Mated To The King’s Gamma By Jessica Hall

Chapter 70

ABBIE POV

Tyson sat next to Oliver near the pantry, the boys playing with their mini dump trucks that they were running over cookies with while I helped do the dishes with one of the other servants. Clarice had bitched me out real good for being down here. Eventually gave in, and I had been down here for a few hours helping prepare food for the guards and royals while also preparing the servants’ dinner.

I also found something soothing about cleaning or cooking. It was a task that occupied the mind, one that had an end result that could be seen. It was better than the thoughts that usually occupied my mind or, more like haunted it. Ghost of fragmented and distorted memories, twisted and wicked as they forced me to relive the past repeatedly.

I supposed to the other servants here I looked like a madwoman wanting to be a servant, but it was better than being me. Better than being Abbie. Nobody wanted to her, you, as Mrs. Daley would say.

Yet here, being a servant was like being invisible. We were the ghosts that cleaned and moved about the castle, sneaking into rooms before quickly leaving. Servants are the shadows of our master. We lived with routine and repetition, no thinking, just working, my mind separated from my body as it handled the task it was told to do. Muscle memory takes over, and I no longer exist. I just float within myself as I move from task to task.

Apparently, Gannon had told Clarice he doesn’t want me working now that I have Tyson. Yet he made it perfectly clear that Tyson was no longer welcome. Therefore, I was not. What he also didn’t realize was working was the only peace I have known. I needed to work, wanted to work

down to see where she was putting me and which floor I would be working

laugh, and Clarice sighs, chewing on the end

put you on this roster,” she says,

storms through the kitchen and passes me while looking for Tyson. Tyson instantly jumps to his feet

as he passes me, moves across the room, and scoops him up. The room falls quiet, and I glance around nervously as he turns to face me before stalking toward me. He was furious. Did the servant wake him? I told her

snaps at me, and the tone of his voice was one I had

me. All I saw was his hand coming toward me, hyper-focused on it for mere seconds, and it was all I could see besides the fury on his face. I squeeze my eyes shut, and my body tenses, a noise I wasn’t sure I made or someone else did sounds around me.

waiting for his blow, my skin prickling and itching as I wait for the familiar feel of my hair being ripped out. Waiting for my head to bounce off the floor as he dragged me. Or the

curses, and the voice isn’t Kade’s but Gannon’s, “Fuck, Abbie?” he whispers, his hand falling heavily on my shoulder. I flinch at the contact, expecting claws,

I don’t know when I dropped to the

how my stomach sank, sending my body into a cold sweat, and the itchiness of anticipation as I waited for

and I find him kneeling next to me, guilt all over his face as I blink up at him. I could see Gannon, see him right in front of me, but my body expected was not registering

them to hurry, and they take off. Tyson was sucking his thumb. watching me with a strange look on his face. My hands reach for him, shaking