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.
Taken by the Alpha Wolf 81
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
82 Marcy Jacks
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
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