Chapter 72: Chapter 73

Read Mated To The King’s Gamma by Jessica Hall Chapter 73 – I tried to process his words. I tried to understand what he was telling me. Yet why would he do such a thing? “You killed my Aunt?” I asked him, trying to process this information. I had never met her but had heard about her, I knew only as much as my mother had told me, “You can’t tell anyone, Abbie,” Gannon says, and I glance at him over my shoulder. My brows furrowed in confusion.

“Not even Azalea,” he breathes, gripping my arms, but I tug away from him. I had so much running through my head. Is that the only reason he wanted me? I glance down at the picture. She was my mother’s identical twin sister, and I was the spitting Image of my mother and of Sia!

“Say something, Please, Abbie,” he says, reaching for me again, but I take a step back from him and hold up my fingers.

“When?” I ask him. Gannon stretches, placing his hands behind his head as he stares up at the ceiling for a second.

“When Gannon, why? I have so many f**cking questions right now,” I tell him angrily. Gannon lets out a shaky breath.

“I met her at her old pack, Vermillion Pack. I was on a job, and that is how we met,”

“And what you didn’t want her, so decided to kill her?” I ask him. Gannon shakes his head. Was I some rebound for her? Some sick amusement for the love he lost? I couldn’t wrap my head around how f**cked up this was.

“No, there is more to it than that. I never rejected her, Abbie.” I swallow nervously, not sure if I wanted the information yet knowing I would never be able to live without knowing the curiosity behind it would eat me up.

“Then what happened?”

“She rejected me. She chose Liam over me!” he says, sitting on the end of the bed.

“Liam? She was with Liam?” Gannon nods.

“And Liam helped me cover up her death?” he tells me, so not only was Gannon hiding this from me, Liam was tog. Was I some big joke to them, some oddity they could reminisce on?

“When?”

“I met her twenty years ago and discovered she was my mate. I killed her two years later after she tried to kill me. I couldn’t keep living like that.”

“Like what?”

“Feeling her with him? Two years I felt it, two f**cking years, she rejected me but bonds don’t break for Lycans. I felt every time she was unfaithful to the bond, every damn time Abbie,” he tells me, and a lump forms in my throat. That was a pain I did know, all too well, and I couldn’t imagine living with that for the rest of my life.

*Is that why. you?” I point to his chest, and he looks down before nodding his head. He hangs his head, placing it in his hands.

“She was tearing my heart out. What did it matter if I did it myself,” he breathes.

*And her body?” I ask him.

“Outside her old pack along with her mother’s,” Gannon tells me.

“You killed my grandmother?” it just gets worse. I always wondered why she never came for us when we ended up in the orphanage. I believed she would come for us, save us from Mrs. Daley. It wasn’t until a few months in that hope died along with everything else.

That was when it really set in. We were never getting out of that place, no one was looking for us, and no one cared for two rogue girls. We were vile creatures, she called us, and that hope and longing that she would one day come to get us, telling me she never stopped looking for us for the first few months, gave me hope. Then hope died along with me in that place.

“Is that all?” I ask him.

“Some things aren’t worth the risk of you knowing Abbie; I wish I could, but it will only hurt you, and I won’t risk that,”

“What do you mean?” I ask him.

“Your grandmother, Sia, they weren’t good people. They were traitors to kingdoms,” I tried to remember anything that made his words make sense.

Yet all I could remember was the cottage my grandmother lived in. My brows scrunch together as I try to sift through memories, yet they are so blurry and tainted.

I was so young, but one memory that always stood out was the back room. It was the one and only time my grandmother scolded Azalea and me. We were playing hide and seek, and I walked into it, it had strange markings on the walls and a huge star on the floor.

No, now I know it was a pentagram. It smelled funny, the air thicker, yet I remember that memory so clearly because my mother and grandmother had a huge fight over us going into the room. I was hiding under the big wooden table that held jars and jars of weird things, specimens, and herbs. I remember thinking it looked like a laboratory, only one from the middle ages, spooky. I ended up coming out of my hiding spot because the place gave me the creeps, and that was how Azalea found me. She heard me knock over the huge plant, it spilled soil everywhere, and we tried to scoop the soil up and put the plant back, yet when Azalea grabbed the plant, it burned her hands, and she screamed. I panicked and called out to my mother.

My grandmother kept saying it was no big deal, that we wouldn’t remember, yet I do. I remember her trying to get us to drink the murky water. I refused; Azalea though didn’t. She accepted it, not wanting to upset my grandmother, but I spat it out. I couldn’t bring myself to swallow it.

I also remember my grandmother crying, trying to stop my mother from leaving. I remember my mother screaming at her.

“They aren’t our enemy, Mom. Sia, I expected this from her, but you, hasn’t our family lost enough? I won’t lose my daughter to them too. You promised you weren’t mixed up this anymore. You lied to me.”

she yelled.

“They took your father from us!” my grandmother screamed.

“No, mom. You pushed him away with this crap. Working for the very people who hunt them. He found his mate. You can’t compare to a mate bond. You don’t understand how hard it is to go without them, Sia couldn’t understand, But I can. He left you; it s**ks, but it’s been years, years, and you still blame a woman who doesn’t know you even exist! I am done,” My mother yelled at her.

“Abbie, say goodbye to your grandmother,” my mother said, nudging me towards her.

“Lina, I will do better. You don’t have to do this. Let them stay, I already lost your sister; I can’t lose you too,”

“You already did. You did the day you chose to help them. You despise the packs, Lycan’s so much, yet you forget I am one. If you despise them, you despise me too,” my mother says before grabbing both mine and Azalea’s arms and tugging us toward the forest.

“They worked for the hunter organization,” I tell Gannon, recalling the last memory I had of my grandmother:

“Your grandmother was supplying them with wolfsbane, and Sia worked alongside them, she was responsible for helping them scout out the packs. And when I met her she was too eager to get into the castle, she got mad and told me her mother was getting old and dying and that I had to change her, so she could change your grandmother. She was my mate, but for some reason, something told me she was up to something. She kept insisting I get her a job in the castle, even insisted on asking the king for his permission personally,” I nodded in understanding.

“And my grandmother?”

“They moved to Ravana Pack not far from here. I ran into her one day, and she threatened me. She then tried to follow through with that threat.”

“So you killed her?” I tell him, and he nods his head.

“And me?” “You’re not like them,” I shake my head. I knew I wasn’t like them, but I needed to know if my family was the only reason he wanted me in the first place.

“The fact I look like my mother, Sia? Is that why you were interested in me?” I ask him.

“I told you at first, yes, you reminded me of her, but that wasn’t why, Abbie. I wanted you because you are everything she could never be. You are everything she never was for me,” Gannon told me.

“And what is that, Gannon? Because I am really struggling right now to believe I am nothing but a mirror of the past for you and an extra chance for you.” I told him.

Gannon reaches for me, and I go to step back,but he grips the front of my shirt, pulling me to stand between his legs.

*You are not Sia. Sia was my mate, I was bonded to her, yet the love I had for her is nothing compared to how I feel about you. I love you, Abbie; everything about you. If she were standing right beside you, I would choose you; without hesitation, I would choose you over her. I thought I loved her. But I didn’t even know the meaning of that word until I found you.” Gannon tells me, he wraps his arms around the back of my legs pulling me closer before pressing his head against my chest between my b**bs. I sigh, running my fingers through his hair before hugging him back.

Some part of me still had some doubts, but I was here. She wasn’t, and I wouldn’t hurt him the way she did. But I also couldn’t give him what he needed, yet I knew he spoke the truth as he said those words.

Because what I felt for Kade was nothing compared to how much I loved the brutish man who had his arms wrapped around me.

His hands on me didn’t make my skin crawl the way Kades did; they didn’t make me panic unless I wasn’t expecting his touch, but as soon as I realized it was him, that panic always died down. Gannon calmed me, kept me here in the present. With Kade, I was always anxious, waiting, and fearful. He didn’t care for me. He didn’t even try to.

No, he was just another monster like the butcher, another torture I was forced to endure. Whereas Gannon was like fresh air, I don’t know what would have become of me if it wasn’t for him when I returned. My dependence on Gannon was as strong as it was with Azalea. It wasn’t that I just wanted him; I needed him, needed him in ways he could never possibly understand. He was my life jacket. He kept my head above water and stopped me from drowning in despair. He was the one person who made the darkest part of me come alive again and gave it light, gave me a reason to keep living because I wanted to for him. Just like Azalea, he was more than my life.

Kade wasn’t even a quarter of the man Gannon was. He would never hurt me as Kade did. The mate bond told me I loved Kade, but it wasn’ t love, just some twisted version of what I believed was love.

Love doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t make you want to tear your own soul apart just to stop it aching.

Love doesn’t break you. It rebuilds you, rebuilds the broken pieces that you thought would never be put back together. It makes you feel whole and valued. Even with Kade, my mind always went back to Gannon, despite the bond telling me it was wrong for wanting him; despite my beliefs, it always went back to him.

Hearing a knock at the door I glance over my shoulder to see Liam pop his head in, Tyson squirmed in his arms, wanting to be set down on the ground, and the moment he did, he rushes toward us, climbing up into Gannon’s lap and forcing himself between us.

“Sorry, but I am supposed to be on guard duty. Dustin is covering for me,” Liam tells me, and I nod.

“Thank you, Liam,” I tell him, brushing my fingers through Tyson’s hair as he rubbed his palms on Gannon’s face. Tyson liked his stubble, and one thing I loved about Gannon was his patience he never seemed to run out with Tyson.

Most found his screeching and crying, the hand flapping annoying because they didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand him or what he was trying to say but Gannon and everyone here saw past all that.

They saw him. They saw the little boy I raised from the time he was born; they saw our son. And nothing made my heart swell more than seeing him smile up at the man he now thought of as his father.

“Anytime, Abs,” Liam says, nodding and closing the door behind him.

“Some little boy needs a bath. What did uncle Lim feed you?” Gannon asks him, scooping him up and making his way to the bathroom, his entire face covered in sticky sweetness and chocolate. I smile, following behind him, knowing once I got him cleaned up, I was supposed to meet Clarice and take him down to see the other kids for a playdate.

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