Underworld: Blood Enemy by Greg Cox

around,” she instructed. Lucian presented his skewered back to her scrutiny. Blood plastered his linen tunic to his skin, forcing Sonja to peel it away inch by inch. The wolf’s-head dagger cut through the cloth around the exposed crossbow bolt, but, although Sonja worked as gently as she could, he still winced as the shirt came away, exposing his bleeding torso. He knew also that the worst pain was yet to come.
    “Take this,” she said, offering him the arm bone of a deceased monk. He took the dusty bone between his jaws, biting down on it in anticipation of the agony ahead. “Are you ready?” she asked, taking firm hold of the feathered quarrel.
    He nodded in assent. Sonja pulled on the blood-slick bolt, working it back and forth in order to extricate the silver head without snapping the wooden shaft. Lucian clenched his jaws as tightly as he could, stifling the anguished howl building at the back of his throat. His veins bulged, and his muscles tensed, and it took all his willpower not to turn and snap at Sonja like a maddened hound.
    The stubborn arrowhead resisted her efforts, as though unwilling to surrender its purchase within his side. Finally, though, with one last forceful pull on its shaft, the bolt came loose. “There,” Sonja announced. She snapped the quarrel in half and tossed the broken pieces back the way they had come.
    Lucians head and shoulders drooped forward. He panted raggedly, letting the arm bone drop from between his jaws.
    Toothmarks showed in the surface of the abused humerus. Exhausted, his bare chest heaving, Lucian could not even muster breath enough to thank Sonja for tending to his injuries.
    But his ordeal had not concluded; there remained the silver arrowhead buried in his side. Blood yet spilled from the narrow gash, which would not heal as long as the toxic metal stayed within the wound. Looking down, Lucian saw that the flesh around the cut had already begun to fester.
    Traceries of silver gray spread beneath the skin, radiating out from the wound like metallic cobwebs.
    The skin itself was inflamed and sore to the touch. Sonja’s fingers but grazed the site, and Lucian yelped as though stabbed with a red-hot poker.
    Heartfelt compassion and sympathy tinged her voice. “Forgive me, friend Lucian, for what I must do next.” She laid him down on his side, so that the infected area faced the ceiling, and picked up the dagger once more. “The deadly silver must be removed before it is too late.”
    “Wait!” Lucian blurted. The thought occurred to him that the silver arrowhead would surely prevent him from transforming come nightfall, provided it didn’t kill him first. He still dreaded the prospect of Changing in Sonja’s presence, perhaps even more than he feared death itself. “Mayhap you should leave it be.”
    Incomprehension showed on her porcelain features. “I fear the fever has addled your wits, dear Lucian. The silver cannot be allowed to poison you further.” She placed the monk’s arm bone between his jaws once more. “Hush now, I pray you, and be of stout heart. I promise that I shall be as swift as possible.”
    Brooking no further argument, she used the tip of the blade to open the gash in his side until it was large enough to accommodate her slender fingers. Lucians body convulsed in torment as she thrust her thumb and forefingers into the wound, probing for the severed head of the crossbow bolt.
    She held him down with her free hand, exerting all her pureblood strength to hold him still upon the mud-encrusted tapestry.
    The pain was unbearable. Lucian bit down so hard that the brittle humerus snapped apart between his jaws, sending splinters of bone flying from his lips. He howled in agony, unable to hold back the scream even if a thousand torch-wielding peasants stood at the top of the steps.
    No more! he shrieked inwardly. Was this what every rogue lycan endured when pierced or branded by a Death Dealers silver? Lucian felt an unprecedented stab of