Page 72 of The Alpha King's Curse: Part Two

“Layla!”

She turned back and saw Dylan, Micah and the other guards looking at her with their eyes wide.

She lowered her head and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. There was blood around her mouth. There was blood dripping from the knives in her hand. There was blood everywhere.

She knew she’d messed up. She could never deny knowing what they all were now.

“Go and find Jackson,” she whispered to them.

That was all that mattered. She would deal with the consequences of her actions if they brought Jackson back to her.

Chapter 37

She would have thought Jackson was dead if it weren’t for the fact that she could still hear his heart beating.

Layla was shaking like a leaf as she got out of the car at the packhouse gates and watched the men who were carefully lifting Jackson out. Since the people who were not fit to fight had filled the packhouse grounds, they couldn’t drive up to the house.

She felt like they were wasting time but knew there was nothing they would do for him anyway. The bite on his thigh looked worse than the last one and already looked infected. And after Jackson’s revelation that it was because of dark magic, she knew this could go bad very quickly.

“Layla, stay back a little,” Dylan whispered. “We’ll drive through when they make way.”

“No.”

She knew why he was saying that. While only the guards had seen her at the gates, the whole town would know she had been involved in the fighting by just one look at her. But she couldn’t bear to be separated from Jackson again.

She took his hand as the crowds parted and allowed them through. Dylan walked beside her as if he was ensuring they didn’t do anything to her.

“At least give me the knives,” Dylan muttered.

She looked down at her free hand and realised she was still tightly gripping the hilt of one while the other was back in the waistband of her ruined clothes. She handed both over to Dylan and then returned her focus to Jackson.

One breath.

Two.

One heartbeat.

Another.

He was still there even though he wasn’t waking up. And he was still in pain.

“You can let go now, Layla. Just for a second.”

She looked up at Dylan and realised they were already in the bedroom. She reluctantly released Jackson’s hand, and the men put him down gently on their bed. The doctor appeared immediately and gave him a shot of something before he started to examine Jackson’s broken leg.

“We need to set it so it heals properly,” he said. “Miss Layla, please leave the room. I’ll—”

Her heart hammered at the thought. The last time they forced her to leave him, she walked back into a scene from a horror movie.

“No.”

She crawled up on the other side of Jackson as she had done the last time and held on to his arm.

“Miss Layla—”

“It’s okay, doc,” Dylan said.

Some equipment was pulled into the room, but she closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see what they were doing. She didn’t want to see anything that would cause Jackson pain. She focused on his breathing and his heartbeat. She imagined the life they could have had if it wasn’t for the fact that he didn’t want her. She imagined the two of them with their child.

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