Without waiting to think, he ripped the door open, ignoring the silver as it cut into his skin. The man only managed to get a few words out before he clawed his throat out.

“May your seed never flouri—”

As the prisoner began to drown in his blood, his eyes remained eerily vacant as his head rolled to the side. The magic in the air died instantly, but the cold remained in his body.

What the hell was that? Before he’d found Layla, he’d fucked everything that moved wherever he went, but he’d never told anyone except Dylan that he was trying to have a baby. Dylan would never have betrayed him.

Would he? After the incident with Layla that afternoon, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

His claws retracted, and blood dripped from his fingers as he stepped backwards out of the poisonous prison cell. The prisoner was dead; there was no pulse or magic, but he needed to be sure. He rushed forward with a growl, his rage morphing as he gripped the man’s hair and pulled. He threw the offending appendage to the floor before walking out of the cell.

This changed everything.

Someone was trying to hex his unborn child.

Micah was standing with Dylan, Jon and Diedre in the training fields when he came out of the guardhouse. He could feel their anxiety as they watched him approach.

“Diedre, I’ll need the whole place cleansed after someone moves the body,” he said.

“Yes, Alpha. I brought my bag.”

“Did you get anything out of him?” Dylan asked.

“No,” he lied.

He hated that he couldn’t trust Dylan anymore. The seed had already been planted in his head, and nothing but the absolute truth would remove it.

“Where did you find him?” he asked Micah.

“He found us. We were looking for his trail northbound down the river when he just walked towards us,” Micah answered.

“Did he say anything?”

Had he told them about the curse?

“He was off his head,” Micah said. “He kept saying that he was the king and then singing. We had to gag him on the way back. When we started questioning him in the cell, he kept repeating something about a blood moon. He smelled like a rogue, but I can’t be sure.”

Most likely a rogue. They were easier to target for something like this. Hopefully, whatever he’d said would remain the ramblings of an insane wolf.

He would have to retrace the wolf’s steps to figure out what had happened. Maybe there was a clue in the forest.

But until he got to the bottom of this, he needed to keep Layla closer to him.

“Reinforce the security. I don’t want another breach,” he said as she started to walk back to the house.

But he knew there would be. Someone knew he was dying, and they wanted to make sure his bloodline died with him. Layla was already in danger.

Chapter 24

The sun was starting to set when Layla’s phone rang.

She rushed back from the window where she had been trying to map a way to the front gate to grab the phone from the nightstand. The number flashing on the screen was unknown, but she already knew who it was.

“Brit?” she said as she answered.

“Hi, Layla.”

Britney sounded cheerful. That immediately put her most pressing fears to rest. Her sister would never have been able to hide her emotions from her if something terrible had happened to her.