Loving Lachlyn (Ashland Pride Two) by Butler R.E

Author:Butler, R.E. [Butler, R.E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-08-25T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Melody Marx looked over Julia’s shoulder as she screened video footage from cameras in the small town of Ashland, Indiana. Julia was marking date and time information on a pad of paper. Whenever one of the males would show up in a frame, Julia wrote it down. Melody found the whole process dreadfully boring and pointless. She hadn’t been with the female lions very long, less than a year, but she already knew why the males had taken off.

“What is the point of all this again?” Melody asked, sitting down in a desk chair in the home office of Honor Parkins, head of the mountain lion pride.

Julia paused the footage and glared at Melody. “You know why. We’re looking for weaknesses with the males so we can break up their group and get them here where they belong.”

She opened her mouth to say something snarky, but snapped it closed. The females didn’t really trust her. She hadn’t been raised with the females, so even though she was one, she wasn’t really one of them. She wasn’t even sure where she was, because they’d drugged her when they had brought her here and never let her leave the area. Turning her eyes to a console of eight screens, she used the controller to play the footage from the last twenty-four hours.

Ashland was a town that was similar to the one she was raised in. She’d grown up in Bent Creek, Ohio, where her and her father were the only two mountain lions in the area. Her father had passed away the year before. His late-night shift at the power plant had always worried her, because the back roads that led into town could be treacherous in bad weather. It had poured the whole day, and the roads were flooded in some areas. When the doorbell rang at four a.m., she’d instinctively known that something bad had happened. The two police officers looked at her sadly when she opened the door, drawing her robe around her waist tightly.

“Miss Marx?” one asked, pulling off his hat and gripping it in his hands.

“Yes?” She clutched at her robe and stared between them to the police car that sat in the driveway, lights flashing.

“Your father has been in an accident.”

Her heart throbbed in her chest, and tears filled her eyes. “Is he, is he okay?”

“I’m sorry, Miss Marx, but he died on the way to the hospital. Can we come in? We’d like to talk to you.”

The day was a blur after that. Mrs. Downs, a neighbor, came over when she saw the police car and helped Melody dress. Then there was the morgue. So many visitors at the house that their faces and kind words mashed together. The funeral. The empty house. It had taken her weeks to be able to open her father’s bedroom door to start packing up his things. Her best friend, Scarlett, a werewolf in the local pack, came over to help her pack because Melody didn’t think she could do it alone.

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