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 wolvesandthe 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.”
