Reaper Awakened (Hellsgate # 2) - Mina Carter Page 0,1

you. You pop any fur, and you’re screwed. Lycan-city for the rest of your life.

The other and best way to deal with a rampant lycan infection was to be a Reaper. Being bitten didn’t turn us into ravening beasts with a hair problem no number of pink razors would deal with. Instead, it gave us a raging temperature and full-on, tear-your-bones-out body aches as the infection fought with a body that was technically dead.

Since it ain’t gonna win, the only thing to do is try and bring your temperature down and throw as much alcohol down your throat as you could. Since drugs? Yeah, they don’t work so well in a Reaper body. Not even the good stuff. For good reason. Would you want something with no natural predators running around stoned off its tits?

I shivered in my ice-bath and tried to pretend it was a sauna. I wasn’t surrounded by fucking ice, drinking cheap-ass whiskey. I was in a hot tub with a mojito instead. Awesome. No, not really. My teeth were chattering so hard I thought they’d break off, and my nipples were like fucking bullets. The girls were not happy, let me tell you.

My entire body shook as I slid lower in the water, sloshing ice water over the edge of the bath. It felt warm now, verging on hot, and the shivering stopped. For a human, that is a Bad Sign (capitals intended). That meant hypothermia and the need for immediate medical attention or death was imminent.

I sighed and dunked my head under the water. My ears, the only part of me that registered the correct temperature anymore, protested, but I ignored them and closed my eyes. It wouldn’t be long now. When my body goes through this kind of shit, it shuts down. Like it was doing a factory reset. I wish it would do something about those few extra pounds from Christmas while it was at it.

My vision greyed at the edges right at the moment Troy kicked my bathroom door in. I locked gazes for him for a second.

“Oh bollocks.”

Then everything went black.

Troy froze with the gun clasped against his chest and looked at John in horror.

“What do you mean, kill her? Did you miss the fact she just saved your life?

John gave him a stern look and motioned to the carnage around them. “Did you miss the homicidal bunch of werewolves ready to make snacks of the entire fucking town?”

He didn’t need to look. The massacre around them--the blood-stained walls, and the bodies lying broken and naked on the floor--were burned into his brain for all time. He’d seen some shit working in homicide in the big city, but this was something else.

This entire year was something else. He sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. He’d never thought he’d say it, but he missed the monsters he’d had to deal with before. At least they’d been human. Even if he didn’t understand them, he could at least predict them.

This lot? Not so much…

“She’s one of them.” John’s voice was hard, his expression harder. But Troy knew him. Under the hard nose attitude, buried deep in his eyes, there was concern. For Troy. His voice dropped the hard edge as he reached out to clasp Troy’s arm, his grip firm as he squeezed. “If you let her turn, if you let her run riot, then there’s going to be way more bodies than in here. And do you want to face the Captain and explain all that shit to him?”

“I can’t. It’s Laney. How can I kill her?” He didn’t bother to keep the torture out of his voice. John’s expression softened, and he squeezed Troy’s arm again.

“You have to. Because when she turns, that won’t be Laney anymore, and you know it.”

That was the problem. Troy knew. “But she’s not human, not really. How do we know the lycan bite will work the same on her as it works on humans?”

There was no shock or surprise on John’s expression as the comment revealed Laney wasn’t human. But then he’d seen her in action. There was no way anybody that was human could take on an entire werewolf pack and win the way she had. They would have torn most people to pieces within seconds of stepping through the door.

He nodded. “If she’s not human… then no, the infection might not work the same way.”

Troy sighed in relief, but John wasn’t done, his frown deepening. “It might be worse.”

Troy’s heart lurched.