26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

" A re they coming after you?"

Jax cradled the phone on his shoulder while he thought about how to answer Dylan. The Hunters spotted near Faith's college were all the proof they needed that those bastards were involved in all the disappearances. The whole pack would be worried.

Did he want to worry them with details of how much he'd pissed off the Circle, too? No.

But it had to be done. The pack had to prepare for the fallout that was coming. Once again, he was the reason everyone would suffer.

He popped the trunk open and pulled up a go bag. Considering all the dangers they faced when they left their territory, having one or two bags full of clothes and emergency supplies in the car was necessary. He pulled a pair of sweats and a t-shirt out before picking something out for Layla.

It was a shame about her outfit. They had to burn their bloody clothes and all the evidence so they could travel home, and that outfit had become a favourite.

"Jax. Is the Circle going to come for us?"

"Probably," he answered with a sigh.

He wouldn't get away with killing the Circle assassins and dominating Cole on top of everything he had been summoned for in the first place.

"Does everyone know the evacuation procedures?" he asked Dylan.

"Yes. We've drilled it in for months. I'll make sure everyone knows to be ready," Dylan said.

"Thanks. I'll call a meeting when I get home. I'll be in touch soon."

He cut the phone and picked up his supplies, including bottles of water and towels. And then he took a calming breath before walking to the front of the car. Layla was leaning against the hood, her face pale and expression vacant as she stared at the field they had stopped in. Her anxiety and fear had weighed him down as he'd driven away from the hotel, but other than that, she was fine. There was no lingering magic within her, like what he could feel in his body. None at all.

He'd taken a chance going through Cole's magic and had known he would have to fight it off. But Layla had walked through it as if it was nothing. Even driving through the wards when they had left hadn't done anything to her, and those should have kept them trapped within the grounds of the hotel. It only confirmed what he'd already guessed when she'd fallen asleep in his arms and left herself unguarded. There was some sort of magic in her blood. It was probably the source of her healing capabilities.

"Should I have let you kill him?" she whispered.

He sighed as he placed her clothes next to her.

"That would have made our problems worse. The Circle is much bigger than that asshole; they would have all banded together to take me down."

They would still do that. He'd bruised Cole's ego, and there was nothing worse than an egomaniac with too much power. And that egomaniac clearly had a problem with accepting Layla as his mate. But he didn't want to worry Layla about that when they had the Hunters to deal with, too.

"Why did they let us walk out so easily?"

Easy? After he'd ripped apart their most prized pets and Layla had broken Cole's reinforced wards as if they were nothing? There had been nothing easy about what they had done. But the Circle probably needed to regroup and deal with their obvious internal issues before they came after them again. Now that they knew it wouldn't be so easy, he was sure their next move would be more creative. More deadly.

"They knew what I would do after they separated us. I'm almost certain I fell into their trap, but I don't know what they hoped to achieve in the first place. Declaring war with Cain is never a good thing."

Cain was still pissed off that he'd left them alive, but his duty to Layla and his pack were the only reason they hadn't driven back.

"Or are we the ones who declared war on them?" Layla asked, finally looking at him.

He wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms to offer the reassurance she needed. All the shit that had happened before they had gone to the hotel didn't matter to him anymore. He just wanted her back in his arms, but he was sure now that his feelings ran deeper than Layla's. How was such a thing even allowed to happen? Fate had given him a mate who could walk away whenever she wanted. That broke him up.

The only thing that had stopped him from ending Cole had been her horror. Her disgust when she'd seen what he had done. That from a woman who'd claimed she knew who and what he was and loved him anyway.

He looked away from her probing gaze and opened one of the water bottles to wet a face towel.

"We're not going to wait around for them to attack us. You know there's a plan in place. We'll be okay," he said. He stepped up to her and gently wiped the blood on her cheek. "But let's not worry about that right now. We have to get home."

He met her emerald gaze again and saw fear in them, but he looked away before his urges to comfort her got the better of him. Sex and war went hand in hand for Cain, but he had to deny the beast. He'd already taken Layla in anger when he'd been sure that, had it not been for their bond, she would have said no. It was something he wasn't proud of and would never do again.

"You're getting stronger," he stated, moving onto her hands and gently running the towel over them. They looked bruised. Had she had to fight anyone to get to him? There were thin, red lines on her knuckles that were already almost healed.

"I felt my wolf again," she said. "When Dylan told me the news, it got me angry and got me out of that room."

"She."

"What?"

"She. She got angry," he answered. "I don't think she'd like being referred to as ‘it'."

Layla looked away from him and back at the fields.

"You still don't know her name?" he asked.

"It... She didn't say much."

And that was something else he couldn't understand. He and Cain were different from the others, but his wolf had made a nuisance of himself in his head long before his first shift. He had known Cain's name from the first day he revealed himself.

But Layla's wolf had been silent even though he could sense that she was still there. And she hid so well that Layla still smelt human. The two sides of her didn't seem to co-exist very well. That was common in half-bloods who ended up running wild when their wolf side took over, but Layla's wolf wasn't like that.

Was that the reason his mate could imagine a life without him?

He threw the towel onto the hood and took another for himself. Not that it would do any good. He was covered from head to toe in blood.

"Let's finish up. Our ride will be here soon; we need to burn all these clothes before a human stumbles onto them."

Layla nodded and slipped her jacket off. She was halfway through undoing the buttons on her shirt when she paused and met his gaze questioningly. He was staring. The stupid thing in his chest tightened as he turned away quickly and wet the towel in his hand before he started wiping himself down.

It was less than an hour since she had walked in on the mess he'd made at the hotel. Not long enough for her to feel less disgusted with him. Touching her wasn't an option. How had the tables turned so quickly? He'd been very angry with her on the ride to the hotel, but she was now the one putting the distance between them. Being unsure of their bond was fucking him up in ways he hadn't even known were possible for him.

When he wiped off the blood he could see, he poured the rest of the water over himself before returning to the car to get another towel to dry.

He froze. Layla was fumbling with her leggings, still in her underwear, and his body hardened instantly. He'd shoved Cain back after they had left the hotel, but now the beast stood to attention, pining for the one person in the world who could sate his appetite.

It was like the beginning of their relationship all over again. Layla hadn't wanted him then either, even when her body had reacted as it should have.

Layla's gaze lowered to his boxers, and her eyes widened when she noticed what she had done to him.

But she turned away and quickly pulled her leggings up.

If that didn't say ‘fuck off', then he didn't know what did.

He grabbed the dry towel and his clothes and walked to the back of the car to give her the privacy she wanted. His heart tightened in his chest, but he forced himself to focus on something else. The last time he'd allowed his emotions to get the better of him, he'd cut himself off from the pack so he could hide and lick his wounds. People died because of that. He couldn't let it happen again.

Half an hour later, he'd burnt the clothes and wiped down the car. As it was a getaway car, there wasn't anything in it that could be linked to him, but he killed time by checking everything several times over. By the time the helicopter he'd hired from a private company owned by humans arrived, he was more than ready to head back to the pack.

Layla didn't look at him for the entire flight. Though he sensed her anxiety and fear, she didn't talk to him, either. Those few hours were the most uncomfortable time he'd spent with Layla.

The helicopter landed on top of his hotel. He helped Layla out, but she pulled her hand out of his the second she was steady on her feet.

How many blows was his heart supposed to take?

When he opened the roof access doors, he remembered her father was still held in one of the rooms.

"Do you want to check on Gerald while we're here?"

"No," Layla answered quickly. "We need to get home and make a plan to rescue Faith and the others."

She started to walk down the flight of stairs but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back. She was killing him. He hadn't hidden any of his emotions—she had to know her actions were ripping him apart. How could she so easily disregard his feelings?

"We need to fix this, Layla. I've told you before, we can't walk away from this. I can't let you go."

He had to live with knowing that their bond meant nothing to her. That he and Cain disgusted her. That she felt trapped with him.

Layla's eyes flashed, her anger surging briefly. What the fuck had he done now?

"That's not important right now, Jax. Let's get home."

Not important? Right.

He bit his lip and followed her down the stairs and to the elevators on the top floor. By the time they'd gone down to the basement parking lot, he'd shoved all his emotions to the back of his mind. So far back that he couldn't hear Cain's howling.

"I didn't mean—"

He cut her off before she finished speaking. That was a conversation he was unwilling to have. It had shades of ‘it's not you, it's me' all over it.

"Don't speak, Layla," he growled as he put his foot on the gas. "You're right. It's not important."