“Your room?” she asked. “This is Jackson’s room—”

“Mine,” Layla said.

A simple word, and yet everything inside him reacted as if she had branded him. He sucked in a breath and let his hand fall from Amber’s as he watched his mate. She seemed... more than she usually was. Her presence filled the room. It was like looking at a different person.

She wouldn’t know what she had done, but he had never felt so... whole.

“Excuse me? From what I heard—”

“Leave,” Layla said. “If you ever step foot in here again, I will feed you your entrails and then throw your useless body away like trash.”

Amber chuckled again and then looked down at him. He felt her scrutiny even though he only had eyes for his mate.

“Your Majesty—”

“I already told you to leave,” he cut in. “Everything in this room belongs to Layla.”

Amber slid off the bed and walked towards the door. And as she approached his mate, he was sure he saw something in Layla’s eyes. They brightened, just like the red wolf’s eyes in the forest.

“I apologise, Jackson,” Amber said, turning around to face him. “I’ll go and make myself useful somewhere else.”

He wanted to tell her to leave his territory altogether, but Layla was already advancing. When she straddled his hips and lowered her lips to his, he knew what she was doing.

Publicly claiming him.

Marking him for Amber to see.

And every part of his body wished that this could be real.

Chapter 71

Maybe she really had gone insane.

It had been a week since she had embarrassed herself by pulling such a juvenile move. Everyone knew this was Jackson’s room, and just because he was sleeping with her, it didn’t make him hers.

Mine? Seriously? How could she even say that word?

Yet that was how she had felt at that moment, driven by insane jealousy that had come out of nowhere.

Maybe her mental issues had gone to the next level because she still felt like two people in one body. And when she felt like herself, those emotions still lingered.

“You haven’t eaten enough.”

She looked up from her food to see Jackson watching her across the balcony table. He had done that a lot since she’d climbed all over him and kissed him in front of Amber.

Jackson hadn’t stopped at just looking. She caught him smiling a few times, and she was pretty sure he was fully healed, yet he insisted on being bathed and taken care of every day. He seemed to have undergone a personality transplant of his own.

“I’m not very hungry today,” she shrugged as she looked away from his probing gaze.

“Are you bored being stuck in here with me all the time?”

Bored? Her body tingled whenever he was close, and as soon as Jackson had become strong enough, she’d woken up with him between her legs more often than not. It seemed that he was as insatiable as she was, and that was as terrifying as it was thrilling. Being alone with him was far from boring, but they couldn't stay in this bubble much longer.

Dylan had told her Jackson was ignoring everything else to spend time with her; she could see that now. She wouldn’t bother to analyse what that meant because she already knew she didn’t belong in his world. They had no future together.

“Not bored,” she answered, “but I wouldn’t mind going out to stretch my legs.”

And find Dylan. He couldn't help her leave if Jackson was glued to her the whole time.