Page 54 of Wolf's Gambit

Pack laws forbade any wolf to shift in front of humans, but I was dying.

And I was no longer pack.

She came forward. I felt my eyes shift to the low, icy glow of my wolf, and I saw Bullet’s fear right before I shifted, and my jaws snapped around his friend’s neck as my human awareness was pushed back.

Pushing the hair out of our eyes, we ignored the stickiness of blood that coated her hands and arms. Naked, we walked up to the man face down on the ground.

We felt vacant. Disoriented. Strange.

Looking down at him, we watched as he pulled himself along on his belly, whimpering with pain as he tried to crawl away from the horror behind him.

His two companions were dead. Their body parts were strewn around the area beside their truck.

We had left this one until last.

“Where are you going?” we taunted the man as we crouched at his side. “I thought you wanted to play?”

He was weeping. We watched him as he pressed his forehead to the wet ground and started mumbling. Leaning into him, we listened.

“You’re…praying?” Standing, we laughed, raising our arms out to the sides. “Are you listening to him?” We shouted at the sky. Then looking back down at the man, we shook our head. “We don’t think your God is listening,” we mocked him.

Kicking the man’s side, the force of our kick knocked him onto his side. We crouched again. “Would you have listened to her?” we asked him. Our naked body was covered in blood. Not ours, though. “Tell me, Bullet, would she have been given the mercy you now beg for?”

“Please.”

“Please?” We tilted our head as we looked at him. We saw his fear, but under it all, we saw his hate. “No, Bullet, she wouldn’t have been given mercy,” we told him bitterly. “And we give none.”

Daylight woke me.

Pushing myself up into a sitting position, the smell of rotting flesh assaulted my nostrils first. With my arm across my face, covering my nose and mouth, I stood, not noticing the dried blood until I stepped forward.

Horrified at what lay in front of me, I stumbled back a step.

“Luna, help me…” With wide eyes, I tried to take it all in. The black truck was covered in blood. Inside and out. Dismembered body parts lay around it. “Goddess, no,” I whispered as I forced my legs to move.

With tentative steps, I inched closer. A glance at what was left of Bullet made my stomach churn. Tears flooded my eyes as I looked at the carnage I’d created.

My body stilled as I heard traffic in the distance. Panic forced me into action. Running to the bodies, I searched them until I found a lighter, fighting back sobs as I did. Trying not to look too closely at what I’d done, I pulled the dead to the truck until they were in a pile.

Uncovering the back of the truck, I grabbed two overnight bags. Finding rope, handcuffs, and weapons of torture in the first one, I tossed it aside in disgust. The second bag had clothing. With gritted teeth, I pulled out a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. I needed something to wear, but the thought of wearing anything of theirs turned my stomach, so I dropped the clothing on the ground. I’d rather be naked.

Standing back, I searched for the gas tank. Urging my wolf forward, I bit back the pain as I forced her claws to come out of my human hand. One swipe and I punctured the tank, the sharp-smelling liquid burning my nose. When it touched the first of the dead, I dropped the lighter and ran back to the safety of the woods.

The fire caught their clothes quicker than I thought, and then the explosion shattered the morning air.

I watched it burn the truck and the dead, and then when the sirens pierced the air, I shifted as I turned to the woods and ran.

Ran from the death and the knowledge I’d killed three humans.

My wolf released her hold on me when deep snow covered the ground. For weeks, I’d been in my wolf form, and the horror of that autumn morning was still fresh in my mind. Over the weeks I’d been under her control, we’d traveled high into the Rockies, and waking up in a semi-sheltered cave high in the mountains, naked and freezing, was enough to bring anyone’s awareness into focus.

Looking around the den she had made, I took in the sight of animal bones and tufts of fur scattered about, causing me to frown. I felt like an unimpressed parent as they surveyed their child’s room after telling them to tidy it. My wolf was messy, and it kind of pissed me off.

Slowly, carefully, I checked my body—a faint silver line on my shoulder, a similar one on my right thigh. Reliving the feel of the bullets as they tore into my skin, I turned my leg and looked at my left calf. A silver scar looked back at me.

It fit that they marked me on the surface as well as under my skin for the events that happened the night Bullet came for me. I remembered little, but I’d seen the evidence of her rage when I woke, and I knew the sight would haunt me for a long time.

Swallowing hard, I pushed my hair back, noticing it was white-blonde once more. Approaching the mouth of her den, I looked out into the white world beyond. The snow wasn’t as deep as I thought, but it was cold, and my human body wouldn’t survive for long. I needed clothes, and for clothes, I needed humans.

---