Cade turned his head to gaze back at him—at least he thought it was Cade for a moment before his face seemed to melt before his eyes and his mouth pushed out and reformed into a long wolf’s snout. Thick gray fur sprang up over his body. Within seconds, a huge wolf stood where Cade had been.

Despite the fact he thought he was prepared for the shift, Jax found he couldn’t catch his breath. Gabe and Nicky came to stand beside him, and Nicky put a comforting hand on his shoulder, murmuring quietly to him. “It’s a shock the first time you see it. But he’s still your mate. Look at his eyes.”

Jax dragged his gaze back up to the gray wolf’s face, and sure enough, something inside him leaped in excitement. It was Cade staring back at him, and his own newly-formed wolf spirit called out to him. For the first time since their mating, he could feel something wild and not human inside him, yearning toward its mate. It was both primal and powerful, and scared the hell out of him. He took another quick step backward and Nicky looked down at him anxiously. “Are you okay? Jax, they would never hurt you.”

Cade’s wolf noticed something wrong too, and began prowling slowly toward them. Jax could feel an invasive presence in his mind, calling to him, flashing images of Cade’s human form in his head. He realized it must be Cade trying to reassure him, and he settled down a bit, realizing the truth of what Nicky was saying. Cade would never harm him. This was his mate.

Cade came right up to him, his huge head almost even with Jax’s. His wolf must have stood five feet tall at the shoulder. Cade stood his ground, flanked by Nicky and Gabe, peering down into eyes that held a human expression of tenderness. He jerked up his head and turned then, running into the woods after the other two wolves, and Jax might have fallen if not for Nicky’s arm solidly around him.

“Are you okay?” Nicky asked again, and this time Jax nodded.

“I think so. That was—intense.”

“That’s one word for it,” Gabe said. “C’mon. Let’s find some bait for those fishing rods and try to catch some fish for dinner.” The other young men nodded and followed Gabe down to the stream.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m beginning to get a little worried,” Nicky said. It was late afternoon, almost four o’clock, and the wolves had been gone for almost six hours. Having said they’d be back around lunchtime made all it all the more odd they hadn’t returned. “Marco’s never left me alone in the woods this long on purpose,” Nicky said. “They must have run into some kind of trouble.”

Jax bit his lip nervously. He’d been having a vague feeling of unease for some time now, but it wasn’t strong enough to cause any true alarm. He’d just put it down to the weird scene he’d witnessed earlier when the men had morphed into wolves right in front of him. But as time wore on, he was becoming more and more uneasy.

Gabe stood up and looked into the woods the way they’d left that morning. “Maybe we should go looking for them.”

“Yeah,” Nicky said. “That’ll go over well.” He frowned. “I can’t imagine what’s keeping them, though. Even if one of them was injured, there are three of them, damn it. Three huge, strong alphas. Anything loose in the woods ought to be threatened by them.”

“There couldn’t be anything loose in the woods any more, though, right? Not since the Hunters were taken down,” Gabe noted.

“Except for Jeremy Tate. What if he’s back with a new band of Hunters like he threatened? What if those tracks we saw were his?” Nicky’s voice had risen as he spoke. Gabe grabbed his arm and squeezed it hard.

“Calm down, man. You’re just scaring yourself.” Gabe glanced over at Jax who was staring at them wideeyed. “Nicky had a really bad experience with the Tate guy. He kidnapped him and another one of the mates, Tucker. He’s kind of, uh, obsessed with Nicky.”

“Kind of,hell. He drugged the shit out of me. He would have raped me if it hadn’t been for Tucker.” He looked down at his hands clenched into fists in his lap. “He’s a fucking maniac, Gabe. What if he’s come back? He said he would, and he despises Marco.”

“There’s one way to find out,” Jax said, standing up. “Let’s go looking for them.”

“Where the hell are we going to look?” Gabe said. “They were running the perimeter—that has to be over twenty miles of trail.”

Jax pointed east. “They’re in that direction.”

Gabe and Nicky glanced up at him. “How the hell did you know that?” Gabe asked, surprised.

“Cade and I have the soif de sang, remember? It’s a two-way connection. I’ve been sensing something wrong for hours now, but I wasn’t sure enough to say anything. Since you started talking, it’s gotten a lot worse. I think Nicky’s right. Something’s wrong, and they need help.”

Nicky jumped up beside him, his face dark with fury. “If it’s Tate and he’s hurt Marco, I’ll kill him.”

Gabe stood too, but put a cautioning hand on Nicky’s arm again. “I’m with you, man, but let’s not run off half-cocked. Jax,” he said, his voice sounding firmer than Jax had ever heard it, “go get a pack together. Put in one of those medical kits, just in case. Nicky, you get that twelvegauge shotgun Marco left us. I saw where he put the extra shells.”

“How did you know it was a twelve-gauge?” Jax asked, bent over a pack.

“I used to hunt with my father before he passed away,” Gabe said. “I still have his old shotgun at home, as a matter of fact. I threatened to shoot Zack with it the night we met,” he said, a little smile playing around his lips, though his eyes were gray and troubled. “Long story,” he told Jax.

“Oh,” Jax said, glancing over at him. “I don’t think I want to know. So you handle the gun then.” He turned back toward the east. “They’re over there somewhere. I think I can get a clearer idea as we get closer.” He stood up, slinging the pack over his shoulder. “Let’s go get our mates.”

Chapter Seven

Marco sensed the exact moment Nicky started toward them, and his gut clenched helplessly. Damn him. Nicky knows better. He’s walking right into a trap, the same one that snared me and the other alphas. He glanced over at Zack and Cade and they were tilting their heads as well, as if they were listening to something only they could hear. Cade got an alarmed expression on his face, meeting Marco’s own worried glance. “They’re coming,” he whispered, and the man guarding them looked up sharply.

“Shut up!” he yelled at them, pulling back his leg and giving Cade a vicious kick in his side. Cade hissed in a breath and flinched as a shotgun was jammed in his ribs. “No talking!” The man who guarded them was a wolf, a gamma, though he wasn’t acting like any gamma Marco had ever seen. He hadn’t shaved in a while, nor had he bathed recently, and his stench filled Marco’s nostrils. From the time they’d awakened, he’d shown them no respect nor obeisance, though he couldn’t meet their eyes. That didn’t make him any less dangerous. One of a small pack of rogue wolves who held them captive, he was the only one close by. Two of the others, equally dirty and smelly, were crouched over a small fire in the middle of a messy campsite. The others, including several females, were in tents closer to the stream. Their camp too, from what Marco could see of it, was disorganized and filthy.

Typical rogue behavior. Without a strong alpha to keep them disciplined, gammas let themselves go and lived in slovenly, makeshift camps. They fought among themselves and even the mating structure suffered. They truly lived like animals, with no discipline or order.

A few mud-splattered ATVs were pulled up on the side of the trail nearby and Marco wondered where they stole them from. Another gamma came over to bring their guard a plate of food and Marco saw it was a female wolf. Tall and dark-haired, her muscular figure curvy but clearly defined, she was one Marco recognized as a wolf named Marissa, formerly of the Tennessee alpha’s pack. Gavin, the alpha of the branch near Cherokee, but still just over the Tennessee line, had called to warn him about members of his personal guard who had gone rogue and attacked the alpha’s mate, along with the beta’s new mate.

One of the rogues had been killed in the attack, but the other two, Benjamin and Marissa, had disappeared. Apparently they’d either recruited other rogues, or joined another band along the way.

Gavin and his beta, Richard, had uncovered an intricate plot to destroy the human mates of the alphas and forcibly breed the alphas to female wolves, creating a new breed of wolf, one not weakened and sullied by human blood. If Marco remembered the story correctly, they wanted to keep the current Dark Hollows alphas as breeding stock only, disposing of them after they’d managed to impregnate the female wolves. Was this their plan for him and the other two alphas?

Marissa looked over at each of the alphas in turn. She noticed Marco watching her and smiled at him, licking her full lips. As she walked back to the other camp she put a little more sway in her hips.

She was obvious, but she seemed harmless enough. It was the fourth gamma who made Marco uneasy. He stayed mostly in the tent, only coming out to speak to various members of his pack. His eyes were wild and his smell was off, but he seemed to be their leader. Not merely dirty and unkempt like the others, he had an unhealthy, sickly odor. This was the one named Benjamin, and he was another of Gavin’s former personal guard. He’d been closest to the young wolf who was killed in the attack on the alpha’s mate. He’d heard they may have been even been blood mates, a highly unusual situation, but one that did occur from time to time. Marco’s own nephew, Rory, was a wolf, and mated to a stronger alpha, their battle commander, Casey.

Benjamin, inside one of the small tents at the moment, had only shown himself once since Marco had awakened from where he was hit in the leg with the tranquilizer dart. Since then, he’d stayed mostly inside the tent as the wolves struggled back to consciousness. Gavin had told him he was most worried about Benjamin, because of his cleverness.