Page 97 of The Alpha King's Curse: Part Two

But once it stopped next to her, she wished she hadn’t.

Jackson was furious when he rolled down his window.

Chapter 48

Jackson gripped the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles were white.

He should have known. Left alone, Layla would do the one thing she had been trying to do since the day he met her: run away.

She could sense how angry he was, but she was still emotionless. She was sitting in his passenger seat, her head held high as if she had done nothing wrong. Did she even think of all the things that could have happened to her out there alone? Had she thought of the baby? She’d walked so far she’d almost reached the boundary of a rival pack, for fuck’s sake!

He clenched his jaw to stop himself from saying anything. If he spoke, she wouldn’t like what he’d say, and her time at the hideout would be anything but stress-free.

He snuck another look at her. The skin on her shoulders and face looked an angry red, and if she had been out any longer, she would have started blistering. But it looked like she had already started healing.

Pregnant wolves tended to be more sensitive to the elements. If he recalled correctly, they grew more sensitive to everything, period. Like some of their human counterparts, only a million times worse.

He should have thought of that before he’d left her. It wouldn’t have changed the outcome, but he would have made sure she had someone with her before he’d left. But he’d been too busy kicking himself for failing to say the words that would have fixed things once and for all.

His chest tightened again.

Just a few words, but his heart had stopped just at the thought of them.

He’d expected Cain to be the one to try to stop him, not himself.

He looked at her again and saw how dry her lips were. They were deep in the middle of nowhere, and she couldn’t have adequately prepared for the hike without knowing where they were. She was smart; hadn’t she thought about that?

He stopped the car and got out to open the back. When he realised Layla had left her charger, he loaded more supplies into the car and headed out immediately. He grabbed one of the first aid kits and a bottle of water before returning to the driver’s seat. When he held the bottle out to Layla, she looked at it as if he was offering her poison.

“Stop being immature,” he growled.

Layla’s gaze snapped to his, and her eyes flashed for the first time since he’d told her she had to leave the packhouse. A wave of anger that almost matched his own hit him in the face briefly before Layla shut down again. She folded her arms across her chest and turned to look out of the window.

No one would ever believe she was the same woman who’d breathlessly called out his name just a day before.

He growled and put the water and first aid kit between them before starting the car again. He didn’t try to speak to her again. By the time he drove down the driveway of the safe house, he was still angry, and Cain was furious. If Layla couldn’t see that this was the best place for her after he’d told her a witch wanted her dead, then something was wrong in her head.

But his beast wasn’t angry about that. Cain was furious that she dared to try to leave him. Again. Like he hadn’t yet realised that she would never be theirs.

‘Mine,’ Caine growled.

‘No. Don’t be like Diedre and Dylan. We’re doing this to save her life.”

Before he left, he would do it. He couldn’t afford to chicken out again.

Layla slammed the door when she got out of the car and marched into the house with her rucksack. When he carried a box full of stuff to the pantry, he saw her chugging a bottle of water from the fridge with its door wide open as she cooled herself. The urge to drop everything and take care of her hit him out of nowhere.

Damn woman.

If he’d just said those fucking words, he wouldn’t have to feel any of that shit.

Once he packed all the boxes, he put her phone charger on the kitchen counter and met her gaze. Layla was leaning against the counter on the other side of the room with her arms crossed and an air of defiance around her.

“What part of ‘a witch wants to kill you’ made you believe you could walk out there safely by yourself?” he growled.

“We’ve cut our ties now, Jackson. Out here, I’m just a pregnant human; I doubt anyone I meet will know who I am. Why would anyone want to kill me?”

“My scent is all over you, Layla,” he growled. “Or have you forgotten how many times I came inside and all over you?”

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