Beaufort Creek Shifters (10 book series)
The Lion’s Arranged Marriage Chapter 11

Neil

Failure. That was my middle name at this point. I had failed to protect the only woman in my life who I was charged to guard. It was just another feather to tip the scales as it had been in the past. If I had just gotten home earlier... I gently closed my eyes. Aunt Minerva must be so disappointed.

My left leg was wound in a cast. Although I had insisted that Dr. Windsor not waste any sort of casting on my broken leg, she had done it with the help of a local nurse, some guy who could turn into a beaver. Other than the two front teeth being a little bigger than a typical human, he seemed normal enough.

Such was the life of a pack of mixed shifters.

While I sat helplessly in another hospital cot situated in the living room of Gwendolyn's suite, I stared at the television, a space documentary playing silently across the screen. It would have been odd if NPR hadn't been playing in the background.

That was Cesar's doing. He had already come and go, explaining how his parents sent their best again, defeating Gwendolyn's already-defeated expression to a poorly mixed bucket of cement. The way she twisted her lips and wrinkled her nose told me she was disappointed-but that it was a familiar feeling.

How often did her parents snub her? To think that if mine were alive they would be right here at my side every single day. Yet the more Gwendolyn suffered injuries, the more her parents stayed away.

Anger lit a fuse in my core. Why the fuck are they doing this? Don't they know she needs protection? I can't do it all. I'm just a failure.

"How are my two favorite patients today?" Dr. Windsor chimed from the doorway. Was it already time for her rounds? "I brought Shelly with me for support."

Shelly appeared wearing a matte floral pink suit jacket and matching skirt with white heels. Her hair was tucked into a professional bun, a tiny hat fixed expertly to the strands with bobby pins. White gloves covered her delicate hands. She looked like the first lady.

Gwendolyn sat up with a grimace. "Ms. Hayden, what a pleasure."

"Please." Shelly waved her hand. "Call me Shelly. Blake wanted me to pop in to make sure you two are doing alright."

My eyes narrowed. "We're fine, thanks."

Shelly had always gotten on my nerves. She was too nosy for a wolf shifter, shoving her snout into places where she didn't necessarily belong. As much as I appreciated her doting on her son, she could go overboard-a lot. Especially recently.

It must have been the loss of her husband that fueled her mania. She had nearly lost her son, too. I supposed I would have lost my mind if that had been my life at some point.

Yet here I sat with my entire family dead and no fortune to speak of and I was about as sane as any of my friends.

For the most part.

Everybody handles pain differently, I thought. Shelly is just doing her best.

Still, the irritation remained, especially when she flocked to Gwendolyn like a mama bird. She sat on the edge of the cot like they were old friends catching up. She took Gwendolyn's hand and squeezed it with every reassuring phrase. While Dr. Windsor checked my vitals, I tried to calm myself, to get myself back to a proper baseline.

But I just couldn't. Something about the way Shelly fawned over my girlfriend made me uncomfortable.

"You'll give yourself heart disease with that blood pressure reading," Dr. Windsor teased in a low voice. "What's bothering you?"

No use lying to a doctor, right? "I couldn't save her."

"But you did save her." She frowned. "Maybe I should up your dose of..."

I shook my head. "No narcotics. I need to keep my brain sharp."

"You got it, Neil. It's your body." She smiled confidently while adjusting the IV bags and fluffing the pillows. "I'll send Eric back in with your meals in about ten minutes."

"As long as he isn't too busy down by the river."

She rolled her eyes. "Don't be smart with him. He's sharper than you think. Beavers are incredibly receptive creatures."

"I don't doubt that."

"So, behave," she warned while patting my hand lightly. "Or I'll get Blake back in here to lecture you."

That was a decent threat and one that I took seriously. As I folded my arms over my chest, I stared at the two women just five feet away, squinting suspiciously. Always visit Narugi.com for more novels and updates "...did he give you any information?"

It sounded like Shelly was asking about Dr. Myrtle.

Gwendolyn concentrated on her recollection. "Samuel. Something about him needing a mate. Trials for the serum to force shifters to shift. A throne..." She looked at me. "Do you remember anything from the beach?"

I sighed. "Raymond wants control of the Beaufort Creek pack. Dr. Myrtle said something about this Samuel character leading them to victory."

Shelly's eyes went wider than Gwendolyn's in her owl form. "Samuel? Who's that?"

I shrugged. "Hell if I know."

"That's fascinating. I haven't heard that name in-" She paled as she stood up and clutched her pearls. "I've just never heard that name before now is what I mean."

Gwendolyn pressed her lips into a tight line while staring at Shelly. Everything got quiet for a moment. Many people might have assumed Gwendolyn was giving up when she went quiet like that. I knew because she'd told me.

But she wasn't. She was assessing the situation. Had she caught something that I hadn't?

"Where's Blake?" I asked. "Shouldn't he be asking us these questions instead?"

"Oh, he..." Shelly chortled and waved her hand. "You know my son. He's always in the middle of something or other. He's with Jermaine going over a new protection plan."

"I see," I whispered. "We should meet with him soon. Whenever he's free."

She nodded. "I'll be sure to tell him when I see him."

"Please do."

She smiled brightly at Gwendolyn. "Well, I'm glad your arm isn't too broken, dear. You're a valuable part of this pack. Having you in this mansion has been like a breath of fresh air. For us all."

Shelly gave me the muted part of her smile before heading to the door. I watched her leave, squinting after her, trying to catch on to what had just happened. Criticizing every move was difficult with my brain fogging up from my injuries, but I was doing alright for a slowed-down lion.

"So much for my good wishes," I huffed. "I've got broken limbs, too."

"I'll be sure to drag her back in here by her pearls so you can tell her to her face."

I stared at Gwendolyn, expecting a critical glare. But all I found was a playful smirk.

My head sank into my shoulders slightly. "Yeah, well...no use in doing that."

"Why?"

"Because I can't hang around you anymore."

She took a sharp breath and then sighed it out.

No response. Just a reaction. Classic Gwendolyn. Always assessing her surroundings and analyzing the things that happened around her.

It was a shame I couldn't protect her.

I took a shaky breath. "We need to break off the bond."

"Again?"

"We never broke it off before."

She clicked her tongue twice. "No, we didn't break it off, but you definitely suggested it after you decided to shove me out of your life."

"I didn't shove you out of my life."

"So, you call that...what? Avoidance? Dodging?"

I shook my head while staring off to my right. "Nothing. It doesn't matter. I just can't protect you so that means we shouldn't be together."

"Is that a Blake-approved decision?"

"I don't need my alpha to see my failure. I haven't even bitten your neck, Gwendolyn. He's going to banish me from the pack!"

She gasped.

The look on her face was...indescribable. Like a thousand horrible images had scrolled through her mind all at once. Her eyes glistened as she gaped at me, mouth open and shoulders tensed up to her ears. Why was she so upset?

"He can't..." She snapped her jaw shut and swallowed hard. "He can't do that, can he?"

"He can and he will."

Her brows worriedly knit together. "Then do it. Bite me."

"I can't bite you."

"Why not, Neil?" She threw the sheet from her lap and angled her legs over the edge of the bed. With her right arm in a sling, it appeared difficult to manage.

And as much as I wanted to run to her aid, I resisted the urge.

If I couldn't protect her, then how the hell was I supposed to help her?

She grunted as she set her feet on the ground, the toes pointed toward each other while she regained her balance. "Do it right now, Neil. I'm serious. You can't be banished. He can't do that. It's just not fair."

Emotions ripped through me like a wild tide. I tried to tighten my arms over my chest, but that just made it difficult to breathe. With the way my heart was hammering, it felt like I was well on my way to a heart attack. Dr. Windsor had been right about the heart disease thing.

This stress was killing me.

"Neil," she huffed. She shuffled toward me and sat on the cot, trying to crawl into my lap. "You can't reject me again. It hurts."

"You shouldn't beg. It's not attractive."

Her back straightened. She turned her profile to me, exposing her left shoulder and the scratches on it. They were quickly healing. Soon, she wouldn't need that sling for her right arm. It would patch up just fine with Dr. Windsor's healing potions and round-the- clock care.

She would be fine without me. "It's for your protection. We have to go about our separate lives. Without me around, you can't exactly mate with me, can you?"

"Oh, so now it's about you not being around."

"Didn't you just hear me? Blake is going to-"

She whirled around, exposing wild and angry eyes. Vengeance sat in those eyes. Betrayal was baked right into the pupils. "Blake told you that so you would do it-and do it quickly. Why are you denying me? Why are you waiting?"

"I'm sorry, snow. But did you see us at the beach? Did you notice anything odd about it?"

"Other than the griffins?"

I nodded. "I couldn't defend you. I was sluggish from sleep. I almost didn't make it to you in time."

"That's because I didn't tell you that I was going for a fly."

"I should have known, Gwendolyn. I should have felt your absence. The fact that I didn't tells me that I'm more than capable of living without you."

Bewilderment joined the ingredients cooking in her eyes. She sneered for a second and then flipped around, squared her shoulders, and stood up. "Maybe we would have fought better if you had bitten me. You had a whole week to do it, Neil." "I was distracted."

"By what? The sex?" She scoffed while shuffling back to her bed. "We haven't even been having sex."

I raised my right brow. "That sounds like a complaint."

"Hardly. For a lion who claims to have an insatiable appetite, you haven't once initiated anything of the sort with me. Yet you've been in bed with me just about every night over the past week. Why?"

"This definitely sounds like complaining."

She rubbed the side of her neck. All the fight seemed to leave her right then on a sigh that she forced from her lungs. "If you don't believe me, that's your problem. But for once in my life, I actually felt like someone was spending time with me, not with my genitals." My features softened slightly.

"For once, I had a guy in my bed who just wanted to hold me through the night instead of fuck me twelve ways to the apocalypse," she explained in a low voice. "It was just...nice."

Nice.

The way I felt while shooting hoops with her brother. How it was whenever I held her hand while wandering through the maze. The subtle sensation that arose as I ate dinner quietly at a round table in the massive ballroom while she poured over recently published studies in her favorite science journals.

Just nice. That was how it was supposed to feel, wasn't it?

I squeezed my eyes shut.

"Well," I snapped forcefully, "it wasn't nice for me. I have needs, Gwendolyn, and they're not getting met."

She hiccupped. "So, you're dumping me because I haven't been fucking you?"

"How dare you reduce our mutual needs down to something so...so..."

"You can't even argue against it. That's exactly what you're doing."

I opened my eyes, but I really shouldn't have done it.

Because seeing Gwendolyn with a red nose and puffy cheeks with tears streaming down her face sliced a part of me I didn't know even existed.

It practically shattered me.

But it was far too late to turn back now. I had to keep on.

Even if what I was feeding her was a lie. "Fine. It's true."

"You're a selfish jerk," she whispered. "I wish I had never met you."

"You have no idea how much I wish the same thing, Gwendolyn."

That was a partial truth. The only reason it hurt her so much was that she took it differently.

But for me, I knew the real logic. Because if I hadn't met Gwendolyn, then my heart wouldn't have whispered her name to my alpha. I wouldn't have been paired with her.

I wouldn't have failed to protect her.

That was my greatest sin to this day. My failure had to be worn publicly in the form of her broken heart. Despite the fact that she hadn't left the room, I knew she had checked out mentally. Which was exactly what she needed to do.

The sooner she got over me, the better chance she had to survive this mess.