Page 73 of The Alpha King's Curse: Part Two

Anything to stop herself from thinking about how close she had come to losing him.

When she finally opened her eyes again, the doctor had packed up his stuff and was leaving. Dylan whispered to him at the door before he shut it and turned back to her.

“You know you’re going to get me killed one of these days, don’t you?” he asked.

“I couldn’t let him fight alone,” she whispered.

“But now we can’t argue that you don’t know about us,” Dylan said, shaking his head. “We would have got to him. You didn’t need to run into danger like that, not in your condition. What am I supposed to tell Jackson when he wakes up?”

Had she exposed herself for nothing? She still couldn’t understand how they had won this fight.

“What happened to them? Why did they all just change like that?”

Dylan sighed and ran his hand through his hair.

“Jackson told them to,” he answered. “Now, you tell me one thing. How did you fight like that?”

She clamped her lips and snuggled closer to Jackson.

Dylan shook his head.

“You keep dodging my questions, but I’m on your side, Layla. I need to know these things, just in case anything happens.”

In case something happened to Jackson? She didn’t even want to think about that.

“Fine,” Dylan said as he walked to the door. “The doctor said he should heal like last time. I have to go check on the other injured people.”

She propped herself up onto her elbow at that news.

“They got in? Is anyone dead?”

“They got in at the back. We have several injured, but no casualties have been reported yet. I’ll check on you later.”

Several injured? She was still carrying the guilt from the last time; she couldn’t handle any more. She put her head down on Jackson’s chest and listened to his soothing heartbeat while her mind raced.

Despite Jackson’s injury looking worse than last time, his heartbeat was stronger. Last time his blood healed him, but what would happen to the rest of the pack? Maybe she could take five minutes to put a face to all those who were injured and find out how hurt they were.

She reluctantly peeled herself away from Jackson and took a shower to wash the blood off. She brushed her teeth to get rid of the taste of blood and then dressed in jeans and a t-shirt before leaving the room.

Just five minutes. She could be away from Jackson that long.

Like before, she watched the injured being carried into the bedrooms in the packhouse and people tending to them. She saw their faces. Even though they looked like they were just sleeping, she caught the scent of death on all of them. There would be more mourning in the pack before the day was over.

Her heart ached as she walked into their rooms when they had been assessed and made comfortable. Like what he had done for Jackson, the doctor gave them a shot of something and said they could only wait.

This was her fault again. Someone didn’t want her there and kept attacking the pack. Maybe it was time to leave, as Jackson had suggested. Not because it wasn’t safe for her, but it wasn’t safe for everyone else.

In the first room, she walked into, a man had been clawed across his face and had a bite on his arm. It was the bite that was killing him. She took his hand and silently apologised for being the cause of his pain. She hoped with everything in her that he would survive whatever was happening to him so they would lose anyone else.

She did the same in the next room and the next. Dylan had said there were no casualties, but she found it hard to believe those beasts had come just to infect and not kill them. Unless they just hadn’t had enough time.

Was Jackson really that strong that he could command hundreds of beasts?

What would this do to Jackson when he woke up? He already carried guilt that wasn’t his to bear.

When she left the last room, her eyes were red from crying. If she went away, these people could return to their peaceful lives. That was the only option now.

“Layla?”

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