Loving Lachlyn (Ashland Pride Two) by R.E. Butler Read Free Book Online Page B

the scent vanished, and all he saw in the kitchen was his family, Don, Sarah, and a tall, muscular guy with a frown standing against the far wall.
    “Alek!”  Don stood from the chair and shook his hand.  Alek’s cousins followed Gwen as she ushered them into the living room to play board games until dinner.  Alek shook Don’s large hand.  “Good of you to come along.  Haven’t seen you in awhile.  You keeping busy?”
    “Yes, sir,” Alek answered.  “Happy birthday.”  He glanced at the large man against the wall.  There was something about him…
    A voice called from upstairs.  “Jericho?  I need you.”
    The voice made everything in Alek’s body go still.  He wasn’t even sure that his heart was beating.  Who was that?  Just as fast as he’d asked himself the question, the large, scowling man jerked to attention and raced down the hallway like his ass was on fire.
    “Who’s that, Don?” John asked, shaking his hand.
    “That’s my niece Lachlyn’s mate, Jericho.  They’re in a bit of trouble and came here for help.”
    Alek’s ears tuned out as his stomach soured.  The woman belonging to the sweet voice was mated to Jericho.  Alek was no slouch in the muscles department, but Jericho was at least half a foot taller than him and built like a house.  And if he was a bear shifter, he could throw Alek around in his cat form like a football.
    His thoughts turned morose.  He didn’t know why, but his mind kept trying to connect the delicious smell to the voice upstairs.
    So what?  If the woman upstairs is the one who smells so good, her mate could snap my spine without breaking a sweat.
    His cat howled in dismay, but Alek shut down his emotions the way he’d been doing ever since Callie had come crashing into his brothers’ lives and he’d had a glimpse of what real love was like.  He didn’t need to wonder what the woman upstairs looked like, because she wasn’t his.
    He heard two sets of feet on the stairs, a heavier one that most likely belonged to Jericho and Lachlyn’s lighter, almost non-existent one.  Without conscious thought, he found himself drifting down the hallway out of sheer curiosity, well aware that Jericho was most likely one of those sorts of possessive bears who would kill for his mate on principle.  Behind him, someone from his family called his name, but he didn’t acknowledge them.
    “Oh wow,” the woman’s voice spoke, filled with awe.  “Do you smell that?”
    The footsteps stopped on the stairs.
    “What, Sunshine?  All I can smell is your aunt’s roast.”
    “No, Jer, it’s something sweet and wild.  Yum.”
    The footsteps continued, the softer ones faster than the heavier ones and as Alek rounded into the foyer, a woman crashed into him and gasped in alarm.
    “Shit!” Alek said in surprise, clutching her out of instinct to keep her from falling.  The sweet scent he’d caught in the foyer washed over him again as he stared down into the beautiful face of the woman from upstairs.  Big blue eyes.  Long auburn hair.  Mouth open in surprise.
    His mate.
     
     

 
     
     
    Chapter 6
     
     
    Jericho took the stairs two at a time when Lachlyn called for him and found her standing in front of the full-length mirror on the closet door with her dress unzipped.
    He smiled and she made a face.  “Don’t laugh, Jer.  I can’t reach the zipper.  You wouldn’t want me to be indecent, would you?”
    His smile dropped away in a heartbeat.  He stepped close to her, easing the troublesome zipper all the way up.  The naturally sweet scent of her skin made his whole body harden, joining his poor cock that hadn’t stopped being hard since Lachlyn agreed to be his mate.  It had taken a tremendous amount of willpower not to make love to her last night, but it hadn’t felt quite right.  He wasn’t certain if it was because her aunt and uncle had the room across the hall, or because he believed she had a second mate, or because of her injuries.