14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

W olves howling way too close for comfort woke Layla up with a start. She sat up in the comfortable bed, her heart pounding, looking at the unfamiliar surroundings. And when the previous day's events registered, she shot out of bed and rushed to the nearest window.

Bloody wolves! She was going to get killed in her sleep!

Her hand trembled as she pushed the curtain aside and peeked out. The room they had given her had a view of the front of the house where they had driven up, and she could just about make out the gates in the distance. There wasn't even a hint of dawn in the sky, but the moonlight through the trees cast eerie shadows that gave her a horror movie vibe. No wolf eyes like before, though. If she hadn't heard that terrifying growl in that infirmary, she would have believed she had just imagined those eyes. They had looked all wrong, for starters. Wolves didn't have glowing blue eyes. Not in these parts, anyway.

Were the wolves beyond the gates, or did they roam the grounds freely? How did anyone choose to live among them, especially when they could afford to live among the wealthy in Wolfdale? Or maybe she needed to ask herself what sort of illegal activities happened there because, as far as secret hideouts went, the place was an excellent choice. No one would dare to venture this far out, not even the police. She would need to tread carefully until she left.

If she left.

With a sigh, she walked back to the bedside table and checked the time on her phone. It was too early to be up, but she wasn't going back to sleep now. Jackson said they would start that day, so she was acutely aware there would be no turning back once they did. She hadn't even asked how they were going to do it. Did Jackson already have some fertilised eggs somewhere waiting to be implanted? Maybe that was the reason for the urgency. Or did they want to harvest her eggs first before the insemination process?

An image flashed through her head of a child with her green eyes and Jackson's hair playing outside, kicking a ball around and laughing. A little girl who would stand up for herself from the moment she could talk. She looked so real that the thought of leaving her felt like a knife through her heart.

She immediately pushed that image aside. Thinking like that would make it harder to let go. She couldn't romanticise the situation. She had to accept that this child wouldn't be hers.

"This is just business," she muttered as she lay back down.

She lay in the darkness and forced herself to think about something else. When her thoughts turned to Brit, she pushed them away and chose to empty her mind. To not let her problems weigh her down and depress her when there was nothing she could do about them. There was a slight breeze in the air, and when she listened closer, she heard the almost wholly silent air conditioning unit. She hadn't slept anywhere with air conditioning since her father had lost their house. After washing off the grime and sweat last night, she was sure she would wake up sweaty as usual, so it was pretty refreshing. Maybe she would stay in her room until this heatwave passed. As far as prison cells went, this one was top-class.

It felt like forever when the sun finally started to rise and the room lightened. Jackson hadn't said when he would come for her, so she picked an outfit out of her bag to get ready. It was wrinkled because when she had packed, she'd been thinking of making a quick getaway rather than packing correctly. She would have to find out where the laundry room was because there wasn't much in her bag. She would have to wash her clothes repeatedly until she could buy more.

When she heard the key finally turn in the door, she stood from her bed and faced it.

Jackson walked in, and her eyes immediately roamed his body. He wasn't wearing a suit. His dark tank top fit him like a second skin and allowed her to see everything she had imagined under his expensive suit. He had more than a six-pack, and his arms were massive. Tattoos covered one arm like a sleeve, up his shoulder and chest, hidden under his top. And his grey sweatpants hid nothing. Nothing.

She looked away and met his gaze before she started drooling. Jackson had a whole bad-boy vibe going on, and that had always been her weakness, despite knowing how bad those relationships always turned out.

"What are you wearing?" Jackson asked with a frown on his perfect face.

She looked down at her outfit. An old pair of jeans and a faded t-shirt she had repaired several times. New clothes were a luxury she couldn't afford when she had to make sure Brit had everything she needed. High school students were assholes when someone didn't fit in.

"Clothes," she answered with a shrug.

Jackson inspected her from head to toe, and the look in his eyes didn't hide his distaste.

"I gave you an entire wardrobe full of clothes. Wear those instead of something that needs to be disinfected before it's burnt."

Then he turned to walk out.

Bad boys were assholes, too. She clenched her fists as she watched his retreating back, grateful for the reminder.

"Are you just going to stand there?" Jackson called out from the hallway.

"Bastard," she muttered under her breath before she followed him.

Jackson didn't slow his stride to accommodate her slower one and seemed to walk faster when she tried to catch up with him.

They went down two floors before they came to the ground floor. More people were standing around than when she had arrived, and they all turned to watch her as she descended the last flight of stairs. She didn't have to be a mind reader to know she wasn't welcome. Did they not want Jackson to have a child? And if Jackson had known there would be all this tension, why hadn't he just left her at the hotel with her sister?

She felt self-conscious when they looked her up and down the way Jackson had, and a group of young girls, maybe around Brit's age, snickered as she walked through the lobby. But she held her head high as she always did. She'd had years of experience dealing with ignorance and bullies.

Jackson's boyfriend stood next to the hallway where she had seen Jackson enter, and his glare was colder than before. The man next to him didn't even bother to hide his hatred. She tensed as she walked past them, ignoring their glares. And when both of them walked down behind her, apprehension filled her body.

They were not as big as Jackson, but they were still huge. They could easily pick her up and hurt her if they wanted to. Though she worked out when she could and had a few self-defence classes under her belt, she felt all that would be useless against them.

"You shouldn't be here," Jackson's boyfriend said.

"Tell me something I don't know," she snorted under her breath.

Maybe she had stumbled into a cult that hated outsiders. She hadn't done anything wrong to warrant this much hatred, and they hadn't allowed her out of her room to see any of their illegal activities. A voice in her mind reminded her that these kinds of people were often the most dangerous—they hated others for no reason and felt justified in their convictions.

Jackson walked out of a room at the end and looked at her before he looked behind her at his boyfriend. Relief replaced her fear. However cold Jackson was, he was the one who wanted her there. ‘For her protection', he'd said. He would keep her safe until she'd had his baby.

But Jackson didn't say anything to save her from these men. He just walked back into the room, and that pissed her off more than anything.

"What is wrong with that bastard?"

Her eyes widened when she realised she had said that out loud. Before she could apologise and take her words back, someone grabbed her arm from behind and shoved her against the wall. Her cry was cut short when the man invaded her personal space and put his face an inch from hers. He'd gripped her arm so tightly she knew it would bruise, but it was the look in the man's grey eyes that terrified her.

"You will show him some respect. You will never speak about him as if you're equals," Jackson's boyfriend growled. "Do you understand?"

Her mouth went dry, and no words came out when she tried to speak. The man's fury burned through her and made all the lessons she had learned about self-defence fly out of her head.

Her heart started beating triple times, and her limbs weakened. For Brit's sake, she could endure a lot, but what if the cost was her life? Because this man looked ready to kill her, and he looked mean enough to enjoy it. Maybe that was what they did here—killed people.

"Do you understand?" the man repeated louder.

She nodded, and the man released her as he stepped back.

"Move," he growled.

She did, even though her limbs were weak and threatened to stop working. And when she looked towards where she was going, she saw Jackson standing in the doorway again. He had heard that.

He'd heard his boyfriend threaten the woman he wanted to carry their child and had done nothing.

He wouldn't protect her.

She was on her own here.

"I don't appreciate being kept waiting," Jackson said as he returned to the room. "Have something to eat, and then I'll take you to see the doctor. The quicker you get pregnant, the quicker you can leave."

She followed him into what turned out to be a large dining room with the dining table fully set. The food smelled delicious, but she knew she couldn't swallow any of it, despite her last meal having been the eggs she had cleaned off Brit's plate for breakfast.

Only one thought filled her head. She couldn't leave a baby here. She couldn't carry a baby for these arrogant, sadistic bastards.