Mated To The King’s Gamma novel Chapter 74

Chapter 74

Trigger warning!!! Read at Own Risk!!! Or skip the Next two Chapters!! Azalea injured!!

Azalea POV

The Next Day

I woke up, and it was already the middle of the day. Light breaking through the open drapes and lighting up the back of my eyelids made me open them and squint around the room, peering at the windows; the sun looked pretty high in the sky and a cold draft caressed over me, making me shiver. The heavy drapes shifted with the breeze.

I inhaled deeply; the scent was wrong and I couldn’t pick out why I felt that way until I realized Kyson was no longer in the room and it was missing his intoxicating scent. My den was quiet, and the scents blew away with the breeze. It unnerved me and made me restless. Chucking the blanket back, I forced myself out of bed, and I rushed toward the window, slamming it shut with a growl.

Why would he open it? I snarled, catching my reflection in the glass. My hair was a mess, and I was naked, yet I could still smell Kyson’s faint scent on my skin, but my nest smelled nothing like him, just me. My skin itched, and I missed my mate already; with a sigh, I stared past my reflection before jumping back when I spotted the grassy patch on the hill.

The kids were all playing and rolling down the hill, racing each other to the bottom. I chuckle when I see Abbie and Clarice watching over them. Abbie was sitting at the top with Tyson in her lap. Clarice was playing with the kids and rolling down the hill with him. Laughter rang out loudly outside. They all seemed so happy and I wanted to join them while they had fun.

Turning around, I moved to the closet and grabbed a dress from off the hanger. It was a loose-fitting long sleeve dress, and I tugged it on after finding some undergarments. I was just pulling the dress over my head as the mind link opened up, and Kyson’s voice flitted through my head.

“You’re awake, I will come back up,” Kyson tells me.

“No, you don’t have to. I am going to play with the kids outside. What are you doing?” I asked him while tugging the dress down over my little bump. I caress it with my hand. My skin was feeling harder as the life within me grew each day.

“Going over the files with Gannon. Are you sure I will come back to be with you if you like?” Kyson says.

“No, unless I should I come help?” I asked him. I suppose I should; the children could wait, and Clarice and Abbie had everything under control by the look of it.

“No, just take Trey with you. And you have an ultrasound appointment this afternoon. I will come to grab you just beforehand.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, slipping some sandals on my feet.

“Positive. Have fun. I love you,”

“Love you too,” I tell him, cutting the mind link. I pull my hair into a messy bun on my head before walking out and finding Trey and Liam by my door.

“Afternoon, Azalea,” Trey says from where he stands.

“My Queen,” Liam says with a slight bow.

“Hey, Liam, Trey. I am going to see Abbie and the kids, and Kyson wants you to come with me,” I tell Trey, and he nods, offering me his arm, i looped my arm through his, and we headed for the stairs leading to the ground floor. Halfway down, I spot Peter kneeling on the steps and scrubbing the wooden beams of the guardrail with a toothbrush.

“What did you do now, Peter?” I asked. The boy seemed to be getting into an awful lot of trouble lately. Peter looks up at me and grins, showing his pearly white teeth.

“I was mucking around with the gardener, and I threw a mud pie at him but missed and hit Clarice and her white sheets,” Peter laughs.

“And why were you throwing mud pies?” I asked, trying not to laugh.

“He threw one first! So he should be helping me clean the damn stairs! I swear she punishes me, so she doesn’t have to do it.” Peter pouts.

I shake my head and continue down the steps when Liam comes up behind us.

“My Queen?” he calls from the top. I stop on the middle landing, looking back up the steps toward him.

“I want to go shower and eat. I have been on duty since last night. I have called Dustin to take over for an hour. Is that alright?” Liam asks.

“Just go. He won’t be long anyway. Besides, Peter will tell him if anyone comes up here,” I said, looking at Peter, who nodded his head.

“You’re fine. I will keep watch,” Peter says, and Liam’s eyes narrow at him on the stairs.

“It’s fine. I will wait for Dustin. I was just letting you know, My Queen,” he says.

“Seriously. Liam. Just go. Dustin will be here soon. What could happen?” Liam, for some reason, looked very indecisive and was staring at

Peter weirdly like it was the first time he was truly seeing him.

“Why does Clarice send you to clean these stairs?” Liam asks.

“Huh?” Peter said, looking up from his scrubbing.

“Why were you up here yesterday?” Liam asks him while tilting his head to the side. I have no idea what he was talking about, but Peter’s brows furrowed in confusion as he peered back at Liam.

“Pardon? I don’t understand. Clarice sent me to clean the stairs,” Peter says to him before glancing at me. He tosses his toothbrush into his tool bucket and his can of polish and rag while staring at Liam with fearful eyes. I walk back up the steps, wondering what got into Liam because I didn’t like the way he was watching Peter.

“Yes. But why these stairs?” Liam growls, pointing at them. “There are plenty of stairs in the castle,” Liam says to him while stepping down a step, and I look at Trey, who seems just as perplexed at Liam’s strange behavior, making me wonder if Liam was drunk.

“I dirtied Clarice’s sheets,” Peter stutters.

“That wasn’t the question I asked,” Liam says; his ice-cold tone of voice sends a chill up my spine when I feel his aura slip out. It wasn’t like Kyson’s. It was weaker, but as one of his Gammas, it was a lot stronger than a normal Lycans, and Peter whimpers under the pressure of it.

“Liam!” i hissed, rushing to Peter. Sweat glistened on his forehead, and his hands clenched into fists on the steps.

“Did you remove the scents from the King and Queen’s room?” Liam asks, and I gape at him.

“Liam! He is a child! Drop your command!” | snarled at him as Peter gripped my arm, looking at me pleadingly with tears in his eyes. “Kyson!” I call through the link before Liam’s voice pulls me back when he addresses me.

“My Queen, every day he cleans the same stairs. Why would Clarice send him to do the same ones every day?” Liam says before his eyes move to Peter again.

“No. No. I didn’t.” Peter gasps.

“Didn’t what? Why were you up here yesterday?” Liam asks, motioning for me to come to him, but Peter clutches me tightly. “Don’t let him hurt me. I did nothing.” Peter begged, clutching my dress and arm like I was his lifeline.

“What’s going on?” Kyson asks through the link, sounding frantic.

“… I don’t know. Liam is accusing Peter,”

“Peter?! Accusing him of what?” but Liam’s booming voice made me jump before I could answer. Trey growls at him behind me.

“Answer me!” Liam commands, taking another step down. Liam’s eyes go to Peter’s hands clutching onto me.

“Liam, calm down. He is just a boy,” Trey says.

“And the boy will answer,” Liam growls back.

“To bring lunch up and help Clarice with what you asked of her. I didn’t touch the clothes or anything in the room. Clarice wouldn’t let me. She made me stand at the door while she passed me baskets,” Peter blurts out under the command, unable to fight his aura any longer.

“Why the same stairs?”

“Clarice said to clean ones where she could see me,” Peter blurts.

“Clarice said to clean them?” Liam asks.

“Well, not specifically these stairs. Just where she could see me if she left the kitchen. These are the closest steps,”

“So, why did you choose these steps?” Liam asks, stepping down another step toward him.

“Liam! Enough!” I tell him.

“No. I was just thinking. And out of everyone that has been questioned, Peter never was,” Liam says, his eyes darting to Peter holding me again and then to the tool bucket on the step in front of him. The closer he got, the stronger the scent of liquor I could smell emanating off Liam. He was drunk.

“He is a boy!” i tell him, outraged that he would take his drunk ramblings out on Peter. Peter looked petrified, and his hands shook as he clutched me, tears trekking down his face.

“I was a boy once too, My Queen. And I had already killed someone long before I was his age,” Liam says, his steps calculating as he takes them one at a time. I glanced down at Peter, who growled when I heard the mind link open up. And Trey’s voice flitted through it.

“My King, was Peter ever questioned?” Trey asked, and I tried to focus on my surroundings as Liam stalked down the steps toward Peter, and the savage gleam in his eyes frightened me when Peter whimpered.

Prying Peter’s fingers off my dress, I stand and take a step up. I got halfway up the steps, blocking Liam from him.

“Stay with me. Stay with me, Love,” I tell her when I feel my knees warm, making me glance down to see her dress turning red. Blood pooled and ran down the steps from between her legs.

“No. No, no, no. NO!” I panicked, sliding my arms under her before I took off running toward the doors. I clutch her to me, and Liam races ahead, shoving doors open and screaming for the guards to open the gates.

Blood coated my arms from her head and from it gushing out between her legs, my clothes becoming drenched as I ran down the bitumen road, shifting while running. My ears picked up the heart beating inside her starting to slow, but she was still much too early for any life to be born and viable.

My legs falter when I hear it stop, and her pulse weakens. Seeing the doctor’s surgery ahead, Lycans looked around, shocked, as the doctor burst out his surgery doors with his gear before spotting us, and his mouth fell open. The next second, he raced back toward the doors, forcing them open and screaming at his nurses to get a gurney.

Moving through the old brick building, the nurses rush out, and I place her down, Doc sets his bag on it before rushing off with her, and I go to follow when Liam’s hand grips my shoulder.

“You’ll just get in the way.” Liam says, but I could heal her. I was about to say that when Liam spoke, seeming to know what I was going to say.

“Some things can’t be healed, my King. Let Doc work,” Liam says, and moments later, Damian bursts through the surgery doors. He looks at me, his eyes then moving to Liam’s hand holding my shoulder.

“Come on, let’s wait outside. There is nothing you can do right now,” Damian says, and I shake my head.

“Come on. Come have a smoke,” Liam says, pushing me toward the doors, and I am forced to take my eyes away from where Doc took her through the double doors to the day surgery area. Liam pushes me out the doors, nudging me, and I reluctantly step outside. And he shoves his smoke packet in my hand, yet I don’t light one when he pulls two from the packet and lights them, keeping one for himself and passing me the other.

“Azalea will be okay.” Liam says, blowing smoke into the air. She is tougher than she looks,” he says.

“The baby?” I ask him. Neither of them says anything. Even though I knew that if she was alright, the baby wasn’t going to be. Which made me wonder if Azalea would be alright after all.

The doctor confirmed that when he stepped out the doors twenty minutes later. He tugs his gloves off.

“Azalea?” I asked.

“Alive. She is still unconscious. I stitched her up. The bleeding stopped, but you could probably help that healing process,” Doc says, and I nod.

“Our baby?” I ask, grasping on to any form of hope.

“I’m sorry, My King. The fetus didn’t make it,” he tells me. Fetus. I hated the way he said it, but she wasn’t quite near her second trimester yet. My legs buckled under me, and I hit the ground hard at his words. My heart sank, and my stomach dropped at the information.

I failed her! I should have figured it out earlier. Peter was a child and the last person I would have suspected! I failed her, and it cost us our baby and nearly her life! How do I tell her that?

“Azalea needs you, Kyson. Get up,” Damian says.

“We lost the baby,” I murmured. Trying to wrap my head around everything.

“I know, but if you don’t get up and get in there, you may lose her, too. Now up.” Damian says, gripping my arm, and Liam grabs the other; they haul me to my feet.

“One foot in front of the other. Come on, big fella. Your Queen needs you. Break later, not in front of her,“ Liam says, pushing me towards the doors.

It took hours for her to wake up, and Damian went back to the castle to retrieve some clothes, so I wasn’t walking around in just a hospital gown. I had just walked back into the room to find that she was sitting up. I felt nothing through the bond to tell me she had woken, and I only stepped out a minute to change quickly. As she pinched the front of her gown, I watched her look inside before rubbing her thighs.

Her lips quivered, and she looked at her hands. Doc and I had cleaned her up so she wasn’t soaked in blood, but the way she looked at her hands was like that was all she saw. Moving closer, her head lifted, and she looked at me. Her voice held no emotion, and I felt nothing through the bond at all, like the bond no longer existed.

“Did you feel it?” she asked, and my hand stopped beside her face as it reached toward her. I swallowed and stepped closer, cupping the back of her neck and messaging my fingers through her hair. Still, no reaction through the bond.

“I could feel it, feel it leave me,” she whispered, staring vacantly at my chest.

“I know, love,” I whispered, and she sat frozen, staring off.

“How about we get you home?” I asked her, and once again, she said nothing, didn’t move, not even blink. She was an empty shell, and I fought the urge to growl. I would kill him, but first, I needed to take care of her, but he would die for doing this to her once I found out why.

Azalea had no reaction when I picked her up, none at all. I took her home, sat her in her nest, and laid down.

 

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