Page 166 of The Alpha King's Curse: Part Two

If he hadn’t marked Layla, he would have handed himself over to the witch for her to do whatever she wanted to him until her anger abated.

At the gates, Micah stood with Dylan and the warriors, looking down the road. They trained to fight in battles like these, but even they were uneasy. Alpha Brax stood with them, his fists clenching and unclenching as he waited.

‘That goes for you guys, too. I won't force you to fight my battle. You can go to the packhouse and hope that Fate spares your life. That won't make you any less of a warrior.'

"You aren't fighting alone, Jax," Dylan said out loud. "You're our Alpha, but we are still brothers."

"She wants me. She may succeed today. If that happens, Hope will be left alone. You have to—"

"We are your brothers, Jackson," Micah said firmly.

He looked back at the man who had always had his back, even when his father had been king. He had never called him by name, not even when he was a boy.

He looked at all the others, the men he had fought countless battles with. Though they were nervous, they stood their ground.

“I have a score to settle with her. I’ll stay,” Brax growled.

And then he heard it. The heavy footsteps sounded like thunder as they sped toward his gates. The vibrations rose from the ground as hundreds of men and wolves ran through the darkness. Trees and shrubs rustled as they came closer.

‘May the Goddess be with all of us,’ Micah said in the pack link.

Jax walked closer to the gate, his attention on the top of the dirt road. And seconds later, he saw them. Men running at speed toward them. He focused his eyes to see them properly and had to take a step back when he saw the faces of the men leading the army.

“It’s Chase. And Ryker.”

The witch had taken his ally and his greatest enemy.

Chase had a snarl on his face, and his eyes were blank like the first man he had encountered who’d been taken over by the witch. His chest tightened. Chase was annoying, but he was an honourable man. Otherwise, he would never have gone to him to make a blood oath.

Ryker’s face looked the same. A snarl and his black eyes dead. He should have ended that pack when they had taken him. The silent enemies approaching from the back had to be Night Walkers. No one else was that skilled at blending in with the shadows. They were deadly on a good day, but with the witch controlling them, they would be unstoppable.

All around him, he felt his pack begin to shift, ready to fight for their lives. Brax, Micah and Dylan remained at his side, their hearts racing as they felt the strength of the men they had to fight.

When they were a few metres from the gates, they stopped. They were not breathless, and they were devoid of any emotion. No fear, no anxiousness, no empathy. No recognition whatsoever. Like machines, ready to do their master’s bidding.

Lightning flashed across the sky, and the men in front of them parted, revealing a young, blonde woman. For the first time since all the shit started, he was face-to-face with his biggest enemy.

She had a smile on her pale face as she slowly walked to the front of the men. Unlike anyone else going to battle, she wore a dress and heels, and her hair looked like it had been professionally done.

“I don’t know why you thought you could beat me,” the witch said, “but it has been fun to watch you try.”

Her blue eyes twinkled, flashing briefly in the darkness. The men behind her started to shift until only Ryker and Chase stood in their human forms. He didn’t care what happened to Ryker, but he didn’t want to have to fight Chase. He had become part of the family when they had mixed their blood.

“Tell me what you want, and let's finish this. You can’t keep pulling innocent people into a fight that has nothing to do with them.”

“I don’t want you to hand anything to me. I’ll take it myself. I'll destroy your people and your home the way you destroyed mine, and as I did, you will watch all of it,” the witch snarled.

“What’s your name?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” the woman answered.

“You’ve hidden behind everyone else for months; I had to find out for myself who you are. I can’t keep calling you the Wicked Witch.”

“Oh, so I’m the villain in the story?” the witch laughed. “When you tell it, do you tell them how you ripped out that woman’s throat and left her to bleed out while you went for her children? Do you tell them what you did to the ones who tried to escape you? What about the children you found hiding in the basement—”

“I know what I did. Maybe you were too young to understand, but your pack was not innocent. You must have known that.”

Still, those images had haunted him ever since. They were the reason he had stopped hoping for redemption.

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