Chapter 6 Lina
— · —
Lina
I blinked in the darkness, confused and disoriented as my brain struggled to process what the hell had woken me up.
My stomach hurt. Not a little uncomfortable ache but a real, genuine, doubled over pain that made me groan as I grabbed my belly with both hands.
The room was dark and quiet around me, nothing but shadows and the soft hum of the house settling, but the pain in my abdomen was sharp enough to cut through the fog of sleep.
Was that what woke me? Shit. Was it the baby?
Panic clawed at my throat as I tried to breathe in and out, tried to focus past the discomfort and figure out exactly what in my belly was hurting.
I pressed my hands against different spots, testing, probing, trying to isolate the source of the pain.
It seemed to be higher up, more in my actual stomach than lower down where the baby was nestled.
Not the baby. Just my stomach. Maybe the cupcakes from earlier had finally caught up with me.
I breathed out in relief, my racing heart slowing slightly as I patted the bed next to me to wake Knox. He’d know what to do. He always knew what to do, even when I was panicking over nothing at three in the morning.
But my hand found cold sheets and empty space.
I scowled and groaned as I turned over, expecting to see him standing by the window or maybe sitting in the chair in the corner. He did that sometimes when he couldn’t sleep. Just sat there in the dark and watched me, which should have been creepy but somehow wasn’t.
He wasn’t there. The chair was empty. The window was closed. The bathroom door stood open, revealing nothing but darkness inside.
Where was he?
Another cramp seized my stomach and I curled into myself, breathing through the pain.
When it passed, I forced myself to think.
Knox sometimes had nightmares. Bad ones.
Dreams about the rogue attack that had killed Blake all those years ago.
Dreams about me or the twins being in danger, about being too late to save us, about finding our bodies in the woods.
On those nights he’d get up and go outside, run through the forest until his lungs burned and his muscles screamed, trying to exhaust himself enough to sleep without dreaming.
But he always left a note. Always. Even if he was just going downstairs for water, he’d scribble something on a piece of paper and leave it on his pillow so I wouldn’t worry.
There was no note on his pillow now.
I groaned as another cramp hit my stomach, sharper this time. Shit, that fucking hurt. Whatever I’d eaten earlier was staging a full rebellion against my digestive system.
I forced myself to get up, my legs shaky and unsteady beneath me. The room spun for a second before settling, and I had to grab the nightstand to keep from falling. Stomach cramps in the middle of the night while heavily pregnant. This was not how I’d planned to spend my evening.
That’s when I heard it. The sound that must have woken me up in the first place.
The doorbell.
I froze, listening. Who the hell was ringing my doorbell at-? I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. 3:17 AM. Nobody came to visit at 3:17 AM with good news. Nobody rang doorbells at this hour unless there was an emergency or unless they were trying to cause one.
I moved slowly out of our bedroom, pausing in the hallway to listen for the twins. Their soft snoring drifted through their partially open door, the familiar sound of my children sleeping peacefully. Safe. They were safe. I needed to keep them that way.
The stairs seemed to stretch on forever as I made my way down, one hand on the railing and the other pressed against my cramping stomach. Every few steps I had to stop and double over, the pain making it hard to move at any real speed. Whoever was at the door was just going to have to wait.
I wasn’t making any effort to keep Knox out of what I was feeling. Usually I tried to mute the bond a little, not wanting to worry him with every minor ache and discomfort. But right now I left it wide open, letting every cramp and spike of fear flow through to him. He would feel it. He would come.
He was probably already on his way.
Just as I reached the bottom of the stairs, I remembered my phone. It was still on the nightstand upstairs, charging where I’d left it before bed. I needed it. I should go back and get it, call Knox or Noah or someone who could help.
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 enough to 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.
Not my knife. A different one. Larger, meaner, stabbed into the wood of my front door with enough force to embed it deep. And pinned beneath it, a piece of paper with words scrawled in angry red letters.
You’ll go to hell for what you took from me, bitch. And your babies will follow.
I gasped, the sound catching in my throat.
The smell of burning fabric, the chemical residue from the fire extinguisher, the stress and the pain and the terror all crashed together.
Tears started streaming down my face without my permission, blurring my vision and making the threatening words swim in front of me.
Someone wanted to hurt my babies. Someone blamed me for something and they wanted my children to suffer for it.
My stomach cramped again, the worst one yet, and my knees buckled.
I heard my name being called from somewhere, the voice familiar and frantic, and then strong arms caught me before I could hit the ground.
“Where the fuck were you?!” Knox’s voice was a snarl, but he wasn’t talking to me. He was yelling at someone behind us, someone approaching fast.
“Alpha, I was just peeing for a moment, I swear, I only stepped away for a minute...” The voice belonged to a man, probably one of the guards Knox had posted around the house. He sounded terrified, his words stumbling over each other.
“Call an ambulance NOW!” Knox ordered, and the command in his voice left no room for argument.
Then he was focused entirely on me, his hands cradling my face, his gray eyes searching mine with desperate intensity. I could see him clearly now despite my tears. The fear in his expression. The guilt. The barely contained rage at whoever had done this.
“Baby, can you hear me? I’m here. You’re fine. I’m so fucking sorry I wasn’t here when this happened. You’re okay. I could feel you hurting through the bond. What happened? Can you tell me what exactly hurts?” He was rambling, the words tumbling out faster than he could control them.
I wanted to answer. Wanted to tell him about the fire and the blanket and the note, about the cramps that had been torturing me for the past hour, about how scared I was for our babies.
But another cramp seized my stomach with brutal force and I curled into myself, all the air leaving my lungs in a silent scream.
Fuck. Fuck that hurt. That really fucking hurt.
“Quick!” Knox yelled at the guard, his voice cracking with desperation.
Through the haze of pain, I registered footsteps. Running footsteps approaching from the direction Knox had come from. Noah and Hunt appeared in my limited field of vision, both of them breathless and disheveled.
They must have been together. All three of them must have been somewhere together when Knox felt the commotion through the bond, which is why they’d all arrived within seconds of each other.
Later I would ask Knox where he’d been, why he’d left without a note, what had pulled him away from our bed in the middle of the night.
Later. If there was a later.
Noah took one look at the scene and grunted, “Kids.” He pushed past us and ran into the house, his footsteps thundering up the stairs toward the twins’ room.
Hunt was right behind him, pausing only long enough to say, “Will check for intruders,” before disappearing inside as well.
Good. Someone was checking on my babies. Someone was making sure the house was safe. I could let go a little, could focus on surviving this pain instead of worrying about everything else.
“Breathe with me, baby,” Knox said, his voice softer now. His hand pressed against my back, his touch warm and grounding. Through the bond I could feel him trying to push calm toward me, trying to take some of my pain into himself. It worked, a little. Not much.
“Stomach,” I managed to say between clenched teeth. “Hurts. Then there was a knocking...” I had to pause, had to breathe through another wave of cramps. “And fire. Someone burned... the baby’s blanket. There’s a note...”
“Okay, okay, baby. Hang on. Help is coming.”
I could hear sirens in the distance, getting closer. The ambulance. The sound should have been reassuring but I was having trouble focusing on anything beyond the pain and the fear and Knox’s face hovering above me.
Hunt emerged from the house just as the ambulance appeared at the end of the driveway, lights flashing white and red against the dark trees.
“House is clean,” Hunt reported, his voice tight. “No intruder scent. Whoever did this didn’t go inside. They must have taken the blanket earlier and waited.”
Knox didn’t look relieved. His jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping beneath his skin. The rage in his eyes promised violence to whoever had done this.
“Follow us to the hospital,” Knox ordered Hunt. “Noah takes the twins to our parents and stays there with them until I say otherwise.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He just scooped me up in his arms and started walking toward the ambulance that was pulling up to our house.
The paramedics barely had time to open the back doors before Knox was climbing in, settling me onto the stretcher with a gentleness that contrasted sharply with the fury radiating off him in waves.
I was barely conscious by now. The pain and the stress and the fear had drained everything out of me. My eyes kept trying to close, kept trying to pull me down into darkness where I wouldn’t have to feel anything anymore.
“Stay with me, baby,” Knox said, his hand gripping mine. “Help is here. You’re going to be just fine. You and the baby are both going to be just fine.”
I really wanted to believe him.