JEOPARDY: The Cursed Soldier.

34. Secrets and Contrasts.

"Perfect. I want Ivan dead. When can you deliver his head to my desk? Tomorrow? On Monday? In a week?"

Kayla's heart stopped.

Her mind blanked, then it flooded with thoughts. She couldn't have heard her Alpha right. But every molecule in her knew she had. The day she had feared the most had finally arrived.

She had been given an order she couldn't possibly execute.

By the gods, why is this my life? Why am I always stuck in a cycle of never-ending dilemmas and disappointments?

"Kayla?" Her Alpha called her back to the present. "Are you going to answer me, or should I give you my own deadline?"

Deadline?

Oh gods, I'm supposed to give her a timeline.

"A week. Give me a week." Kayla answered. Again, keeping every reaction that threatened to spill bottled tightly inside. Hopefully, a week will be enough time for her to come up with a plan that will save both their lives.

"Perfect. In a week, I want his head. Fresh and bloody, here on my desk." Somehow, Kayla kept her horrified expression internal as the images drawn by Alpha Sienna's words crystallized in her mind. "Keep in mind that it is you who chooses if it will be his head alone, or yours as well. You can leave."

Kayla didn't waste another millisecond, and she walked out of that room like it was on fire. But it was her brain that was on fire. She had 7 days, 168 hours, to somehow come up with a plan to save both their lives.

"Come with me." Alex's hand pulled her from the hallways into a corridor she had never been in. A dark, cold corridor. Kayla couldn't see much, but she could smell rotten iron and a heavy musk of dried blood. It was only her panic, disorientation, and mild trust in Alex that kept her from spiraling until Alex led her into Markos'(The Gamma's) office from a back door. "What did she say to you?"

Kayla blinked to adjust her eyes and body to the light and the familiar room and subsequently ran her eyes through the room, taking the time to let herself calm down and think.

"You are shaking, Kayla. What happened in there?" Alex's voice was urgent and, of course, concerned. But even in her confused state, Kayla wondered if she could trust him with the truth.

She had been given an order by her Alpha. The code dictated that she obeyed it without a second thought. Alex would surely never understand her dilemma. She was on her own.

"Can we talk when I've calmed down?" Kayla forced herself to say as she tried to control the tremors in her body. "Later. Tomorrow. Just... Not now."

A wave of hopelessness hit her again. Part of her had already accepted that no matter how hard she thought and tried to change the situation, Ivan might die anyway. If she didn't do it, someone else would be ordered to kill them both. His fate was pretty much sealed, no matter what she did.

But she refused to give up on him.

"Can't you trust me to help you this once?" Alex's frustrated voice and face wrenched her to focus on the now. "I thought we had already established that you don't have to do everything on your own. What more do you need? I know you're in love with Ivan. Nothing else can shock me right now. Just... Just let me help you."

Kayla whipped her head to Alex and managed a frown on her face. "I'm not in love with Ivan."

"Yeah? Why, then, do you get jealous when he's with Angela? Why are you so protective of him that you'd sacrifice your own life? Why are you so incapable of prioritizing anyone or anything else but him? Why is he the only one you break all your rules for?"