Chapter 68

Chapter 68

For several minutes, Kale stood there, his arms wrapped tightly around her as they tried to catch their breath. With one last kiss, he stumbled back away from the wall, taking her with him, and dropped down on a chair. Swallowing hard, Kale turned his head and-

Sighed.

Just fucking sighed when the spoiled bastard that he’d been hoping would move on by now, released a roar, letting them know that he wasn’t happy that he hadn’t been given his evening bowl of frosting on time. Knowing that the asshole wouldn’t leave them alone until he got frosting, Kale kissed Ashley one last time before he picked her up and placed her back on his chair with a look that told her that she better be there when he came back.

“I don’t think there’s any frosting left in the fridge,” Ashley said with a sheepish smile that had his eyes narrowing on his adorable mate as she pulled on his shirt.

With a muttered, “Asshole,” Kale fixed his pants as he made his way over to the pantry to grab the cans of frosting that they kept for moments like this when Cuddle’s next roar had him frowning because that wasn’t his normal roar. He could be a demanding little bastard, roaring at all hours of the night, hoping to get one of them to take pity on him and bring him frosting, but never like this.

Dread made its way down Kale’s spine as he closed the pantry door and glanced at the living room windows as he listened for the reason why the bear was acting this way, but there was nothing. Knowing that something wasn’t right, Kale glanced back at Ashley to find his mate frowning in confusion as he searched for the source of his unease, scenting the air and listening for anything that would give it away as he slowly made his way back to the kitchen table, his gaze shifting between the kitchen and living room windows as he moved.

“Do you smell apples?” Ashley suddenly asked, looking confused as her gaze shifted to the front door and stayed there as she quickly pulled on her shorts.

“I need you to go downstairs and lock yourself in one of the cells,” Kale said softly as he reached for his bag, moving to grab his gun only to realize that it was already too late when Cuddles stopped roaring.

“Kale?”

“Go,” he said, grabbing the Sentinel phone out of his bag and-

Oh, fuck…

Realized that the Sentinel network was down. Swallowing hard, he tossed the phone aside and grabbed his personal phone only to realize that they’d blocked the cellphone signal as he said, “Go now.”

“Kale-”

“Go!” Kale snapped, grabbing the gun out of his backpack and moved towards the front door when the power suddenly went out.

When the generator didn’t kick on a few seconds later, Kale’s eyes shifted silver, his vision sharpened as his gaze flickered back to Ashley and saw that her eyes had turned red. As soon as he caught the scent of her fear, he realized why they’d bothered cutting off the electricity. They were trying to scare her so that they could lock on to her scent, Kale thought, moving to get her out of there, only to realize that it was already too late when the first shot rang out.

* * *

Williams Mansion

“I really likewhat you did there,” Izzy murmured with a nod as she absently gestured with the half-eaten peanut butter cup in her hand in his direction. “I think it makes you look older.”

“I want a restraining order,” Marc bit out through clenched teeth as he gave up trying to rub the glitter out of his hair and tossed the towel on the office floor, all while keeping his gaze firmly locked on the woman who’d decided that it was a good idea to buy the little demon red and silver glitter so that she could make Valentine’s Day cards.

Nodding, Izzy popped the rest of the peanut butter cup in her mouth before reaching for another one as she murmured, “Understandable.”

“She’s evil,” Marc pointed out, only to sigh heavily when the little girl that was slowly destroying what was left of his sanity decided to take that announcement as an invitation to crawl back onto his lap.

“And she adores you,” Izzy said with a hopeful smile as Jessica took her time shifting on his lap until finally, she settled back against him with a satisfied sigh and grumbled, “Mine.”

“She poured two bottles of glue on my head and covered it with glitter while I was sleeping,” he bit out only to roll his eyes when Jessica said, “Pretty.”

Nodding, Izzy said, “He really did look pretty, baby girl. You do good work.”

“I’m going to throw away all the junk food in the house,” Marc swore with a nod of his own as he stressed, “All. Of. It.”

Squishing her face up adorably, Izzy said, “Do you really think that’s a good idea? Especially now that I can hunt you down and beat you senseless if you even think about touching my junk food.”

“Oh, I think it’s a great idea. In fact, I’m pretty sure that Chris is going to love this plan,” Marc said as he watched Izzy grab her Coke off her workstation and take a sip.

“Your brother adores me,” Izzy said with a smug little smile that had his lips twitching.

“True,” Marc murmured, waiting for her to take another sip as he wrapped his arm around the toddler squirming on his lap before adding, “But he also adores his children.”

He probably shouldn’t break the news to her like this, but then again, she shouldn’t have taken those pictures of him with his hair caked in glitter and sent them to everyone in the house. As he watched Izzy frown in confusion, he reached up and tapped one finger behind his ear and-

“Oh, god, no…” Izzy murmured weakly as she reached up and touched the raised circle behind her ear that he’d noticed when he was forced to let her wash his hair in the kitchen sink, the mark that let them all know that baby number five was on the way.

Keeping his eyes locked on her, Marc reached over and plucked the Coke from her limp fingers and said, “It would probably be for the best if Chris didn’t see you with this.”

“But…my sugar,” Izzy murmured, looking so damn sad that he almost felt bad about doing this to her, that is, until he remembered that she’d suggested they start calling him Sparkles.

“Refresh my memory. What did Chris try to replace your sugar with during the last pregnancy?” he asked, finishing off her Coke.

“Tomato juice,” she mumbled weakly as the realization of what was to come slowly sank in and when it did…

She tore the mini-fridge open, grabbed several Cokes, a bottle of chocolate milk, and a can of buttercream frosting before slamming the small door shut and setting to work on a sugar binge before Chris found out that she was pregnant and got rid of her stash. His brother took being a father very seriously and didn’t play any games when it came to his children, which Izzy normally appreciated unless it involved her precious junk food.

“He should be back any minute now,” Marc murmured, watching as Izzy visibly panicked as she sent the bag of peanut butter cups on her workstation a wistful look.

“Marc?” Izzy mumbled sadly.

“Yeah?”

“I really hate you right now,” she said, making him chuckle as his attention shifted to the monitors mounted on the walls and felt the smile on his face slowly die away.

“Izzy?” Marc said, swallowing hard as his grip tightened around Jessica and held her close.

“Hmmm?” Izzy murmured absently only to follow that up with a heartfelt sigh and a mumbled, “Your brother better not hog this baby,” which normally would have made him laugh, but he didn’t feel like laughing right now.

“The screen,” Marc said hollowly, wondering why the alarms weren’t going off as he watched werewolves circling the house as armed men moved past them and-

“That looks like it hurts,” Izzy murmured as they watched Chris step up behind one of the men and quickly disarmed him before driving a knife into the back of his skull.

“Why didn’t the alarms go off?” Marc asked as he watched Trace, Ethan, and the rest of the men quickly take down the men and werewolves before they could reach the house.

“Good question,” Izzy said as she pulled up the system and-

“This isn’t right,” she mumbled absently as Marc shifted his gaze to the videos of the nursery and felt himself relax when he saw his baby brothers along with the rest of the babies of the house sound asleep in their cribs with Charlie watching the door. Knowing that the large German Shepherd would attack anyone that made the mistake of stepping foot in that nursery, he shifted his gaze back to what was going on outside.

“What’s not right?”

“Everything’s down,” Izzy said, making him frown.

“What about Kale and Ashley?”

“I can’t get through to him,” Izzy said as he swallowed hard as he tried to tell himself that Ashley was okay. Kale would never let anything bad happen to her. Besides, she was a Pyte and a shifter and was-

Too damn nice.