Page 62 of The Gamma's Second Chance

I wish I could read his mind. I wish I had the abilities everyone always assumes I have.

What is he thinking? How does he feel about all this? Does my being the daughter of the male who ruined Haven’s early life change how he feels about me? Will he still want me? Are westrong enough to survive this, and can I be strong enough if we don’t?

I plead with him with my eyes. I’m too nervous and unsteady to trust myself to verbalize my need for him, too worried anything I say or do will prompt him to reject me.

But Goddess, do I need him. I need his grumpy, stoic personality that balances my smiles and sunshine. I need the fierce, possessive protector, the passionate, dominant male he hides beneath his calm, steely exterior. We’ve only been “us” for a few days, but it’s so natural with him. Despite the initial rocky start with the hot and cold and the roommate war between the two of us, the way we fit together is indescribable, and his reaction to this revelation may be what breaks me.

He meets my gaze and crosses the room to stand behind the couch. His intense eyes scan my face, his protective, steady presence saying more than any words could. My lip quivers as those molten pieces of silver return to my throat, but I push through them. “Nolan. I need…” I shake my head and lick my lips, my voice hurting from the burning metal inside it. “I don’t…”

He grips the back of the couch and nods, silencing my incoherent sputtering. “I’m here, Daisy.”

I’m here. Two words. One simple phrase. But it’s everything I need from him. He’s here. He’s with me.

I pull my lips into my mouth and nod frantically, my eyes blinking as I spin to face Benjamin again and sit on the edge of the leather sofa in front of Nolan. His presence at my back bolsters me, and his observant silence anchors me.

And I pray he won’t hate me or pity me when this is all over.

I rub the sweat from my palms on the skirt of my dress, then press my hands into my thighs as I count to ten, calming the violent waves crashing against the shores of my soul. “When my mother was an acolyte—an apprentice oracle—the rules forvisiting the island were less strict. Alphas would come and go as they pleased, using the island as an escape from their stressful lives in their pack. They would enjoy the scenery, the weather, and find peace by meditating.”

“What changed?” Benjamin asks.

“King Malachi took over the throne. He felt his ancestors had grown too lax with the guarding of our secrets—werewolves and oracles—and he wanted to implement reforms. It took a while, but eventually, he made it so the only way anyone could visit the island was by putting in an official request to the high oracle. My mother met your father before the changes were made. He told my mother his name was Paul Tilley. At the time, the visiting alphas weren’t required to disclose the pack they were from—they were even discouraged from it—since the entire point of them visiting was to find a momentary reprieve. And my mother, being too trusting and too naïve, didn’t question him. Or even think to.”

Benjamin frowns and tilts his head in question. “Couldn’t she see he was lying? Read his mind or—”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t work like that. None of us can read minds, and often any visions we have are momentary glimpses. Sometimes the flashes are so quick we can’t make heads or tails of them. My mother never saw anything related to him or his intentions. He visited the island—and my mother—off and on for several years. As time passed, the length between his visits grew longer and longer until they eventually ended altogether.”

“Did she ever tell him about you?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Benjamin asks.

I smile a little. “She met my father—my mpampa—and as fate would have it, he, too, was an alpha. They met at a mating ball in Greece, and she told him everything right away. She told him about me, about the alpha she’d been with for so many years.She explained if he accepted her in spite of all that, he’d have to give up his title. He’d have to move to the island with her since the magic of the island prevents true oracles—oracles who have been marked by their fated mate—from living anywhere else or even leaving for long stretches of time. He agreed and accepted her without batting an eye or judging her, and he raised me as his own.”

“Like Reid and Savannah,” Nolan says.

I glance at him and nod. He has a small, sentimental smile on his face as he thinks about his friend and the daughter he claims as his own, leaning his forearms on the back of the couch, bringing him closer to me.

I hold his gaze, seeking comfort in his warm, steady eyes. I long to reach for him, to hold his hand or find solace in his arms. But if I do, I will lose the momentum and confidence I have, and I need to finish my story.

I turn back to Benjamin, but I am hyperaware of Nolan’s presence behind me. “To protect all of us, he and my mother agreed to never search for my birth father or tell him I was his if he did visit again. My mother was too afraid he’d take me away from her.”

“He probably would have,” Benjamin says. “And he probably would have found some way to manipulate you and use you, like he did with Lennox.”

Nolan growls at that, and from the corner of my eye, I see him curl his hands into fists, one wrapping around the other, his skin paling from how tightly he grips them. “My mother didn’t know his true nature, though. She thought only of keeping us together as a family unit. It wasn’t until later that we learned his identity and his wrongdoings,” I say to Benjamin.

“How did you find out?” he asks.

“Like I said before—his witch, Gladys. She confessed everything to the thirteen crones, with King Malachi inattendance at her interrogation, and she mentioned my mother by name. Afterwards, King Malachi visited my mother to tell her everything since Pierce had Gladys use dark magic on her—spells to hide his mating mark from her, for example—and he was surprised to find she’d given birth to a child. Me.”

“Why would her having a child surprise him?” Benjamin asks, his arms crossing over his torso.

I blink and look down at my hands. I didn’t mean to say that much, but it’s too late, and I can’t take it back. Exhaling, I spit my next words out as quickly as I can. “Because one of the spells Gladys used was meant to make my mother infertile. It’s a curse on the most recent born of a bloodline, causing the line to die with them.”

“How’d she have you then?”

“Gladys didn’t cast the curse on my mother’s line until after Haven’s adoption went through.”

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