~Kade~
The guards brought Jackson’s unconscious body into the house. We knew now that locking him in the dungeon would be a pathetic attempt to control the uncontrollable, and he would get out as easily as Justin had.
They put him on the couch in the living room, and we waited for him to wake up. Danielle and Justin stood in the corner and stared bewilderedly at their old pack member. Mason was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed and his arms crossed over his chest as he took a standing nap.
The Alphas were here, and so were my parents. All of this muscle for one lone man seemed excessive, but I knew it wasn’t, and it didn’t seem like any of the other Alphas found it weird, either.
His arm jerked, and after a good twenty minutes, Jackson woke up. He turned and twisted, a low grow rumbled from his lips, and his eyes narrowed to slits when he saw Justin, the guy who’d knocked him out.
He got up from the couch hastily and took one big step before tumbling over and grabbing onto the table for support.
“Maybe you should sit down for a bit, Jackson. You know your brain is as good as a bowl of jelly right now,” Danielle said and stepped toward him. Her voice rang out soft and sweet, but to his ears, I could imagine it sounded like pure acidic poison.
A strong Emberclaw brought to his knees in front of werewolves by his old pack members had to hurt. I couldn’t deny that I was enjoying the show.
“You bitch, just you wait until Nathaniel hears about this,” Jackson spat and tried reaching for her.
However, Danielle grabbed his hand and twisted it. He groaned in pain as his wrist was twisted clockwise, and he went down on his knee.
“Do not threaten me, Jackson. What the king must know he already does,” she seethed.
The way she spoke, how her tongue twisted when she said the word king, and Jackson’s eyes falling in regret of the words he’d spoken didn’t sit right with me. A warning bell went off, and I could see on my brother that he noticed it too. Mason pushed away from the wall and came to stand beside me, his brows hunched. His eyes scanned Danielle.
Jackson was staring deeply into her eyes, and nothing seemed to break the contact—not us staring at him nor the fact that his kneeling and cowering had an audience.
Anna was standing in the corner as a quiet observer. She had promised to stay clear of him, and by the looks of it, she was too scared to approach him even if she wanted to. Cara stepped in, rounded the corner, and walked straight to Anna.
“Are you okay?” Cara asked her and gently placed her hand on Anna’s shoulder in comfort.
Anna’s eyes were wide, and her lips parted in shallow breaths. “That pain, the power, the strength,” Anna gasped and shook her head. “Layla’s one of them. She’s that,” she breathed as her chest compressed, and she fell back against the wall.
I took one step, my nerves tying together as I witnessed her growing fear, but my sister reached out her hand and grabbed Anna’s shoulders. She walked her out of the room and up the stairs, away from us.
The last thing I wanted was for Anna to grow scared of her best friend. I honestly couldn’t think of anything worse right now.
Danielle stepped back. Everyone was so preoccupied with their power struggle that they hadn’t heard or noticed Anna’s distress.
Jackson grabbed onto the table and pulled himself up on his feet. His head snapped to the side, and he glared at Justin.
“Have you told the Alpha what you saw? Or am I going to get that pleasure?” he snarled.
I stepped up to Justin and remembered what he’d said just as Jackson went outside.
“You said that Layla was in danger,” I said when it dawned on me. How the fuck could I have forgotten?
“What did you see?” I growled when the Emberclaws stared at each other, not one of them speaking a single word.
It did bother me, and it put me on edge to have three of them within my pack. A sudden shift or rising tension was all it took for a threat to be made clear, and if it did, we couldn’t stop it.
“Layla was at the sacrificial ritual,” Jason sighed, his eyes pressed together, and his fingers rolled up into fists. “They struck a deal,” he continued.
Jackson grinned, he stepped up in Justin’s face, and I walked in between them. No matter the person I was up against, this was still my pack, and I was still in charge; that was the one thing that wouldn’t change until the day I died, and that day sure as hell wouldn’t come before I had my mate back.
“What deal?” I asked.
Jackson chuckled, amusement filled his eyes, and he rubbed his hands together.
“She passed the king’s test. Layla was freed from the prison they put her in after her little rendezvous with you,” he said and paused slightly before continuing. “She thought she’d be free if she made it out of that room, but little did she know that escaping the devil isn’t a choice. He just wanted her closer. Now that she believes in the false freedom she lives, she’s under his control entirely. She must obey every rule he puts forth for her, and trust me, there are rules. Oh, and also,” Jackson said and circled his finger on the table. He tapped against the glass and looked up at me, ready to unleash the last piece of information, the one he’d been waiting to tell. “Her new bed is the same as his. I do wonder if she got to pick a side.”
“Kade, no!” Justin grabbed my arm, but I twisted it out of his hold.
My knuckles made contact with his cheek. I grabbed the glass vase on the table, smashed it against the edge, and plunged the sharp blades into his side. Jackson fell down once again, this time in the hands of a normal wolf. In his eyes, I could tell that he took it rather harshly.
“You better hope that your king comes for you soon because if my hands do not take his life, I promise you that they will take yours,” I seethed and pressed the vase further into his bleeding blesh.
He growled and writhed in pain as he sat on his knees. Through the groans and the blood trickling down the side of his mouth, he began to laugh menacingly.
“You don’t want him to come for me because if he does, he’ll find Justin,” he said between the coughs. “And something tells me that Layla would not want that. You know she was sad when she heard your name during the sacrifice. Glad to hear you escaped and worried to know I went looking for you. You saw it, Justin. You saw the memory in my head when you burnt through them. Are you sure it’s only a friendship between the two, Alpha Kade? Because I could argue there’s more.”
