But another cramp seized my stomach and I knew there was no way I was making it back up those stairs right now. Fuck it. Knox would be here soon. I could feel him through the bond, could sense his sudden alertness, his worry, his determination to get to me. He was close.
I turned toward the front door.
That’s when the knocking started.
Not polite knocking. Not the firm but reasonable knock of someone with legitimate business. This was violent, aggressive, the kind of pounding that seemed designed to break the door down. The sound echoed through the silent house, making me jump with each impact.
I was terrified now. Really, genuinely terrified in a way I hadn’t been since the last time rogues had attacked. My heart hammered against my ribs and my hands shook as I changed direction, moving toward the kitchen instead of the front door. I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t going to open the door to whoever was trying to beat it down at three in the morning.
I grabbed a knife from the block on the counter just as the knocking stopped.
The sudden silence was almost worse than the noise had been. I stood there in the dark kitchen, knife in hand, barely breathing, waiting for whatever came next.
“Mama?”
Thea’s voice drifted down from the hallway upstairs. Small and sleepy and confused.
My heart clenched. “Go back to bed, baby!” I called out, trying to make my voice sound normal, trying to sound calm and reassuring instead of terrified. “Everything’s fine. Just go back to sleep.”
I listened, holding my breath, until I heard her little feet padding back toward her room. The door creaked slightly as she presumably climbed back into bed. I exhaled slowly, my grip on the knife loosening just slightly.
She was okay. Rowan was okay. They were safe in their beds and they would stay there.
I turned back toward the front door, ready to wait out whoever was outside until Knox arrived, when I saw it.
Smoke. Curling in through the slits around the door frame. Gray and wispy and definitely not normal.
Fuck.
I grabbed the fire extinguisher from under the kitchen sink and moved toward the door as quickly as my cramping stomach would allow. I paused just outside the entrance, listening for any sound of movement on the other side. If there was someone waiting out there, ready to attack the moment I opened the door, I needed to know.
I knew what I was about to do was stupid. If this were a horror movie, the audience would be screaming at me not to open that door. They’d be throwing popcorn at the screen and calling me an idiot. And they’d be right.
But if the door was on fire, if flames were spreading, I couldn’t just stand here and let my children get hurt. I couldn’t let the house burn down around us while I waited for someone to come save me.
I was the Luna of this pack. I would save my own damn self.
I yanked the door open, fire extinguisher raised and ready.
There was no one outside. The porch was empty, the night air cold and still. The door itself wasn’t on fire either. The smoke was coming from the ground, from a pile of burning fabric that was slowly smoldering on the welcome mat.
I sprayed it down with the extinguisher, coughing as the chemical dust mixed with the smoke and filled my lungs. Another cramp hit my stomach at the same time, sharp enoughto make me double over and nearly drop the extinguisher. I braced myself against the door frame, eyes watering, trying to breathe through the pain and the smoke and the overwhelming urge to just collapse right there.
Was everyone just determined to make my night miserable? Between the cramps and the mysterious visitors and the apparent arson, the universe was really testing my patience.
When the smoke finally cleared and the small fire was fully extinguished, I straightened up to look at what had been burning.
Yarn. Scorched and blackened, pieces of it scattered all over the front porch. There was lace too, delicate and singed. I spotted an unburned section and my blood went cold.
White yarn. Green ribbon woven through it.
I recognized it. Of course I recognized it. I’d picked it out myself, had spent hours choosing the perfect blanket for the baby’s crib. Soft and warm and exactly what I’d imagined wrapping my newborn in.
The blanket from my baby’s crib. Someone had taken it. Someone had been in my house, in my nursery, and taken my baby’s blanket.
Terror flooded through me, so intense it actually made me forget about the cramps. I spun around, ready to run back inside and check on the twins, check on every room, find whoever had broken into my home.
That’s when I saw the knife.
