Page 113 of The Gamma's Second Chance

But the columns to my right extend beyond the twenty-one that were there before. And where I expect there to be only four more, since I am now twenty-five, Selene has added multiple for each year since my twenty-first birthday.

Around the temple I walk, staring at the depictions of myself from special moments over the last almost five years, my fingerstracing areas of them and an involuntary smile forming on my face.

There is the night we took over the pack, when I ran across the lakeshore with the pups, with Wesley in his lycan form watching from the tree line, and the night Wesley proposed to me in the courtyard at the theater. There is our wedding ceremony, where we stood on the shore and read our vows to each other, both written as letters to our pen pal. I stop in front of the most recent one, the one next to Asteria’s last portrait, and tears spring to my eyes unbidden. It’s Wes and me, him holding my tiny baby bump between his hands as he kneels in front of me and kisses it, like he’s done countless times since the day I told him I was pregnant.

Wesley wraps his arms around me from behind and buries his nose in my hair as a giant, heaving sob shakes my body. Once again, I am overwhelmed by the images before me. The love and detail put into each contradict the character of Selene I’ve painted in my mind. It doesn’t erase the pain or the years of neglect, but it’s clear she cares about me and watches me.

The violent storm of mixed emotions within me explodes outwards with my tears, bursting to life within the temple as floating, swirling, dancing streams of silvery starlight. I gasp and follow the path as it travels through the building, dancing around Selene, where she now stands in the center of the temple. It dances and circles higher, escaping through the ceiling and the breaks between the fabric and the columns. Selene watches it, her silvery hair swaying in the breeze along with the swaths of white fabric draping her graceful figure.

“Is that my aura?” I ask, my voice tight with my tears, and Wesley nods, his chin brushing against my wild red curls and waves. “Does it always look like that?”

His hand reaches down to stroke my bump, and the baby inside kicks against him, making Wesley chuckle. “Since your pregnancy, yes.”

“The baby strengthens it,” Selene says.

“But what is it?” I ask, turning my attention to her as she strolls towards us.

“It’s what your gamma said. It’s an identifier, and it protects you.”

I frown. “Nolan didn’t say that. He talked about how it feels to him, but he didn’t say anything about…” I trail off as Selene raises a brow at me, waiting for me to connect the dots. “Oh.” I nod. “You mean Cassandra.”

“Nolan’s mate. Yes,” she says, folding her hands in front of her stomach. “I brought you here to talk to you about them, actually.”

I bristle, my jaw ticking at the realization that she didn’t call us here to see me but rather to talk to us about someone else. I paint on an expression of neutrality, however, and lift my chin, standing tall even though I feel smaller than ever. “About what?”

“Their bond.”

I frown, and Wesley cocks his head to the side above me. “What bond? They’re chosen mates.”

Selene nods. “They chose each other. That is true. But they are not chosen mates.”

“Are those not the same things?” Wesley asks.

“Not for them.”

My nostrils flare, and a noise, almost a growl, vibrates in my chest. “Are you going to keep being cryptic, or are you going to tell us what you mean?”

Wesley winces behind me and squeezes me a little, kissing my temple and sending a river of love into me, his body tense at my scolding of his deity. But I don’t care. I don’t want to be here,and unless she starts saying what she means to say, I’m leaving. I don’t have time to listen to her skirt around the truth.

Selene stares at me, something akin to hurt flashing in her eyes. She glances down at her hands, then crosses the temple towards the portrait of Wesley and me on our wedding day as she continues speaking. “I don’t always get it right when I match souls.” She reaches for the painting with a soft, sad smile. “Most of the time I do. However, even I am not perfect. Nolan was supposed to humble Kimberly, but as the years went on and she grew older, I saw that he wouldn’t be enough to change her. When Cassandra was born, I already knew Kimberly would reject Nolan, so I gave him a second chance bond with Cassandra.”

“Why not just remove his bond with Kimberly and make Cassandra his first and only mate?” I ask.

She glances at me over her shoulder. “Of all the things I am able to do, that is not one of them. As with all things, there must be a balance.”

I shake my head at her, confusion filling me. “But they didn’t feel a second chance bond on Cassandra’s birthday, and Cassandra told me about her reading—‘No bond of fate draws her soul to another.’”

“That is true. I knew Nolan would never truly accept another mate bond. He’d constantly be questioning if the feelings between him and his mate were genuine or only because of the bond.”

“He said something similar to me recently,” Wesley says, nodding his agreement with her statement.

“I also knew if Cassandra completed her mate bond with a fated mate, she’d be bound to my island, like all true oracles are, and that would leave you without your gamma. So, I manipulated their bond.”

I flinch back and blink at her. “How?”

“I… locked it up, I guess you could say.”

“Locked it up?” Wesley asks.

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