Walking into the kitchen, I see that Liam and Erik are working together at the stove. Something sizzles and pops, and Erik makes a sound of protest while Liam just lets out a laugh, his whole body shaking as Erik madly stirs at the over boiling pot. Taking a cautious sniff, I discover that whatever they are making smells surprisingly good. Surprisingly, because I don't ever remember seeing Erik in the kitchen.

On the other side of the kitchen sits Matty in a highchair, his hands slapping at spilled oatmeal on his tray. A large smile is on his face, showcasing the dimples on either side of his wide grin. The one thing he got from the twins, it seems, are those adorable little dimples.

I make my way over to him, pulling up a chair so that I am sitting next to the baby. He lets out a cry of delight when he sees me, his blue eyes twinkling as he stares up at me.

"Well, hello there, baby," I tell him, pressing a kiss to his cheek. A grimace comes over my face when I realize that there is oatmeal on his cheek, and it just wiped off on me. He just laughs at my face, finding it hilarious. The house is much happier now that Matty's two bottom teeth popped through. His cries have died down, and he is now his usual giggling self.

Liam whirls around from where he is standing next to the stove. "Oh, Taylor, I didn't even hear you come in."

His cheeks are flushed and his hair is a bit wild. Apparently, cooking is much more fun than I remember.

My eyebrow raises as he runs a hand through his disheveled hair, walking over towards me and leaving Erik to cook whatever he is making on the stove.

"You seemed a little preoccupied," I say, my lips spreading into a smile as Liam's cheeks become even redder.

"Ma!" Matty cries out, reaching out towards Liam. The omega smiles down at the baby and wets a paper towel in the sink before wiping Matty down. The baby lets out a noise of protest and tries to squirm away, but Liam is able to quickly wipe him down.

"He always hates this part," Liam says, his brows scrunched together in concentration as he wipes the last of the oatmeal away.

"I don't blame him," I say, laughing at the mock glare Liam sends me. "I wouldn't like to be wiped down with a wet paper towel, either."

Liam sticks his tongue out at me as he throws the paper towel in the general direction of the trash can. It completely misses the mark, which causes me to laugh even harder. Erik briefly pauses his stirring to bend down and pick up the paper towel in order to throw it into the trash.

"Thanks, love," Liam calls out, sending me a satisfied smile. Matty is quickly picked up by the grinning omega, and he snuggles into his father's hold, resting his head against Liam's chest. That baby is the most cuddly person out there, and the way he is still grinning makes my laugh grow.

A spasm runs through my back, making my laugh stop shortly. Liam's smile turns into a concerned look while he watches me grimace at the pain. I try to resituate on the chair to make the pain go away, but it doesn't seem to help.

"Are you okay?" Liam asks, moving quickly so that he is standing by my side.

"Yeah, just another one of those Braxton-Hicks contractions," I tell him.

Liam looses some of his tension but the concern is still clear on his face. He bends down, wrapping an arm around my waist and helping me to stand up. Together, we walk into the living room, which is nice and warm from the fire that is in the woodstove.

The whether outside is cooling way down, making the upper floors of the house way too cool to be comfortable. Most of us stay downstairs during the day since it is the only portion of the house that is heated by the woodstove. The only ones upstairs now are Elliot, Grace, and Olive since they are all taking their afternoon nap.

"How long have they been happening?" Liam asks me as he helps me to sit down on the couch. As soon as I am seated, he plops down next to me, maneuvering Matty so that the baby's back is pressed against his father's chest.

I shrug my shoulder, trying to play off the cramps that are getting tighter. "A couple times a day over the last week." Liam shoots me a wide eyed look, and it isn't hard to see the concern he is feeling. I try to give him a reassuring smile, and it becomes easier once the cramps finally die down. "It's completely normal."

Liam worries his bottom lip between his teeth and he watches me with scrutinizing eyes. "Are you sure? Maybe you should be taking it easy until you get a little further along."

An exasperated breath leaves my mouth as I look over at him from where I am staring at the fire. "Take it easy? What do you think I have been doing for the last two weeks?"

Liam cocks his head to the side, one eyebrow raised in question. "Doing everything you can to try and get the baby's stuff ready."

"Well, someone has to do it." Crossing my arms is hard to do, but I manage.

"Taylor, everyone in the house has been offering to do it for you, but you protest anytime someone tries to help." He pauses for a second, readjusting Matty in his lap. "I think Tate just gave up trying to help because you got distressed about it, and we all know how upset he gets when he thinks about you being unhappy with him."

That's true. Tate hasn't been moving anything while I'm in the room but somehow the stuff that I have been trying to unpack ends up exactly where I want it to go. He always seems to do it without me noticing, which is surprising because I have been trapped inside the house ever since the weather started getting bad.

Before I can say anything else, the front door swings open. Liam and I both look over to the hallway, waiting for the people who came into the house to make it to the living room.

"Do you really think something is trying to get in?" a voice says, and the owner of said voice- Nik- walks into the living room, accompanied by Tate.

"I don't know, but Alpha Seren sure seems to think so." Tate walks over to sit on the couch on my other side, and Nik sits in the recliner to the right. "The claw marks look a little suspicious, though."

"What are you two talking about?" I ask, leaning into Tate's side once he relaxes into the couch.

He is absolutely freezing, which causes me to lean away and give him a mock glare. Tate just rolls his eyes at me before shucking off his damp jacket and setting it on the coffee table. With a satisfied smile, I lean back into his side, happy that he is emanating warmth now instead of being a wall of cold.

Nik clears his throat, drawing our attention over to him. His hair is dark and messy from the misty drizzle that is happening outside, and the red flush of his cheeks shows how cold it must be out there. A small feeling of happiness blossoms in my chest over the fact that I have been trapped in the house, effectively escaping the cold.

"Uh, this morning Alpha Seren noticed some claw marks running along the fence on the opposite side of the territory." He rubs his hands together before entwining his fingers on top of his lap. "And then he had all of us walk the entire fence. We found two more spots with the same claw marks.

Tate's arm finds its way around my waist, his hand resting on the side of my stomach. His chest rumbles as he speaks, and I still find it soothing, despite the words he is saying. "We think it may be a claiste or two since the claw marks look similar to Alexis' scars. Now he has all of us out there trying to reinforce the fences so that the creatures can't get in or at least stop them so that we can kill them."

"How did they even find us here?" Liam asks, his arms taut as he holds Matty to him.

"What do you mean?" Nik asks, his eyebrows scrunched together in confusion.

Liam shakes his head slowly as if trying to work things over in his mind. "It's just," he pauses for a second, his gaze moving away from Matty in order to flick between the three of us. "Isn't it a bit strange that we only saw those things when we were in the northern most part of Washington, but not here in southern Oregon?"

Nobody says anything, so he continues on, his words getting a little jumbled together with how quickly he is speaking. "Those beasts seem to like the cold for some reason, probably because there is less competition for food," he gestures to all of us, "seeing as there seems to be more of the human and werewolf infected farther south in the warmer climates." He loosens his hold and bounces Matty in his lap once the baby starts to protest at the tight grip his father has on him.

"What do you mean?" Tate asks the question this time. "There were still infected humans and werewolves up north."

Liam's brows scrunch together again. "Yeah, but there were not nearly as many as there are down here. Before we left here, we were encountering infected all the time, practically every day. They seem to be mostly gone now, probably moving farther south, but up in Washington, we only had a few attacks."

Tate's hand pauses in the circular motions he is rubbing on my stomach, and I find myself squirming until he starts the motion up again. He presses a kiss against the side of my head in response, but when I look up at him, I can tell that his eyes are distant.

"I guess there weren't that many attacks from the infected," he mumbles.

"Well, except for the one that drove us out of there and the few before we left that made us decide to leave in the first place," I say.

"They seemed almost frantic, though," Liam says. "Like they hadn't eaten in months. But the claistes are what made us decide to leave in the first place, remember? They were coming too close, and now they are scratching at our fences."

"What are we going to do?" I ask, worry starting to weigh on me.

We have only been here for a few weeks and already we are faced with another danger. Just when things seem to finally be going right, something happens to throw us all off balance. My hand settles on my stomach, and the slight kicks the baby gives are reassuring, but the hand Tate lays over my own is what causes me to let out the breath I had been holding.

"We are going to have to fight," a deep voice says from the doorway.

Alpha Seren walks into the room, followed by Ethan; the others must still be outside. Liam smiles at his mate, and Ethan goes to sit next to him, but he seems a little stiff. Liam hands him Matty, and the alpha seems to relax more, allowing Liam to lay his head on his shoulder.

"Do you think we will be able to win?" Liam asks, the worry clear in his tone.

Alpha Seren doesn't hesitate for a second before nodding his head. "Without a doubt. It cannot be more than one, and it seems to almost be teasing us or trying to trick us into thinking that there are more of them. There are only two different sets of claw marks that are on the fence, and there are six times as many of us as there are of them."

"So, do we just lie in wait for it to come?" I ask.

Alpha Seren purses his lips. "It is too dangerous to leave the property in order to search for the creatures. It would be much safer to just stay behind our fences and wait for them to come back, and they will come back."

"We can't just set a trap for them and hope they fall for the bait?" Nik questions.

Ethan is the one who answers this time. "And how do you suppose we do that?" He raises an eyebrow in the beta's direction. "Do you volunteer to be strung up in a tree as bait?"

Nik goes pale and quickly shakes his head. Liam slaps Ethan on his shoulder, not too hard though because he is holding Matty, before mumbling something hurriedly in his ear. Probably reprimanding Ethan for being rude.

"Despite the way my son put it, he does have a point," Alpha Seren says. "It would be too risky for us to make a trap because that thing only seems to like live meat. Some of the carcasses I found a few feet from the fence are disturbing, especially since they are only partially eaten. It was as if the claiste lost interest as soon as the animal died."

"I think I am going to be sick," Nik whispers, and looking over at him, I see that he truly does look sickly. His already pale face has become even whiter, seeming to almost have a green tint to it. His hands rest on his stomach and he doesn't look up from the ground as if moving a muscle would set his stomach off.

"Just not on me please," I mumble, and Tate pinches my side in retribution. His eyes try to be scolding as he looks down on me, but I can see the humor he is trying to hold back. Very misplaced with the subject we are talking about, but with the world we live in, we have to find humor where we can.

"And not on the carpet if you can help it," Alpha Seren says. "That would be a bitch to get out." His serious expression cracks as he sends Nik a small smile.

"Oh my god," Liam whispers, "Ethan, love, your dad does have a sense of humor."

Ethan just rolls his eyes, but a smile is quickly spreading across his face.

I elbow Tate in the side and raise my eyebrows as my eyes flit between Alpha Seren and him. He seems to get the silent message that I am sending him: I am not the only one in this house with a misplaced sense of humor. My lovely boyfriend just rolls his eyes, but I can see the humor still shining brightly within them.

After a few minutes of nobody speaking, Ethan clears his throat, breaking the silence. "So we wait then?"

Alpha Seren nods his head. "So we wait."