Jacks, Marcy - Taken by the Alpha Wolf [DeWitt's Pack 9] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (12 page)

And oh, did he ever learn so much. Not only were there two  vampires staying with that pack, mated to some of the wolves within,  but there was also a former hunter in their ranks. A fucking traitor  who was teaching their omegas how to do basic hand-to-hand combat,  as well as teaching them how to use the handguns that most hunters  traveled with.

Tatum didn’t know which of the men he’d seen walking around was the traitor, but he swore that if he ever captured any member of that pack and discovered one of them was human, he was going to make the son of a bitch swear he’d never turned into a filthy fucking

supporter.

At least he had his answers. This pack was powerful because they  had the benefit of having another species within their ranks, as well as  a former hunter giving away tips on how the hunters worked.

It meant that Tatum was going to have to rethink his strategy.

There was another pack living nearby, just an hour away from  Brampton. He was going to have to start there before he could bring  down this pack, that was for sure.

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Chapter Nine

Phillip Keyes shifted back into his human form and spat out the catch he’d managed to snag for the day.

He looked down on them, a happy swell building in his chest.  Two pheasants and one of the biggest hares he’d ever seen this

season.

Normally something like this was no big deal, the catch wouldn’t even last a day, but Phillip hadn’t even gone out to hunt. He’d been on sentry duty with the other alphas. Because of the recent threat of so many hunters in the area, Phillip never wanted to take any chances, and for every hour of every day until he was satisfied, he was going to have a group of his alphas out guard duty, prowling the land and searching for any strange scents.

The first pheasant had flown right at him and practically suicide dived right into his face. It had been a simple matter of opening and shutting his jaws when it was within sight. The second pheasant likely hadn’t noticed that Phillip was there when it landed on  a branch next to his snout, and because Phillip had been bored, he lunged and took the head off the bird before it even knew he was hiding there.

The rabbit, well, he’d had the misfortune to have been injured by something, and as he limped along, right into Phillips line of sight, it had been a simple matter of chasing the creature down and putting it out of its misery.

Food never just fell into a wolf’s lap like this, so Phillip was thinking that today would be a good day. He could bring it in and present  the meat to his wife, they could pull something out of the garden, and they and their new young one would have a nice meal

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with more than enough to share with the pups.

That was until he picked up his catch, walked through the tree line  that cleared up and revealed the cottages and trailers where his pack  lived, and found it completely empty.

He dropped his catch and ran to the center of the clearing. No, not  empty, his nose was as strong as ever even when he wasn’t in wolf  form, and he picked up the scents of a few of his alphas who’d had to  stay behind, as well as the odd omega here and there.

There were a few other scents that almost scared the piss out of  him. One of them being the chemical smell that coated everything  from the dirt at his feet to the picnic tables under the gazebo he’d  built.

The other scent? His wife and child. The fact that their scents

were missing entirely.

He ran for his house. It was larger than the others, but not by  much. The door handle was loose, and the wood along the doorframe  was splintered, as though someone had kicked it in.

“Helen?” he yelled, hearing nothing and still not getting any fresh  scent of here. His nose picked up the faint almond soap she used, but  it was faded, as though she were no longer…

No.

Phillip ran past the kitchen and into their shared room, not finding her. He then hurled himself into the adjoining baby’s room where his son slept, not finding his child in the worn crib or hearing the sounds of his cries.

Phillip grabbed the lamp from off the dresser and launched it at the wall where it smashed into a dozen pieces, but the crash was not enough for him to satisfy his rage.

He’d been about to grab something else when the voice of one of his omegas called out to him.

“Phillip? Where are you?”

He rubbed his  hands over his face, raking his nails across the skin and using the pain the center himself.
 
Get a grip. Now’s not the time.

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Phillip strode out of his son’s room, his back straight, his pace brisk, and keeping his face as stoic as though it were normal to  come home and find the land had been ambushed with some sort of drug and more than half the pack were missing, his wife and child included.

Zack, Phillip’s beta, was standing in the doorway, clearly hesitant to enter the home of his alpha without permission, yet there was clear panic on his face.

“I saw the wise woman out back,” he said, hardly able to hide the shock on his face. “She’s dead.”

Phillip had been so focused on sniffing out his mate and child that

he hadn’t noticed. “Are there others?”

Zack shook his head, and Phillip could feel the man becoming the calm soldier he needed to be as he and Phillip spoke. “Everyone else seems to be out cold. Looks like the hunters came in and did a snatch

and run before we got back, so they couldn’t take everyone.  Her body  isn’t…I mean she doesn’t look like they hurt her. I think the attack  itself startled her and she had a heart attack.”

Zack swallowed hard when he finished, doing his best to keep a

brave face.

Even alphas had hearts. They certainly couldn’t have the emotional depth of a rock all the time. Phillip’s earlier reaction was proof enough of that, and Wise Woman Beatrice had been Zack’s

great-grandmother.

Phillip put his hand on Zack’s shoulder. “They took my pup and

Helen.”

Zack stiffened, his eyes becoming gold and angry at the added insult to his pack. The wise woman dead, and the mate of their alpha and a pup only a few months old taken.

“Make the shift,” Phillip commanded. “Then send out a howl. I want every available alpha back here. We’re going to go to James for help, and then we’re going hunting. I don’t want Helen or Sammy spending a single night with those motherfuckers.”

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* * * *

Though Ryan was a werewolf, he didn’t need to be a detective to know that he still wasn’t considered a real member of the pack. Likely that had something to do with his hesitation of being here, but the biggest hint came when the other alphas had their meeting, and he hadn’t been invited to join in.

He wasn’t angry about it. Blasius told him what the situation was when  they got out, and James was with him. That was the one thing  Blasius didn’t look too happy about.

“How could they have taken ten people?” Ryan asked.

“Some kind of nerve gas they use,” James said. “Hunters don’t use it too often because it can leave the scent of chemicals on them,

making them easier for us to track down, and you need to have a guy  who knows how to make those kinds of things.

“I would imagine my pack is too big for someone to just toss a  ball of that stuff in here and expect it to work the way they want,” he  continued, though his mouth twisted downward as he said it. “Philip’s  pack is small, and the majority of pack members are omegas, so it’s  difficult to defend.”

He was pretty sure he didn’t need to ask, judging by the look on  Blasius’s face, but Ryan wanted the confirmation of his hunch anyway. “Why are you telling me about this now? You wouldn’t let me hear it with the others.”

“Indeed,” Blasius grouched. “He’s better off here defending the  pack should those cowardly bastards―”

James actually snapped his teeth and growled at Blasius,  effectively shutting him up.

Blasius’s face remained twisted with anger, but he relented and

stopped his argument.

Ryan couldn’t help the angry growl that worked its way from the

inside his chest and out his throat. Watching Blasius get treated as

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such angered him. He couldn’t explain the strong need to punch  James in his scarred face and put the man down on his back, but it  was there.

James snapped his hard glare at Ryan before he could so much as come to Blasius’s defense. “If you start with me, I won’t hesitate to bring you out on the front lawn and show you a thing or two in front of every member of my pack. I am alpha here, and the both of you will watch your tones.”

James’s eyes turned golden when he said that last part, and just as quickly as the anger had flooded him, it vanished. The need to challenge James’s authority was replaced with the reluctant need to follow.

Alpha wolf thing, he supposed. “Fine, but what do you need me for?” Ryan said, still unwilling to give up some of his defensiveness for Blasius.

James’s eyebrow, the one that was half missing, lifted as he looked Ryan over from head to toe. “I can see that if we’re going to keep you, I’m going to have to beat you a couple times in front of the others.”

“It won’t come to that,” Blasius said quickly, his look to Ryan  practically screaming for him to let it go.

“Regardless, I’m telling you just in case you might have  something to offer to this. From what I understand you’re still  merging with your wolf.”

“I can almost control it now,” Ryan assured him, though he still  felt far away from being in total control.

Of the last three times he’d  gone running with Blasius, he now  retained memories of all of them, and that last run in particular gave  him some of the control he’d been searching for. Only it wasn’t  exactly control so much as he felt that he and the wolf were coming to  an agreement and they were making peace with sharing the body they  both inhabited.

Sometimes Ryan even found himself making decisions, moving

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his paws and twitching his tail without realizing it, moving this way  and that, sniffing this pine tree and that shrub while Blasius  supervised him.

Just to lose control to the inner wolf in him and run and like a wild

animal at the sight of a squirrel. What was it with the squirrels and his  need to put their heads in his jaws and shake the life out of them?

“There is no control,” James said. “You just become one with  each other. That’s all. But that’s not what I’m hoping to ask you  about. You have connections with the human world, even better, with

human law enforcement.”

Ryan straightened, and he looked at Blasius, hardly able to

contain his excitement at being right. James was going to ask him  how they could bring the police in on this. Those ten people had been  kidnapped, and so it was now a missing persons’ case and that needed  to be handled by the law.

“Isaac can help us with learning the moves of the average hunter,  figuring out how they work, where they get their weapons, and where  they sell the…pelts,” James said, that last word making his already  warped lips twist around, as though it put a sour taste in his mouth.  “But you have information on how the police work. You can help us  by keeping them off our backs.”

“What?” Ryan yelled then looked at the way Blasius tightened up,  and he lowered his tone.

“You want to keep them out of this? Those are people who were  kidnapped. The police can help you.”

“No. They can’t,” James said, his voice letting Ryan know that he  was not about to argue with him.

Ryan argued anyway. “Those people were kidnapped by a group  that you yourself said are serial killers. You need a team out here,  forensics, helicopters, anything that will help track them down.”

“Nothing can track a hunter better than a whole pack of alpha  wolves,” James said, his scarred face becoming even grimmer.  “Besides, they’ve already started killing some of the hostages.”

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“That’s an even bigger reason to get the police in on this.”

“The police aren’t interested in hunters with permits who are  thinning out a pack of wolves.”

That threw Ryan for a loop. “What?”

Blasius was the one to answer him. “These humans that you wish  to have help us will be able to do nothing. The hunters are already  skinning some of the men they’ve taken. They’re either waiting for  them to transform in an attempt to escape or they were the bodies of  the already transformed wolves they’ve taken. The hunters are leaving  their bodies for us to find.

“This is what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Blasius said, putting  his hands on Ryan’s shoulders, his dark-blue eyes the most serious  and pleading Ryan had ever seen. “We can not let the humans know  of our existence, and  even if there was a way to bring them in while  still hiding what we are, that is impossible as well. The hunters will  not kill any of those wolves until they have made the change so that  they can skin them and take their pelts.”