Beaufort Creek Shifters (10 book series)
The Lion’s Arranged Marriage Chapter 12

Gwendolyn

I hadn't the slightest clue what Neil was thinking when he snipped the binds that connected us. Had he resisted biting me this entire time based on his ego? Lions were proud creatures. I knew that much. But what kind of lion was Neil? He wasn't part of a pride-he was in a pack with an assortment of other shifters.

Blake truly had created a unique family. Everyone I knew was some variation or other of shifter. There Milton.

But there weren't many dragons around. It made me wonder why.

t just wolves. Though, most of the protection patrol consisted of wolves or bears. They were, by far, the strongest of our kind right next to dragons like

Same for lions. Though they often stuck to their own, many lions tended to wander, too. Was that how Neil ended up with us? Had he wandered from his pride?

I studied him out of my peripheral vision. While it wasn't in my nature to spy, I didn't want him to catc What exactly was he trying to do? Embarrass me? Frighten me off?

I wasn't about to budge. After spending every single year of my life in the background, I finally had the Breathing came easier as my arm healed. Once I removed the sling, I was able to stretch it out and tur was perfect considering the circumstances.

One wrong move made me hiss.

taring at him. He hadn't left the makeshift hospital wing (like he had before) yet it didn't seem like he wanted to be around me either.

I wasn't about to let it go just because some lion got his ego bruised by losing a battle-or two or three battles.

it. Granted, my owl wing might not work immediately, but my human arm was getting to the point where I could lift a cup without too much trouble. That

Neil perked up from his book, swinging his almost fully healed leg over the edge while bracing himselt on the cot. The cast had been removed about an hour or so ago. By him. Because he said it was too itchy. The fact that he was about to stand on it regardless of his complaints about the pain was interesting, to say the least.

For a guy who didn't want to bond with me as a mate, he sure seemed to want to go out of his way for

He wants to protect me, I thought. That's why he keeps pushing me away.

What an odd way to show affection.

And as we locked eyes, I noticed the sheen of adoration there, the warmth easily sparked by nights not only locked away together in a cage but actively huddling in a cozy bed with soft sheets and contented hearts.

Lack of sex was a poor excuse to shove me off. He didn't care about the sex, just like I didn't care about the physicality of our connection. He wanted more than that with me. Otherwise, why would he have spent all those nights curled up next to me? He'd had plenty of opportunities to proposition a quick f**k.

He hadn't done it.

That meant he cared about intimacy beyond that of the flesh.

He was just too proud to admit it.

"I'm fine," I assured while hiding my grin behind my hand. "Just a bad move."

"Right. Of course," he said with a casual tone that meant the business of reason. But the way he subtly shuddered told me he had been worried sick about my well-being. "I mean, I can call Dr. Windsor. We might as well get checked again." "The nurse said she would be back in a few hours."

The door to the suite opened right on time. It would have been an eerie coincidence had it not been Blake walking into the room.

"Good evening," he greeted. His brow furrowed with concern when he got a good look at us.

I guess we still looked pretty rough.

He rested his hands at the end of the cot frame belonging to Neil. "Have either of you seen my mother?"

My brows knotted up. "She didn't find you? She said she would."

He blinked. "She was here?"

"Yeah, about two hours ago," Neil replied. "She asked us a bunch of questions about the kidnapping."

Blake frowned. "What kind of questions?"

I rubbed my right temple gently to prod my memory bank into action. "She wanted to know what Dr. Myrtle had to say about Samuel. She said she would send you up here. She said you're the one who wanted to know those answers." Alpha appeared rather pale. He held up a file and shook it slightly. "Someone left this on my desk."

I squinted at the file tab. That handwriting looked awfully familiar. "That's one of Dr. Windsor's medical files." My frown reflected his expressed concern. "How did you get that? It's not custom for Dr. Windsor to share files with the alpha unless-" "Unless it's truly important," Neil finished. "Which means you just discovered something, didn't you?"

"You were right, Gwendolyn," Blake said grimly. "Back in the maze a couple of weeks ago. My mother gave birth to a child before me."

Neil twitched. "Wait, what?"

He shot me a firm glare. Every inch of me crawled at the feeling of his disappointment.

I cleared my throat and shifted my position on the bed. "Blake and I met in the maze to discuss something I had discovered at the research facility. It was an intake form for an infant taken in by one of the Myrtles. I think it was Dr. Myrtle." "It was a closed adoption," Blake continued. "An infant wolf shifter from the Beaufort Creek pack."

"Does it say who the mother was?" Neil asked. "How do you know it was your mother?"

I scratched my shoulder. My right arm was healing, but it was getting to be pretty itchy at this point. "I had suspected it from something I had seen a while back-that file, actually, that Alpha is holding right now. That's why it looks so familiar to me. I spotted it on Dr. Windsor's desk once."

"Which is why the Myrtles took you," Neil stated mechanically. "You knew something that they didn't want us to know."

I nodded. "I'm assuming that's what it was, but the thing is, I hardly remembered it. The memory is so faded."

"But what about this Samuel guy? And who was the father?" Neil turned white as a ghost. "Blake, no offense to your darling mother, but did she have an affair?"

Blake turned away to look at the television. Fish scampered across the crystalline HD screen. He rubbed the back of his head, turned to the windows on the left that faced the garden, and then turned back to us with a concerned grimace.

"I don't know," he admitted. "But I think maybe she did. And if she did, then that means..."

"That means you have a half-sibling out there," Neil gasped. "That's what the Gilberts have as a weapon-that's who they want on the throne."

Blake crumpled the file in his fist. "Precisely."

***

Several minutes were spent in stark silence while Blake and I stared each other down. Everything we had discussed in the maze came back in vivid pieces. It suddenly made sense that Shelly kept asking about this guy named Samuel-he was probably the man with whom she'd had an affair.

Which meant she had cheated on Blake's father.

I shook my head slowly. "This is bad. This is very bad."

Neil nodded curtly. "Do you know what they'll do to her when they find out she cheated?"

"Don't," Blake snapped. "She's my mother. She's all I have left."

"Either way, Alpha, it's a bad situation," Neil pointed out. "I mean no offense at all. I'm looking out for you."

I ran my fingers through my curls nervously. "What will they do to her? Who's they?"

"The pack," Neil replied softly. "Wolves tend to be traditional militants about mate bonds. If Shelly cheated, then that means the bond never quite set-either that, or she actively chose to break the bond. Which means that..."

He spared our alpha a sympathetic glance.

Blake closed his eyes and nodded sharply.

Neil hung his head. "Which means that, whether intentional or not, that's what killed Blake's father."

"I thought it was a car crash," I whispered. I scratched my head, my brain aching from using it so much lately. "You're telling me that Shelly deliberately killed her husband? But wouldn't that have happened much sooner?"

"If she reproduced with someone before Blake, then that person would be the rightful heir. She would need to wait until he was the right age. Blake was likely a byproduct of mating with Nathan physically."

Blake nearly shredded the file. I stood up, ignoring my body's screaming limbs just to get to my alpha. His pain was my pain-and I could hardly stand the look of horror on his face as we pieced everything together. Every single awful bit of it.

Neil joined my side in an instant and wrapped one arm around Blake's shoulders. I wove my arm around Blake's waist. With the two of us on either side of our alpha, he was sandwiched in a hug. He curled into Neil while hugging me close to them both.

A thread of warmth laced through the three of us. Comfort stole a sigh from my lips. Love came next. A strong platonic love that couldn't have been torn down by anything-not even the truth.

It was no wonder Blake was so torn up. He shared a certain bond with his mother. His heart must have been shattering to pieces right as we stood here hugging each other.

Slowly, Blake unwound himself from us. He took a step back while folding the file in half and tucking it into his rear pocket. "I should get Jermaine and Tanner. Milton, too. We need to gather the whole team to track down my mother and see what the hell she's been doing behind my back all these years."

"I'm sorry, Alpha," I said, my body quivering with the weight of the apology.

He squeezed my hand. "It's not your fault. I'm the one who should be sorry. My mother's actions put your life in danger-" His eyes glazed over. "--and the lives of my pack."

Neil clasped Blake's shoulder and stated, "Whatever you need, Blake. We'll do it. Tell us what to do."

"Stay here. Recover," Blake ordered. He headed toward the door with purposeful strides, pausing in the doorway to turn back to Neil. "And for the sake of the gods, man. Bite each other already."

Click.

The door shut resolutely, a soft and hushed whisper that felt far more impressive than if the door had slammed. That was Blake's influence on people. And he did it with grace.

I bit into my nail while frowning at the television. "We don't have much time. We should do it now."

Neil snorted while sliding into the bedroom. The drawers opened. Clothes rustled around. "You must be joking."

"We need to bond as soon as possible before all hell breaks loose."

"Hell's already broken loose, darling," he called out. More rustling clothes. It sounded like he was getting dressed. For what? "I'm going with Blake. He needs me."

Heat assaulted my cheeks. I had never felt so angry in my life. While blocking the bedroom doorway, I clenched my fists at my sides and huffed. "I'm going, too."

"No, you're not."

"You can't make me stay behind, Neil."

He shot me that winning smirk that had torn me to shreds back in that cage. Now that we weren't surrounded by muck and destruction, it was easy to see the affection in that smirk. He thought I was playing around.

But I wasn't. "I'm going with you right after you bite me. Understand?"

"What makes you think I'll bite you now if I didn't do it before?" "Because you...you..." I folded my arms over my chest.

He was just smirking away like it was the greatest joke of all time.

I took a shaky breath and glared at him. "Because you love me."

Neil's cocky smirk faded. Light kissed his cheeks and lit his hair up with golden strands that looked like Christmas tinsel. He bowed his head, deepening the shadows beneath his eyes, yet showing off the angles of his gorgeous face. He was truly beautiful in so many

ways.

"Besides, if you don't bite me," I continued, "I'll always be in danger. Isn't that what you want to avoid?"

I stepped toward him, closing the gap between us. Each inch achieved set my heart into a new rhythm. Butterflies fluttered in my chest, pattering against the walls, begging to be released.

When I tangled my fingers with his, he focused on me, eyes sharpened with an electric hue of yellow. Tears billowed under his pupils, inviting rays of sunlight to glitter in his eyes like stars.

"You've been trying to protect me this whole time," I reasoned. "Why not do it with the one thing that is sure to protect me?" I tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. "Let me protect you, Neil. One bite is all it takes." "You want to protect me?"

The way he said it zapped my heart. "Why in the world would I not want that?"

"I...I don't..."

An alarm cracked the air, startling us both into a stiff hug. I clung to Neil while he wrapped his arms around my shoulders, folding one arm protectively over my head.

"What is that?" I whimpered. "Are we under attack?"

Neil's phone vibrated in his pocket. He growled while guiding me to the bedroom door, peeking around each corner before leading me to the suite door.

He embraced me the whole way there.

"We have to move," he whispered, his voice crowded with urgency. "We have to get you to safety-something is coming."