Page 50 of The Alpha King's Fate

It had been a while since his beast went on a rampage. Layla tamed him, but with all the shit happening between them, Cain became unstable again.

‘Let’s find out who it is first.’

He was already tracking someone down the hallway. He could hear the footsteps rushing away from the room, almost as silent as the vampire’s. He could hear the rapid heartbeat, the harsh breathing. That ruled out the vampire assassins. And the person wasn’t very fast; if he ran out, he could easily catch them.

But maybe that was the plan. To leave Layla unattended?

Cain growled. The room became his territory the moment they assigned it to him, and anyone in the hotel would know to avoid stepping in uninvited. And yet they did that twice.

The bathroom door opened and Layla stepped out, dressed formally in a black trouser suit but with her hair still wrapped in a towel.

He sucked in a breath when she brushed against him to put her bag down next to his, and all thoughts of the intruder were pushed to the back of his mind.

His mate was the most beautiful woman in the world. He was biased, but no one would ever convince him otherwise.

She drove him fucking crazy, and he couldn’t touch her.

Fuck.

His fists clenched at his sides. Fate was fucking with him once again. Why bond them for eternity if they could still make each other feel like shit? Was there something else he was supposed to do to make Layla want to stay with him?

Layla unwrapped the towel from her hair and shook it out before gathering it to put in a braid. Her hair was redder than before, her face smoother, and her eyes permanently brighter. He had no idea why she couldn’t shift, but she was undeniably a red wolf. It would be obvious to the Circle, who probably knew more about her than he did.

She turned to face him when she finished. Maybe she realised he had been watching her the whole time because she looked away quickly.

He ignored the tightening of his chest and Cain’s whine in his head as he memorised the picture before him.

He hadn’t taken his mate out to many formal places, so he’d seen her in a dress less than a handful of times. The trousers looked better on her and were probably a deliberate outfit choice. A power move. She looked like she could handle anything the Circle threw at her, even if she smelled entirely human.

“You ordered breakfast?” she asked when the silence stretched too long.

The intruder returned to the front of his mind, and he mentally kicked himself for getting distracted again. Layla started walking towards the door, but he grabbed her arm and held her back.

‘I didn’t,’ he said in her head. ‘Don’t eat it.’

Layla nodded and stepped back, and a little of her anxiety returned. The trolley was near the front door with the food covered in the middle of it.

He walked towards the tray slowly, using his nose and ears. Poison? A bomb? He couldn’t put anything past them after the move they tried in the middle of the night. He didn’t hear anything or smell anything suspicious, but these people used dark magic; they could hex him without much effort.

He lifted the cover, and a single sheet of paper fell to the floor. He didn’t have to pick it up to see what was written.

‘Don’t eat. Get out before tonight.’

Chapter 23

Layla sensed the darkest, most oppressive aura pressing down on her as they walked down the hallway. Several cars had arrived since she had woken up, but she could feel the new arrival was different.

Darker. The cruellest.

When they entered the lobby, her muscles stiffened involuntarily as she looked towards the hotel entrance. Hotel staff were lined up on either side of the doors as a limousine stopped just outside.

Someone rushed to open the car door, and her heart skipped a beat as she waited to see who would come out. Something in the back of her mind told her that, somehow, her life was about to change forever. She was about to come face to face with evil.

Perhaps the face of the person who’d tried to have them killed while they were sleeping.

A man in a dark suit and sunglasses stepped out of the car. He brushed imaginary lint off his jacket and straightened his clothes before looking up. Though the sunglasses hid his eyes, she felt he could see through her. And that dark aura she had felt pressed into her some more.

She took a step back and would have taken another, but Jackson took her arm and linked it with his. It pulled her focus back to her mate.

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