Page 31 of Lachlan

“Hunting.”

She frowned. “Hunting for what?”

“The whereabouts of Ben McGregor.”

She huffed. “If a helicopter really did land and take off again, and Ben hasn’t been seen since, I doubt your brother will find him anywhere in the vicinity.”

“One thing we’ve learned about treasure hunters over the years,” Ranulf put in softly, “is that once the treasure is within their grasp, they don’t like to share.”

“What do you…” Belle stilled, her eyes going wide. “Do you think something’s happened to Ben?”

She might think he was a bastard for breaking into her room in London, stealing Sister Agnes’s journal from her since their arrival in Scotland, and then leaving her to possibly freeze to death on a mountain during a blizzard.

But that didn’t mean she felt that same callousness toward any harm befalling him as he had to her.

Lachlan shrugged. “I think we should stop hypothesizing and wait for Hunter to come back.” Although he didn’t hold out much hope for a positive result even after his brother had returned.

Ben had obviously been trying to steal the journal from Belle for some time. At least since several weeks before Christmas, when he had broken into her locked bedroom.

A room Belle would not be returning to, whether she decided to accept their mating or not. As far as Lachlan was concerned, Belle was his true mate, and he would provide for her for the rest of her life, no matter what she decided regarding the two of them.

He also, if he was being bluntly honest with himself, couldn’t stand the thought of Belle living in a house with other males. God knows what he would do if she refused their mating and then, sometime in the future, fell in love with and married a human male who could give her a normal life.

He would have to ask his brothers to put him down if that should happen. Because Lachlan had no doubt he would want to rip the world apart, and a dragon his size would be able to do a lot of damage before anyone was able to stop him. It would also reveal the existence of dragons, which he could never allow.

“Hunter has returned,” Ranulf announced evenly.

Lachlan immediately centered his attention on their familial connection.

He sensed Hunter landing behind the house as dragon before shifting into a man and then entering the kitchen.

It was only too easy to read the grimness of Hunter’s emotions through all those actions.

And to guess the reason why.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The moment she set eyes on Hunter, as he stood in the middle of the kitchen with blood on his clothing, Belle knew that something terrible had happened.

His eyes no longer held a hint of their previous mischief as he threw whatever alcohol was in the glass he held to the back of his throat. He swallowed the fiery liquid before acknowledging the three of them had even entered the kitchen.

His expression was grim. “Far as I can tell, the bastards took the helicopter up to about ten thousand feet before throwing him out.”

“Throwing who out?” Belle gasped in alarm.

But she knew. Sheknew,damn it.

“Young Ben McGregor,” Hunter answered her. “He died on impact.”

Belle was so shocked, she let out a keening cry.

She might have been angry with Ben, furious, in fact, but what Hunter was describing was a horrible way for anyone to die.Belle didn’t even want to imagine the terror Ben must have felt as he dropped through the air, knowing he didn’t have a parachute to aid with his landing.

But… “Wouldn’t the deep snow have helped to soften his landing?” Ben would probably have still suffered multiple broken bones, but surely he might have survived.

“What are you trying to say, Belle?” Hunter challenged.

Yes, what was she trying to say?

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