Page 94 of The Alpha King's Fate

Suddenly, it was like a switch went off in the Hunter’s head. The eyes cleared, and ice-cold fury replaced the fear. His heartbeat returned to normal.

“Neither. I choose my fate,” Irvine spat out before he lifted himself on his toes and turned his head.

He realised what the Hunter was doing only a millisecond before he did it.

Blood squirted across the room as Irvine’s body jerked, denying him the satisfaction of ending Irvine's life himself. Not that he would have done it. Even in the dead calm he found himself in, he wasn’t sure if he would have killed Irvine.

The sounds of the man drowning in his blood filled the room.

“You coward,” Cain growled.

Birds started to chirp outside. More people rose from their slumber, unaware of the horror so close to them.

Was Irvine friendly with any of them? How long until a neighbour knocked on the door to borrow a cup of sugar? How long until Irvine's boyfriend showed up for a stolen moment before work?

He sighed as he left the house and closed the door behind him. There was no time to waste now.

He made it back to his car and changed quickly before he drove out of the street just as somebody came out of their house. He really hoped what Irvine said was true, that they would know if he died. The trap was set; all he had to do was wait.

When he parked his car at a shopping centre, he pulled his burner phone out and called Dylan. It was official now. His Beta would have to officially become the Alpha. He couldn't drag any of them into this.

Dylan answered on the first ring.

"Dylan—"

"Come home. The Circle is here."

Chapter 43

Layla drifted in and out of consciousness as they dragged her back down the hallways. Sunlight filtered through some skylights, so she guessed it was very late in the morning. It had been hours since they strapped her down and started butchering her. She didn’t know how long exactly since she passed out often. The fuckers hadn’t bothered to use any anaesthetic. The pain was excruciating, and the scent of her blood was overpowering.

Now she understood why her wolf wasn’t coming to her aid when they were in so much danger, but she’d assumed shecould still heal, even if it happened slowly. Her other senses seemed intact, even if her head was muddled. So why wasn’t she recovering?

She’d just closed her eyes again, ignoring the pain from her knees scraping on the concrete floor, when something forced her to open them again. It took all her strength to lift her head, and the huge guards standing outside the restricted door loomed ahead, standing at attention with a hand on their weapons.

Her eyelids drifted shut again but snapped back up, almost like her wolf made her do that. But that was impossible. As they passed the guards and turned into the hallway that led back to her prison, something pulled at her. Something behind the closed doors. It was a room she had already realised the first time that she didn’t want to see what was behind it, but after what the Hunters said...

The other red wolf.

She turned her head to look back. That had to be where they were keeping Rebecca.

Guilt filled her even as she fought to stay conscious. She’d suspected something was wrong when her mother didn’t return after the memorial. She should have trusted her gut, especially considering how much Rebecca had become attached to Hope. She should have done more, like looking for her before the Hunters invaded their forest. She’d failed as the Queen and Luna, a mate and mother. And as a daughter.

The warehouse doors scrapping open again brought her focus back to the crippling pain in her body and her more urgent situation. She couldn’t even save herself from this; worrying about ‘what ifs’ was pointless.

The smell was much worse than when she regained consciousness in the cage. The silence was deafening, but the tension and fear in the room were still the same. The eyes that had peered at her from behind the silver bars when the guardsdragged her out barely looked at her as they pulled her broken body along the floor.

The two Hunters pulled her up by her arms, and her feet dangled in the air for a few seconds before they threw her back into her cage. The cold metal bars dug into her wounds but she had no energy to move off them.

What was the point? They already knew what she was. They already knew the silver wouldn’t hurt her.

The door was shut and the lock loudly clicked in place before the four guards turned and walked back the way they came.

‘Miss Layla?’

She couldn’t lift her head to look at Faith and had no energy to respond, even if it was only in her head.

‘You have to move to the mat, Luna. Please. Don’t do anything that will make them too interested in you. We have to wait for Alpha.’

---