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“Checking on Marybell. Making sure they’re treating her well.”
“And you felt this was your duty because…?” Lenox asks, sounding irritated.
“Because she’s my friend.”
Rohan snorts.
A long uncomfortable pause stretches in the room.
Duane chuckles. “Dad, I can be friends with a female. Marybell is good people. She deserves the best, so I went to see if she got the best. Besides, you gifted them a female as a prize because of me. I killed those Otts. I felt responsible.”
“You’re not responsible for me, Duane,” I tell him.
“He is,” the two older lycans say in unison.
“But he saved his dad’s life,” I remark, defending Duane. Friends for life and all.
“In this case,” Lenox says, “the why of what he did is unimportant,” Lenox says. “Ott lives were lost that night, and now I have Seith’s female in my bedchamber. I want to know how she got here!”
Oh shit.
With a snarl, Lenox walks onto the terrace. From there, he speaks. “And she is injured.”
“She’s been treated,” Duane says. “She’ll recover soon.”
He’s right, my vision is returning. Slowly but surely, Rohan’s figure is clearing up. He’s biting a fingernail, but when he sees I’m looking at him, he drops his hand and props his elbows on his knees. “Marybell, are you feeling better?”
I nod. “I have a bit of a headache.”
“Can you tell us what happened over in the Ott clan?”
As I narrate what I remember, I start to cry, then I talk more because Lenox is pushing for more. He wouldn’t push me to speak of the things I saw and heard if he didn’t think it was important he knew them right away.
Once I’m done, Rohan practically sprints outside, and then I hear the McMars shouting. I make out a few words, mainlypull away all the patrols, clear the woods.
“You’re retreating?” Duane asks.
“Not retreating.” Lenox approaches me and speaks in the Alpha voice he uses when he calls his males. “You will be well. Seith is fine. Seith survived. And if he’s dead, we’ll take care of you.”
“But he will be fine. You said that.”
Lenox wavers.
“Oh no.” I cry harder.
Duane covers me with a blanket.
It doesn’t comfort me.
Lenox pulls me into a hug, one hand at the back of my neck, the other holding me upright so I don’t collapse. It’s awkward, but comforting. And boy oh boy, does this male smell like Seith. Different but similar. It must be the Alpha thing. I sniff at the same time that Lenox’s fingers brush across the back of my neck.
“What the—” He sits me back down, then comes around the sofa and pushes my hair away from my neck.
“He marked her.”
“Oh fuck.” Duane leaps away as if I’m contagious.
“You stole a marked lycan mate,” Lenox states.
