“We need to be kept in the loop on thesethings,” Anna Claire began, nibbling on her thumb. “We have cubs,and I’m with young. If these hunters are coming, we need to beready, and having the information up front will keep us safer thanbeing physically protected by you.”
She saw Ada smirk from the corner of hereye. Tessa gave her a wink over Drake’s shoulder. All the men stoodthere in shock at her independent thinking. It was true, though.They needed to be prepared and being informed was a key part ofthat.
“Maybe I should set up a meeting with thesheriff,” Drake mumbled.
“That would be wise,” Ada replied, coming tostand next to Anna Claire. Tessa joined them and the males finallyrelaxed after Drake made the call to Garrett Lynch.
Now, they would wait for the lawman to comearound and tell them what they needed to know. After that, AnnaClaire would make her plans to keep everyone she loved safe. As sherubbed her flat stomach, she prayed she wasn’t bringing a childinto a world where they were going to be hunted and treated likethe predators the humans thought them to be. If the world startedcoming for the shifter population, they would succeed. There wasn’tenough of them to take on an entire army of humans with guns.
They’d be eradicated.
Gunnar brushed out his long, brown hair,leaving it to dry naturally. He was still trying to calm his beastfrom catching the females going behind their backs to search thedark web for any information they could find. Drake had confiscatedthe phone and told the females to let the males handle theinformation. It wasn’t safe to search the dark web, knowing thefeds were always watching the internet and the shady thingswithin.
It was late, nearing midnight, when Draketexted him and Rex, planning a meeting in the barn. He wanted towait until the females were asleep before they conducted their ownsearch of the message boards the hunters were using.
As he entered his bedroom, Anna Claire wasfast asleep. She was on her side with her hands tucked under herchin. He traced the soft lines of her face. Her lips were slightlyopen as she breathed softly in her slumber.
He’d fallen for her the moment he’d laideyes on her in that forest. The scent of a mate was hard to deny,but he’d done it. He’d become her friend and confidant in her timeof need. There wasn’t anything they couldn’t talk about, and hefelt honored the female trusted him after all she’d beenthrough.
The door didn’t make a sound as he left hisquarters. His hallway was dark, but his vision was perfect once hisshifted his eyes to see his way into the main house where he foundhis brothers waiting in the front living room.
Drake jerked his head to the side,indicating they should follow him. Even with their mates and cubsasleep, the males didn’t want to be overheard. There needed to be aplan in place to stop the hunters before they ever arrived on theMorgan clan lands. If they knew about them, then those human malessurely knew they owned the largest corn farm in the area. Thatcould cut into their living just as much as if they come back totake them out with bullets.
Drake unlocked the side door to the barn andpushed it open wide, flipping on the overhead light in the process.The hum of the bulbs echoed in the metal building as Rex pulled outthree stools from his workbench.
“Have you looked at it yet?” Gunnar asked,nodding toward the phone in Drake’s hand.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “There is a lot ofinformation on here, but I found something that is going to shakeup the community once it’s known.”
“What’s that?” Rex inquired. His middlebrother held out his hand once Drake unlocked the screen. A rumblevibrated his chest as he looked up with golden eyes. “They killedtwo clans.”
“One as recently as last night,” Drakeconfirmed.
Gunnar’s heart thundered in his chest as heheld out his hand. “Let me see.”
The information was right there in black andwhite. They’d posted photos of the dead; two in human form and sixothers as their bears. Bile rose in his throat as he noticed two ofthem were cubs. He felt anger and tears pricked at his eyes.
“How could they!” he bellowed, backing outof the screen. “They killed cubs, Drake! What does that mean forus?”
“It means we are going to go find thembefore they can harm our family,” Rex vowed.
They all quieted as they searched for anyinformation leading them to believe there were more hunters comingtheir way. The clans in Alaska were the biggest target, but thehardest to find because of how remote their homes were in relationto roads.
Gunnar snarled as he saw the informationcrossed out for Anna Claire’s old clan, saying the homes had burnedand there had been no sign of activity in the area for almost ayear. “They’ve known about us for a while.”
“Looks that way,” Rex huffed and pointed tothe screen. “Keep scrolling.”
Drake searched through dozens of posts,stopping to read most of them. A growl bubbled out of his throatwhen he found one containing information about the Morgan clan.
Grizzlies south of Memphis, TN – Researchindicates there are three brothers living in Olive Branch, MS.Their land is a short thirty-minute drive from the Memphis airport.Take the highway south of town after you cross over the state line.Drive fourteen miles and turn left at the abandoned corner store.Their land is one mile down on the right. As of this post, the clanconsists of three brothers and their two female “mates”.
Unconfirmed info: Seven new “members”arrived last spring. No more information as of this post.
“What the fuck?” Rex snarled. “That wasdated a week after Anna Claire and the others moved in.”
“Keep reading,” Gunnar ordered, trying tofocus on what information they had about his extended family. Ifthey mentioned Anna Claire by name, he was going
