Mated To The King’s Gamma By Jessica Hall

Chapter 59

Queen Azalea

Walking out of my room, I was greeted by Liam, who came over and looped his arm through mine like we were best buddies. “And what adventure are we going on today, my Queen?” he asks, and I chuckle, looking around for Dustin.

“Dustin went to get your breakfast,” Liam says as I glance around.

“I’m not hungry. I just want to see Abbie,” I tell him with a frown as I walk down the steps toward Gannon’s room. Abbie hadn’t left the room since that first night back, and I know that is why Gannon wanted to take her somewhere, and I wanted to see Abbie before she left.

Kyson told me she was leaving through the mindlink. It always freaked me out when he used it. Not used to having someone in my head, let alone being a part of something. Abbie was a rogue again, and I hated that, but she refused to let Gannon mark her. Every time I asked Kyson to make her part of the pack, he said she refused and he couldn’t unless he changed her.

I knew why. She didn’t think she was worthy of having good things, but that wasn’t all. If Gannon couldn’t change her, then she wouldn’t be a Lycan, and I don’t know what I would do without Abbie. Gannon stopped by not long after the King left to let me know he was taking her somewhere and that they were leaving after lunch.

Walking through the winding corridors and toward the back of the castle I finally arrived at their door. I knocked but got no answer. Looking up at Liam, he gripped the door handle and pushed the door open, and stuck his head in the door.

“I think she is showering.” Liam whispers, although he had a strange look on his face like he knew something I didn’t, so I push the door open wider and step inside.

“I will wait here. Gannon isn’t here,” Liam says, sniffing the air and looking away from me awkwardly. I give him a nod before stepping into the darkroom. The curtains were closed, and no light made it a little difficult to see as my eyes adjusted to the darkroom. I managed to kick my toe on a coffee table and felt like cursing the damn thing. Making my way to the bathroom, I knocked on the door.

*Abbie? It’s me.” I call out to her, but I get no answer. However, it sounded like she was crying behind the door, and I suddenly knew why Liam didn’t want to come in. Glancing around the room. I open the door and close it behind me. Turning to face the dark bathroom. I find the mirrors are covered over with large sheets of black paper, the bathroom darker than the main room, the air thick with the salt of her tears and the billowing steam.

I instantly broke out in a sweat. It was like a sauna in here. Muttering could be heard from the huge glass shower stall that was fogged up.

“Abbie? I whisper, opening the shower screen. I find her in the bottom of the shower, scrubbing herself viciously while pressed into the corner. Her skin is bright red from the heat of the scalding water. I knew she wasn’t okay. Everyone knew that but seeing her like this broke my heart. She stops like she hadn’t realized I was here. Her head lifted and she just stared vacantly ahead. A scourer clutched in her hand, something you would clean a heavily stained pot with, not skin.

*1 can still feel his hands Az. Still taste his vileness in my mouth,” she whispers while staring off vacantly. A tear slips down her cheek before disappearing down the drain along with cascading water. Her lip quivered as I stepped into the shower, my clothes becoming saturated, and the water was scalding hot. I move over to her near the far wall and sit beside her. Some parts of her skin were bleeding like she had scrubbed herself raw. The scars that littered her body are raw and angry but thankfully healed, now just raised from the scrubbing.

“Sometimes it is okay to remember the dark parts, Abbie. Just don’t stay there too long. Don’t let it trap you, don’t give him the control he no longer has over you,” I tell her, and she turns her head to look at me. I grabbed her hand, clutching the scourer, and laced my fingers through hers.

“I don’t want control. I want to forget. I want to hate him and not still love him. How can you still love someone even after they do something like that? I should have listened to Gannon. I should have stayed,” Abbie whispers.

“It was the mate bond. That wasn’t really love, just some twisted version of what you perceived as love,” I tell her.

“I was naive! And stupid!” she scolds herself.

“No, you wanted something more than what we have been given. And that’s not your fault,” I tell her. I sat with her, letting the boiling water scald my legs. Thankfully she only had her legs under the water, the rest of her was pressed against the wall. Yet her skin was raw and raised.

“I can’t live like this, Az. I don’t want to anymore. I don’t want to be the broken doll,”

This wasn’t my Abbie, this Abbie had given up. This was what was left. She looked as helpless now as she did when we first stepped into that orphanage. Only then we were younger, and children. Children only know what we are told, accepting of whatever fate we are handed because we don’t know better.

Yet now that we are older we see the horrors of the world with a different light. We see the monsters, the lies and understand nothing about

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Chapter 59

our childhood was normal. What we thought was normal no longer is, and this new normal we are still uncertain of. Comfortable with pain because it was normal, comfortable in our own misery that was normal, so broken was normal. How do you fix normal?

How do you break the cycle of a thought pattern? Pain is not normal yet it was all we know, or I did know until I met Kyson, Abbie hasn’t met her new normal, she is still suffering in the version we grew up with. And I knew she was tired, tired of the old normal. She wears her resilience like armor, but now laid bare I knew for once she didn’t want to keep carrying it.

“You’re not broken.” I whisper despite the fact she looked it.

“I am. I don’t know who I am anymore.” she whispers, staring off vacantly.

“You’re my best friend. My sister. You are more than my life,’ I tell her, squeezing her hand.

“No, we are you! We are rogue. We are whatever they let us be and nothing more,’ she says.

“Only if you let yourself be. You are not what he did to you Abbie. You are not what the butcher did to you, and we are not what Mrs. Daley made us believe,

“You aren’t. You are a princess and soon to be Queen you are Azalea Ivy Landeena. I am rogue. I am nothing, and now everyone knows what they did. Everyone knows the dirty things I wished I could forget! I am sick of them looking at me with pity! Sick them looking at me with disgust! Sick of being what he made me!”

“Then be Abbie,” I tell her putting my head on her shoulder.

“But I don’t know who she is” Abbie murmurs, her voice emotionless.

“What they did to you is not you, but a reflection of them. That is who they were, Abbie. They are dead, and you are still breathing. They don’t get another chance, but you do. So take it, don’t let them chain you down in the memory of what they did. They don’t deserve it. Live because you can and want to,’ I tell her and she shakes her head and pulls her knees to her chest.

Abbie puts her head in her hands, and cries. Her shoulders shook, and I couldn’t begin to imagine what she was going through, but she would get through this. She had to because this world wasn’t worth being in without her.

“You sound like Gannon, but even he looks at me the same as everyone else. Even you do. I know you can’t help it, but …” she choked out, her entire body shaking.

“I don’t look at you with pity. Abbie. I know who you are, and that is all I see. I see you, and this is not you. You are better than them. I see the girl I am willing to die beside. The girl I jumped with. The girl that kept me going when she wanted to give up herself. And you are not giving up. More than my life Abbie. I am right here, and you are staying right here with me. You go, I go. So which is it? Are you jumping? Because if you are, I am jumping with you.”

“You have a mate and a are Queen, so don’t say that. I am nothing compared to you,” she says and I hear in her voice how much she truly believed that

“You are everything to me. You always have been. My title doesn’t change that. And you have Gannon and will be my Beta. So don’t tell me you are nothing because the only reason I am still here for any of this, is because of you.”

Abbie chuckles and shakes her head but lifts it placing it against the wall. “I am a werewolf. You are a Lycan, I can’t be your Beta, and I wouldn’t know the first thing about being a Beta.”

“You think I know how to be Queen?” I laugh, sitting up to look at her.

“I can’t even read. But we have people here that will help us. I have Kyson. You have Gannon, and me.”

*Yeah, until he tosses me aside, when I can’t give him what he wants,”

“He wants to change you and mark you. He isn’t going anywhere. And even if he does, I am still right here,” I tell her.

“You would change me?” she asks.

“Wouldn’t think twice about it! But we may have to ask how though, because I am not sure how to,” I chuckle, and so does she before her smile falls

“Who would have thought freedom would be worse than the chains that restricted us,” she whispers.

given, Abbie. It’s a mindset.

you feel free?” she asks, and

I am either, but I am determined to find out. And I prefer we find out together,” I

my life,

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Chapter 59

than my life,”

deep voice says, making us both jump. Neither of us heard him come in, and

sighs, shaking

have

leaving,” he tells

you I am not going.”

us when he opens the door. I look to Abbie, who makes herself smaller like she was trying to hide

a hand down his face, and I see the blacked-out mirror behind him, glancing back at Abbie and looking at

so did my arms and the backs of my legs, yet the front of me wasn’t so bad. Abbie however, was marred, but hers were less jagged, though I had no doubt hers caused her more pain because the scars

that was what was preventing her from leaving the room, she needed to know she had nothing to be

whispers, her knees close to her

lips quivered, and I knew I was right. And

cuts on her face that left white lines once healed. To me though, she was still beautiful. I remember the shame I felt when the King asked me to get changed in front of him, the way Abbie begged at his feet for me. Gannon

I understood that, and I hated mine too. Hated the way it looked

that everyone here knows, another having the world see,” she

myself, yet when I struggle, Kyson opens it for me. It was so weird trying to feel for him in my head. The bond was

you feel

her body.”

asks, and my face heated as

I don’t like this feeling.

shower

” I see.”

like that. I

“But what?”

to

even more. I was not afraid to be naked in front of Abbie. God knows how many times I had been naked in front of

is making

want to walk around in

not.” Kyson growls. Which angers me and fuels my

wasn’t asking permission.” I tell him, though I was kind of hoping he would give it because

are you

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Chapter 59

to find out

“Azalea!” he snaps.

naked walking the corridors!” I

I cut him off, only for the mindlink to open up again as he

for all the castle staff. Their voices flitted through my head

we have cameras?”

installed two days ago. You are not doing

“I am!”

says suddenly through the mindlink. So many voices were making my head hurt and I struggled trying to shut them off only for Kyson to

the bathroom!” Kyson growls

Abbie touches my arm as she stands, making me

clothes, dropping them in a wet heap

some spare clothes,”

me but quickly rushed into the room. Kyson was still talking through the mindlink, arguing with guards to leave Gannon’s quarters. While Liam asked neverending questions, it was hard trying to keep tabs on how many people’s voices were suddenly flitting through

into the room with a cami and

whispers, but I shake

step past her when she

is out there,” she says, gripping my arm when he suddenly opens the door standing completely naked. I had no idea where to look, so I stared up at the roof, and

we’re doing this in style,” Liam says through the mind-link and I look at

swear, Azalea when I get home …” Kyson

like a challenge, my King.” I

on! And Liam, stay away

Gannon is strutting his stuff, so is me! Sometimes you gotta

said clear the

at their posts!” I commanded back a

The King growls “Azalea!”

King?” Clarice says,

going on, but I grabbed her hand almost blindly as everyone’s faces flitted

can’t do this with you in my damn head!” I tell

you aren’t

going on?”

streak through the damn halls!” Kyson tells

still standing in the bathroom though now I can see Gannon. I made sure to keep my eyes above the waist. I did not

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Chapter 59

apart more

doing this?” he asks,

what?” Abbie squeaks looking between

good, I am not late,” Liam says, busting

even being subtle as he looked

my mate

grabbing my wrist jerking me to him, and loops his arm through mine while Abbie stands

“What are you doing?”

you. You aren’t the only one a little broken,” Gannon says, offering

ask me. How do you put up with him?” Liam says. As Kyson kept trying to order his men out, when I realized something, his commands on Liam and Gannon were not working. That realization hit me at the same time it hit Kyson that I knew something was

“Azalea?” he asks.

but I am doing this for Abbie,”

off?” he calls through