Now that he knew Benjamin better, he wondered if maybe Benjamin wouldn’t be better off with someone else, someone who could make him happy. Lucas would try his damn hardest to do just that if Benjamin really wanted him, but he wasn’t sure he could succeed.
“I guess,” he said, because he knew Rachel was still waiting for an answer.
“You’re human, right?”
“Yes.”
She patted his knee, making him jerk. “Then it’ll take you a bit longer, but you’ll fall in love with him.”
Lucas wasn’t sure he wasn’t already half in love with Benjamin. They might not have talked much during the week since Benjamin had moved back into his room, but Lucas had watched him. He’d seen how grouchy Benjamin was about being in bed and he’d found it adorable. He’d seen how Benjamin wanted things to be done his way and sneaked behind Lucas’ back to redo whatever Lucas had just done. He’d seen how nightmares still plagued some of Benjamin’s nights, and how he’d made sure to order a cake for someone’s birthday because he’d known not many people would remember it, how he’d bought some of Lucas’ favorite shampoo after asking Heath about it.
Those were all little things that added up, and together they made up a person Lucas wanted in his life. Benjamin wasn’t perfect by any means, but maybe the mate thing was truer than Lucas had ever thought, because Benjamin sure seemed to be perfect for him.
“I know I will,” he finally said.
“And you’ll make him happy.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“You already make me happy,” Benjamin said from the living room door, because of course he’d been there to hear what Lucas had said.
Rachel got up. “I think I’m going to move, just so Mom doesn’t find me too soon.”
Benjamin laughed. “Subtle, Rachel. I think I saw Mom enter the infirmary hallway, so you should probably go upstairs. The library is usually empty, and I don’t think Mom will look there soon.”
Benjamin gave Rachel instructions to find the library and she left, smiling at Lucas. Lucas stayed where he was, but he drank from his now cooling coffee to give himself something to do. Benjamin slumped next to him very much like Rachel had done and knocked their shoulders together. “You want to make me happy.”
It wasn’t a question, but Lucas felt the need to answer anyway. “I hope so.”
“Really. I’ve already had people telling me I’m different now that I met you.”
“Are you? Because I don’t want you to change because of me.”
Benjamin shrugged. “It’s inevitable, just like you’ll change because you met me. And I didn’t really change, just came out of my shell.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“It is.”
Benjamin’s phone chimed in his pocket and he wriggled until he was able to slide his hand in and grab it. He wrinkled his nose and glared. “Noem wants me to go to the infirmary.”
“Why?” Lucas immediately thought maybe something wasn’t right with Benjamin, but Benjamin shook his head.
“I’m fine. He just wants to see if he can help with the scars. Apparently the fresher they are, the easier it is to heal them.”
“I thought he couldn’t do anything about them.”
“Yeah, that’s what he told me, but he wants to try again. Nothing to lose, you know?”
“You have to go now?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Want me to come with you?”
Benjamin smiled. “Of course I do. You’ve already seen my scars.”
“And I don’t care about them.”
“I know.”
They both got up and walked toward the infirmary holding hands. The hallway wasn’t empty, but Benjamin’s mother was nowhere in sight, thankfully. The people there were obviously the detectives Lucas had been told about, and they were leaving, shaking hands with Dominic.
Benjamin stepped to the side when they passed by them, and Lucas wasn’t surprised to see both of them looking at him. He couldn’t exactly make himself invisible with his height, and everyone always looked at him when they first met him.
“What the fuck do the guys here eat?” the male detective mumbled.
Lucas pressed his lips together, because he’d noticed most of the guys living in the mansion were big. Not as big as him, but certainly bigger than usual.
The female detective looked away, and Benjamin and Lucas waited until they were gone to start walking again. Noem was in the infirmary, and he gestured at one of the beds in the bigger room instead of taking Benjamin to what had been his private room.
“Take your T-shirt off,” he said.
“Aren’t you going to at least offer me dinner first?” Benjamin asked, pouting.
Noem rolled his eyes. “Naked. Now.”
* * * *
Benjamin grinned. “I don’t think Lucas would be fine with me getting naked with you.”
Noem rolled his eyes. “Benjamin.”
Benjamin finally obeyed, taking his T-shirt off and opening his arms so Noem could see the scars easily. “There you go.”
Noem came closer his eyes narrowed and his lips pressed together as he looked at the scars. “You know I’m never going to be able to heal them completely.”
Benjamin shrugged. “I’ll live. I don’t mind them as much as before.”
Not that Benjamin loved them or anything, but he knew there was nothing anyone could do about them, and really, they weren’t the end of the world. He’d been lucky to survive the wounds that had left the scars, and with such a small price to pay. Worrying about the way he looked was the last thing he should do when he’d almost died.
“I think they make him look rugged,” Lucas said, a smile on his lips.
Benjamin puffed his chest out just to make Lucas laugh. He wanted to hear more of that sound. Finding Lucas still felt unreal, no matter how much sex they’d had the previous night, and Benjamin had never been so glad to stumble on a conversation he shouldn’t have heard than when he’d heard Lucas tell Rachel he wanted to make Benjamin happy. “I’m sexy,” he drawled, surprised when even Noem chuckled.
Noem skimmed a finger over the scar by Benjamin’s heart, then pressed his palm against it. Benjamin looked down. He was used to Noem’s hand shining by now, but it was still weird. He expected to feel something every time, but he didn’t. The only indication something was going on was Noem lightning up like a Christmas tree.
Noem didn’t keep it up as long as he’d had to when Benjamin’s wounds had still been open. When he moved his hand away, still looking fine rather than pale and tired, he looked at the scar and nodded.
It wasn’t as pink anymore, and the skin wasn’t as raised as it had been only seconds before. It wasn’t gone, but it had improved.
“Want me to do the others?” Noem asked, gesturing at Benjamin’s torso.
Benjamin nodded and Noem moved his hand, but before he could start, a loud yell from a room on the back of the infirmary startled them. That was where the private rooms were, and Benjamin looked that way. He knew of only one person who might still be in the infirmary, unless someone else had gotten hurt since he’d left the place, and he’d have heard about that. There was no way to avoid gossip in a place where more than fifty people lived together.
“The hunter?” he still asked.
Noem nodded. “He briefly woke up yesterday, but it looks like he’s getting better.”
“Jared told me he was there because one of the Nix had realized he was their mate. I thought it might be you until this morning.”
Noem’s eyes flickered to him. “Why have you changed your mind?”
“I was the one to show Kay to the kitchen, remember?”
Noem blushed and looked at Benjamin’s torso while Benjamin snickered. He’d known it as soon as Noem had let the orange juice crash on the floor, but it was nice to have confirmation.
“Care to explain to the poor out-of-the-
loop human?” Lucas asked. His gaze was on the private rooms, though, and he was tense, ready to intervene if something happened.
“Can’t tell you when it’s Noem’s secret,” Benjamin said, knowing Noem wasn’t completely comfortable with either him or Lucas.
“What does Kay have to do with it?”
“You know Kay?”
Lucas shrugged. “Not well, but he was there when I came to see Dominic the other week. He was one of the guys Dominic asked for help, and he was adamant that he couldn’t. He’s a cop, right?”
“Yes,” Noem said. “I’d never met him until today, but I knew about him.”
“How could you not have met him?” Benjamin asked. “He was around when Troy had the baby.”
Lucas made a strangled noise. Benjamin and Noem both looked at him. His eyes were huge as he asked, “Troy is a man’s name.”
“Yeah.”
“You just said Troy had a baby.”
“Yeah, Aaron. Oh.”
“Oh? Seriously? You can’t say a guy had a baby and not explain it more than with oh.”
Benjamin waved. “It’s kind of complicated, but Troy was human until the lab messed with him. Now he’s half harpy, and since all harpies are girls, well, he was able to get pregnant. Not that he knew about it or wanted it, but he’s made do with what he was given, and now he’s a proud daddy. I’m surprised you haven’t seen him around with Aaron. I saw them just this morning.”
“A guy had a baby,” Lucas repeated, and he looked terrified. His gaze flickered to Benjamin’s stomach.
Benjamin realized what his mate was thinking of. He started laughing and ignored the glare Lucas sent him. “I can’t get pregnant,” he reassured Lucas. “Really. Troy was able to only thanks to his harpy DNA, and I don’t have that. I’m only a shifter, don’t worry.”
Lucas glared, but he looked eager to change the topic of conversation. “Great. Now what does Kay have to do with Noem?”
He looked at Noem, a brow arched, and Noem looked resigned. He opened his mouth, but another yell came, this time along with a loud crash, then more yells. Lucas looked at Benjamin then ran toward the private room the noise was coming from. There was no way Benjamin was letting him go on his own, so he jumped from his bed and ignored Noem’s calls as he sped after Lucas.
He might not be tall or muscled, or even trained, but he wasn’t going to let his mate deal with whatever was happening on his own.
He vaguely heard Noem following him as he burst into the room right after Lucas. He paused, because there obviously was nothing he could do. The man on the bed was trying to get off, but Lucas was there holding him down with his considerable weight and height. Jared was on the side of the room, his back pressed against the wall, a tray of medical instruments on the floor. The instruments were scattered all over the floor, but no one was making a move to pick them up, not yet.
“You need to calm down,” Lucas spat at the man under him. The man didn’t seem to care, and Lucas looked at Jared. “Do you have sedatives?”
The man on the bed made a noise that sounded like he was dying and tried more vigorously to get Lucas off him, but Lucas wasn’t going anywhere. Benjamin knew exactly how being pinned down by Lucas felt, but in his case it had obviously been a lot more pleasurable than it was for the guy on the bed—the hunter.
Benjamin couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry, and he strode to the bed. The hunter’s eyes were wide and his gaze was bouncing all over the room, from Lucas to Jared to the door. He was terrified, and Benjamin remembered what he’d been told about hunters. They thought shifters were monsters, that they hurt and killed humans.
Benjamin didn’t want to feel sympathetic, but he couldn’t help remembering how he’d felt when he’d woken up in the lab the first time. He understood the hunter better than he wanted to.
He stepped closer and slapped the hunter. He didn’t expect it to work so well, but the hunter’s eyes widened even more and he froze, looking at Benjamin as if he hadn’t noticed him before. “Calm down, man. No one here is going to hurt you.”
“Am I in the hospital?” the hunter asked in a croak that said he hadn’t talked in a while.
“No. You’re in a private clinic.”
He looked around. There was nothing in the room that said he was in front of shifters, but Benjamin didn’t think the man was stupid enough to think he was with humans, not when he’d been hurt in an attack against shifters.
“P-private clinic?”
Benjamin nodded once. “Yes. We’ve been taking care of you since you got hurt in the attack against our pride.”
The hunter swallowed. “You’re shifters.”
It wasn’t a question, but Benjamin answered it anyway. “Yes.”
* * * *
To Lucas’ surprise, the man he was still pinning to the bed didn’t try to get free again, not even after Benjamin confirmed that yes, they were shifters.
He looked down, not surprised to see the guy still looked terrified. “I’m going to let go,” he said. “And by the way, I’m as human as you are, so please don’t hit me or anything.”
The man blinked and Lucas took it as a yes. He slowly let go, still tense just in case, but the man didn’t react. Jared stepped closer again, and the man shuddered, so Lucas stayed close enough that he could intervene if the guy tried something.
“I’m going to go tell Dominic he’s awake,” Noem said from where he was standing by the door.
Jared nodded and showed the man his empty hands. “I won’t hurt you.”
“You’re a shifter,” the man said, his voice rough and trembling.
“I can imagine what you’ve been told about shifters, but we’re not monsters. You’ve been here for two weeks. We could have abandoned you in the forest to die, or killed you, but instead we took you in and took care of you while you were healing.”
“Two—two weeks?”
“A bit more than that.”
“The others... ” The man looked around, clearly expecting to see his fellow hunters, but he was alone in the room. Lucas wasn’t sure why the man had been given a room in the infirmary, not when he was a hunter and had attacked the mansion, had hurt and maybe even killed someone, but what Benjamin had said earlier came back to him.
The hunter was someone’s mate. That would explain a lot of things, including why Dominic was caring for him rather than slamming his ass in a cell.
“Dead or in jail,” Benjamin said from Lucas side. “The wounded have been taken care of, but they’re in jail.”
The hunter looked around the room again. “Why am I in a private clinic?”
Benjamin snorted. “You’re in the mansion’s infirmary, but sure, call it a private clinic if it makes you feel better.”
The hunter scowled. “You were the one who called it that.”
“Because you were panicking, and I didn’t want you to hurt my mate.”
The hunter focused on Lucas, then back on Benjamin. “He said he’s human.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re a shifter.”
Benjamin narrowed his eyes. “Don’t start with the unnatural crap, because I have no problems dumping your ass in a cell.”
Lucas didn’t say anything, although he knew Benjamin definitely wasn’t high enough on the food chain to make that decision. Let the hunter fear Benjamin. Besides, Benjamin was scary when he wanted to be, and it gave Lucas a small thrill to have Benjamin defend him like that. Not that he couldn’t take care of himself, but still. It didn’t happen often that someone tried to protect Lucas, and it was nice.
The hunter swallowed loudly and nodded. Before he and Benjamin could start bickering, the hunter’s gaze moved to the door, and Lucas knew Dominic had just come in. The hunter looked scared again, and while Lucas understood what the man had done to the pride, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
“I’m Dominic Nash,” Dominic said as he moved closer to the bed.
“I know,” the hunter said.
“And you are?”
“Jericho Masters.”
“You know where you are?”
“Yes.”
Lucas shuffled. He wasn’t sure he should be there for this. Benjamin was a pride member, and he knew that as his mate, he was considered one too, especially with his connection to Heath and Jayden, but he didn’t feel like one, not yet. Besides, even if he did feel like a pride member, he didn’t think Dominic usually interrogated hunters with random pride members present.
Dominic didn’t ask anyone to leave, though, and since no one came in, Lucas stayed. He wanted to be there if something happened. Dominic was able to protect himself, Lucas didn’t doubt it, but he was taller and bigger, and he’d make sure to protect Benjamin and Jared if he needed to. Jericho was human, and Lucas could take him.
“Why are you keeping me here?” Jericho asked.
“I have questions, and you have answers. I know you were the second man who tried to get Shad to betray us.”
Lucas had no idea what Dominic was talking about, but Jericho nodded. “The scar on my shoulder gave me away.”
“Yes. We also know Bradley was probably the first man.”
“What... ”
“What happened? You attacked the pride. We lost members, and some were hurt badly, like Benjamin, but the hunters lost more people. The ones who still could move on their own ran away, leaving you and the wounded behind.” The fury was barely restrained in Dominic’s voice, and Lucas didn’t think it was something that happened often.
Jericho looked cowed, but he nodded. “What are you going to do with me?”
“We’re going to help you heal, and we’re going to talk.”
“Why aren’t I in a cell? No matter how much you want answers from me, you could have them while I’m in jail.”
Dominic looked hesitant, as if he didn’t know if he could answer that question, and Lucas understood why. Jericho was a hunter, and he was afraid of shifters and probably the rest of the supernatural world. He probably wouldn’t take the fact that he had a mate well.
“You know what a Nix is?” Dominic asked.
Benjamin Page 11
