Page 149 of The Alpha King's Curse: Part Two

It was unbearable. He slid off the rock to his knees and looked up at the moon. Was this really his fate? To break like this? To love so much and then lose it all?

It took only a minute for him to realise he would not survive it. He could not leave Layla with those words for the rest of her life.

She was the only good thing that had happened to him.

Layla was almost out of the forest when he caught up with her, grabbed her arm and turned her around to face him.

"I'm a coward, and I'm full of shit," he whispered.

He didn't care that she could see his tears. That she could feel all his vulnerabilities while she hid hers away.

"I love you, Layla Carlisle, and it's nothing to do with the bond. I am nothing without you. I would choose you in this life and the next."

Layla sucked in a breath, but she didn't drop the mask.

"I don't want you to leave. I don't want to spend a moment of the time I have left away from you. But it will end in tears for you, so the choice is yours. You can walk away and save yourself the heartache."

Chapter 72

Layla watched Jackson spar with a young girl and wondered how he could still go about his day as if he hadn’t completely nuked her heart.

How could he even smile like that?

“Are you here to train or to ogle your boyfriend?”

She ignored Dylan and watched Jax show the girl a complicated hold. He was dedicated to giving the best of himself. Though most of the pack members were wary of him, they were eager to train with him and learn from him.

Dylan sat beside her and pulled at a blade of grass.

“It sucks, doesn't it?”

She pulled her attention away to look at the man beside her. And his new attitude finally made sense. He knew. All of that pain that he couldn’t hide... he was hurting for his best friend.

“What am I supposed to do?” she whispered.

“If I knew that, we wouldn’t be sitting here.”

When she looked back at Jackson, he had stopped training and was looking at them. The smile was gone from his face as he looked at both of them. Briefly, she felt the pain he was hiding. But only briefly. He turned back to the girl he was teaching and put a smile back on his face.

Her mind wandered back to the conversation she had overheard a week ago. Diedre thought she was the key, and that was why they were constantly being attacked. Could that be true? Was the witch trying to kill her so Jackson wouldn’t have a way to break his curse?

Diedre was up in her little clinic, back to healing the pack members like she had done before she got stuck down. She was getting stronger each day, looking younger each day. She had no idea how magic worked, but that was some strong stuff there. It was a little bit scary that the witch trying to kill her was more powerful than that.

“Where’s Hope?” Dylan asked.

“Faith is watching her while she does her college applications.”

At least life was heading in the right direction for some people. She was at a loss for what to do. Hope’s future wasn’t secure. Jax was going to die, and then Hunters would come back to hunt her, so her precious little girl would be left all alone.

“You have to take care of her.”

“Jax already asked me months ago,” Dylan said gruffly.

It hurt to hear that he had been making such preparations for so long. Like it did a million times a day, her heart stopped. She had to remind herself to breathe.

“I’m going to check on Hope,” she said quickly as she stood up.

“You'll train later?”

---