Mated To The King’s Gamma novel Chapter 64

Chapter 64

Abbie POV

Gannon was off doing an errand for the King about something having to do with Trey. So he and Dustin were looking through archives. He had been nagging me about Cassandra and what I wanted to do about her, but I had no idea. I didn’t like the idea of having someone’s life in my hands. Yet when he went off with the King, I wandered around the castle. Going down to the wine cellars, I was looking for the cobweb brush when I heard her calling out from the cells further down the corridor.

The wine cellar ran what appeared to be the entire length of the castle, with different underground corridors leading off in different directions, and the one to my left I knew went to the dungeons. Guards stood on either side of the arched tunnel leading to them, and I glanced at them. They paid her no attention while she continued screaming out for them to set her free.

Finding the cobweb brush, I head back toward the stairs leading into the kitchen’s huge pantry. Only once I am halfway up do I stop. Cassandra had three children, which had been nagging at me. As much as I wanted the woman dead, I didn’t want to punish her children for her crimes. Her husband and their father were dead, and her life is now resting in my hands.

Leaning the cobweb brush against the stairs, I walk back down the steps, over to the corridor, and stop in front of the guards.

“Miss Abbie?” one asks, and I chew my lip, glancing toward the dark dungeons.

“Can I see her?” I asked, looking at the man. He had a mustache and light blue eyes that were almost white they were that light. He glances at the other guard, who had a full beard, dark eyes, and long hair that cascaded almost to the waist and was tied in two braids.

“One of us will come with you,” the other man says, and I nod. I start walking down the corridor when I hear her screaming out again, and I stop. Her voice grating in my head as memories of the same voice teased and taunted me while she would hold my head to stop me from trying to pull away from him. She was just as sick as him to do that to another woman. I hadn’t realized I had stopped moving until the guard’s hand fell on my shoulder. Only then did I realize I was shaking like a leaf.

“I’m right here. She can’t hurt you, Miss; I have mind-linked Gannon,” he says, and I swallow.

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” I murmured.

“It’s up to you. No one will force you to go in there, Miss Abbie,” he whispers.

I looked at the man, and his dark eyes looked black under the dim lighting. I should feel embarrassed that he knew what she did to me, yet his gentle voice held no contempt, and I nodded my head but forced myself to keep going until I was stopped outside her barred cell. She sat in the cell’s corner sobbing, her head in her hands and knees to her chest.

Cassandra looks up, and I could tell she was about to scream out again, but her words die out when she sees me standing there.

“I suppose you’re here to gloat?” she says, resting her head back on the brickwork. She turns her head away from me. She looked like crap, her nails all chipped, her hair a mess, her clothes wrinkled, and she had no shoes on.

Turning to the guard, I hold my hands out for the keys, and he looks at me. “Abbie,” he asks questionably.

“Keys, please.” I tell him, and he pulls them off the key chain and hands them to me.

Cassandra looks at me and jumps to her feet as I put the key in, but I don’t turn it. Instead, I noticed the bottled water just outside the cell door and pre-packaged sandwiches. I moved to the small table and grabbed two of the triangle packages and a water bottle before tucking them under my arm. My hands shook as I opened the cell, and my eyes went to her when I noticed the chain around her ankle that was attached to the wall.

Cassandra watches me warily as I enter, closing the door behind me. This wasn’t the same scornful, confident, and entitled woman I knew. This woman was helpless and looked petrified of me. She knew her life was in my hands. Gannon told her that much.

I take a step toward her, and she takes one back, her back hitting the wall. I hold the water bottle out to her, and she looks at me funny, tilting her head to the side. She reaches forward and grabs it like she thought I would toss it at her.

She opens the cap and starts gulping it down thirstily. When she was done, I handed her the sandwiches, which she took, and I watched her for a second before taking a few steps back and sitting next to the cell door. She watches me for a second before also sitting.

“Eat. You look hungry. I am not here to hurt you, Cassandra,” I tell her, and her lip quivers. She seemed shocked by my answer.

“Why not?” she asks, but peels the wrapper back on her sandwich and moans as she takes a bite.

“Because I am not you, I am not a monster,” I tell her, and she stops mid-bite and looks at me. She chews slowly and swallows, picking at her sandwich with her fingers. I observe her, and she can’t be much older than me. Without all the makeup staining her face, she looked very youthful, making me curious about who she really was.

Chapter 64

“How old are you?” I ask her.

“Twenty,” she answers with a sigh.

“Twenty!” I ask, knowing her oldest child was six years old.

“But Micheal is six,” I tell her, and she chews slowly and nods her head.

“I had him two days before my fourteenth birthday,” she answers, and I swallow. How different our lives have been, though that must have been tough to have a baby that young.

“I thought you and Kade were high school sweethearts?” She laughed and shook her head.

“No, that’s what he tells everyone. He is eight years older, although he doesn’t look like it. I was one of his working girls,” she says with a shrug.

“But you just said you were fourteen when you had Michael?”

“Yeah, I was also a rogue. Kade took me in when he met me at another pack, I was placed when I was thirteen. He saved me.” my eyebrows raise at that. Saved her? Knocking a fourteen-year-old up is saving her?

“I know it sounds bad because of the age difference, but he saved me. I was to be sold off to another Alpha.”

“He brought you?” I asked.

“Yes, and I worked at his brothel for a couple of weeks,”

“That is not saving you,” I tell her, and she looks down at her hands. “I know, but it’s better than who Alpha Dean would sell me to,” she says.

“Pardon, did you say Alpha Dean?” she nods.

“Yeah, my family was picked up outside his borders. He said I was old enough to be sold off, and he needed the money. He killed my parents right in front of me and handed me over to his son,” she says with a growl and shakes her. A lone tear slips down her cheek.

“Then what happened?”

“His son was done with me, and Kade was visiting. He offered me to Kade, but then Kade said he would buy me off him under the table, that no one had to know. They have been dealing in sales of the flesh ever since.”

“You mean trafficking?” I ask, and she swallows.

“I know what I did was fucked up, but,” she stops.

“When he brought me back, you figured I would replace you.” I tell her.

“I didn’t want to go back to work, and I have children now. What would become of them?” she asked before stopping, hearing footsteps coming down the corridor, she glances behind me and gets to her feet, and I hear a thunderous growl echo off the walls and I stand. Gannon steps up next to the guard.

“Why is she in there with her?” he demands, and the man steps away from him.

“I’m fine, Gannon.” I tell him, and he looks at me, tearing his eyes from the guard. He sighs and twists the key in the lock, and opens it. Cassandra whimpers and presses into the corner further.

I put my hand on his chest when he moves toward her. “Back off,” I tell him, and he looks at me.

“You’re not touching her,” I tell him.

“She helped him. How can you say that?” Gannon snapped at me.

“And she will have to live with what she did, she is a monster, but even monsters have a story, even monsters can feel, and I am not a monster, and I won’t be responsible for her children being orphaned,” I tell him and I look at her.

“She is just as much a victim as I am,” I tell her, tears burning my eyes. Gannon growls.

“No!” he snarls.

“It’s my choice. You said it’s my choice.” I whisper, and he looks at me.

“She needs to be punished for what she did. She doesn’t deserve to live after that.” He snarls, stepping toward her, and she whimpers, cowering away from him and I grip his shirt in my fist, making him stop.

“My choice, what she did was wrong, but-” I look at Cassandra. “Fear makes people do foolish things. That is something I understand,” I tell him

“No, I am not letting her go.” Gannon snarled at me.

Chapter 64

“You said I got to choose what happened to her, so mind-link the King.”