Page 14 of Lachlan

No, it was too soon to show Belle their treasure.

Just as Lachlan believed it was too soon yet to reveal his dragon.

True mate, his dragon urged fiercely.

Soon, Lachlan soothed his beast.

He hoped, prayed, he was telling the truth, and that Belle would agree to be theirs once she knew who and what he was.

Belle had no idea what thoughts were going through her rescuer’s head, only that in this moment, Lachlan’s attention seemed to be focused elsewhere. The frown on his face almost looked as if he was having an inner debate with himself about something.

“Are we nearly there?” Belle spoke into whatever those troubling thoughts were.

She just wanted to get away from this mountain. To be able to go to the railway station and board the first train that would take her back to London. Or anywhere but the Scottish Highlands, really. She would investigate Sister Agnes’s claims another time. Right now, her only priority was to get as far away from Scotland as soon as possible.

“Not long now,” Lachlan reassured as he veered to the right, taking them through yet another opening leading into another lit passage.

The even floor of this one tilted downward, giving Belle the impression they were almost at Drake House.

The bottle of water had kept her hydrated, but she was hoping for a cup of hot tea and maybe a biscuit or two, or possibly even a sandwich to eat when they got there. She was starving.

After eating and drinking, she was going to hope the trains were running and ask Lachlan if he would take her to the station. It was a couple of miles away from Drake House, too far for Belle to walk in the drifting and still-falling snow. She was hoping to catch up on her sleep on the long train journey home.

Come to Scotland for Hogmanay, Ben had invited.

Hah.

When she’d accepted the casually given invitation, Belle hadn’t known it would lead to Ben thinking he would be sharing her bed.

Or that she would be lost overnight on a Scottish mountain.

Then rescued the following day by the hugest and most imposing and mesmerizing man she had ever set eyes on.

If she had known any of those things, even with the temptation of investigating the contents of Sister Agnes’s journal to spur her on, then maybe Belle would have quashed her impatience and visited the Highlands in the warmer weather during spring, as she had originally planned on doing.

CHAPTER SIX

Lachlan could feel his dragon’s increasing clamoring tension as he and Belle neared the door that would take them through the back way into Drake House.

He knew the reason for it too. His possessive dragon didn’t want any other dragons near Belle until they had claimed her. And that included Lachlan’s two brothers.

Lachlan felt that same possessiveness, but it was tempered by the human logic that if he wanted to take Belle to his home, that his brothers would necessarily also be there.

The brothers each had their own set of rooms within the large house, into which they could disappear if they so wished. They rarely did except to sleep. Because the only way that Lachlan, Hunter, and Ranulf had survived for as long as they had was by remaining together. Fighting together too, against whatever foe presented itself.

Lachlan knew that Hunter and Ranulf would feel as he did. That far from being a foe, Belle was Lachlan’s precious mate, to be cherished and protected. Even at the cost of their lives.

A protection Lachlan readily gave his brothers and would give to their mates too, if or when that time ever came. He sincerely hoped that it would.

He had only known Belle for a very short time, but already, that sense of inner desolation and loneliness, of everything being a combination of white, gray and black, had disappeared.

Colors were more vivid to him now. Most especially the blue-black of Belle’s hair and the sky-blue of her eyes. As well as the rosy hue to her pale cheeks and the delicate blue of the veins visibly thrumming beneath that pale flesh.

In his eyes, and his dragon’s, Belle was absolute perfection.

“My brothers can be a little…overwhelming when you first meet them.” As they approached the entrance to the house, he felt it necessary to attempt to soften the reality of having three powerful dragon shifters in the same space. One of whom was her mate and already fiercely possessive of her.

Her mouth quirked. “The brooding Ranulf, but the less so Hunter.”

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