Free A Justified Kill by Marylynn Bast

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