Page 47 of The Alpha King's Fate

“It’s been a long drive,” he said out loud. “Let’s shower and order some food before we sleep.”

Sleep was the last thing he would do when he was almost sure they had plans for them. It looked like it would be one hell of a night.

Chapter 21

They were going to die in the fancy hotel. Layla was sure of it.

And Jackson had been right that she couldn’t defend herself. Even though they were in the middle of all that danger, her wolf still hadn’t reappeared.

Jackson’s arm was around her middle, and his legs entwined with hers, something she was grateful for after he’d told her they could snatch her out of her bed. He’d been reluctant to hold her at all, which hurt. But she had to try to put all of that aside until they got out alive.

She’d kept some of the floor lamps on despite her perfect vision. The bed was behind a solid wall, adding a little to her sense of security.

It was a false sense of security. The only other time she sensed so much evil was when she came face-to-face with the hunting party. There didn’t seem to be many people inside the hotel, but she could feel several outside, stepping carefully through the underbrush quite a distance from the hotel.

They were either the hotel security or people sent by the Circle to ambush them.

Her heart pounded so hard that Jackson stirred and nuzzled her neck. She forced herself to push her anxiety away to calm down.

Jackson made her memorise as many rules as she could before they came to bed. And when they were pretending to sleep, he told her more about their nemesis. He said they couldn’t fight the Circle for the same reasons they couldn’t fight Hunters. The Circle could annihilate the whole pack if they chose to. Beating the three members who came to their pack’s territory was one thing, but going against the full force of the Circle was another.

Jackson stirred and pulled her closer. The warmth of his body and the weight of his arm around her settle her nerves. They’d gone to bed fully dressed, so they were prepared for anything, but he fell asleep in the middle of their conversation. She hadn’t expected him to be able to stay up for the third night in a row. Since she’d slept in the car, the least she could do was be the lookout. He needed the rest if they were going to fight their way out of this.

Something in the air shifted.

The room became cold, so cold she could see her breath in the air. Her senses tingled briefly, and then everything stopped. She strained her ears to listen, but there were no more sounds outside their room, not even the leaves blowing in the wind. Thedarkness in front of her became thicker until she couldn’t see anything that wasn’t illuminated by the lamps. It was almost as if she had her human eyesight back.

Her senses weren’t working!

She sat up with a jolt, startling Jax awake. He became alert immediately, his eyes flashing as he looked around the room. She didn’t have to tell him they were in danger.

‘Dark magic,’ he said in her head.

Before she knew what was happening, Jax had her against the wall while he stood guard in front of her. She could hardly see his bulky frame, never mind anything else in the room. It was like something was slowly blinding her.

Her skin prickled with the danger she knew was in the air.

The lamps flickered and then switched off. The room plunged into inky darkness; she couldn’t even see through the glass walls on the other side.

‘Grab my t-shirt,’ Jax said in the mind link.

She felt the air in front of her. Nothing. Jax wasn’t there. Alarm bells rang through her when she reached further into the darkness but still didn’t find him. The air shifted again, and she shivered, feeling like she was in a tunnel. The darkness started to whirl around her like ghostly shadows, threatening to swallow her up. Her panic rose, and she lifted her foot to step forward to Jax, but something stopped her mid-step. The cool wall at her back was the only thing keeping her grounded. If she let go of it, who knew what would happen?

‘Layla!’

Although she couldn’t hear, see or smell anything else, she could just about hear Jax’s heartbeat as it beat in sync with hers. And she could just about smell his scent.

‘Don’t move, Jax.’ she whispered in his head.

What if she lost him completely? If this was the Circle’s way of separating them after they failed to do so on their arrival?

‘I can’t see what’s coming for us,’ Jax said.

His heart rate increased, and that increased her panic. It sounded like someone was beating a drum right by her ear, making it impossible to hear anything else. The wolf inside her was still uselessly dormant. If the Circle wanted to kill both of them, all they had to do was target the weakest link—her. She would be the cause of Jackson’s death.

They were going to die. Hope would be an orphan.

No.

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