Page 145 of The Alpha King's Curse: Part Two

Dylan came out of the house just as he ran up the front steps.

"She's in the kitchen," Dylan said.

He stopped and looked at his Beta with a questioning frown. Why would Diedre be in the kitchen when she was so unwell?

Dylan let out a breath and continued down the steps without saying anything else.

He walked into the house slowly and listened. The house was empty except for the young orphans who couldn't shift yet. And Diedre was in the kitchen.

He followed her scent mixed with the smell of baking down the hall. He could hear humming...

When he pushed the kitchen door open slowly, the humming filled the air. The same humming he had grown up with, the same comforting sound. The same smell of cinnamon and vanilla in the air as the witch made what looked like his favourite treats.

Diedre opened the oven, pulled out a cinnamon roll tray, and then carried it over to the counter to put it next to dozens of other trays.

Her voice was strong.

She was walking unaided, with a spring in her step.

And when she turned around, there wasn't a single wrinkle on her face, and her eyes and cheeks were not hollow.

"Jax!"

A big smile filled her face, one he hadn't thought he'd ever see again.

Diedre twirled as if she was a young girl and then rushed forward to take his hands. Her hands were warm, not ice-cold as they had been before. And it looked like even her hair was regaining its lustre.

“How?” he asked.

Dylan had told him to come home, so he’d expected the worst. Not this, whatever this was. Diedre had somehow beaten the dark magic that had bound her. He could no longer sense it in her body, sucking the life out of her.

Diedre pulled him further into the kitchen and made him sit on one of the stools around the island.

“Try this,” she said, putting a cinnamon roll on a napkin and placing it on his palm. “I made all your favourites.”

He looked around the kitchen and realised trays and Tupperware covered every surface.

“How, Dee?” he asked again.

Diedre’s smile widened. She took the pastry from him and set it aside before taking his hands again.

“Layla,” she whispered.

He sucked in a breath. Layla had visited Diedre several times since they had returned from the depths of the forest. She had read to Dee, bathed her, nursed her the same way she had nursed him when he’d been injured, and she had done all of this while still taking care of Hope and training.

In his heart, he had hoped she would do whatever she had done to make him and the other pack members better. He had hoped for it even when he knew Diedre would figure things out.

But Diedre had steadily deteriorated, and he’d lost hope that she would make it to the day the witch’s curse took him.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I was going, Jax. I was just waiting for my last breath so I could join all my sisters who went before me. I saw the face of death and welcomed it,” Diedre said. “But Layla came into my room and pulled me back.”

“She’s been coming to your room every day,” he pointed out.

“Not like that,” Diedre whispered, pulling a stool so she could sit in front of him. “She told me to fight it. I felt her will for me to live as if it was a tangible thing. I heard her crying and felt her sadness. It was different, Jax. Everything makes perfect sense now.”

He knew what was coming. He could feel it in Diedre’s emotions, see it in the excitement on her face. Dee hadn’t looked that excited since before the curse.

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