Page 20 of The Alpha King's Curse: Part Two

After an hour of wasting time on the rock, he stood and looked back towards the trees. The red wolf was pissing him off as much as her daughter. Maybe that was where Layla got her attitude from.

“Yeah, keep hiding. She’s going to find out who you are, and you’ll become dead to her for a second time,” he snapped. “When I kick her out, she’ll be alone and without a clue what’s happening to her. The very least you could do is tell me so I can prepare her.”

Again, he was met with silence.

His fists clenched as he started the walk back to the house. He was wasting time. It had been three weeks, and he hadn’t found the witch or made any headway with the red wolf, and his gut told him something huge was just around the corner. Something worse than his pack trying to get rid of him. The witch had to be getting desperate now. When she realised Layla was pregnant, she would probably try to do something worse.

When he reached the treeline, he stopped as he usually did. Someone would have already taken Layla to her old room to shower and then brought her breakfast. He could sense her already making her way out to the front. All the tents were gone because almost everyone had returned to their homes. A few children had to make the packhouse their permanent residence, and they came out of the house before Layla.

They had taken to walking with her because the doctor had suggested being out in the fresh air to help them heal. He knew it wouldn’t. He had been about their age, only six, when his mother had died, and only time had lessened that pain.

Layla walked out next. Like a starving man, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was glowing. Layla had been stunning when he first saw her, but with all her changes, she had started to look less human. She’d left her hair out today, and though it was still curly, it was thicker, so the curls had stretched. And her eyes looked like any other werewolf’s, except hers were that unique, startling green colour. She looked like someone out of the world and would turn heads everywhere when she returned to her real life.

Layla looked towards him, as she always did when she came out. She could always tell where he was, the way he could sense where she was.

Every morning this moment was both a pleasure and a pain. His heart settled, and his beast was pacified when the stunning emeralds met his. His mate. The woman who had made his heart beat again. And then the moment passed as he felt the sharp stabbing in his chest when he started to fight the pull towards her. Every morning without fail. The need to be with her had become so unbearable that Cain had become completely silent. Agony. Sheer torture. Even though he was still in the woods, her scent had already wrapped around him, and it wouldn’t let him go for the rest of the day.

But there was something different that morning.

He listened closely, and there it was. For the first time, he heard the sound of a little heartbeat beating along with Layla’s.

His child.

His eyes lowered to her flat stomach and the situation became real. He’d made a baby. Layla’s stomach would swell as his baby grew, and... Holy shit. What the fuck had he been thinking? How could he bring an innocent baby into the shithole that was his life when he wouldn’t be there to protect it? He would only hold the baby for a short time before he died. Insane. He was fucking insane.

But the little heart kept beating, and in his mind, he saw himself with his little family. Layla holding their baby and smiling at him. He saw himself happy and content—something he had never imagined.

He took a few steps towards Layla, unable to resist any longer. His heart was full and empty at the same time as he gave in to what he most desired. But the reminder that he wasn’t who Layla wanted made him stop in his tracks before he reached her. Layla hadn’t taken her gaze off him as if she was waiting for him to make the first move, but he wouldn’t do that. He wasn’t opening himself up like that again. When she had tried to run away, she had as good as rejected him.

He turned and walked in the opposite direction. The best thing he could do for that baby was to fix everything so everyone would be safe. Find and kill the witch. Find the red wolf. That was it. He couldn’t think beyond that.

“Alpha.”

He hadn’t noticed Micah approaching him. He nodded at his Head Warrior, who would soon become the Gamma and then the Beta after he died.

‘I have some concerns I want to share with you,’ Micah started in his head.

‘Zach is trying to incite a coup?’ he guessed as he continued walking.

‘I’ve heard some whispers, Alpha. It seems he’s gaining more support because of what happened,’ Micah said. ‘You and Miss Layla aren’t safe here.’

‘They have every right to be angry, but I don’t think they’ll go through with anything,’ he stated.

‘Are you sure?’

He stopped and studied Micah closely. Maybe there was more to the story than he had heard. Zach may have already convinced several other people and a plan was already in motion. No, he wasn’t sure.

The baby’s heartbeat sounded in his ears again, followed by the crippling fear that he would lose everything that mattered most to him. He couldn’t risk Layla’s and his unborn child’s lives when all he had were assumptions.

‘I’m taking Layla to the hotel for a few days. Find out what you can.’

‘Yes, Alpha.’

Layla’s laughter carried to him from the other side of the house, taking all his attention. He could have shut it out, but she had never laughed like that with him. She had clearly moved on with her life while he was stuck in the miserable, dark hole she had shoved him into.

Her ‘best buddy’ Dylan said something which made her giggle, and his fist clenched at his sides. Despite his warning, Dylan seemed to find any excuse to speak to Layla every single fucking day. He’d had enough of the two of them.

“Take Layla back to the house to pack. We leave in half an hour.”

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