Page 91 of The Alpha King's Curse: Part One

“There’s a whole world here, Layla, and I will show you all of it.”

His voice had changed tone. Sometimes she felt like she was dealing with two different people. Maybe it was the content feeling she’d woken up with, but Jackson seemed softer, more human, as if he was being considerate of her feelings. But still, there was just something about him that screamed danger.

“What are your interests?” Jackson asked. “Maybe we can start with that.”

She shrugged as she watched him load up her plate.

“I didn’t get much time to do anything at home,” she admitted.

“But when you did? What did you do?”

“I like to run,” she answered. “I like working out. I used to try to make it to some martial arts classes, too.”

Though her self-defence lessons had flown out of her head when those men had pinned her down.

“I can work out with you here,” Jackson said. “Until you’re pregnant, of course, then I won’t allow you to lift a finger.”

Jackson didn’t even blink an eye when he said that last part, as if it wasn’t negotiable. Maybe he would put her on bedrest the moment the doctor confirmed she was pregnant.

If she got pregnant.

As she watched him eat, she put her hand over her stomach and prayed that she wouldn’t get pregnant at all. After the other day, what if her child endured the same thing because the cult would hate him or her as much as they hated the mother?

And if she were pregnant, because she had to face that possibility after the number of times she’d ended up having unprotected sex with Jackson, she wouldn’t leave that child here.

Chapter 49

There was a lot of shit happening in his territory.

But there he was, getting ready to go jogging with a half-blood.

Jackson opened up his senses and scanned as far as he could reach. He’d sensed the Circle in the area when they’d been having breakfast, but they’d left as he had ordered.

They wouldn’t have gone too far, though. They'd probably only gone back to the city. Those three were the most arrogant people he had ever met, so they wouldn’t take kindly to being reminded that he was more powerful than them, and they still meant nothing to him. They would try to find a way to bring him down a peg or two, despite having come to ask for forgiveness.

He would need to find Diedre to find out how they had done the wards. He was relying on the fact that they wanted him to provide heirs, but he didn't know who was behind the attacks. Letting them anywhere near his protective magic was a significant risk.

Black magic wasn’t Diedre’s thing, but she could handle herself against it if she had to. He would have to trust her for this. If letting them in to do the wards had been the wrong move, Diedre would have told him before they had started. She hadn’t seen his future since the curse, but she could still see everyone else. She would have known if they were trying to fuck with him.

He looked back at the woman still stretching behind him. Layla had found workout gear in the wardrobe that he regretted having bought in the first place. The leggings hugged and shaped everything, and the tank top exposed too much skin. He would have told her to change into something else, but he had seen her hesitation when she chose what to wear and felt that little bit of anxiety that she projected. It looked like she’d had to carefully consider what she wore because of Laken and his sons.

He hadn’t wanted her to feel as if her choice of clothing had anything to do with why she had been attacked, so he’d let her pick what she was comfortable with. He could live with the blue balls for as long as needed. What was surprising was Cain was going along with it, too. He hadn’t had to hold the beast back from Layla, even when she had wrapped herself around him in her sleep. The beast was content just to be close to her while she came to terms with what had almost happened to her.

He’d have to suck it up and deal with his possessiveness another way. No one was on the packhouse grounds to see Layla like that, anyway.

It was like a ghost town. They’d all disappeared, probably to avoid their ‘mad king’. Maybe they wondered which of them he would string up next in his dungeon like the traitors still waiting for their fate.

He’d fucked up there, he could see that now. No one would ever forget that he had killed one of his own. He was supposed to bring them closer to him so they would happily raise his kid, but he’d pushed them away with that one act.

His child wouldn’t thrive on his land.

He pushed those depressing thoughts aside and concentrated on Layla. It was funny how, only days ago, that had been the last thing he had wanted to do. He would have been terrified that they were already so strongly bonded. But as long as he didn’t mark her, he was sure he could still walk away when the time came. Cain would see sense by then.

“We’ll come back in time for lunch,” he said.

Maybe the afternoon trainees wouldn’t be as chickenshit as the morning ones and would actually show up. He’d get her back to his room before then.

Diedre’s potion was working well, but not completely. He still had to tread lightly. Layla still felt a little anxious even though she looked excited to be outside, but he still didn’t want her to meet anyone. The ring Diedre had given him was still in his room because he couldn’t think of a way to give it to her without her thinking he wanted to marry her.

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