Page 67 of The Alpha King's Curse: Part Two

“My wolf.”

She stopped and turned to look at him, her eyes wide.

“You can talk to it?”

“Him, not it. And yes, though I tend to ignore him because he talks too much.”

That voice in her head.

Her breath caught when she realised what that meant. All that noise in her head, all the stupid suggestions...

‘Not stupid.’

She almost jumped out of her skin. To think she had schizophrenia was one thing. She’d even accepted that all of that had to do with her wolf blood. But for it to be privy to her thoughts? It felt like a violation.

“What happened?” Jackson asked.

“I...” She just finally realised that she wasn’t losing her mind. “Nothing.”

It had been one realisation after another. The past few days, she’d replayed every interaction she’d ever had with the red wolf, all the conversations. And then, once Jackson had brought her to the packhouse and all the changes had started, she’d started hearing the other voice, so different from the one she’d always heard when she saw the red wolf.

She was a wolf.

Holy shit.

Though she had mulled over her mother’s words for days, that fact sunk in as she started walking again.

She was going to turn into a monster. Like her mother. Like Jackson.

Like her baby?

“Wait. Why do I still have to leave?” she asked. “Back at the hotel, you said I’d have to leave because I’m a half-blood, and no one would accept me. If I’m going to be like you and the baby, why do I have to go?”

Jackson didn’t look at her, but she felt something like repulsion coming from him. And that made her remember that he didn’t want her there.

“Even when you shift, you won’t be like us, Layla. You heard what your mother said.”

That Hunters would always be after her? Weren’t they after all the wolves? Her heart started to crack, and the pain she had been trying to hide from returned.

And only then did she acknowledge that she had been hoping to stay because somehow, in all that mess, she had fallen in love with Jackson King.

The man who only wanted the baby she was carrying for him.

Though he was doing all he could to teach her how to live like a wolf, he had made it very clear that he would not be part of her life.

“Right. Yes, sorry,” she answered.

She didn’t speak to him the rest of the walk back. She pushed all her emotions down until she was numb. It was the only way she could stop herself from falling apart.

Jackson stopped at the foot of the front steps and turned to face something in the distance. She almost didn’t notice the change in the air until she saw him tense. His eyes started to bleed red, and she swore he looked slightly bigger.

“Take the ladies to our bedroom and lock the door,” he growled.

Something was happening. Was this the reckoning? Was this the day he would be punished for killing the man who’d been sent to carry out the law?

“Jackson?”

“Go,” he growled again, and then he started running.

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