Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Solan was drifting in post-orgasm bliss when he felt something.
The nape of his neck prickled in warning, and his wolf went on alert.
Someone was watching them.
Inhaling deeply, he didn’t smell anything out of the ordinary, but he was very certain that someone was watching who didn’t belong in the pack’s territory. His hands gripped Kaeli close for a moment longer, and then he released her slowly.
“Get dressed, we’re being watched,” he whispered.
Anger surged through him as he stared into the dark trees and dressed swiftly. Beyond them was another neighborhood, but the houses were more spread out, so there were more places to hide and watch. Not to mention the dirt road that bordered the town.
“Are we in danger?” she whispered as she found her jeans and pulled them on.
“Not at the moment, but yes. I fucked up.” He pulled up the contact for the security office and put in the call.
Grabbing her arm when she had her shoes on, he said, “This is Solan. There’s an intruder or possibly multiple intruders on the eastern side of town.
I’m pinning my location.” He sent the pin and then hustled Kaeli toward the house.
“Got it,” Gabriel said. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m getting Kaeli home, then I’m heading back here.”
“I’ll meet you. Dove is patrolling with Rodrick. I’ll send them to the pin.”
“Thanks.”
The house came into view, and Kaeli exhaled sharply, like she’d been holding her breath until they got to safety.
He opened the back door and hurried inside with her, taking a quick walk through to make sure no one had ducked inside while they were gone.
“The house is clear, lock the doors behind me,” he said.
He pulled her close and gave her a quick kiss.
“Be safe,” she said.
“I will. And I’m sorry.”
“For what? Sexing me up so good I saw stars?” She smirked as she spoke and then smiled. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I should have suggested we come back to the house.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. I’ll be back.”
He walked out but didn’t leave the back patio until he heard the door lock. Then he raced off to where they’d been intimate and arrived just as Dove and Rodrick appeared. Gabriel showed up a minute later.
Solan told them he and Kaeli had been out for a walk, and that he was certain they were being watched.
Gabriel looked toward the place where Solan had felt someone watching.
Whoever it was hadn’t been close enough for him to see them, but with binoculars or cameras, they could have been anywhere.
All he knew for sure was that whoever had been watching didn’t belong in Thorn Hollow.
“Let’s head straight out,” Gabriel said. “I’ve called an alert to all available security team members. When we figure out what we’re dealing with, we’ll take the next steps.”
They walked in a straight line through the woods, ears open, wolves at the ready.
It wasn’t until the dirt road came into view that Dove let out a gasp as she stumbled.
“Damn it, I kicked something.” She shone her flashlight on the ground and revealed a discarded lens cap, possibly from a camera or binoculars.
The ground was crushed all around the area, and there was a faint tang of ozone in the air.
“What is that?” Rodrick asked. “It smells like lightning.”
“I think it’s a chemical spray that prevents humans from smelling like humans to shifters.
It was marketed a few years ago for deer hunters, but anti-shifter assholes used it to mask their infiltration of shifter territories, and it was taken off the market.
I’m sure they got it on the black market,” Gabriel said.
“Which I’m pretty sure we all know what this means.
” As Gabriel lifted his phone to his ear, Solan walked down the dirt road and saw wide tire tracks that looked fresh.
He hadn’t heard a vehicle at all. It was possible it was an electric vehicle, which wouldn’t make much noise.
“It’s Foley, right?” Dove asked. “That anti-shifter asshole and his mercs are back.”
“Seems like it,” Solan said. “But his people didn’t attack Kaeli and me, so I’m not sure what they were doing.”
He turned away from the dirt road and faced the trees. Beyond them was a neighborhood, another thick span of woods, and then his own neighborhood. Anyone could have been harmed by anti-shifter people on the dirt road, but they’d done nothing but watch.
“Maybe they realized you saw them and they left,” Rodrick said.
“Maybe,” Solan said.
Gabriel put his phone in his pocket. “Adam says we need to grid search. Brick wants to come back from his honeymoon, but he’s still got a couple of days left, and Adam told him to stay put with his mate, or he’ll personally put a boot up his ass. So it’s on you, Solan. How do you want to do this?”
“Back to the security office, call everyone in. I’ll set up the grid search. It’ll be dawn in another hour, so let’s hustle.”
He sent a text to Kaeli and told her that he’d be back in a few hours when the search was finished. She offered to help, but he told her he would rather she stay where she was so he wouldn’t have to worry about her.
He was still pissed enough at himself for losing track of his whereabouts while getting caught up in her sexiness.
Hours later, when the grid search was done and nothing else was found besides what they’d seen on the dirt road, Solan was exhausted and frustrated. His body was humming with the need to keep Kaeli safe.
When he walked into the house and found her asleep on the couch, he relaxed fractionally to know that she was safe now.
But his resolve sharpened. He would keep her safe no matter what.
She was his marked mate, and their bond was unbreakable.
He would rain hell down on anyone who tried to harm her.
Solan would not lose another person who mattered to him.
Not again.
Brent Foley sat in the dining room of the sprawling mansion he’d rented in the town of Brookvale, a town close to Thorn Hollow where the wolf pack lived.
The wolves and the gryphons.
He’d decided living in abandoned warehouses was not the way to go about things anymore and had found a huge house to rent with all the amenities, including a full basement with a bathroom.
He’d filled the space with cots and footlockers for the newest additions to the ranks of Humans Against Shifters.
Most were mercenaries, ready to do whatever was asked of them for money.
Some were believers in the anti-shifter cause.
But all were ready to serve and do what they were told.
There was a buzz at the gate of the stone-walled yard, and he swiveled in the chair to look at the screen.
Victor Hawthorne. Famous shifter hunter, who’d caused Brent to lose out on taking out any tigers when they’d worked together previously.
But the male had resources that Brent needed, and the main one was numbers.
Hawthorne was bringing even more fighters with him, so that they could do the most damage to the wolves.
Brent cared less about who could turn into what animal than Hawthorne did; he just wanted all the shifters dead.
Pressing the button to open the gate, he watched as four vehicles pulled through and followed the winding drive to the house. Brent pushed back from the table and got up, heading to the front door.
A dozen men walked into the house behind Victor. They were the kind of men who looked like they’d kill anyone for even looking at them sideways. He was thankful they were hunting shifters and not humans.
“Welcome,” Brent said. “The basement is set up; find a cot and get settled. We’re meeting in fifteen.”
The men grumbled in greeting as they walked by him. Brent shut the door and said, “Hello, Victor.”
“Brent.”
“Let’s get right to things. I’ve got some new intel, some of my men were scouting out the wolf pack overnight.”
They walked into the dining room, which had become a command center of sorts, with monitors and laptops taking up every flat surface.
Brent grabbed a tablet where the images from the night vision camera had been uploaded.
There, in the woods, was a shifter couple, rutting like the animals they were.
He couldn’t stop his upper lip from curling in disgust.
“They have no morals,” Brent said, watching as Victor flipped through the images. “Imagine acting like that in public.”
“Well, they are ruled by animal instinct,” Hawthorne said. “Ah, there are the photos I care about.”
He’d stopped swiping when the images of the gryphons came into view. If Brent cared about shifters, he would think it was quite majestic to see the half-lion, half-bird creatures flying on the full moon. But he didn’t think they were any better than the wolves or other shifters.
Animals were animals.
They spoke for a few minutes and looked over the maps of the wolves’ territory, and then joined the men in the basement, where stale coffee and gun oil were the competing scents in the air.
A man in the corner was cleaning a gun like it was his favorite toy. Another sharpened a wicked-looking blade.
“We’ve got tranquilizer darts,” Brent said, pointing to several wooden crates.
A man named Duquesne nodded at them with a cruel smile. “Nothing can escape these things. Not even the big predators like the bears or lions.”
“Good,” Hawthorne said. “They’ll be useful.”
“The patrols are changed up frequently,” Brent said. “But there are still patterns. And the gryphons are spending time at the dealership that we attacked a while back. Which brings me to my first thought.”
“Which is?”
“We go after the dealership again.”
“Why?” Hawthorne asked. “All you did was slash their tires. It messed up their business, but so what? No one died.”
“True, but everyone showed up. Including the leader.”
Hawthorne stared at Brent for a moment, and then he said, “Oh. You mean it’s a good way to set a trap and take out some wolves.”
“Yes. And the gryphons are part of the security team now, so they’ll show up for sure.”
“We can capture some for bait and take out the rest,” Hawthorne said. “We don’t have much time to prepare; we can strike tonight.”
“Rest up,” Brent said to the men. “Be ready at sunset.”
He and Hawthorne headed back upstairs, where Brent showed him to a room he could use. “You’re not going to bail on me again, are you?” Brent asked. “I brought you in because I need your resources.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I get my trophy,” he said. “More than one if I can. Gryphons are so rare that the price for one that is alive is unbelievable. Even when I capture one, I will still help you take out the wolves.”
Brent nodded and walked out. He returned to the dining room and settled back in the seat to watch the video footage of the wolves’ territory from earlier that night.
Foot patrols and security cameras. The wolves relied on their animal natures to help them in a fight, but Brent was planning something much bigger.
One way or another, he’d see the wolves wiped from the face of the earth and the town of Thorn Hollow returned to the humans. And while he didn’t care if Hawthorne got his trophies or not, he was glad to have the extra men on his side for the fight that was brewing.
Tossing aside the tablet and the disgusting images of the two going at it like beasts in the woods, he focused on making plans that would see an end to the wolves in Northern Ohio.
They didn’t know it, but their days were numbered.