Free Animal Instincts by Desiree Holt Page A

members of his pack had survived, and they’d scattered for safety. Some hand of fate must have led them all to Texas, where he ran into the Spencer brothers working at the Houston Stock Show. The three of them had managed to find the other five remaining members, all gravitating to a small town outside San Antonio.
    So now he was one of a band of eight. The Sentinels. Guardians offering their services to those in need, while pursuing the remnants of other packs in an effort to rebuild a community. Most of the others had chosen homes in the city or in one of the smaller Hill ANIMAL INSTINCTS
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    Country towns. But Drew felt trapped when he was surrounded by buildings, so he’d looked around and found this ranch to buy.
    Their numbers were increasing. Both of the Spencers had mated with humans, and Kelsey Bryant had stumbled into another shifter, Mack Redfield, while vacationing in Maine.
    So now there were two Sentinels offices, one in Texas and one in Maine. And Mack had a few shifters from his own pack who were willing to work with them.
    Drew felt safe at the ranch, happy with his solitary existence. His ranch hands knew him as a taciturn loner, and he was happy to leave it that way. He had the freedom to shift at night and run through the trees, returning home before any of the ranch workers arrived.
    But now there were rumblings of something as vile as a secret illegal game preserve, where trapped animals were let loose and hunted for big money twelve months of the year.
    This was well outside the rules and regulations of Texas Game and Wildlife. He’d even heard whoever was running the preserve scoured neighbouring ranch lands in the hopes of picking up a stray predator to add to the outlaw population. The whispers made Drew very nervous.
    Edgy enough that he considered driving into the city to meet with his partners and get their feedback. If he couldn’t shift in freedom on his own land, he was in big trouble.
    He finished his beer, rose and stretched. But as he lifted his face to the night air, a very faint scent drifted past his nostrils, and every hair on his body stood up. Something was wrong, something that his wolf self had caught wind of, something that he was afraid was bringing trouble to him.
    Definitely tomorrow he’d head into the office. He couldn’t afford to wait and see if trouble came to him.
     

     
    “What does everyone else say?”
    Luke Spencer leant back in his chair, his booted feet resting on his desk, a mug of coffee cradled in one hand, studying his partner.
    Drew, too edgy to sit, paced the floor with his own coffee, sipping at it absently.
    “So far anyone I’ve casually mentioned it to says it’s just kids telling wild stories. But I have a feeling in my gut about this, Luke. I think there’s something bad going on.”
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    Luke dropped his feet and leant forward. “Who do you think would be doing this?
    Who has a spread big enough to hide something like this?”
    Drew shrugged. “Five or six people could easily bury it in their land. There are that many ranchers with more than ten thousand acres to their spreads.”
    “Maybe a couple of us should come out and scope the area,” Luke suggested.
    “That’s what I was hoping you’d say. There’s a town meeting tonight, and I want to wait and see if anyone brings this up. Why don’t I call you afterwards and give you a report.
    Then we can make plans.”
    “Good.” Luke pushed himself out of his chair. “Let’s get everyone together while you’re here and run this by them. We can call in a favour if we need to and do some satellite tracking, but meanwhile all the others will be on the alert.”
     

     
    Drew deliberately sat in the back of the community room at the bank where the meeting was taking place. He wanted to be able to see and hear everyone without being drawn into the discussion. On a raised platform at the front of the room sat Hob Winston, the bank