Mariette And The Cowboy (Western Night Series 2) (58 page)

                                                                                    ***

Barely conscious and still fighting the urge to go back into that blessed, pain-free state of oblivion, George opened one eye. He wanted to open the other one, but something prevented him from doing so. The world was spinning, circling around his injured head, as if to mock him for the discomfort he had to endure.

Slowly, the injured hunter raised a hand, carefully lowering it onto the left side of his face and using it to feel about the eye he couldn’t open. What he discovered hit him in the back of the head like a stream of cold water, excising all remnants of previous drowsiness. Replacing the general area around his felt eye was a mass of flayed flesh, caked with a viscous, foul-smelling liquid.

Previously numb, his head responded to touch by exploding with waves of the most vicious pain he ever felt in his life. It took all the strength of will George still had not to sink back into that sweet place called unconsciousness, where his body was still whole.

“God damn you, Josie,” he said out loud, almost choking on the words.
Is this what I deserve?

After all the years he spent taking care of her,
living for her
, she spat her thanks into his face by eloping with…
something.
Something that mutilated him, no less.

Motivated by anger, George finally managed to set his torso straight. In response, the pain intensified, spreading down his spine like the bite of a venomous serpent. This time, he managed not to make a sound, gritting his teeth with such force he almost shattered a filling.

“You ungrateful bitch,” he spoke again.
What was your problem this time? Not enough attention? Not enough spontaneity? Not enough passion?
Disgusted, he spat to his side. It was bloody.

It’s always about what you feel like at the time, isn’t it?
He continued his inner monologue, in a futile attempt to keep the agony at bay.
Let George do all the work while you mope around your failed attempts at “art”. It’s all your husband’s fault that you’re socially and sexually frustrated, isn’t it?

“After all,” George spoke out aloud again, this time unable contain the fury in his voice “I’ve only ever given you everything you ever wanted! Whatever you winked at, I would buy!” Taking another breath, he wanted to stop, but the words kept pouring out. “Who cares that I was tired from taking care of you? Why would it matter that I need some unwinding from time to time?”

His fury having given him the strength to rise, George leapt up to his feet, almost losing his balance in the process. Luckily, the well-timed interposition of his other leg had prevented his face from meeting the ground. Barely preventing himself from howling in pain, he stood upright, observing the butchered remains of his buddies with one remaining eye.

So, this is who I’ve married,
he concluded.
An ungrateful, cheating whore who would leave me for an inhuman monster… callous about the trail of bodies her betrayal would leave behind.

You’ve called me cold,
George kept talking to himself as he dragged his feet toward what was left of Trevor.
You said I was distant.
Still fighting the pain, he dropped down to one knee while opening an intact yet bloodstained pouch from the side of Trevor’s jacket.
You couldn’t see that it was all for you.

Taking out a box of painkillers, George swallowed a bunch of them, completely unconcerned about the dosage. Next, he pulled out a roll of surgical gauze, soaked it in alcohol, and stared at it for a couple of seconds, knowing full well what was about to happen.

No way around it,
he knew.
Unless, of course, you want to die of infection. Or lose a part of your brain.
Gripping the sides of the gauze with his bloody hands, he chuckled madly.
Perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad.

But now,
George reminded himself, gritting his teeth as he prepared for the inevitable,
I need to find those two.
He forced himself to press the medical fabric over his ruined left eye.
I need to make them pay!
The pain that followed was more intense than anything he could ever have imagined. He expected something horrible, but what he got was worse.

The injured hunter had no idea for how long the agony lasted, but when it receded, George found himself in a fetal position, almost touching the body that used to be his friend. The place that contained the remnants of his eye still stung, but for the most part, the pain was manageable.
Perfect,
he concluded, now able to stand up with no trouble.

The forest wasn’t spinning anymore. That means that the adrenaline increase from the painkillers was kicking in.
Oh, fight-or-flight response, how I’ve missed you.

The sensation was liberating. There were no worries about his injury, no regrets over what had transpired, not even rage. It was all overshadowed by a single purpose: To find his wife and her inhuman lover, and make this right.
In the bloodiest way possible.

Josie,
he thought about her again, this time more in the way one would think about the deceased.
All this time, I never even cheated on you. Did you know that? Women practically threw themselves at me, and I refused to betray you.
He gritted his teeth.
Like you betrayed me the first chance you got.

Slowly, George pressed his left hand over the gauze that now covered his ruined eye. For a second, he wondered if women would ever flock to him as the way they did before. He shook the thought from his head. The adrenal high made it much easier than it would otherwise have been.

Now focused again, the mutilated man began reloading his rifle. Almost immediately, a question he had been avoiding until now sprung up:
what was that thing and how do I bring it down?

A werewolf?
He found himself conclude hastily.
Sure, if wolves were well over seven feet tall and look like bears.
The next option was probably more correct, but crazier by far.
A were… bear?

Completely unintentionally, George found himself laughing like a maniac.
Why not? Nothing else makes any sense.
His rifle now primed and ready, he gave himself a small break to think things through a bit more thoroughly.

What hurts werewolves?
He asked himself a question he already knew the answer to:
Silver.

Does it work on werebears? And where in the world would I fi-
suddenly, George stopped, immediately letting his gaze fall back onto Trevor’s ruined body.

Trevor liked to eat constantly!
The one-eyed hunter remembered, moments before throwing himself on top the bloody pile of flesh, bones and who knew what else that lay scattered before him. Digging through that horrifying thing would have nauseated anyone else, but in his half-mad, medicated state, George didn’t feel a hint of discomfort.

“Yeeeeesssssss!” the man screamed as loud as he possibly could, all while holding two bloody pieces of silver he just pulled out of the pockets of his friend’s carcass: a knife and a fork. Having wiped these makeshift weapons to be as clean as he possibly could, George made sure to place them where they’d be readily available for use: between his waist and the hunting belt he wore.

Whether or not they will be any good to me remains to be seen,
he told himself. Regardless, there was one thing the one-eyed hunter was certain of: A lot more blood is to be shed tonight.

                                                                                    ***

Legs still numb from excitement and fear, Josie’s gaze leapt from one corner of the cave to the other. She was alone, her bear-man having left to check out their surroundings one more time. This shelter, he said, had been made to provide refuge from any and all intruders, be they humans or others like him.

My God, there are more of them,
Mark’s words still echoed in her ears.
Shape-shifters, living in the wilds of America
, she repeated them. It still didn’t stick. Perhaps it will, in time.

Other “weres”, however, were
not
available for helping the pair from a situation like this. If Josie and her lover were to stumble into the territory of another shifter, that territory’s master would have hunted the two of them down just like her husband’s party would.

Oh, George,
she thought, genuinely regretful of the way it had all turned out.
Why did you have to be so damn stubborn?

Not wanting to think about that, Josie shook her head, hoping that the memory of her former husband getting hit on the head by a rampaging monster would fade from her consciousness. It didn’t.

In an attempt to drive her mind toward something, anything other than the previous train of thought, she took another look at their sanctum, even though it was all burned in her memory by now. Located in the inside of a cave and furnished with broken wood and animal skins, it was a perfectly functional parody of a human apartment, made all the more cozy by generous helpings of a certain musk.

The musk was not entirely unpleasant, but it overwhelmed every other scent in the place. Apparently, the smell served to drive away potential animals and invading shifters as a mark of her bear-man’s territory. For those who knew what it meant, it served its purpose. Human interlopers on the other hand, would simply be discouraged by a complete lack of any wildlife.

Contrary to what she initially thought, her own shape-shifter had been a denizen of human lands before, until he decided it was not worth the effort.
With all that happened in the so-called civilized world while he was away,
she thought,
it’s no wonder that he decided to leave.

Suddenly, the loud footsteps of Mike’s human form roused Josie from her ponderous state. Mirthful, she squinted in an attempt to get a good look at the werebear as he approached. The torchlight was sufficient, but her eyes were simply not used to looking under such relatively weak lighting.
Doesn’t matter,
she thought.
I’ll have plenty of time to adapt.

The very second she laid her eyes on his powerful, hirsute form, Josie felt her juices flow. Even though she could barely see the man, the previously tight lips of her nether regions started opening, turned ravenous by his very presence. Such was the animalistic passion that this shape-shifter enticed in her.

“We shouldn’t have let those torches burn,” was all he said in place of a greeting. Speaking in English was quickly becoming easier and easier for him.
Like riding a bike, I guess.

“Come on, Mark, you don’t expect me to wait for you all alone in the dark, do you?” she asked, smiling, as she rose from her sitting position with such visible glee that the entirety of her feminine body jiggled alluringly.

In response, the shape-shifter’s manhood rose up almost immediately. From his expression, however, it was apparent that he was not completely into it at the moment. Regardless of this, he grabbed Josie by the waist like he did before, lifting her off the ground so he could stare directly into her eyes.

“There is a time for everything, my prize,” the way he referred to Josie only made her want him more. “And now is not a good time for that.”

Having noticed the disappointment in the woman’s eyes, though, his expression quickly changed into one of benevolent amusement. “However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t make a small exception here and there.”

Still smiling, the large man let Josie down on her feet before sitting onto the floor himself, his erection clearly visible. Then, spreading his arms in a welcoming way, he gestured for her to join in.

Impressed by Mark’s willingness to please her even in this situation, Josie sensually got down on all fours, purring as her mouth approached his erect member. ”Mark, honey, this gigantic thing is
anything but
small,” she managed to say before enveloping the shape-shifter’s colossal erection with her pouting lips.

“But this was only to warm you up, big man,” she spoke again soon, pulling his wet, throbbing manhood out of her mouth. “The main attraction is just about to begin,” Josie finished her sentence, ready to lunge forward and impale herself on her anticipating lover.

A second before she managed to do so, however, a thunderous noise exploded from the cave’s entrance, followed by an ugly splashing sound right in front of her. Still not grasping exactly what was going on, Josie felt her chest getting wet, sprayed by a gush of warm blood originating right in front of her.

Raising her head in disbelief, an unsuspecting Josie soon found herself faced with a sight she never expected to witness: one of Mark, gasping for breath, prostrated in front of her with a palm-wide, bleeding hole in his chest. Eyes wide, the wild man stared toward the cave’s entrance with an expression of shock and existential fear.

A series of hurried footsteps followed, getting dangerously close within a couple of seconds. By the time Josie managed to compose herself enough to turn around, it had already been too late: George’s panting, scarred mug towered above her, and her own delicate features immediately got forced into a private appointment with the blunt end of a rifle.