Page 39 of Mated To The King's Gamma
I don’t understand what she has done.
I don’t understand how she did it.
But the weight in my chest isn’t as heavy.
“More than my life,” Ivy whispers.
“Always more,” I reply when I see something dribble down over her lip.
“Azzy?” I frown, my hand reaching toward her face when her eyes roll into the back of her head.
16
I can’t explain what she did. It makes no sense, and before I know it, Azalea’s eyelids flutter, and she passes out. I can feel her in my head, her essence or presence tainting and touching the darkest parts of me, twisting and manipulating. She lifts the weight of my past from me. I feel free. It’s as if I’m no longer trapped in the nightmares I’ve survived and am now merely an observer, dissociated from them. I still remember everything, but the feelings that haunt and trap me are no longer there. It’s as if she has erased those.
When she passes out, everyone panics, while all I can do is stare. I think I’ve killed her, but Gannon is quick to whisk me out of there and away from everyone. I want to check on Azalea, though. Need to know I haven’t hurt her.
“She is awake, Abbie. Damian just mindlinked me,” Gannon tells me.
I nod, staring at where Tyson lies on the bed, nestled between our pillows.
“You need to shower. You’re covered in blood, and I don’t want Tyson waking up seeing you like this,” Gannon instructs.
It was Tyson we fought over first, then Sia. Only recently did I learn my aunt was Gannon’s true mate… and he killed her. Yet, strangely enough, I feel nothing for that woman; hardly remembering her, my mother, who fought back when we left my grandmother’s house.
That was when we left the pack we lived in and went on the run. We also met Marrissa, who was known to us by Della at that time.
We were attacked by bandit rogues, then Della and Jason came to our aid; after which we stayed with them ever since.
I’m beginning to realize how small the world truly is… how interconnected all our pasts are. But it leaves questions unanswered, ones I’m unsure I want the answers to.
“Why did you kill her? Was it just because she left you?” I ask Gannon.
Gannon sighs, kneeling next to me where I sit on the couch by the small bookcase of children’s books Gannon got for Tyson. Most of them are pop-up books.
“Abbie, you don’t want to know the answers to these questions. They will do more harm than good,” he warns me.
“How can they? I don’t feel sorry for her; I barely knew her. I just need to know,” I tell him.
“Why?” he asks.
“To make sure that isn’t the only reason you want me because you couldn’t have her. Because I look like her.”
“You are nothing like Sia. Not even close. You have the same hair and eyes; that is it.”
“Then tell me.”
Gannon sighs again, dropping his head onto my knees.
“When I met Sia, I was visiting her pack. I had to take a message to the council for the king. I stopped over at her pack and met her at the tavern,” he tells me.
His brows furrow together as if he’s trying hard to remember some detail, but my eyes are trained on his chest...the deep crevices that marred his skin, skin torn apart by his own claws when he tried to rip out his own heart.
“Anyway, Sia and her mother were being kicked out of their pack for something your grandmother did.
“She informed me the council had located another place for them in a pack closer to here. I lent a hand with her move on the weekends, but she kept pushing for me to change her. I couldn’t quite grasp it, but something about her persistence irked me. She also expressed a desire to meet Claire and work at the castle - another thing that didn’t sit well with me.”
“Why does she want you to change her so desperately?”
