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“They stayed downwind of us the whole way until they were ready to spring their trap,” he replied. “They trailed us at a distance so we would not hear them. Smart.”
He let out another grunt, this one of irritation, as one of his blasters went into recharge mode. While he was grabbing for a charged one on his belt, another of the birds bounded out of the underbrush toward him. I heard the impact and then its squawk as he stabbed it to death.
“You okay?” I shot down another and had to switch blasters myself, grateful that I had two.
“Just a scratch.” He sounded distracted.
“If these damn things are so smart, why aren’t they intelligent enough to stop rushing into our kill zones and take off?” I snapped in frustration.
“Blood hunger,” he said. I heard a wet sound and another bird’s body dropped at his feet. “It’s their mating season.”
No time to ask him to elaborate. The number of birds rushing us had thinned, but that didn’t make the last ones any less enthusiastic. One took three shots to fall, leaving me with two blasters suddenly in charging mode. “Shit. I’m out.”
“How are you with a blade? Take the one in the saddlebags.”
It was the strange one I had grabbed the night I had seen Naxer’s other form for the first time. “I’ll manage,” I said grimly, not wanting to overthink it.
Another bird rushed at me, dodging Chaser’s snapping jaws and leaping up like it was trying to knock me down. I yelled and drove the knife into its chest, but the blade turned on bone and the whole scrabbling, screeching bulk of it pushed me into Naxer while its claws raked my now-bare shoulder.
Naxer turned with a snarl of rage and caught the bird by the neck with two hands, lifting it away from me and flinging it through the air. When it hit the ground, he fired twice, pulverizing its skull.
We heard a few more rustling, but either we’d finally scared them enough to fall back, or the ones left had more sense than bloodlust. After a while, the sounds faded off into the distance, and all the normal jungle sounds returned.
I looked up at Naxer, panting. We were both spattered with blood, the birds’ and a little of our own. I was sweating even harder. Chaser was knee-deep in bird corpses, happily crunching away on one of them, feathers and all.
“You’re bleeding,” Naxer said, reaching for one of his saddlebags immediately.
I could see long scratches healing fast on his face, zipping shut and going from red to purplish pink as I watched. It must have been pretty gruesome when he had first taken the hit, but I suspected it wouldn’t even scar.
I looked down at myself and saw a smaller claw mark running from just below my collarbone to the top of my breast. It stung, bleeding lightly but freely. “Shit. Yeah, I think I need to clean this.”
“I’ll do it.” He grabbed a pad of something from his medical kit. It looked a little like a sponge but felt wet and soothing, like an aloe vera pad. “This contains a disinfectant. It may burn for a little while.”
I looked down at the clean patch he had left. The bleeding had stopped, and the wound, though still an angry red, had stopped hurting as much. But the sharp, hot tingle I suddenly felt from it was unpleasant for a few seconds. “Ouch. Thanks for the warning.”
He nodded, checking his cheek with his fingers. There were just a few flecks of blood left on his skin and a bruised-looking spot that shrank while I looked at it.
“Why do you carry medical supplies if you don’t need them?” I asked.
“I don’t need them for minor wounds. But we always keep a supply in our packs. Worse injuries happen, and if it’s not safe to take the time to shift into our Wulfaen to heal, the medical supplies come in handy. We carry extra as a courtesy for any injured we may meet that’s in need.”
I wondered what kind of injury he would actually have to treat if he could shrug off getting part of his face torn off. It made me shudder.
“Let’s move,” he said. “The predators will come to eat the dead groundrunners. I want to put distance between us and them.”
I nodded in agreement, strapping two of the carcasses to the back of Chaser’s saddle before we quickly rode on, leaving the carnage behind. My shoulder had stopped burning, and unlike my feet, it didn’t need a bandage.
“Well, that was fun,” I grumbled as we rode. “I think I’m going to need another bath.”
“I’ll find us something suitable,” he promised casually as he walked beside me.
I knew he would. I wasn’t quite at the point where I believed everything Naxer told me, but I wanted to.
CHAPTER17
NAXER
Maybe it was just my urge to mate, but there was something in Amara’s eyes now that I hadn’t seen before. Just the faintest gleam, a hint of interest. The way she flicked her gaze over me like a sensual caress. My Wulfaen noticed it as well.
