Page 1 of The Gamma's Second Chance

Chapter 1

NOLAN

Ten steps to theright. Turn around. Ten steps to the left. Repeat.

Over and over I continue this path, pacing in front of the two queen-sized beds in the hotel room I’m sharing with Wesley, my best friend and the future alpha of our pack. Wesley keepsglancing at me in the reflection of the mirror, his brow furrowing deeper with each pass I make.

“Goddess, Nolan, will you please stop pacing?!” he finally spews, a pulse of his lycan alpha aura slipping from him. His lycan has been volatile since his early shift nine years ago, and I’m sure my anxious fidgeting isn’t helping.

I freeze and meet his eyes in the mirror, and he cracks his neck, shaking off his anger and the aura. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

I wave off his apology. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not, though. Or you’re not, at least.”

“I’m fine,” I say.

I’m not.

I should be fine. It’s only a mating ball. I probably won’t even find my mate. I’m only twenty-two. Most males don’t find their mate until they’re older.

There is nothing for me to be worried about.

So why can’t I shake this overwhelming sense of wrong?

I run my hand over my hair and down the back of my neck, joining Wes at the mirror. I debate telling him my concerns, confiding in him about my nerves and the sense of dread I can’t shake, but before I can, there’s a knock followed by the whirring of the lock in the door.

“Oh, your room is much nicer than ours,” Reid says as he slams the door open, a key to our room in his hand, and his blue eyes scanning every surface of the hotel room.

Wesley scoffs. “My dad booked all the same types of rooms. Your room is identical to this one.”

“I assure you, having just come from there, it isn’t,” Reid says, shaking his head. “Tell him, Sebastian,” he adds, nudging Wesley’s younger brother as Sebastian walks by him and towards the mirror Wes and I stand in front of.

“They’re the same, dickhead,” Sebastian says from my left as he looks in the mirror and fixes a nonexistent stray hair.

Reid huffs out a sigh and leans against the wall on the other side of Sebastian, pulling his tie out of his pocket. “If you say so.”

“Does anyone think it’s odd they scheduled this mating ball on a full moon night?” Sebastian asks, adjusting his pink tie as he continues to stare at himself in the mirror.

“What do you mean?” Reid asks, tossing his balled up tie in the air.

“I don’t know.” Sebastian shrugs. “I guess it feels like a bad omen to schedule a ball for unmated wolves to potentially find their fated mate on the one night of the month when mates can reject each other. Like they’re just asking for drama and heartbreak.”

My hands slip on the button of my shirt, and a low warning growl slips out of Wesley. He glares at Sebastian, but he doesn’t notice.

Or pretends not to.

“You’re not even old enough to find a mate. Why are you here?” Wesley asks Sebastian, his fists clenching.

“Reid doesn’t even want a mate. Why is he here?” Sebastian fires back without missing a beat, his gray eyes never leaving his tie.

“Moral support,” Reid quips, still playing one-handed catch with his tie. “Plus, Alpha Harrison didn’t give me a choice.”

Sebastian raises a brow at him. “I distinctly remember my dad giving you a choice in the matter.”

“Well, when the ‘choices’ are to attend the mating ball with Wesley and Nolan or be on locker room bathroom cleaning duty for a month…”

“Touché,” Sebastian says, his lips twitching. “Now put your tie on, dickhead, so we can get this all over with.”

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