Free First Love by J.E. Clymer Page B

it,” he muttered under his breath. 
                  Just as the arrow fell into place in the bow she pounced.  Tamika had learned a lot in the last four years.  Her first target was the left arm of the man where it held the arrow.  She clamped down hard around his wrist shattering bones.
                  When he screamed she released his arm and settled her front paws on his shoulders and panted directly in his face.  After what her family had went through these hunters deserved some fear.  Tears filled the man’s eyes as her pearly white teeth sunk closer to his face.
                  She had to give him credit.  He didn’t beg.  Most hunters begged for their lives at this stage in the game.  Without warning and without mercy she swiftly turned her head and clamped down on his throat.  The salty iron taste of blood filled her mouth.  It reminded her that she had come to this cabin for food, but she wasn’t desperate enough to eat human meat.
                  A low growl of frustration emanated from her throat as she grabbed the man’s good arm and dragged him for the cabin.  She pulled the heavy corpse almost a mile before she started digging.  About a foot down a rotting arm slid from its own burial place into her hole.  She was going to need a bigger clearing at this rate.  When the hole was around five feet deep she jumped out and pulled the body the rest of the way in and refilled the hole. 
                  She ran back to her cabin and looked around.  Shifting into a very weak and very naked teenager she grabbed two bottles of bleach from under the cabinet.  She doused the wooden floor and left it.  Turning back to the freezers she pulled out a frozen rabbit and laid it on the counter.  Shifting back to a wolf she stood on her back legs and pulled the frozen rabbit from the counter.
                  Running back into the woods she found a sunny meadow for her rabbit to thaw.  She did not have to hunt today, another one of her family’s murders were in the ground, and the sun was shining.  Overall, it was shaping up to be a good day.
    ###
                  After David left both Jared and Tamika had felt like they had run a marathon and they both looked it.  Tamika wasn’t afraid of David, but Jared obviously felt conflicted.  He would have challenged his father to protect her without a second thought, but it would have destroyed him.
                  Jared was fighting a serious case of guilt as he tried to shake off the way his father had looked at her.  He was afraid.  It was like he saw a monster where only moments before he saw a miracle.  Jared told himself he should have just kept his mouth shut, but he knew Tamika’s revenge would come back to haunt them and he needed his father’s help if that happened.
                  “I’m sorry,” Jared said in defeat as they settled on the couch.
                  “Your father was only surprised.  You reacted the same way,” she said with a shrug.
    “No…I…it took me a minute to process, but none of this is your fault.  The way you reacted to your family’s deaths is normal for an alpha.  I think we all forget that since we’ve been so peaceful for so long,” he said, reaching out to her.
                  “Peaceful,” she muttered through a sarcastic laugh.
                  “I meant within the packs,” he added quietly.
                  “I know what you meant,” she said slowly.
                  He met her eyes and realized it went deeper than just what she’d done to the hunters she had come across.  She did not trust the packs.  Jared wasn’t even sure she trusted him. 
                  “You can trust my father.  He was a friend of your father’s.  Our pack buried your family,” he said with caution.
                  “The fact