Page 173 of The Alpha King's Fate

Cole glanced at Lincoln until he lowered his head again.

“Just take me,” she cried. “All of this was my fault. No one else needs to suffer.”

“Layla, stop,” Jax said through his teeth.

She didn’t need the bond to see he was in excruciating pain. Was the magic stopping his healing?

“You’ll watch your people die, and then I’ll kill you last,” Cole said as he flicked his wrist again.

There was complete silence in the room. And then a thud. The warrior standing next to Jax fell to his knees and then flat on his face. A pool of blood formed under his chest.

The screams started again. The children cried. But everyone was still held in place, unable to defend themselves. Brit’s eyes were on the fallen warrior, her mouth open. Brit hadn’t experienced any battles, so she had never seen anyone killed in front of her eyes before. Her heart went out to her sister.

That was her fault, as well. Her sister would never have been a part of this world if she had just told her the truth and kept her away in the first place.

She looked down at the man who finally stopped twitching on the floor, and made up her mind. The children couldn’t see this. Most of them already had traumas they would carry their whole lives if they made it out of the hall.

“Stop!” she screamed. “You don’t have to do this. The fight with the Hunters was inevitable. You can’t say you liked howthings were—being oppressed? Having to run and hide? You’re a powerful Alpha, so I know you would have fought them, too, if you had been in our position.”

“Don’t presume to know how I would act,” Cole growled. “I have to think one hundred steps ahead; that’s the difference between you and me. In Jax’s position, I would have let you rot in that cage and found myself a new mate.”

Another thud. Another warrior went down. More screams.

“Silence!” Cole shouted.

Judging by how everyone zipped their mouths, that had been an order.

The air turned chillier, and Cole’s eyes changed. She expected them to glow blue, maybe even green. But when she looked into his black eyes, she knew there was nothing she could do.

“You were right about one thing, though. All of this is your fault,” Cole growled.

He nodded to Lincoln, and the Alpha turned to her and grabbed her by her throat. His clawed fingers cut off the air from her lungs as he lifted her off the ground.

With the magic stopping her from struggling, the end had come. She was going to die right in front of Hope and Brit.

Chapter 76

The dark magic continuously ripped Jax’s cells apart even as Cain worked on healing them. Cole—that fucker—rounded up some of the strongest witches. They were no match individually for Diedre, but together they bound her up tighter than anything.

He gritted his teeth and looked sideways at Diedre. Her face was pale, her teeth snapped together, and her eyes closed. He sensed her pain. He felt all the pain in the room, even the children’s.

“Silence!”

The command rippled across the room. Cain growled in his head at the challenge. Had he not been bound, he would have commanded Cole just as he did at the trial.

Another warrior fell beside him, and the pain slashed through his body when another bond broke. He was still trying to recover when Lincoln grabbed Layla by her throat. His claws dug into her delicate skin and punctured it.

And the scent of her blood overpowered every other smell in the room.

Her blood. Her pain. Her fear.

All of it clouded his head, calling on the beast that gave his life for her. The beast that had done nothing but kill Hunters and feed on their fears for months.

The plunge into Cain’s darkness was quick. He had lived in his beast’s head for months, revelling in the kills and madness. But he had never plunged so deep that he lost himself completely.

Cain growled—a deep, drawn-out sound reverberating through his whole body. His eyes narrowed on the wolf with filthy paws on the woman he loved as a red tinge covered his vision. Rage. Pure rage flowed through his veins, every other emotion forgotten.

Lincoln looked back and met his gaze. And he dared to smirk while Layla struggled to breathe.

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