in her golden gaze, revealing the fear she couldn’t quite hide.
    “It’s okay,” he said. “If it’s too much, you can always leave. I won’t hold it against you.”
    She nodded without