Page 4 of The Alpha King's Curse: Part Two

“Come with us, mummy,” the boy sniffed.

“I have to get the others. I love you, Max,” the woman said. Her voice was breaking. She could sense the emotions the young mother was trying to hold in.

Without hesitating, she ran towards them.

“I’ll take them.”

The woman was startled for a moment, although she didn’t know why. From what she had learned, wolves had a strong sense of smell. They would have known she was nearby.

And that was another reason why this was a stupid idea. They would get her before she did anything.

“I’ll take them to the gates,” she insisted as she stuck the knife down the waistband of her jeans before she took the baby from the boy.

The mother only hesitated briefly before she kissed both children and then ran off towards the fighting.

“Take my hand,” she ordered the boy.

There was no time to fall apart now. A war raged around her; she couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. The moment they were inside the gates, she handed the baby back to the boy.

“Go and knock on the door. There are two girls inside who will open it for you. Be careful.”

Only when the boy started moving did she look at the gates. What did that woman mean there were wards around the house? Protective wards? Like witches and magic stuff? Was that a thing?

More screams echoed in the air, and she prayed with everything in her that it wasn’t the woman who had just left her children. She ran towards the screams. She didn’t know how, but she could easily pick up the direction it came from. The rows of houses sat between wooded areas, and she imagined that helped to hide the town if anyone looked from the sky. The screams were coming from those woods.

She pulled her knife out as she approached and kept her eyes open. The full moon didn’t really illuminate much under the trees, but she didn’t need it. Everything was so clear it might as well have been daylight.

The moment she found the source of the screams, her heart stopped for the second time that night.

A huge man was pinning a young woman down and tearing at her clothes.

The same way those three men had done to her.

In her mind, she could see herself as that woman, unable to move, waiting for the torment to end. And then that anger she had felt before towards Amber ripped through her. She would not freeze again.

One second she was far from the scene, and the next, she had jumped on the man’s back and put the knife through him. Her anger didn’t go away even when the man slumped forward and she could no longer hear his heart beating.

It was the girl’s sniff that briefly brought her back to herself. She pulled the dead weight from her body and felt relieved when she realised she had gotten there in time.

“Get to the packhouse,” she whispered to the girl.

There was already another fight that had grabbed her attention. Like a thief in the night, she stayed in the shadows as she went towards the fighting. Her anger fueled her actions, and part of her recognised this was another out-of-body experience. This was not her. But it didn’t matter now. People were dying because of her.

It felt like hours later when she finally snapped out of it and realised she had blood splattered all over herself and dripping down her hands. Her breath hitched when her mind’s eye showed her what she had just done, like a horror movie. She had fought like a coward, attacking them from behind because she knew she couldn’t win a real fight. She had fought dirty, but she had won. There were bodies littered all over the woods.

Her hands shook as she raised them to look at them, unable to fathom what she had just done. The knife dropped from her hand and clattered onto the paved road.

What was happening to her?

“Retreat!”

She heard that call from a distance, making her look around at where she was. She had come further into the town than she had intended.

The children. She had left them alone.

She turned from the road and started to run back through the woods in the direction she had come. When she arrived at the gates, many children were waiting inside. Some were wounded, but they were huddled together and waiting anxiously. She had saved them. It didn’t make up for feeling like she was the cause of it all, but at least it was a start.

“Miss Layla,” a girl called out as she ran towards her. “Are you okay?”

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