Page 162 of The Alpha King's Fate

Finally, she put her head down.

As always, it was Jax she thought of first. Was he okay? Did he take her words to heart? Did he find someone else?

And then she thought of her daughter—two months without her little bundle of sunshine. The few updates from the warriors who guarded her weren’t enough to ease the pain in her heart. Were they back at the Packhouse now? Was it safe for them? If so, why hadn’t anyone come for her yet?

Something knocked against her window and caused her heart to slam against her chest. She reached for the gun on her little side table and aimed it.

A little scream left her lips when she saw the shadowy figure at her window, and she cocked her weapon. And then the figure’s eyes flashed red.

Her hands were shaking when she lowered the gun. Another second, and she would have pulled the trigger.

Jax.

She hadn’t realised just how much being apart from him hurt her until the weight lifted off her shoulders, and something inside her settled. The fatigue left her body as she rushed out of her room. Jax was waiting in front of the steps when she opened the door seconds later.

Her breath hitched.

In the dim lighting outside the trailer, the man she would always love stood in a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. He looked bigger somehow. Harder. There was a hint of something in his glowing eyes that she’d never seen before. And he’d shaved his hair to a buzz cut.

Jax had always been devastatingly handsome, but there was something extra now, almost like he had gone and upgraded something.

“Jax,” she whispered.

“Hello, Layla.”

His voice was husky, a sure sign that he was as affected as she was. Had she worried for nothing? Could she still make things right?

Jax’s eyes stopped glowing, and they lowered to her outfit. She hadn’t stopped to put her slippers or a dressing gown on. In deference to the hot weather, her nightwear of choice was nothing more than a slip that barely covered her ass. It was one of the things from her wardrobe at the packhouse that one of the warriors dropped off.

It had been one of Jax’s favourites.

It still was, by the looks of things. Jax’s eyes flashed again, and when his gaze came back to meet hers, there was a hunger in them that burnt her. Scorched her from deep within and made her heart race.

“Would you like to go for a drive?” Jax asked.

Everything in her body scrambled, and she lost the ability to speak. She could only nod.

Jax reached out, and she took his hand without hesitation. The sparks were just the same as before. Maybe it was just absence making the heart grow fonder, but the fire coursing through her veins and the trembling that started in her body made it feel as if everything was back to how it was before.

Jax led her to a car he parked behind hers, a twin cab truck well suited for the dirt roads through the forest he had to take to get to her trailer. He opened the passenger side without a word and helped her get in. When he got in and started the car, he met her gaze again.

She was struck again by how different he looked. It seemed like he had gone through a lot without her.

Jax drove in silence out of her neighbourhood and to the main road that led into town. For a moment, she thought he was heading back to the Packhouse. Maybe back to their lookout spot to finish what they started that night. She was already soaking wet from the anticipation and the fact that Jax knew that didn’t matter. She wanted him. She needed him.

But instead of going further down the main road, Jax turned off into a different dirt road on a trail she had never used. He drove into the forest and stopped before the trees became too dense.

When the engine died down, there was nothing but silence and darkness all around them. It was like they were the only people in the world.

Jax left the headlights on and got out of the car. What was he doing? Did she get a little ahead of herself? Maybe Jax wasn’t there to take her back home or fuck her brains out. She’d probably just embarrassed herself by assuming things.

She almost rolled the window to ask him to take her back when Jax pulled his t-shirt off and threw it aside.

Her breath caught. Was it her imagination, or Jax looked broader? More defined?

He lowered his sweats and kicked them aside.

She forgot to breathe.

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