I was shaken by Dallas's abrupt departure, but I could feel his adrenaline and determination as he ran through the woods. He wasn't scared, but he was concerned, and he was very angry. I hurried home as safely as I dared. The last thing I wanted to do was get in an accident. Instead of heading to the double-wide, I went right to Jesse and Asher's house. Jesse opened the door before I knocked and welcomed me in. Kit had already beat me there.

"What's going on? All Dallas said was that there was a fire..."

Aspen was on Jesse's shoulder, asleep, and he patted her back as we sat in the living room. "Asher got the call from a local rogue who is on the firefighting... I don't even know what they're called. Team? Squad?"

"Just go with he's a firefighter," Kit advised.

"The fire is at another local shifter's house, and part of the family got out, but the alpha went back in after a missing kid."

"Oh, shit." I clutched my stomach protectively. I hadn't even met our child yet and the notion of losing him or her terrified me to my very bones. 

"To make things worse, Asher is worried it might be this skip they've been tracking. A coyote shifter arsonist. He targets shifter families with kids. No one has survived until now, but one body is always missing."

My stomach churned. "One of the kids?"

Jesse nodded.

I couldn't imagine a child being in the hands of someone who had murdered their entire family. It was bad enough when your parents rejected you, like mine had, but to be torn away from them? I really didn't know which was worse. The revulsion and anger twisted inside me until it rose up, a physical force inside me. I sprinted for the bathroom, the urge too sudden to warn Jesse or Kit. I made it to the toilet in time, but only just. 

Jesse was waiting with a wet cloth when I was done and a glass of orange juice. "Sip, swish and spit. I find it clears out the taste better than water. But don't drink it. That's just acid on top of acid and it will burn like a motherfucker."

I did as he suggested and cleaned my face with the cloth. "Sorry."

"It's not a big deal. Did you have much morning sickness in your first trimester?"

I nodded. "Yeah, it was pretty vile. It just about disappeared before we came here, though."

"I had some during my first pregnancy. I haven't seen any signs of it yet, so hopefully I've lucked out this time, but it's still early." 

I tilted my head. "This time?"

"Did Dallas not tell you?" Jesse looked to the ceiling in exasperation. "Alphas. We told him the day you arrived. I didn't want to overshadow you and Kit, and we thought Christmas would be a nice time to tell everyone, if they don't figure it out before then."

My excitement pushed any remnants of the nausea away. "How far along are you?"

"Only a couple weeks."

"Wow, so early? How did you know you were pregnant?"

Jesse offered his hand to pull me up. "Caspar can sense these kinds of things pretty early."

"That's the big guy with the scar?"

Jesse smiled. "Kind of intimidating, isn't he?"

"You can say that again. How did he get the big scar across his face?" I followed Jesse into the kitchen past Kit and Aspen. 

"I've never asked," Jesse said. "And he's not a big talker. Tea?"

"Please." I helped by pulling out mugs for Kit, Jesse and me while he got the water started. "Are you worried?"

"About Asher going to the fire and possibly running into the arsonist? Absolutely. But it's a fear I've had to accept every time he goes out after a skip."

"You keep saying 'skip'; what does that mean?"

"Oh, it's their target, a guy who's 'skipped' bail."

That made sense. I added two spoons of sugar to my cup and got the cream out of the fridge.

"Most of the time it's not dangerous, right?" Dallas had never said anything about the job being dangerous. I just thought they went out searching until they found who they were looking for and then called the cops.

"More dangerous than Asher will admit." Jesse sighed. "They all think they're almost invincible because they're shifters and most of the skips are not. But I've seen them come home with broken limbs. Cuts. Sometimes they won't tell me how they got hurt. I wish they would. I'm certain that whatever my brain comes up with is worse than the reality."

That was exactly how I was feeling, my mind conjuring up image after image of what could be happening to Dallas right now at that fire. I tried to push the gruesome images away. Stress wasn't good for me, and it certainly wasn't good for the baby. 

"So, what do you do to deal with it?"

Jesse lifted his mug with a wry smile. "I drink a lot of tea. I wish I believed in some deity I could pray to, but it's just us and this big, dangerous world. I trust that Aspen won't endanger himself unnecessarily and that the guys will protect him as fiercely as he protects them. That's all we can do."

I felt just as helpless as before, but perhaps less alone. That wasn't nothing.