21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

T hey were going to die in the fancy hotel. Layla was sure of it.

And Jackson had been right that she couldn't defend herself. Even though they were in the middle of all that danger, her wolf still hadn't reappeared.

Jackson's arm was around her middle, and his legs entwined with hers, something she was grateful for after he'd told her they could snatch her out of her bed. He'd been reluctant to hold her at all, which hurt. But she had to try to put all of that aside until they got out alive.

She'd kept some of the floor lamps on despite her perfect vision. The bed was behind a solid wall, adding a little to her sense of security.

It was a false sense of security. The only other time she sensed so much evil was when she came face-to-face with the hunting party. There didn't seem to be many people inside the hotel, but she could feel several outside, stepping carefully through the underbrush quite a distance from the hotel.

They were either the hotel security or people sent by the Circle to ambush them.

Her heart pounded so hard that Jackson stirred and nuzzled her neck. She forced herself to push her anxiety away to calm down.

Jackson made her memorise as many rules as she could before they came to bed. And when they were pretending to sleep, he told her more about their nemesis. He said they couldn't fight the Circle for the same reasons they couldn't fight Hunters. The Circle could annihilate the whole pack if they chose to. Beating the three members who came to their pack's territory was one thing, but going against the full force of the Circle was another.

Jackson stirred and pulled her closer. The warmth of his body and the weight of his arm around her settle her nerves. They'd gone to bed fully dressed, so they were prepared for anything, but he fell asleep in the middle of their conversation. She hadn't expected him to be able to stay up for the third night in a row. Since she'd slept in the car, the least she could do was be the lookout. He needed the rest if they were going to fight their way out of this.

Something in the air shifted.

The room became cold, so cold she could see her breath in the air. Her senses tingled briefly, and then everything stopped. She strained her ears to listen, but there were no more sounds outside their room, not even the leaves blowing in the wind. The darkness in front of her became thicker until she couldn't see anything that wasn't illuminated by the lamps. It was almost as if she had her human eyesight back.

Her senses weren't working!

She sat up with a jolt, startling Jax awake. He became alert immediately, his eyes flashing as he looked around the room. She didn't have to tell him they were in danger.

‘Dark magic,' he said in her head.

Before she knew what was happening, Jax had her against the wall while he stood guard in front of her. She could hardly see his bulky frame, never mind anything else in the room. It was like something was slowly blinding her.

Her skin prickled with the danger she knew was in the air.

The lamps flickered and then switched off. The room plunged into inky darkness; she couldn't even see through the glass walls on the other side.

‘Grab my t-shirt,' Jax said in the mind link.

She felt the air in front of her. Nothing. Jax wasn't there. Alarm bells rang through her when she reached further into the darkness but still didn't find him. The air shifted again, and she shivered, feeling like she was in a tunnel. The darkness started to whirl around her like ghostly shadows, threatening to swallow her up. Her panic rose, and she lifted her foot to step forward to Jax, but something stopped her mid-step. The cool wall at her back was the only thing keeping her grounded. If she let go of it, who knew what would happen?

‘Layla!'

Although she couldn't hear, see or smell anything else, she could just about hear Jax's heartbeat as it beat in sync with hers. And she could just about smell his scent.

‘Don't move, Jax.' she whispered in his head.

What if she lost him completely? If this was the Circle's way of separating them after they failed to do so on their arrival?

‘I can't see what's coming for us,' Jax said.

His heart rate increased, and that increased her panic. It sounded like someone was beating a drum right by her ear, making it impossible to hear anything else. The wolf inside her was still uselessly dormant. If the Circle wanted to kill both of them, all they had to do was target the weakest link—her. She would be the cause of Jackson's death.

They were going to die. Hope would be an orphan.

No.

She shifted only once, but that didn't mean she had to lie down and die without a fight.

She closed her eyes against the whirling darkness and focused. She shoved the fear away as Jax taught her, and her heart rate lowered. A spark of anger shot through her. Who the hell did these people think they were to threaten her family like that? To make them live in fear their whole lives just because of what they were?

That spark turned into a flame.

Her fists clenched as she opened her eyes. The darkness was still overbearing, but she'd trained for this. It was no worse than the darkness in the depths of the forest, and she'd mastered that before she had even known what she was.

The sound of Jax's rapid heartbeat acted like a beacon. She knew he wouldn't calm down until he knew where she was.

She took a breath and focused on him. The whirling shadows slowed down until they stopped, and when she lifted her hand, the inky tendrils slipped through her fingers like wisps of smoke. And then they wrapped around her as she became a part of them. With her other hand still on the solid wall, she stepped forward, and the shadows parted for her. Her foot didn't make a sound, landing lightly as the shadows cushioned her feet.

She'd felt let down with her training but had forgotten how far she had come since the beginning. The darkness was her domain, and she could do things within it that others couldn't.

She lifted her hand again towards the sound of Jax's heartbeat, and the shadows parted again. And this time, she saw Jax's large frame still in front of her and standing perfectly still. But he had moved quite a distance from her. She was right to assume they were trying to separate them.

‘Don't move. I see you.'

Jax's shoulders relaxed, and his heart rate started to lower. She took another calming breath before slowly removing her hand from the wall, watching as the darkness immediately engulfed it.

‘They're in here, Layla. Be careful.'

He was only a few feet in front of her, but it felt like the longest distance she would ever travel. One step. Two. The shadows licked her skin; she could feel them as if they were tangible. By the fifth step, Jax was within reach. He breathed a sigh of relief when she grabbed his shirt and put her arms around him.

Jax reached back with one arm, holding her against him as the rest of his tension faded.

The shadows around her started to wrap themselves around him. Jackson lifted his hand, watching the smoky tendrils as she had. That was new. She'd hidden from him a few times during their training but hadn't known she could draw him in.

She drew in his scent and tightened her hold on him. Their hearts beat in sync again, and the sound was gentle and soothing.

It took her a moment to realise she could see the rest of the room even though the lamps were still off. And Jax's scent was as strong as ever. Everything seemed to be restoring itself.

Jax tensed at the same time she did. There was someone else in the room.

Over by the sliding doors that led out to the patio and gardens, a hulking figure stood. Red glowing eyes and no heartbeat. And he seemed to be looking around the room as if he couldn't see them. They hid in the very shadows that were cast to hinder them.

‘Don't let go of me,' Jax said in her head.

As if she would. Whatever that thing was was something she had never come across before. With her senses restored, she couldn't even smell what it was. How could it be alive without a heartbeat?

Jax took a step sideways, and she followed. The thing didn't track their movement. With a bit of light coming through the glass wall, she realised it was a man who was as big as Jax. Would he fight as well as Jax did? There was something very off with him, and she didn't want Jax to go against him.

A few seconds later, Jax had them back against a solid wall on the other side of the bed. The man started to move, and his steps didn't make a sound against the wooden floors. He walked over to the spot where they had just stood and continued to look around the room. His lips curled into a snarl, and the longest, sharpest canines she had ever seen showed between his lips.

What the hell?

The man walked around the whole room, even feeling along the bed. And then he just disappeared.

The sound of the door slowly sliding open made her look around Jax to the door, and she saw the man slip out and start closing the door again. And then he was gone.

He hadn't disappeared; he just moved faster than her eyes could track. She was fast, but she had never seen anything move like that.

‘What the hell was that?'

‘An assassin. The Circle sent a vampire to kill us.'