“Alpha?” Dylan questioned as he came out of the packhouse with the Omegas and warriors that had been working inside. “What’s going on?”

“Leave.”

He couldn’t manage anything else as he walked into the house.

He stood in the lobby as the house emptied quickly around him. And he stood there as the grounds emptied until no one was left around the property except him and Laya.

And still, her quiet moans filled his ears, and her scent filled the whole house.

The others had not caught it.

Because of her wolf side?

Like the red wolf who had given birth to her, had she allowed him and only him to scent her?

“Jackson...”

Her whisper reached his ears and made everything tighten in his body. Any thoughts of her heritage disappeared as he took the stairs two at a time.

When he walked into the bedroom, he saw his mate on the bed, sweaty and clutching the sheets as she writhed to relieve the pressure. She was still fully dressed, even though he knew what that must have been doing to her overly sensitive skin.

But his mate didn’t know. She didn’t know she was in heat and had summoned him. She didn’t know he was about to plant his seed in her.

And she didn’t know that he had already lost the will to fight the marking.

His face was already tightening when Layla looked over at him with her feverish eyes.

“Mine,” he growled.

Chapter 76

Jackson had never experienced anything as excruciatingly painful and devastating yet overwhelmingly satisfying.

He had spent days fighting his beast while getting Layla through her heat. Every time he had latched onto her neck, something had got through the fog in his head to remind him that the bite would be a death sentence for Layla. It had been enough to make him let go, but only barely.

He’d been too weak to bite her in the end anyway.

This hadn’t been his first experience with an unmated female’s heat, but it was the first that had depleted all his energy completely. The first that he had felt himself. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. The men tended to the women for a day or two, rested for a couple of hours, and then returned to their full strength.

They didn’t lie down for a whole day, unable to move.

They didn’t feel the burn in their body as if they had bathed in a fire for days while their bodies were so thoroughly and shamelessly used.

It was because he hadn’t marked her. Everything would always be extreme if he didn’t seal the deal and let their bond settle.

“What the hell was that, Jackson?”

He focused on the woman lying beside him on the cool balcony floor. He had no idea how long they had lain there but had watched the sun rise above them hours ago. Now it bathed Layla in its rays. Her hair was a tangled mess, and she smelled of sex, sweat and him. She was sticky and dirty; her lips were swollen and bruised... the sexiest thing he had ever seen.

“Heat,” he answered.

Things had changed. If her wolf side was already this strong, he had to tell her what her life would be like. She would go through this a couple of times a year.

And once he was dead, she would turn to another man to help her through it.

Cain growled in his head as the pain lashed through them both.

But they had to think about this. They had to make sure she survived by herself and knew how to hide these tendencies when she was back in her world. The Hunters had become more sophisticated with the advancement of technology. One wrong move would have her going viral on the internet, and the Hunters or The Circle would kill her.