Which made her snap at me for being a control freak who wouldn’t let her even check on her own damn cafés. We’d been arguing more lately, her frustration boiling over into sharp words and slammed doors. She called me overprotective. I called her reckless. She said I was treating her like a prisoner. I said I was trying to keep her alive.
But at night, when the anger faded and exhaustion took over, we didn’t hesitate to curl up around each other. Whatever happened during the day, whatever words we threw at each other, we always ended up tangled together in bed. Her back pressed against my chest. My hand resting on her belly. Our bond humming with the kind of connection that transcended any argument.
The twins weren’t handling the situation much better. They missed school, missed their friends, missed the freedom of running around the pack territory without a small army of guards watching their every move. They’d always had at least one guard nearby, though I wasn’t sure they counted Hunt, but now there were ten. At least being with Lina and Hunt and Noah and me distracted them enough. We’d turned the lockdown into a big slumber party, complete with blanket forts and movie marathons and enough junk food to make the pack nutritionist weep.
“Nothing new, Alpha,” Lucio said in response to my question. Then he paused, his expression shifting into the kind of hesitation that always meant bad news. “Although...”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Although what?”
“We found a dead rabbit in the backyard. The neck had been bitten clean through. We don’t know if someone left it on purpose, but it appeared this evening.” He swallowed nervously. “Little Thea found it while they were training with Hunt.”
My jaw clenched so hard I thought my teeth might crack. My daughter had found a dead animal in her own backyard. In the place where she should have been safe. Where I had promised she would be safe.
Unacceptable. Absolutely fucking unacceptable.
“No one was looking?” I snarled, my wolf rising to the surface. “We have guards posted around the entire perimeter. We have cameras covering every inch of the property. And no one saw someone come in and leave a dead rabbit for my five-year-old daughter to find?”
Lucio paled visibly. “They were watching, sir! That’s what’s strange. Everyone was at their posts. The entire perimeter was covered. But the cameras show a brief lapse in time during the window when the rabbit must have been placed.”
A brief lapse in time. Meaning someone had tampered with our security system. Meaning whoever we were dealing with wasn’t just some random stalker with a grudge, but someone calculated and professional enough to hack into our cameras without being detected.
“Thank you,” I said, forcing my voice to stay level. “Please see if you can track down the device that got into our system. I wantto know exactly how they did it and how we can prevent it from happening again.”
“Will do, sir.” Lucio nodded and walked back to his post, clearly relieved to be out of my line of fire.
I took a deep breath before opening the front door. Thea would be upset. She loved animals. Finding a dead rabbit would have traumatized her, and I needed to be calm and reassuring when I comforted her. I needed to be the steady, stable father she needed, not the furious alpha who wanted to tear apart whoever had done this.
I pushed open the door and stepped inside, ready to comfort my daughter.
What I found was not what I was expecting.
Feathers were flying everywhere. And I mean everywhere. The living room looked like a chicken coop had exploded in the middle of it. White fluff drifted through the air, settled on the furniture, covered the floor in a layer of downy chaos. In the center of the destruction, Lina, Thea, Rowan, and Hunt were engaged in what could only be described as full-scale pillow warfare.
The furniture had been rearranged into some sort of castle formation, with couch cushions serving as walls and blankets draped over chairs to create towers. Hunt was crouched behind one of the barriers, launching pillows at the twins with impressive accuracy. The twins were screaming and throwing pillows back with the ferocity of tiny warriors.
And Lina was in the middle of it all, yelling strategic commands at Thea.
“Aim for his knees! Knock him down first, then go for the face!”
“Would you SHUT UP?” Hunt roared, turning to glare at my wife. “You’re supposed to be neutral!”
“There’s no neutral in war, Sinclair!”
Hunt opened his mouth to respond, but Thea took advantage of his distraction and hurled a pillow directly at his face. It connected with a satisfying thwack, and Hunt stumbled backward, coughing and spitting out feathers.
Thea cackled with glee. “Got him! Mommy, I got him!”
Lina was laughing so hard she had to squeeze her legs together, her words coming out in breathless gasps. “I’m gonna... pee my... self...”
Hunt collapsed onto his back, still spitting feathers, and Thea launched herself at him with a battle cry. She landed on his stomach and started whacking him repeatedly with a throw pillow while Rowan provided backup by dumping an entire pillowcase worth of feathers directly onto Hunt’s face.
“I surrender!” Hunt wheezed. “I surrender, I yield! Whatever kids say these days! The tiny terrorists have won!”
“We’re not terrorists!” Thea protested, still hitting him.
“Same thing when you’re five!”
I pulled out my phone without thinking about it, opening the camera and hitting record. I wanted to remember this forever. The chaos. The laughter. My daughter sitting triumphantly on Hunt’s chest while my son dumped more feathers on him. My wife laughing so hard she was crying, one hand pressed to her enormous belly.
