Luckily, he managed to avoid Skye, his housekeeper, who seemed to spend every waking moment in his home. She was either cleaning, washing, or cooking up a storm. He’d barely made it to his room when he heard her enter downstairs, humming to herself as she started breakfast.
Good. Kade was still hungry.
Less than an hour later Kade MacKenzie sighed, muttering, “What?”
Fraser, one of his three Betas frowned, head tilting to the side as he scrutinized him. “What in the blazes is going on Kade? You’ve not heard a dang word I’ve said. Have you?”
Raising his ice blue eyes, looking out over the camp toward the distant Cairngorm mountain range, Kade shook his head. The snow-capped tips beautiful as ever, but they didn’t bestow on him the peace they usually provided. The gnawing hunger in his belly now at the painful stage, even though he’d eaten enough overnight to feed several Wolves.
“Sorry, I’m not sure. I feel . . . strange. I have this hunger in my belly and it’s not abating, even after I’ve eaten. I’m going to go hunting and see if some fresh meat will put an end to it because it’s driving me to distraction. I can’t concentrate and my head is all over the place. Top it off with my beast howling constantly in my head and, yeah, I’m not feeling too great.”
Fraser leaned in, giving him a long look, the wrinkles on his forehead puckering even more as his wise eyes studied him making Kade feel very uncomfortable. “How long have you been feeling like this?”
“I’m fine,” Kade snapped irritably, refusing to answer the question. “I’ll see you later.”
Turning away, Kade strode toward the edge of camp, trying to decide where he’d go to hunt. Their Pack land was huge, sprawling in a glen and hidden from view by nosey humans. They had fenced in either end so the animals they stocked the forests with couldn’t escape. It also kept out unwanted visitors. Human or otherwise.
“The Loch,” Kade muttered, hoping his favorite place on earth would calm the inner turmoil raging inside him.
The crescent shaped body of water looked green in color. Overshadowed by a large torr on one side and forests all around the other banks, their emerald shades reflecting off the surface. At certain times of the year, when the heather was in full bloom across the hillside, the loch took on a purple hue, looking most magnificent.
This loch, however, was not to be found on any Scots map. No, it had belonged to the Pack for centuries and they had guarded it well. It was sacred to them. After all, it was from where their Pack got its name: Crescent Loch Pack.
When technology brought satellite maps, they’d been contacted by several authorities asking for details. Each and every one had been told to politely “bugger off.” If they persisted in trying to get information, then politeness flew out the window.
Kade smirked, remembering when his father and Fraser, who’d been his dad’s Beta, had found one such person sneaking around on their land. Fraser had transformed and scared the shit out of the guy, and afterwards, word got around and they were never bothered again.
Another pain lanced inside him. This time in his chest as he thought of his father. Dead almost five years now but he still felt his loss, along with his mother who died at his father’s side. Rogues. Bampots, the lot of them and if he ever caught any on his land he’d rip them apart. No fucking questions asked.
As usual, thinking of his parents had him thrumming with fury. Adding that to the damn hunger gnawing at his guts, and he was, in his mum’s words, “Up to high doh.”
Reaching the edge of the forest, he started to strip, tugging his top off first. The rest following quickly and without his usual OCD behavior of folding everything neatly and placing them on one of the shelves they had erected around the perimeter of the camp. This time his clothes lay where they fell, his boots kicked off to land with a thud, a sock flying up to latch onto a branch, the other in a muddy puddle.
For once he didn’t care. Didn’t even notice as he forced his transformation, allowing his beast to break free. His skin tingling for a brief second before fur broke through, like a thousand pinpricks all at once, then the rest of his body caught up. Bones broke, stretching, realigning as the tendons and muscles joined them.
His first few years morphing were difficult, painful, but now he barely acknowledged the discomfort, getting it over and done with as quickly as possible. When his Wolf shook, head to tail, then lifted its head and howled, he felt relief. Relief at being able to sate this damn hunger.
Surely a deer would stop this insatiable feeling.
Lifting his nose, scenting the air around him, he caught the delectable aroma of some rabbits nearby. His enhanced hearing told him they were gamboling around in the grass, an easy kill for his beast, but not nearly enough for his needs. He was too near the camp for deer. He needed to go further afield for a chance at one of the herds that thrived on their land.
He had his pick from Roe, Red, Sika, and Fallow deer, but he was hoping to come across a herd of Red. They were the largest and with the appetite he had right now, he was sure only a Red deer would do. Only trouble was he knew their herd had a particularly nasty stag that hung around protecting it. It was unusual
