Page 120 of The Alpha King's Curse: Part Two

"Eating and then going back to sleep, I hope. I heard you're supposed to sleep when—"

"You know that's not what I meant," she cut in again.

He sighed and sat down at the edge of the bed. How did he explain to his mate that he couldn't give her what she wanted?

"We'll figure it out. We don't have to make any decisions immediately," he replied, holding her gaze. "We can just enjoy this, can't we?"

Layla looked away from him, and briefly, he felt her sadness again.

“But how can I enjoy anything when you’re still going to send me away?” she whispered.

“I don’t want to send you away, Layla.”

And that much was the truth. But what he wanted and what he could have were completely different things.

“I can stay with you?” Layla didn’t look at him when she asked, and she had already masked herself again.

“Yes. I’ll figure out where we’ll go in the morning, and then we’ll go. Just the three of us.”

He had too much money to ever spend in his lifetime, never mind the three months he had left. He would take his girls off somewhere the witch wouldn’t find them and enjoy the time they had left. That was a better plan. Dylan could take over officially, and he’d get to experience a taste of heaven before his past deeds sent him to hell.

Layla looked up at him, and her lips slowly pulled up into a smile. Her emeralds twinkled and flashed briefly before she looked down at the baby again.

“I’d like that.”

“I’d like that, too,” he answered, a smile playing on his lips.

When he stood, he kissed his little princess’ head and then her mother’s. Before he pulled away from them completely, he kissed Layla’s lips. Just a chaste one, but it was enough to put a bigger smile on her lips. And it was enough to make her drop that mask.

He closed his eyes and basked in the glow for a moment. What would it feel like to have Layla express everything she felt and for him to tell her the same?

Layla’s stomach grumbled, and his smile widened as he opened his eyes.

“Not hungry, huh?” he teased before he turned to walk out of the room.

He was at the door when his phone started ringing, cutting into the silence and startling Hope.

“Shit,” he swore as he rushed to his nightstand to pick it up. His phone hardly ever rang because he preferred to mind link. But he was too far from his land for his pack to be able to reach him in emergencies, and Dylan was too far to mind-link if he found anything. He had to learn to put it on silent.

“Yes,” he answered quickly.

“You’ve got to move, Jax. Hunters are coming.”

Dylan’s voice was strained and low. His blood ran cold at the fear he heard in it, and he stopped moving before he reached the door.

“Where?”

“I found Amber’s tracks when she shifted in the woods. She was heading towards the city, but I hadn’t found her when I saw Hunters stopping at a gas station in Wolfdale.”

“But how do you know they’re here for us? What if they’re just passing through?”

“It was a hunting party, Jax.”

One or two Hunters in town could be passed off as a Hunter following a lead or passing through. A hunting party consisted of hundreds of them. They rolled into cities in the buses and vans and trucks to set up, usually under the guise of a ‘convention’ of some sort so the humans wouldn’t get suspicious. Then they started actively hunting. They didn’t stop until they felt they had obliterated every wolf.

He looked back at Layla and knew she’d heard that conversation.

“Where are they now?”

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