Page 5 of Bewitched

L ayla stared at her phone for a long ten minutes in the dark of the wood, standing just beyond the glow of the lamp lights that marked the trail. Her phone didn’t buzz with another text, but she couldn’t bring herself to send a message back. She couldn’t even find it in her to text Mina or Helena or Roan. She was horribly alone with her horrible body as it betrayed her.

She thought about finding a dense bush and crawling under it. She went as far as to kick at the undergrowth a bit, but the branches and briars scratched at her bare skin. Even the forest didn’t want her.

Her stomach hurt, her womb twisting cruelly. Wetness accumulated in her underwear. Slick. It had to be, even if she didn’t feel particularly amorous. That’s what everyone said. If she was in heat, then she would want to be fucked, bred, knotted, and violated, but she didn’t want any of that. Just the thought of being touched sent a wave of nausea through her. Something had to be truly wrong with her.

“You’re leaving it late,” a voice said from the dark.

Layla jumped and spun around toward the smooth, masculine voice. “Excuse you?”

Garret stepped out of the dark. His formerly drunken eyes were sharp, the pupils large, engulfing the brown irises. “Your heat. You’re not going to make it home like that.”

Layla licked her lips and glanced around the forest for a quick path to somewhere, anywhere away. “I… I’m not going into heat. It’s just a hormone imbalance. I’m fine.”

He moved toward her, stalking, hunting, cutting off her best retreat. “You don’t smell fine.”

She flushed. She could smell herself. He didn’t need to say it. “That’s… that’s rude.”

He cocked his head, the movement more animalistic than human. “Sweet omega, you can’t say that I’ve not been a gentleman. Now, where’s your friend? Did he leave you out here all alone? Someone could snatch you up, and you’d never be seen again.”

Her mouth was dry. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Someone could steal her. He could steal her. Unbidden, the image of Roan formed in her mind. He was small and pale before her, surrounded by the police as he was escorted through the throng of reporters. He was exhausted and scared. She could smell it on him. Holden had a possessive hand on his shoulder. Layla had to look up, up, up to see his grim face under a bushy black beard. Her mother had gripped her hand so hard then.

She didn’t want that. She wanted to go home. She should have stayed with Rolland or even Raina. She never should have left her dorm at all. “Thank you for looking out for me, Garret, but it’s unnecessary. I was just on my way to… the-the Omega Center. They are expecting me.”

Garret stalked closer until she could smell his rank musk through the haze of alcohol fumes. It was foul. “They are going to be disappointed when you don’t make it.”

Fear rushed down her spine, sticking her in place. “No.”

“Come on, omega.” He reached for her, gripping her elbow painfully. “I’ll take you somewhere nice and cozy.”

Layla shook her head and tried to resist. He was so much stronger than her. Her phone buzzed in her hand, and she glanced at the screen.

Jaxon

close your eyes

Layla stared at the bright shine of her phone. She couldn’t close her eyes. She had to get away. Garret grabbed her wrist, pulling her phone away from her face, and her eyes fell on a massive shadow as it came out of the dark like a demon to collect a blood debt.

A large hand wrapped around Garret’s throat. Layla tried to pull away as he turned to meet his attacker, but Garret’s flailing caught the side of her head. Layla went down hard, her head spinning. Her knees scraped against crunchy dead leaves.

Garret cried out as he was dragged into the woods, further into the dark. Layla looked up through blurry vision. The two alphas were on each other like animals. Garret’s punches were wild and hard, but the other alpha was measured, smarter, and stronger. Moonlight glinted off something metal in the larger alpha’s hand. Dagger, like Mina carried everywhere, but the alpha wasn’t Mina.

Garret hit the ground on his back. The other alpha standing over him, blocking Layla’s view. They both scrambled for the dagger. Garret yelped as the knife slid into his belly.

Layla ducked her head and covered her eyes. She didn’t want to see. She didn’t want to see. She didn’t want to hear it either, but she couldn’t block out the pained moan, the sick crunch, and the wet breathing.

It was too much. She wanted to run, but she couldn’t move. She wasn’t supposed to be there. It wasn’t supposed to be like that.

She curled in a ball, protecting her soft insides. She heard boots on the path again. She didn’t open her eyes. Garret was gone. She knew it. He lost. Good. But… the other alpha. He had killed. Because of her. Angry. Violent. What would he do to her?

The boots stopped a few feet from her. If she didn’t open her eyes, she could pretend he wasn’t there. Schrodinger’s alpha.

“You hurt, kitten?” Jaxon Harlow asked.

Layla closed her eyes tighter. Her insides ached. Why him? Bad omega . He was already so mad at her.

“Answer me,” he snapped, voice laced with enough of a Command to cut through her terror.

“No,” she whispered.

She opened her eyes to see Jaxon standing tall over her. Still in his work suit, though rumpled and dirty from the fight. His scowl was deep and pulled at his scars, making him look grotesque and demonic — what a murderer should look like. He wiped his dagger on a handkerchief before slipping it back into his belt.

He was so big and so angry. He could do anything he wanted. He would use violence to get it. He already had.

Layla trembled. She stared at Garret’s body. Was he breathing? Maybe. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn’t dying because of her.

“Is he dead?”

He glanced back. “I don’t care.”

Jaxon came closer, his steps jerking and unsteady. Layla didn’t move. She couldn’t. Cinnamon reached her nose, and her mouth filled with saliva. She wanted to taste more of it. She wanted her mouth to burn. What was wrong with her?

He extended his hand to her. There was blood on his knuckles.

She took his hand and let him pull her up.

He stood too close to her. Spice filled her senses with notes of charcoal and sweet honeysuckle. Others. She didn’t like that.

His fingers traveled up her arm, past her elbow, wrapping around her bicep where Garret had held her. She tried to pull away, and he growled. There was a gush of wetness in her panties.

She grimaced and let him rub little circles on the back of her arm. “Please, let me go.”

His huge hand spasmed around her arm, and he glared at her. “Let you go? You think I can let you go? I could smell you from the parking lot. You smell like fucking sin, and you’re dripping slick. I just gutted a man because he touched you. You’re in heat, little girl. You think I can keep my hands off you now .”

Layla shook her head. “I’m not going into heat.”

His expression, twisting to disgust, nearly made her take it back. She wasn’t being obstinate on purpose. She just couldn’t let him think that this was a heat because it wasn’t. It was a hormone imbalance. She needed a doctor, not an alpha.

Jaxon’s hand moved to the back of her head, twisted in her hair. Layla hissed at the sudden jerk. He pulled her head back, exposing her throat, her mating gland easily accessible.

“No!” She batted at his chest, trying to dig her nails into his skin. He couldn’t touch her there. It was sacred, only for mates. He couldn’t bite her!

His hot mouth descended on her neck, but he left her mating gland alone, pressing his lips higher to the scent gland under her jaw. He licked, hot tongue meeting sensitive flesh. Layla shuddered, her knees nearly giving out under her. She had never let anyone… No one had ever dared.

He pressed his teeth against the gland, not quite biting, but the threat remained. Slick gushed freely from her core, soaking into her underwear until the material couldn’t hold anymore, then trickled down her thighs.

He purred deep in his chest. A steady rumble meant to calm young pups and distressed omegas. “Lie to yourself as much as you want, but not to me.”

Layla swayed into him, leaning into the vibration. It reminded her of her father during the deepest parts of winter, as the whole family curled up in the big bed in the master bedroom. Purrs were meant for families.

Fear crept into her awareness. “You are not my alpha.”

The hand in her hair moved to her neck, thumb pressing into her scent gland, and she nearly collapsed. Her whole body went slack and pliant without her permission.

“I wouldn’t talk like that right now, omega,” he said. “I’m the only one standing.”

Slick trickled down her thighs. “Please,” she begged. She didn’t know what she was begging for.

Jaxon took her phone and clutch from her limp fingers, and she couldn’t do anything about it.

The large hand on her neck steered her in front of him, directing her forward. She could finally move, but it wasn’t where she wanted to go. She wanted to go back to her dorm, to Mina, to a hospital, anywhere but wherever Jaxon Harlow was leading her.

They came out of the wood at a parking lot, nearly empty except for a few late arrivals making their way to the Alpha House. Jaxon stopped her and glared at the group until they passed. Only one woman looked back at them, but Jaxon snarled, and she turned away.

Layla bit back a sob. She was being left to Jaxon’s mercy without a backward glance.

His thumb drifted across her scent gland again, and her system flooded with dopamine. She groaned.

“Good girl,” he whispered.

Layla tried to glare, but her brain was too fuzzy.

He tugged her toward his truck and opened the passenger door. He let her go, and she leaned against the side of the vehicle, shaking her head.

Jaxon waited silently, seemingly sure that she would make the correct decision. She knew that if she got in the truck, her life would never be the same. But her body wasn’t cooperating. Her brain couldn’t make a plan to escape. She just wanted to curl up in his cinnamon scent and sleep.

“Hey, Layla!”

Layla winced and looked around frantically until her eyes fell on a familiar figure. Rolland. No. His shirt was still wet with her spilled drink.

The young alpha grinned and ambled toward her, oblivious to the looming danger. “You left in a hurry. I didn’t want you to think—“

Layla shook her head frantically, and Rolland slowed to a halt.

He glanced up at Jaxon and took a deliberate step backward. “Hey… Harlow.”

“Iverson,” Jaxon greeted curtly.

Rolland put his hands in his pockets and rolled his shoulders down, a strangely submissive posture for an alpha, but Rolland had never been particularly assertive. “So, going somewhere?”

Layla shook her head again. She couldn’t let Rolland get hurt. She turned away from Rolland — all her focus on Jaxon. She had to get him to leave Rolland alone. They would fight, like Bryson and Perrin. Like Jaxon and Garret. No. She couldn’t let him kill anyone else.

She reached for Jaxon and gripped the sleeve of his blazer.

“Den,” Jaxon said to the other alpha.

Rolland shuffled behind her, but Layla couldn’t turn. She had to get Jaxon’s attention back on her, no matter how much it terrified her.

“At the Tower?” Rolland asked.

“Where else?” Jaxon’s lips twitched. “Don’t be stupid, pup.”

Layla pressed a hand against his chest. He was warm even through his shirt. “Don’t hurt him,” she whispered.

He glanced at her, but it didn’t last long, his eyes back on Rolland, jaw tight. “Then get in the truck.”

She didn’t want to. If she got in the truck, her life was over. But if she stayed. Rolland. He didn’t deserve Jaxon’s wrath. He didn’t deserve to die. Rolland didn’t do anything wrong.

“Don’t hurt him,” she repeated.

Jaxon took his eyes off Rolland and stared down at her, at her hand on his chest. His grey eyes were nearly black. He wasn’t in control of himself any more than poor dead Garret had been.

She was struck by the knowledge that it didn’t matter. What she wanted didn’t matter. What she thought didn’t matter. What her body was doing to her didn’t matter. Every bit of it was out of her control, and she wanted to scream. But that didn’t matter either. Screaming wouldn’t help any more than trying to run or falling to the ground weeping.

There was only one thing she could control, and that was whether Rolland lived or died at that moment. No one could stop Jaxon. No one could save her, but she could save someone.

“Layla?” Rolland called.

She brushed a tear from her cheek and got in the truck.