Chapter 0004

Layla’s POV

“A group of rogues came out of nowhere.” Rose said to me finally after we were back at the packhouse and in the comfort of my room as she continued to shake. I knew whatever she had seen must have been scary because I had never seen her like this before.

“I’m sure everything is okay. My brother was there.” I told her but then I began to worry if his warriors got there in time to help him. Worry then began to consume me that something happened to him and I got up off the bed and headed towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Rose asked me as my hand was on the doorknob.

“I have to know if Lucas is okay.” I said to her as I opened the door to my room and headed down the hallway to the grand staircase.

As soon as I began to make my way down the staircase, I noticed that chaos was breaking loose as wounded warriors were being brought inside. Just then I spotted Lucas who was barking out orders. I was just about to run to him to make sure he was okay, but then I stopped dead in my tracks when I watched Brittany jump into his arms.

A growl rippled in my chest as I felt my wolf within me start to come alive and I had to hold it in not understanding why she was growling at the situation even though I was beginning to feel a sense of hurt seeing the two of them together. For heaven’s sake he is my brother and I shouldn’t be feeling this way seeing her with him. Unless it was my own way of wanting to protect him from doing the wrong thing by taking her as his mate when he should wait for his true mate.

Lucas’s eyes moved around the room as he held Brittany in his arms and his eyes finally moved to mine. I froze staring at him as tears started to trickle down my cheeks. I don’t know where they came from, whether it be from joy that he was okay or from the sadness I am feeling inside seeing him with her. Not able to take another second of the pain I turned and ran back up the stairs to my room now knowing that he was okay.

Rose was curled up into a ball on my bed and she must have passed out from everything that had happened tonight. Between the beer that we had consumed and the stress of what happened with the rogues. Not wanting to wake her, I took the other side of the bed and crawled in gingerly and closed my eyes wishing that sleep would take me too.

Sleep had taken me but I was awoken by excruciating pain in my abdomen area. I couldn’t help but leave out a scream of pain waking Rose from her sleep. “What is wrong?” Rose asked me as she hovered over my body on the bed.

Another scream came from my lips as another ungodly pain washed through me and this time it went straight to my heart. Tears began to pour from my eyes from the pain as I continued to scream. The door to my bedroom then flew open and my mother came rushing in.

“What’s wrong?” My mother asked as she kneeled beside the bed next to me. I tried to find words to tell her, but I couldn’t speak a single word as the pain hit me again. This time, I curled up in a ball trying to make the pain go away.

“Rose, go get the pack doctor!” My mother yelled at her as she took my hand into hers. “Everything is going to be okay Layla.” she now said as she ran her hand through my now soaked hair from the perspiration my body was making.

As the pain became greater, my body began to feel like it was on fire and I held onto my mother’s hand like a lifeline. Not understanding what was happening, I let out another scream as my body rose from the bed in pain that was unbearable. Then as fast as the pain came it left me and my body slumped to the bed.

“Layla. Layla!” My mother said as I lay there on the bed with my eyes closed trying to regulate my breathing now that the pain was gone.

The door to my room flew open and I could hear footsteps coming to my bed. “I came as quickly as I could.” I heard a man’s voice say and I knew it was the pack doctor.

Opening my eyes, I looked up at the pack doctor and my mother hovering over me. “Layla, what hurts sweetheart?” The pack doctor now asks me as he puts his stethoscope in his ears and moves the other end to my chest.

I leave out a hiss at the feel of the cold metal against my still heated skin, causing the pack doctor to jerk it away for a second. His hand then moved to my flesh and he says, “My goddess she is burning up.”

“What could it be?” My mother asks the pack doctor who shakes his head and says, “I don’t know. Layla doesn’t have her wolf yet, so it can’t be what I would normally think would be causing it.”

The problem is I sort of do have a part of my wolf but neither of them knew this and I wondered what would be causing it if I did have her. “Doctor, say I did have my wolf. What would cause this?” I asked him in almost a whisper because my throat felt hoarse from all the screaming.

The doctor looked at my mother for the okay before he looked back at me and said, “One could be that you are in heat, but that is only for those that are mated and the other would be that you found your mate and well, he took another to his bedroom. But, neither of those pertain to you because you haven’t gotten your wolf yet, correct?

Closing my eyes, I began to think back to tonight and what males I had spoken to other then my brother and the only one that I could think of was Daniel. Was Daniel really my mate? The thought of him being my mate made my stomach curl and there was no way in hell I was going to accept him as my mate after what he had said and did to me.

Opening my eyes back up, I looked at my mother and said, “My wolf showed a small part of herself to me tonight, but I only talked to one other male wolf tonight, other than Lucas, and that was Daniel the son of father’s Beta.”

My mother began to shake her head and then said to the pack doctor, “I need a minute with my daughter.”

“Certainly.” The pack doctor said, and he and Rose that was standing at the foot of my bed, left the room and shut the door behind them.

My mother moved and sat on the edge of my bed and took my hand into hers and I knew whatever she was going to say to me was serious. “Layla, I don’t know how to tell you this but Daniel was one of the casualties tonight from the rogue attack.”