8. Jasper
8
Jasper
“ W hat if, after the kids have a chance to play a bit, we—”
* Look out, Abigail’s coming up right behind you.* Caine raised his hand to wave. “Hi, Abigail! Happy Christmas Eve!”
“Happy almost-Christmas to you, too. Will you all be coming by the lodge tomorrow afternoon?”
“Wouldn’t miss it. Looking forward to letting the twins gnaw on someone else’s furniture for once.”
“Maybe they can chew off the scorch marks Ruby left last time we visited,” Abigail grinned.
Caine winced. “Don’t let them hear you say that. They’ll think it’s a great idea.” He clapped Jasper on the shoulder. “We’d better get onto it, then!”
* Onto what?* Jasper asked, exasperated. * I haven’t told you the plan yet!* The fake plan, that was. The plan that would keep his so-helpful friends busy while he pulled off the real plan. The one that would make all of this worth it.
The plan that… meant he would be busy carrying out the plan this evening, instead of skating around the icy lake and watching Ruby screech with delight.
Instead of letting Abigail fall into his arms.
Uncertainty prickled at him.
Caine winked and sauntered off with Fleance, leaving Jasper and Abigail alone.
“Why do I get the feeling we’re being deliberately abandoned?” Jasper wondered. He quirked a smile down at Abigail. “And it’s not the first time this has happened.”
She smiled, wincing. “You noticed?”
“That everyone in my life is doing their best to steal Christmas from me?”
“That isn’t—” Abigail’s face fell, and his heart dropped with it. “I’m not—it wasn’t—”
“That was a joke,” he said quickly, and took her shoulders to bring her to face him. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
She sighed, and Jasper and his inner dragon both tensed. “Nothing’s wrong. I just—”
Alarm bells rang in his head.
Abigail was his fated mate. The other half of his soul. His wife. There should be no I just, with that closed-in expression on her face, like she was trying to lock away whatever she was feeling.
Guilt turned a back-flip inside him. Of all times of the year, this should be the best, and he’d been doing his best to make sure it was.
He should have tried harder.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he promised.
Her frown deepened. “No, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about—”
* DADDY!* Ruby wailed in his head.
Jasper flinched. Abigail paled and put a hand to her chest. “Was that Ruby?”
Abigail wouldn’t have heard Ruby’s telepathic cry—but she must have felt his jolt of shock through the mate bond.
“Yes.” He turned in the direction he’d last seen Ruby. The play area by the snow-fight zone was empty. * Bee-bee, where are you?*
*The surprise went wrong!*
“What’s happening? Where did they go?” Abigail asked urgently.
He grabbed her hand and repeated Ruby’s message.
“Surprise? What—oh no.”
She ran, tugging him with her, towards the frozen lake.
The beautiful, serene, sparkly lake of ice. With its tiny island in the middle.
Which was on fire.
Neither of them had their skates on yet. They sprinted and skidded across the ice. Jasper’s dragon fought to transform, but he wouldn’t let it. There were humans here who didn’t know that shifters existed.
And adding another panicked, fire-breathing creature to the situation was not going to help.
* HELLHOUNDS!* he yelled. * WE NEED SOME FIREFIGHTING OVER HERE!*
* Uncle Jasper!* another voice wailed.
*Cole, what the hell is going on?*
*They dumped a load of snow on me and disappeared!*
“I thought Meaghan and Olly were watching them!” Abigail panted.
“So did I.” He caught her as her feet skidded from under her, and then they were on the island.
There were three lonely pine trees on this stupid island, and they were all on fire. Heat seared against his face and snow crunched under his feet as he searched for the kids. Ruby and the others’ psychic signatures were here somewhere, but—
There!
Three tiny faces turned to theirs, bathed in flickering firelight. Ruby’s face was pale with fright.
The two hellpuppy twins were alight with glee.
“Ruby!” Abigail rushed past him and scooped up their daughter. Jasper grabbed the twins, hurrying them further away from the fire. The blaze had truly caught by now.
And then, just as quickly, it died.
Sheena jogged to a halt next to them, hands still raised as she used her hellsheep magic to quell the fire. “What the fu— ” she began, and glanced guiltily at the kids. “I mean, what the—he—uhh—shi— jiminy crickets, ” she said at last, with feeling.
The others ran up, but the emergency was over. Meaghan and Caine scooped the twins away, and the ice running through Jasper’s veins melted.
“I didn’t mean for it to do that, Daddy!” Ruby wailed. “I wanted it to be special!”
Something pulsed through the mate bond from Abigail’s heart to his—relief, mixed with something like regret. And understanding.
“Hot cocoa,” he announced out loud. “And then the four of you can tell us all how that happened.”
It took multiple mugs of hot cocoa, each one topped with more marshmallows until the last mug was more marshmallow than drink. But eventually the kids were ready to talk.
“I know I was meant to be watching them,” Cole said miserably. “But they knocked the snowman on top of me and—I swear it only took a minute for me to get out, and then—”
“HeeheeheeHEEHEE , ” the twins cackled in unison. Caine and Meaghan looked drained.
“ I was meant to be watching you all,” Meaghan said, rubbing her forehead. She looked up at Caine. “I only looked away for a moment, helping Cole out of the snow…”
Her mate cupped her face. “I know how fast they are.”
“ I know how fast they are.” She sighed. “I used to think a whole pack to two shifter kids was a safe ratio. Guess I was wrong about that.”
Behind her, Sheena and Fleance exchanged a silent grimace, and Sheena ghosted her hand over her midsection.
If that meant what Jasper thought it meant… then he agreed with them that right now was not a good time to tell their alphas that the ratio might soon be three shifter kids against a pack of adults.
Ruby scooped up a slug of melted marshmallow and spooned it into her mouth.
“Are you ready to tell us now?” Abigail asked gently.
“I wanted to do a special Christmas surprise too,” Ruby told them in the tiniest voice Jasper had ever heard from her. She reached into her pocket and pulled out handful after handful of Christmas decorations Jasper had never seen before. Macaroni stars, glittery cardboard trees, an extremely squashed length of bunting…
“Did you make these?” he asked.
Ruby nodded, and sniffed. “I wanted to go all the way over the ice to the island and make a Christmas tree for you and Mommy. And I did! I got all the way there! But Lola and Hamish came too and… then they…” She sniffed harder. “THEY started the fire! It wasn’t me!”
Jasper exchanged a glance with Abigail, then looked at the twins. They were both still in unrepentantly good moods.
As they watched, a patch of the picnic table in front of them started to smolder.
Caine smacked his hand over it to put it out. “I believe you,” he told Ruby. “These little firebugs get too excited, and, well… you’ve seen the consequences.”
“And THEN,” Ruby continued, glowing with vindication. “And THEN, they…” Her face darkened. “ Hmph. ”
She refused to say any more.