Jax could feel Micah’s worry as he lowered him into the large bathtub.‘I’m healing. I’ll be fine,’ he said through the mind link.His head warrior nodded and then stepped back before looking at Layla standing quietly next to the sinks at the other end of his bathroom. Their bathroom. They had been in physical contact for a week, their bond strengthening even in their sleep. She was his; he couldn’t deny that anymore.“I’ll help him out when he’s ready,” Micah told Layla. “Thank you.”Layla sounded uncertain. She watched Micah leave the room and didn’t move even when he closed the door behind him. It was only when he heard the bedroom door being closed that Layla came forward. It was as if she had heard the door being closed, too.Speed. Check. Better eyesight. Check. Sensitive hearing. Double-check.“Can I trust any of them?” she whispered as she put some toiletries on the side and sat on the edge of the tub.There was no point lying to her about that now. She had to learn how to p
Layla washed quickly and let the water out of the tub. How the hell had she got herself into this mess? There was no trust involved in this place. She wasn't safe. And she was a crazy fool to feel even the slightest bit safe with Jackson.Something had changed. She could feel it even though she couldn’t understand it. Her head was a lot clearer, yet she still wasn’t herself. She couldn’t be, not when she felt like this for Jackson. How could she feel so... attached to him? Her feelings had been wild before she had passed out on top of him, and those feelings seemed to have settled even though she was very well-rested. Madness.She looked back at the man who’d fallen asleep when he had found his release. The image tugged at her heartstrings, something it shouldn’t have done. But he still looked so... defenceless. If he couldn’t trust the people around him, then that meant he expected her to look out for him again. And she felt compelled to because of whatever twisted thing was happeni
Layla swallowed a lump in her throat and took another step back.She’d been told not to trust anyone, but she knew Jackson meant this man in particular.Dylan folded his arms across his expansive chest, and the snarl turned into a sneer. Whatever truce he had called while Jackson had been unconscious was well and truly over. “Well, look who’s walking around the place as if she owns it,” Dylan said. “Did you sleep well, princess? Was it too much for you to give your boyfriend a sponge bath?”Taking care of Jackson required much more than that, and he knew it. His anger wasn’t about that. “I would have thought Jackson wouldn’t have let you out alone. Or has Micah already failed at his babysitting duties?”She recognised that tone. Dylan’s ego had been wounded when Jackson had chosen someone else over him. There was nothing more dangerous than a bully walking around like that—they tended to take their frustrations out on other people. “I only came downstairs to eat. I’ll go back now,”
Jackson forced his eyes to open and immediately searched for Layla’s scent.But it wasn’t her scent that filled his nose. The sickly sweet smell was familiar and too close to him. Way too close. He turned his head to the source and found Dylan’s friend lying in bed next to him, looking down at him with that come-hither smile she’d had on her face when they had been introduced. The buttons of her shirt were undone so her breasts were showing. He'd been right about her intentions, after all.He sat up quickly and regretted it instantly. Sleeping had helped him heal more, but he wasn’t back to his full capabilities yet. He was still too weak to fight this woman off.“Get the fuck out of my bedroom,” he snarled.Just the fact that she was lying down on Layla's side made him fume. Only Layla was meant to be there. They’d have to burn these sheets so he’d never had to smell that scent again.And he knew this was another sign that he was already screwed. Though he could feel his wolf somewh
Maybe she really had gone insane.It had been a week since she had embarrassed herself by pulling such a juvenile move. Everyone knew this was Jackson’s room, and just because he was sleeping with her, it didn’t make him hers. Mine? Seriously? How could she even say that word?Yet that was how she had felt at that moment, driven by insane jealousy that had come out of nowhere. Maybe her mental issues had gone to the next level because she still felt like two people in one body. And when she felt like herself, those emotions still lingered. “You haven’t eaten enough.”She looked up from her food to see Jackson watching her across the balcony table. He had done that a lot since she’d climbed all over him and kissed him in front of Amber. Jackson hadn’t stopped at just looking. She caught him smiling a few times, and she was pretty sure he was fully healed, yet he insisted on being bathed and taken care of every day. He seemed to have undergone a personality transplant of his own.“I
Jackson blocked out the insistent chatter in his head from Dylan and sat on the smooth rock on the edge of his territory that looked over the forest.Things had been quiet the whole week. According to Micah, there were no more sightings of rogues or the red wolf, and his scouts had nothing to report. Whatever issues Dylan had to talk about all had to do with the amount of time he’d spent locked away with Layla, and he wasn’t in the mood for that. Especially since he didn't want to listen to how they had to kill her and how bad it would look when others found out he was shacking up with a half-blood.The past two weeks had put things in perspective. He’d realised he just didn’t give a shit about what they thought, but his biggest realisation was that he wanted to spend his dying days with this woman. Child or no child.How the mighty had fallen. He'd turned into the type of person he had loathed before he'd caught Layla's scent.“I said I wanted to stretch my legs, not tire myself by
Layla could hardly walk when Jackson led her out of the woods. He had carried her most of the way, and now she clung to his side for support.He smiled at her smugly before the weight of what he had done settled on his shoulders.He’d openly chosen his mate over the pack. There were warriors on patrol and trainees who’d finished for the day walking around the packhouse grounds when he walked towards the house. They all stopped and lowered their heads to show respect, but he could feel their judgement.Not only had he been ill, he’d also hidden away with someone they all thought was a rogue. His reputation had taken a big hit lately.The moment he opened the door, Dylan was waiting with Micah in the lobby.“Alp... Jax,” Dylan said. “We really need to talk.”“I’ll go and find something to eat before I go back to our room,” Layla said quietly.Our room. How right that sounded. He smiled down at her but tightened his hold on her. He would take care of her like a mate was supposed to. I
“We should do a pregnancy test.”Layla had been feeling strange the past couple of days. They’d been cooped up in the bedroom again for days, so she didn’t know if she was just losing her mind from being locked up or she was finally pregnant. And if she was pregnant, she didn’t know how she would deal with that.She’d accepted that she had to leave her child with Jackson so he could raise their child among fellow werewolves, but that had been easy to agree with when it hadn’t been a reality. But now she was getting the sweats, feeling ravenous all the time, and things just didn't feel right. That had to be a symptom of pregnancy. How could she still go along with leaving her child now?“You’re not pregnant,” Jackson sighed as he walked to sit next to her on the sofa. He sounded disappointed, and she couldn’t help but feel she was letting him down, despite knowing she didn’t want to leave her child anyway. But how did he know? He had said the same thing before he’d passed out after