Nemesis - Book 3 of the Hunted series.

Chapter 1 - No time for peace

Stonehaven, the Pack's official home, was off limits. 

Forestwatch- my home that was already full of five immature minds- three one month old babies, one six year old and Nick- was suddenly full of Pack. Everywhere.  This proved to be a problem, somewhat, as far as sleeping space went. In other ways it was fantastic. The adults seemed to know how to behave around babies that were tired, even sometimes willing to pitch in, thanks to Clayton and Elena having already had twins five years before. Only Daniella flat out refused to do anything related to babies.  

With a ton of laundry and cooking no one argued with her.

Unfortunately, the kids didn't know and they often forgot, so when Matt had Logan and Kate around, it worked him up, so that the three ran around the house and yard screaming in some fantastic game that no adult could really figure out. Kids screaming usually woke babies until we had to leave them upstairs in the nursery virtually all the time, carry around the baby monitor, and listen obsessively to it in case a soft noise from one or all of the babies turned into a cry.

The tent idea proved to be a hit though. It was put up in the backyard, somewhat in the shade out of the warm sun, and the kids almost moved into it, dragging everything they could from Matt's room inside. That freeded up one bedroom, at least. 

While they entertained themselves we somehow managed to prepare for 'operation asshole hunt'. Well, that was what I called it, Jeremy probably had a more elegant phrase in mind, but I figured this was the perfect way to descibe it. I was eager to get on with it, get him out of the way, and get on with being a mum.

For me, that meant more training with Clayton and/or Elena, which meant I needed more naps which I honestly had no time for, and had more sore bits and bruises, and half the time we'd be running instead of learning techniques. I didn't like running as much as they did. My hip always made that part difficult but apparently that was exactly why I should push it. Even if I wasn't fast, endurance was apparently important, so I focused on it. Endurance and agility.

Nick tried to join in but he couldn't pretend that he was more interested in looking good rather than actually being muscular. He might not have been as obsessive with my looks, although he did continue try and dress me up in clothes he liked, but when it came to his own appearance he was downright obsessive. Between that and babies, I couldn't cook any more, I'd be falling asleep all over the place. I sat down while I was waiting for spagetti to soften and fall into the pan, fell asleep, and woke up to find the edges of it hanging out of the pot and on fire. Woops. I also fell asleep while trying to do a laundry load, trying to hang out washing, while feeding babies, while cleaning the house, my domestic skills a flat out disaster.

Elena spent half the time with Jeremy, the two of them on the phone with Antonio, because apparently Jeremy bounced most of his ideas off Antonio that way. This wasn't new for us, he did spend a lot of time in the den anyway working, but now it seemed to be reaching fever pitch with the invasion along the edge of our property.

Elena and Clayton had confirmed our findings- that it had been a three day old set of tracks preserved by the warm sun and dry weather. Corpses not eaten, just killed and left there, something that baffled and irritated Clayton more than anyone else. Wolves didn't kill for pleasure. They killed for survival. He was attacking our prey and leaving it to waste and upset the rest of the animals in our land.

It was while we were distracted by this that the alpha finally made his move. And he didn't have to lift a damned finger to do it. 

We didn't even realise it was him at first. One minute the twins and Matt were sleeping outside, the next they'd vanished on their bikes in the direction they were allowed to go. Not near the road-side of the property, it was very clear that was off limits, as were the borders of the lands, but they didn't go that direction. Being curious kids who'd heard Stonehaven was now off-limits they did the exact thing kids did when they heard they couldn't go somewhere.