Page 30 of Mated To The King's Gamma
I watch as he leaves. He really left. He walked out, and I glance back at the bed nervously before looking back at the door.
My thoughts fester, racing through my head as I wait for him to return yet after an hour, I realize he isn’t going to. Panic grows and writhes through me as I try to calm my racing heart and thoughts. Not wanting to wake Tyson, I slip into the bathroom and sit on the floor. He is leaving me. He is going to leave me because, just like Sia, I’m hurting him. I’m no good for him; he deserves better. They all do!
Tyson deserves better. Tyson deserves a mother who isn’t afraid of her own shadow, afraid of his father’s affections. Gannon needs a mate, something I can never truly be for him. I love him, yet I can’t do what is expected of me. I don’t want to see the disappointment on his face when he realizes I’m tarnished, used, and ruined, and I don’t want to endure the flashbacks that come with touch.
I feel dirty, feel gross as I stare at the tub. Maybe if I bathed, I would feel better, not so dirty. Maybe I can wash away the filthy parts of me, and Gannon won’t notice them. So I run a bath and hop in.
I scrub my skin, but no amount of scrubbing will remove the scars, remove the sense of their touch, remove what they did to me and what I was too weak to stop them from doing.
I’m too weak to be the King’s Gamma’s mate, too vile and gross and now he sees that and nothing I do will fix it. He will leave me.
My actions, or lack thereof, hurt him, breaking his heart as Sia did, just as my actions hurt Tandi that day and ruined her life. Just as I ruined Azalea’s because she suffered so much for me, she took more than her fair share of my punishments trying to protect me.
I’m useless to all of them, always the burden and now I am seeing that with startling clarity, and that guilt is killing me, rotting me from the inside out as the tears refuse to stop flowing. I spot Gannon’s razor. It’s at this moment I realize I can fix everything. Everything would be fixed if I weren’t here. Gannon would move on and find someone who could love him the way he deserves, and Tyson would have a new mother who would cherish and love him.
But most of all I would be set free, and they would be free of the burden that is me. So with that, I run the razor down both arms. I didn’t feel it, I thought it would sting, but I feel nothing. Nothing at all; the wounds close too soon.
I growl, cursing my stupidity before slashing and hacking at them again. Still, I heal. Tears burn my eyes when I can’t even do that right. Getting out of the tub, I hunt around for something sharper. I have to do this, have to set him free of me.
I’m sifting through his stash of knives when I found a bottle with a mushed plant in it. I shake it, trying to figure out what it is before popping the cap and sniffing it. I recognize the scent instantly as a smell from my grandmother’s house.
That creepy room she had that was off-limits. Wolfsbane. Taking the bottle, I wonder how much it would burn as I step back into the tub. The water had gone cold, and I turn the hot water back on, leaving it on to heat the water as I built up the courage to put not only myself out of my misery but everyone whose lives I’m ruining.
Sinking down into the water, I stared at the bottle in my hand before tipping it to my lips. I can fix it. I can make it go away, and I can go away with it.
14
Liam and I go out the back. We make a detour for Liam to get his stash of vodka. As I sit out in the back gazebo in the main courtyard, Liam cracks the bottle open, passing it to me after he takes a swig. I know it isn’t her fault, but there is only so much I can help with. Abbie isn’t seeing it or is refusing to see and acknowledge it.
I love Tyson, and I love Abbie, but what is the point of making him his own room if she never allows him to sleep in it? All I want is to be able to sleep in my bed with her without being kickboxed by Tyson in his sleep.
“Just say it, brother. You don’t have to feel guilty for whatever it is. Not with me,” Liam tells me.
I let out a slow torturous breath, “I don’t know what else I can possibly do to help Abbie. We went and made her old room into Tyson’s new room. He loves it, but she won’t let him sleep in it. That can’t be healthy for him, her, and especially me. She says she knows I’m not Kade, and she knows I would never force myself on her, yet she continues to use Tyson as her own safety blanket. I am barely getting any sleep because of it.” I groan. It is driving me mad. I feel like I’m constantly walking on eggshells around her, trying not to step on one of her many triggers. It is becoming impossible.
“Maybe you should let her see a therapist. There is only so much you can do. Have you talked to Azalea? You know they are just as tight as we are with each other, if not more.” I shake my head.
The king has enough going on with Azalea after losing their baby, and Abbie is to be my mate. I have to figure out a way because I am dead on my feet with the constant kicking and screaming when he wakes in the night, he would be down the hall. We can get a monitor; he’ll have every guard in the guard quarters listening for him. We need to work out something, so I don’t have to burden them with her. I hand Liam back the bottle, and he accepts it, taking a sip.
“Gannon, I am about to say something you might not wanna hear. Abbie was abused by not one but three spineless pieces of shit. It has been one drama leading into another. She has never been normal. Everything that has happened to her since the loss of her parents has proven that trusting anyone leads to more of the same.” I know what he says is true; I’m just frustrated.
Fuck we all have issues. Liam is a prime example of that with his upbringing, mine with my own, yet we still have good moments, and my childhood wasn’t nearly as traumatic as hers.
“She knows you would never treat her that way, but she can’t turn it off. Look how long it took me to be better, well, better than I was. Shit, man, I’m still all types of fucked up after what my father used to make me do, it doesn’t go away, you just learn to live with it. And half the time I still don’t,” he says, holding up the bottle and shaking it before passing it back to me.
I sip it. Yeah, Liam is far from sane, but he is also smart, smarter than most give him credit for The horrors he has lived with make me sick, and only Clarice knows what he truly suffered at the hands of his father.
I know what he has told me, and maybe Dustin knows a little, but he is a very guarded man who lives with his own demons, demons I don’t even want in my own consciousness.
However, Liam is right. There is only so much I can do. “I will tell her that in order for her to get better, she has to talk to someone other than Azalea and me. It isn’t good for her or Tyson. I don’t want to lose her or my son.” If I could kill them all over again, I would make it all much longer and more painful. I’m about to leave when Liam tugs me back, taking his bottle out of my hand. “You do that, but this baby stays with me.” He winks before taking it to the head.
“I would offer, but we all know I would probably fuck her up as much as me. Maybe go speak with Clarice. You know she used to be a counselor before she worked as a nanny,” Liam tells me, and I nod before heading back to my quarters.
I stride up the stairs to our quarters when the smell of blood permeated the hall, “Fuck! Abbie!” I bolt to our room, hearing Tyson screaming. Rushing into the bathroom makes my blood run cold, Tyson is trying to shake Abbie. Blood is in the tub and running down its sides as water spills over the sides and out the door. A bottle of wolfsbane lay on the floor. Thankfully, the lid was back on it, or it would have burned him.
“Tyson, look at me. Let me help mommy. I need you to step back for me, bubba,” I tell him while also trying to keep a hand on Abbie so she doesn’t slip beneath the water.
Tyson clutches his blanket in a vice grip. I pull a knife from my boot, fishing Abbie closer to me. Her head bobbing from side to side, cutting my wrist, I forced my blood past her lips.
