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Caleb's chest squeezed. "Griff?"

Griffin turned, tears streaming from his eyes. No. Gods above, please let the baby be okay.

"Griff," he said again.

Griffin smiled. "It's a girl."

Caleb looked down at the small bundle Griffin held in a light blue blanket and then back at Griffin again.

"What?"

"A girl. Doc said it was a boy but, she's a girl."

Caleb looked between his family members. Tears flooded him as Griffin hugged him hard.

He looked down at the tiny baby sucking on Griffin's finger. Small dark curls sprouted on the top of her head. Her cheeks rosy and pink. She was beautiful.

A girl. They had a girl.

"You're an uncle."

"You better believe it."

"Let him hold her," said Dakota.

Griffin held out the tiny bundle to Caleb, and he took her gently, afraid he might break her.

Griffin kissed him on the cheek and squeezed his shoulder. "Soon we'll be holding your baby as well. A new generation of Reeds in Wolf River." Griffin looked to the door and Caleb turned. Makayla sat next to Dakota and took her hand. She looked at Caleb with a loving smile, and suddenly, he couldn't wait for their baby to be born. And he'd be damned if he'd let some Bitten rogue come between him and his mate.

In that moment he wanted nothing more than to mate Makayla and claim her baby as his own.

* * *

Makayla and Calebwalked into the cabin close to midnight after celebrating the birth of the newest Reed baby girl. Caleb’s uncle and aunt had arrived soon after they had, and the entire pack had given thanks for the birth of a new baby.

Caleb had been unusually quiet on the drive home, leaving the air between them had hanging with a resounding tension. When he opened the door, he walked straight to the kitchen, and she followed. Opening the fridge, he grabbed a beer and swigged it.

"Is something bothering you?"

He looked at her and set the beer bottle on the counter. "Bothering me?"

"You've been quiet since we left Griffin's, and at the bar you seemed... on edge."

She could see the wheels turning in his mind. She moved to his side and pulled on his shirt so he faced her. "Is it because I was asking you about being the enforcer? Dakota told me you and Griffin had been forced to do something a while back. Something Griffin was having a hard time with. You don't have to tell me what you did. I don't care. I know you, Caleb. You only do things to protect people. Whatever you did—"

"We killed someone," he blurted.

Makayla's body cooled like someone had doused her in ice cubes.

"A human. He... he raped Dakota. We didn't know until about ten months ago. We were out, and she saw him and she freaked. I chased him down and caught him. I dragged him to the woods and beat the shit out of him. I wanted to kill him, man I wanted to, but it wasn't my choice. Griff and dad showed up about thirty minutes later. Dakota wasn't his first apparently. Griffin lost it. Dad gave the guy a head start but it wouldn't have mattered if he'd given the guy an entire day to get away. We would have found him."

Makayla trembled.

"You need to know. That's who I am, and what I did, I'd do again. I'd do it for Dakota, for any female in the pack, for you. If anyone ever dared to hurt you..."

She cradled his face in her palms. "You did what you had to."

"I did. And I don't regret it. And you need to understand. Whatever my dad tells me to do, I do it. Sometimes it isn't pretty."