Mated To The King’s Gamma By Jessica Hall

Chapter 72 Abbie POV The quilt that gnawed atas he left brought tears to my eyes. He didn’t deserve a broken mate. How he even wantedafter everything was beyond me, and still, | couldn't stand being touched. Even the briefest of hugs had memories crashing into me. | was useless to him.

When | am sure he is out, | move off the bed and start cleaning up. He never said anything, but | knew the mess we made upset him. Maybe if | clean the place, he will forgive me? Yet spart ofknew it was because | was inadequate, not enough for him. | wasn’t even enough for myself. | wasn’t anything, nothing. Never enough for anyone. My mere existence was to be used and tossed away. The only thing | was good for because taking it was the only way he would get anything from me.

How long before he got sick of waiting? How long before he turned out like the rest of the men that had stumbled into my life? That thought scared me, and lefttrembling as | scrubbed the tiles in the bathroom.

| scoured the bathroom until there were nearly no bristles left on my scrubbing brush. The sun was beginning to rise, and | looked to the window when my shadow cast along the wall. My brows furrow in confusion. How long had | been here? It never ceased to amazehow | could lose track of time. As if on autopilot, shaking my head, the bathroom was so clean It almost glistened, and the bleach I had spent most of the night and early morning inhaling burned my throat and nose. It was all | could smell. — Packing up my cleaning supplies, | wandered back out to find the bedroom open again.

Gannon had opened it when he left, and | shut it while | cleaned only for it to open again, yet | thought | closed it? Walking over to it, | shut it only for it to push inward.

“Door stays open, Abbie. | can’t hear you with it closed,” comes Liam's voice. | open the door. Liam nods, then moves back to his room, leaving the door open to his room.

“Did Gannon ask you to babysit me?” | ask him.

“No, | offered,” he says, going back to the newspaper he is reading. | shake my head, moving back into the room and over to clean washing. | start folding it and hanging everything in the closet. When | am done, | move to Gannon’s dresser and open the top drawer, rearranging it to squeeze his clothes in the drawer.

My fingers brush at something that felt like leather. Lifting up the pile of shirts above it, | find what appeared to be a diary. | grab it out, wondering why it was in there and not on his bookshelf. | sat it on the dresser’s edge and rearranged the drawer when | saw the corner of what appeared to be a picture sticking.

After fixing the drawer, | felt something under the drawer’s lining. | move the velvet liner and find a manilla folder. | pull it out, set it with the diary, and close the drawer.

Grabbing the diary, | pull on the corner of the picture hanging out and find it is a picture of my mother. | blink at the picture, wondering where he got it from before opening the diary to see a photo of me. | stare at the picture, wondering when it was taken, and | glance at the book, wishing I could read it.

Grabbing the folder, the door pushes open, and Gannon'’s scent wafts to me, and | move toward the bed and open it, about to ask him where he found a picture of my mother, only to gasp at what | see inside the folder.

“Abbie, no!” Gannon blurts, rushing toward me, but it is too late. | have already seen what it contained. | wished | could unsee what I saw, but like everything else, it was now permanently burned into my brain.

The papers and pictures scatter on the floor as | drop them. My hands tremble as | look down at the photographs in horror. My parents, all bloody and torn apart, deep claw marks tore half my mother’s face off and down her chest, blood everywhere while her eyes were wide open, staring back atvacantly, and my father’s head lay beside his body, no longer attached to him. So much blood.

Gannon grips my arms, kneeling on the pictures | couldn't tear my eyes away from. “Abbie? Abbie, you know, to stay out of my drawers,” “I just wanted to clean for you,” | murmur. Liam rushes into the room behind him and stops when he sees the pictures and papers scattered everywhere. He frantically starts picking them up.

“Why do you have those? Why?” | ask. What could he want with such horrific pictures? Why is my mother in his diary? | had so many questions, and | pulled away from him. His head drops, and he curses under his breath.

“Liam, leave them, but take Tyson for me,” Gannon murmurs, and Liam sets the papers on the dresser before scooping up a sleeping Tyson from the center of the bed. | move to take him, wondering why he had to leave, but Liam rushes past me, and Gannon grips my wrist.

“He will watch him,” Gannon tells me, and | look back at him before seeing the picture from the diary of my mother smiling, looking happy. I pick it up, hoping to remove the image of her mutilated, mauled body from my memory.

“Why do you have a picture of my mother?” Gannon sighs and wipes a hand down his face.

*That is not your mother? “Ah, yes, it is,” | tell him.

“No, her nis Sia. And she was my mate.” of all the things he could have said, that was not anywhere on the list of reasons sifting through my head. It was like he punchedin the stomach. | suck in a breath, feeling winded by his words. Sia, my aunty? | shake my head, trying to figure out what is going on Wait, then where is she then? “You knew my mother’s twin?” | asked.

“You know your mother is a twin?” Gannon asks in return, looking rather shocked.

“Yes, my mother had toldabout her. They didn’t get along,” | had never met her before, and mum didn’t speak much about her, but she always grew sad when | asked about her family.

“Sia was my mate,” Gannon says softly, as if that would lessen the blow his words had.

“Was?” | ask. | didn’t like how he used past tense when referring to her. Yet his following words squeezed the air from my lungs completely as my body forgot how to function and breathe.

“1 killed her, Abbie,” he murmurs, and the pained look on his face | could see bothered him as much as it did me.

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