Page 5 of The Gamma's Second Chance

The path forward is obvious to me, but I close my eyes for a moment, focusing on my wolf, on his urges. Our mates are supposed to be our other half, the one who completes us. We’re supposed to protect them above all else, above even ourselves, and ensure no harm comes to them. To hurt our mate goes against every ingrained instinct we have. To hurt your mate is to hurt yourself. It’s why rejection is so rare.

But my wolf and I are of one mind. We both know it will be excruciating, but neither of us wants someone who doesn’t want us. Neither of us wants to be tied to someone who will only make us miserable.

I rise onto shaky legs, pulling my pants up again, my limbs and head filled with lead and my body on the verge of collapsing to the floor. But I hold her stare, chin high, not a drop of pain, regret, or sorrow shown on my face or in my eyes. I won’t let her see how she’s breaking me. I won’t let her know how this is tearing me apart on the inside. All I can hope for is that she’ll feel even an ounce of the pain I’m feeling right now once I complete the rejection.

“I, Nolan, reject you as my fated mate,” I say through gritted teeth.

White flashes behind my eyelids as an audible snap echoes through the room, and my wolf howls in my mind. My heart squeezes, like thousands of rubber bands are wrapped around it, and I fall to my knees, clutching at my chest as jolts of pain wrack my body, sending tremors through every muscle, every cell, every nerve-ending. I curl in on myself, my entire body tense, all the way to the tips of my fingers and my toes.

I’m only half aware of her, too wrapped in my torment, my suffering, to care what the rejection is doing to her. She could have been my everything. I would have made her my world. But now, she is little more than dust lurking beneath the couch.

Through blurred vision, I see her stumble towards the door and out of the room. It slams against the wall, then begins to swing shut on its self-closing hinges.

I swallow and growl, clenching my fists and pulling myself inch by immeasurable, agonizing inch across the carpet to the entrance of the room, sticking my hand between the frame and the door before it can close. I welcome the physical pain of the door hitting my forearm. It cuts into my flesh, drawing blood. I shout from the impact, but it’s a welcome distraction from the emotional anguish wreaking havoc on my body and my soul.

“Wes… help me…”I say, reaching out to my best friend through our pack mindlink with the last ounce of energy and strength I have before I succumb to the pain.

Chapter 2

NOLAN

SEVEN YEARS LATER

Wake up. Eat breakfast.Go on a run. Take a shower. That’s been my daily routine for the last almost seven years. It’s repetitive and monotonous, but it’s predictable and stable. And that predictability and stability is what got me through the darkest days of my life. The days following Kimberly’s rejection. That, and Wesley, who was the one forcing me to get up, eat breakfast, go for a run, and take a shower.

The routine started at his prodding and insistence that I find something to do and focus on, something to get me out of bed in the morning and work off the pain and misery of losing my mate bond. But gradually it morphed from something I did because someone told me to, to something I did because I wanted to and needed to. And now I thrive on the predictable routine.

Tiny claws scrape on the cement behind me, and I whip my head around to find Cavalier, the almost one-year-old husky-wolf hybrid puppy Wesley adopted in the fall, trotting along behind me, wearing that ridiculous light purple tutu Maya made from Luna Haven’s Lilac Fairy costume when Wesley brought him home.

It’s beyond me how he hasn’t destroyed it yet, what with all the roughhousing he does with the pack pups and the times he just disappears into the forest for hours on end before returning at the most random of times in the unlikeliest of places. I’m not convinced Maya, being a hybrid, didn’t put some sort of spell on the tutu to keep it intact and pristine.

It’s been close to six months since Wesley adopted him, bringing him into the pack to help cheer Haven up the same day she announced her pregnancy to him, and he’s blended intoour lives seamlessly. He treats Haven the same as any of our pack members—with love and respect—and checks on the pup in her belly with his nose every time she comes home from her ballet rehearsals. And he’s taken a shine to me too, joining me on my daily run for several months now, as well as showing up unannounced at my house when Haven and Wes are off territory and he’s lonely. I think he recognizes me as his luna’s protector and, therefore, has adopted me as a sort of second family.

“What’s up, Cav?” I ask, pausing my run with my hands on my hips.

He stops, too, a few feet away from me, cocking his head to the side and staring at me with his tongue lolling out. His tail wags as he waits, playing the little game of ours we’ve played every morning since just after the new year, looking way too fucking ridiculous and yet somehow equally adorable in his tutu.

“Let’s go, little guy,” I say, waving him forward to run at my side.

A little guy he is not, but the nickname has stuck ever since Wesley heard Haven call him that.

Cav jumps playfully on his front paws, then bolts forward, sprinting ahead of me like a bullet train, streamlining his body for speed. I chase after him, and he slows down when I reach him. We jog side by side, both of us enjoying the temperate morning air.

Spring has arrived in full force at Crescent Lake. The mornings are warm and the days are warmer, melting away all traces of the small amounts of snow we received this year. Bees buzz around the flowers in the garden and the wildflowers growing around the lake and up the mountain, and the chirping of freshly hatched baby birds echoes around the forest. The pups are rowdy and antsy for the long summer nights we’ll have here in a few months, and everyone is ready for the annual spring festival coming up soon.

The humongous stretch of green training fields comes into sight, dotted with sparring and training warriors, all overseen by Sebastian and Reid—who are now our delta and beta, respectively—and a baby wrapped against Reid’s chest.

I lift my hand in greeting to them as Cav and I run over to the water jugs, and I grab a quick drink and catch my breath, watching the warriors as they work out. Sebastian and Reid both wear almost matching stern scowls, a mask they’ve both perfected over the years they’ve been overseeing the warrior trainings. But Reid’s is hard to take seriously when Savannah is in his arms, her little chubby baby hands curled under her cheek as she sleeps against his chest, and he occasionally ducks his chin to kiss the top of her head. I chuckle and shake my head, lips twitching as I chug the rest of my water and make my way over to him, Cav on my heels.

“Why do you have a baby in a wrap at a warrior training?” I ask, standing beside him and surveying the warriors under his watch.

“Why is the tutu-wearing wolf following you around?” he retorts, eyes flicking down to said tutu-wearing wolf.

I shrug. “Cav keeps me company.”

“She’s keeping me company,” he echoes back. “And my dad has a video appointment with his therapist, so he couldn’t watch her today. Not that I mind getting extra Sour Patch snuggles.”

“How is your dad?”

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