Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 45934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
They had a long way to go for Layla to be ready for the cult they were about to face.
****
A Few Days Later
Layla sat in the circle she had made herself and wrinkled her nose at the way the flame in her palm kept dying out. She clapped her hands together and rubbed them, tilting her head from left to right, and then growling.
“I’ve got this. Come on. I’ve got this.”
Her parents were several feet away, guarding her. Brandon wasn’t there either, he’d gone to deal with the pack as they were growing suspicious. She totally understood why they were. Even Daisy had started to call and leave her messages, wanting to know if she was okay.
Layla, honestly, didn’t have a clue what to say. What did she tell her boss? That she couldn’t come to work because there was a big, dark evil threatening her very existence, and within the past couple of weeks her life had changed forever?
No, she had to focus. As much as she’d love to take a break and just work, she couldn’t.
The pack was counting on her, even if they didn’t know it. So were Elle, Brandon, and Alexander. He had killed one of his family members, Charles, to protect her. She had to do this.
The sun was up, so Alexander couldn’t currently be with her. Instead, Lewis was keeping guard.
Crazy Lizzie had yet to arrive back. Each hour that passed where the powerful witch hadn’t returned, Layla feared for their futures.
Her dream last night had been the worst one yet. The cult had taken him from her. The pack didn’t care about the vampire and were not willing to help him. She begged for their help, but they refused.
She had to go alone, and as she went back to that spot where her parents had made her, given birth to her, and then died, she had joined them. She’d not been powerful enough to stop them killing Alexander, and with his death, she had lost all hope, and had died.
That was how she had woken up screaming. Her parents had come into the room, but she had told them it was just a bad dream. It hadn’t been a bad dream.
Layla had started to learn the difference. This wasn’t a bad dream, but a terrifying one, as she had a horrible feeling this one was going to come to pass. It filled her with fear.
How was she going to protect the man she loved if she couldn’t fight?
Slamming her hands together, she spread them open, and then, as if by magic, the call of the flame appeared in her hand. She couldn’t help but laugh and then she lifted it up in the air, keeping her focus.
“You finally did it,” Lewis said.
He was the person who had opted to stay with her.
They hadn’t spoken since that day and when he realized she somehow had control over him when she ordered him not to touch her, he hadn’t gotten close. Today, she knew he had lost at rock, paper, scissors.
Yep, that was how the pack was dealing with her.
Apart from Elle, Brandon wouldn’t leave his mate alone with her, which stung. Out of the whole pack, she had never once hurt Elle. That was everyone else.
“Yeah, I finally did it. I bet the Disaster of the Otherworld are quaking in their boots.” She snorted.
Lewis chuckled. “I bet they are.”
“Yeah, and they have no reason to be.” She swallowed the fireball within her palm and then opened it out flat. Staring into her palm was a small tornado of wind—very small—and she allowed it to get bigger and slightly bigger, until she stopped that.
The elements were a little easier to do.
She had to concentrate on everything, which wasn’t good.
“You’re scared,” Lewis said.
“I’m not scared. I’m just not prepared. I don’t care what happens to me, it’s the pack I worry about.” She dropped her hands into her lap. “Alexander, Elle, my parents, you’re all the ones I worry about.” It wasn’t a lie. She didn’t fear death.
Layla feared being a failure more, and the risk of getting the people she had come to love, killed. Even the whole the pack who had treated her so poorly because she was human. She didn’t want anything to happen to them.
“I get that,” he said. “So you and Alexander, is it the real deal?”
She looked up at him. “You’re not going to suggest you and I have sex?”
He threw back his head and laughed. “I could, if you’d like.”
“You’re not doing me any favors.”
He burst out laughing. “Fuck me, you make me laugh.”
It was nice to hear him laugh.
“You’re not afraid of me?” she asked.
The laughter died.
“I was. I’m not going to lie, it did freak me out. You … I … I had no choice but to stop touching you that day, you know. I had no control over it.”