Page 41 of The Alpha King's Curse: Part Two

“It will be the safest place. I just have a few things to iron out,” he said and then walked into the bathroom.

The whispers had been worse that day. Jackson’s pack gossipped more than a group of old women. They didn’t want her with them, and she was somehow being blamed for this new threat when she didn’t even really understand what a Hunter was.

She sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. Jackson couldn’t keep avoiding her. He was supposed to show her how she could control the things happening to her, and he was supposed to give her more answers about what she was.

When Jackson walked out of the bathroom, she was wide awake. And if she hadn’t been, seeing him with only a towel wrapped around his waist and water dripping down his body would have woken her right up. The air sizzled instantly. So much heat coursed through her veins that she had to squeeze her thighs together, and she wasn’t even sure if this was her reaction or this wolf side of her that Jackson said she had.

Jackson stopped, and their gazes met. His eyes flashed red before he cleared his throat and looked away.

“I don’t have the answers you need,” Jackson said. “I’m still looking. You should have been okay for another two or three decades.”

He cleared his throat again.

“Go to sleep.”

But his eyes flashed again, and his body reacted underneath the towel. Her mouth dried up when she lowered her gaze. Though her head was quiet, this had to be that other side of her. The side that wanted Jackson above everything else. The side that ignored everything going on around her the moment Jackson came close. It felt like there was a rope between them, pulling her towards him.

Jackson closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and when he opened them again, they were red. And for some reason, that excited her more. He’d told her that her eyes flashed when she couldn’t control her emotions, so that had to be the same for him. He couldn’t control this.

Jackson whipped the towel off and walked towards her. By the time she was naked and on her back on the bed, her mind had already exploded a million times. Why did he affect her like that when the other wolves didn’t?

Jackson ate her out as if he was starving. She fell over the edge over and over again until her voice was hoarse. Until she couldn’t take it anymore. And only then did he lift his face from between her legs and rise over her. She’d been wrong. She took more. She took much more as Jackson thrust into her, and the madness overtook them both. Her voice was hoarse, and her body was just a trembling mess when she fell over the cliff the last time.

Jackson tensed and grunted her name before his hot seed filled her.

And then, before she stopped trembling, he pulled out of her and got off the bed. She watched him grab his towel and cover himself up before he turned to look at her. His eyes were no longer red.

“This doesn’t change anything. I may not be able to stop this,” he growled, “but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what you did. I’ll find out what you are, but you’ll still have to leave when the baby is born.”

And then he walked back into the bathroom, leaving her body cold.

Chapter 23

Eight months.

He had eight more months of this shit. At this rate, he would mark Layla before the month was out.

Jackson leaned back in the seat and drank a sip of his beer as he looked out over the balcony. Breakfast hadn’t even been prepared yet, and he was already drinking. What he needed was sleep, but Layla’s scent was stopping that from happening.

He knew Layla didn’t fully understand the nature of his struggle, and even if she did, there was nothing she could do about this either.

“Fucking Fate,” he grumbled as he listened to the sounds of the pack waking up.

Zach had already held his nightly treasonous meeting with a few more pack members. They would all then continue their day as if nothing was happening. As if they weren’t backstabbing fuckers trying to find a way to kill him.

Zach’s latest recruits included the loved ones of the people who had died in the last attack.

Guilt ripped through him again as he set his empty beer can down and picked up another. What was he meant to do in this situation? He’d let them down, so he deserved all their hatred, but he couldn’t let them kill him. Not until Layla was safe.

And that meant finding that damned red wolf again and then finding the witch. For two nights, he’d scoured the woods looking for clues but there wasn’t a hint of either. Layla’s mother should have been easier to find. She understood the danger her daughter was in, and yet she still kept herself hidden. Was he meant to burn every fucking tree down to flush her out?

‘Alpha, are you awake?’

He snorted. As if Micah didn’t know he’d been staying up all night.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m in the conference room.’

---