Awakened (Knot My Earth #2)

Chapter 1

Layla

The empty shotgun slips in my sweaty grip. My heart races, threatening to break through my ribs, desperate to help my husband as the alpha, pinning him to the ground, sinks his fangs into his neck.

Screaming. Crying. Begging. Nothing I do stops them. Regardless of his injury, the venom coursing through his veins, my husband fights for his life and my freedom.

There aren’t many men who could hold their own in a fight with an alpha, but my former MMA fighter has given the purple beast a run for his money.

Two shotgun slugs in the alpha’s chest slowed him down, but not enough for my husband to reload before the alpha planted a dagger in Sutton’s shoulder.

My hands shake. My fingers fumble, loading the shells into the double barrels.

Shotgun loaded and slapping the barrels back into place, I take aim.

“Do it!” Sutton’s voice is a distant rasp. The alpha’s fangs must have punctured his vocal cords.

My chest tightens as I track them with the butt of the weapon set firmly in my shoulder.

The males, rolling in the dirt, there’s no clear shot. I can’t risk catching Sutton in the crossfire. The venom is a death sentence, but I couldn’t live with myself if I took the shot that ended his life before I could say goodbye.

“Layla!” Even with the knife buried in his shoulder, Sutton pushes the alpha up to give me a clear shot at his head.

BANG.

Buck shot shreds the purple skin off half of the alien’s face. He loses his grip on Sutton, who takes the opportunity to strip the knife from his flesh and drive the blade through the soft spot under the alpha’s chin and into his brain, killing him instantly.

“Sutton!” I throw the shotgun down and run to his side, where he falls limply on the ground.

“Layla, baby.” Sutton reaches out, cups my face with a blood-soaked hand. “I’m sorry.”

“No. I am. I panicked. Loading the gun, I—”

“It’s not your fault. Please. Don’t blame yourself for this.” Sutton chokes. Turns his head to spit out blood and bile from the venom poisoning his veins. He doesn’t have long.

The alphas have never spoken of a cure for their bite, but maybe… “Can you walk?”

“What?”

“The Alpha Center. Maybe they have an anti-venom.”

Blood sprays from his lips as he gasps for air. “I won’t… Make it.”

“We have to try!” I shouldn’t spend my last moments with him yelling at him, but I can’t let him die. If there’s anything I can do to save him, I have to try.

“I love you, Layla.”

“I love you.” A flood of tears pours down my cheeks, splashes on Sutton’s skin, mixing with the blood smeared on his stubble-covered jaw.

Holding him to my chest, I curse the sky as my husband takes one last gasping breath and goes limp in my arms.

“We must leave.” The deep rumble of another alien alpha’s voice behind me shocks me into action.

I push my husband’s lifeless body from my lap and scramble across the lawn toward the shotgun.

“Stay the fuck away from me!” I whip the barrel up and point it at the alpha’s head.

If he saw any of that fight, he knows I’m not a good shot. If he advances, closes the distance, maybe I’ll have a better chance of blowing his head off.

“On second thought. Fucking try me.” My finger twitches, eager to pull the trigger when the alpha dares to smile. “I admire your tenacity, but I mean you no harm, omega.”

“Don’t call me that. Don’t fucking call me that.”

“That is what you are.”

“I’m not an omega. I’m Mrs. Sutton Nash.

I’m his wife.” My breath hitches when I flick my gaze to my husband’s lifeless body.

“Was… His wife…” My strength wanes. My muscles shake.

My legs threaten to give out any second.

I want to be strong for my husband. Save myself so he didn’t die for nothing, but the adrenaline is wearing thin.

“Very well, Mrs. Sutton Nash. I am Lieutenant Enforcer Zayd. From the Alpha Center. I have a transport. If you would allow me, I will take you and your husband to the Center. You will be safe there, and your husband will be given a proper burial.”

Fatigue sets in, and the barrel sinks to aim at Zayd’s feet.

When Zayd takes a step forward, I snap it up again. “How do I know you won’t force me to bond with you? I know how this works. There’s no one here to challenge you. It’s what your kind does. It’s what that alpha was here to do. How do I know you won’t do the same thing?”

“It is my duty to uphold the law. Enforce the Accord. I will not take what is not freely given.” There’s a pain in his eyes I can’t explain.

Like it hurts him to admit it. I wonder if I should refuse his help, not take the chance, but as he sinks to one knee and bows his head, showing me the ropes of his charcoal hair tied in a large bun on the crown of his head and threaded with more than a dozen iridescent beads that sparkle brighter in the full moon’s light, my racing heart slows.

The shotgun falls to my side before I collapse.

My knees crash into the dirt path outside our little house the alphas built for humans to live in here in the Delta district, the outermost district in the colony.

After more than a year on the move through the Badlands, waiting for the alphas to finish building, we got on the list and moved in. The colony was supposed to be safer than the Badlands. Safer from humans, maybe, but not alphas.

“You swear? On your life? You won’t force me to mate with you?”

Raising only his head to look me in the eyes, Zayd says with conviction, “I swear on my life, Mrs. Sutton Nash. I will not force you to mate with me.”

“Then we will go to the Center with you.”