A Justified Kill (15 page)

She
fell
to the ground
with a whining whimper of pain. T
he
wolf
could not hold her form
. R
ight there, half in and half out of the tent
with Gerald’s blood squirt
ing and running in rivulets
onto the canvas floor
, Amber’s wolf released its hold and
she
began the
painful
change
back into her human form. The wolf was on her belly
in the
middle of all the blood
and entrails littered
across
the floor of the tent
, her eyes met
Gerald’s
terrified
gaze
. She stared into his eyes knowing that he struggled to breathe through the puncture in his lung and missing throat. His eyes blinked rapidly, his mouth opening and closing
. She
saw a
hand reach for her
and listened with satisfaction
when
his hand fell
with a plop
ping sound
into his own
pool of
blood. When his body went
limp, she gave into her own searing pain and
threw her head back and screamed. Her bones
felt like th
ey were exploding in her body when
they began
fracturing,
fur retracting,
moving inside her skin
, she shifted back to her human form.

On her hands and knees, she grabbed her side.
Amber’s blood d
ripped slow and steady mix
ing
with his on the floor. Breathing hard, she moaned through the pain and stood, forcing
herself
to move,
to get
far away from Gerald’s body as
fast as
she could. She didn’t want to be anywhere close to him, especially not while naked. Staring at his
mangled throat, the ripped skin and his insides spilling out of the gashes
, Amber’s stomach churned violently. Having not eaten that day
,
there was nothing for her to th
row up. Scrambling to her feet she got out of the ten
t
, clutching her side, gagging, her
rolling
empty
stomach did nothing but produce dry heaves.

Once she had
herself under control, Amber hurried
to the stream
a few hundred feet away
and washed the disgusting taste of his blood from her mouth
,
face, hands
,
and body.
Her side was still bleeding, but she could take h
er own blood on her, but not his
. Clenching her sid
e, she had to find a way to stench the flow
.
Closing her eyes for a moment,
she lifted her face to the moon lit
night sky. All was quiet, nothing was stirring in the woods and she glanced around, then down at her side, i
nspecting the cut
. It
wasn’t too deep
, only a couple inches long
, but it was
still
painful.

If a small cut like this
hurt like hell, she
c
ould only imagine the pain
Gerald ha
d felt at
being ripped to shreds. It was what he deserved
. Maybe
he deserved
even more than what he got, she
couldn’t help but think. Her wolf was still inside her head, but she wasn’t pushing to
emerge. Amber got the image of her wolf
licking her wounds and laughed sardonically at the thought.

Standing in the stream
, she leaned against
a
bolder
, the cold water swept across her feet, ankles and calves. She turned slightly and stared at
the campsite
over her shoulder
. She had really messed this up. But she could fix it. First though, she had to get the bleeding stopped. Then it hit her. It would be pain
ful and in no way sanitary,
the mud from the river bank would stop the bleeding
if she packed it into the wound. It would work
until she could get back to her room and clean up.

She groaned when she remembered she didn’t have a room. She had checked out
. Releasing a frustrated breath, she needed to get a move on and get this taken care of before someone
ventured out
into this part of the forest and saw her there. She thought of leaving things as they were, but that wasn’t a wise choice. Blaming the attack on a wild animal would work, but then it would bring up more questions as to why whatever had attacked hadn’t eaten him, or at least a part of him. Given time the scavengers would move in, but she really didn’t want to take the chance.
If her wolf would emerge then the wound would close up and she could finish what she started.
With h
er wolf not cooperating, even
the option for calling other wolves in to clean up the mess wouldn’t work either.
First things first, she had to take care of the cut.

As she expected, the mud
hurt
like hell
. She had to push the
thoughts of all the bacteria out of her mind
. Pulling the skin closed, she packed the mud around it,
releasing a
sharp hissing
breath when it
stung.
Suck it up Amber
. Y
ou’ll probably get a lot
worse
than
this
the
more you shift, comes with the territory
. She
groaned, forcing
herself to move away from her restin
g place on the bolder. She stubb
ed her toe on a rock and
wanted to scream her frustration
s. Picking up a
rock,
she didn’t know if that was the one she had
stumbled on
.
Out of irritation,
she chunked it into the running water and
made
her way gingerly back
into the camp
. Figuring out how to dispose of the body was next on her agenda. Well, clothes were next because t
he thought of touching him while
naked was revolting, so she picked her way
back to where she had stashed her clothing
. Dressing
quickly
, she returned to the
campsite.
The smell of blood was overwhelming and the gag reflex kicked in again
at the site of his
mangled body
.
A
werewolf with
an
distaste of seeing
blood
and mangled bodies
was
just too
ironic.

It was amazing that
no
other animal had been attracted to the
strong
smell
of blood
.
She wrinkled
her nose at the thought of her wolf actually devouring him like she had planned
.
If she had, then there would be less of a mess to clean up.
The thought
was just
plain and simply
gross. Now that she was full werewolf, she was definitely going to have to get over her aversion to blood.
Shaking her head in disgust, Amber forced herself to not think about it and set about getting things in order.

If her werewolf wa
s going to hunt humans
, she had to be smarter,
to
be more vigilant
and not attack
through the wall of
a
tent
like
she had mistakenly done tonight
.
By not waiting for her prey to emerge, she had
allowed
him
enough time to grab
for his
knife.
The damned knife she had used to cut the tape from Hanna’s wrist and dropped back onto the table
. S
he shook her head at the realization
, remembering in the jeep that she had also thought she should have grabbed it then
.
Real smart Amber
, real smart
.
She was definitely going to have to pay closer attention.

Lucky for her
,
Gerald
had
not
gotten a good hold and
had only sliced
her
rather than stabbing
,
otherwise
she c
ould be d
e
ad.
Amber frowned at the thought
and gave a slight shiver.
A pep talk was in order and hoped that her wolf was listening. “Going forward, only animals are on the menu, got that?”

Following her original plan of no human prey
would have solved her problem.
She wouldn’t be standing with hands on hips staring at a mutilated body. It
wasn’t an option to just lea
ve him, nor was it possible for her to
just clean up the campsite and make it look like he had left and never come back. There was too much blood for that. Then
for some reason
the thought hit her
, m
ost people had first aid kits
for the
just in
case
. Rummaging around in the small storage locker he had standing outside the tent, she found an unopened kit. The locker looked like it was military, in fact, the tent was military too
as well as the first aid kit
and she wondered briefly how he had gotten his hands on this kind of equipment. She didn’t
know
the local
Army Surplus stores sold this kind of stuff, migh
t do to check it out sometime.