Page 10 of Mated To The King’s Gamma (Lycan Luna: Abbie & Gannon #3)

W e step into a courtyard I have never been in before.

My heart nearly stops when I saw Ester tied with her hands chained above her head to the wall.

Her clothes are torn at the back from where the whip has slashed her flesh.

However, the wounds were healed, and she panted.

Kyson growls, and anger courses through the bond.

Peter stands with a whip in his hands that he swiftly drops, shaking his head and looking at Kyson pleadingly.

Clarice stands off to the side, nibbling her fingernails.

The skin on her face had tears trekking down it and dripping off her chin.

Though Trey’s face sneering at Peter shocks me the most. This is his sister, and he shows no care for her at all. It’s shocking.

“Again! You have twenty more, Peter,” he snarls, stalking over to him and snatching the whip from the ground. He thrusts it at Peter, who flinches away from him. Bile rises up my throat, and I stare at Kyson, squeezing his hand, and he turns his head, peering at me.

“It’s only twenty,” I tell him, and Ester glances over her shoulder at me. Her face flushed red, and she pants before looking at Kyson.

“Hurry up, Peter. Finish it!” Kyson snaps.

“Prick,” I hiss under my breath, and Kyson growls, leaning down to whisper in my ear.

“Watch your tone,” he whispers next to my ear.

“Watch yours.” I retort, ripping my arm from his grip. I make my way over to Clarice, who explains Ester is taking it rather well, and Kyson overhearing that, did not sound impressed.

He stalks over to Liam and speaks to him before Liam hustles off. I’m quite shocked at how fast Ester is healing. The moment the whip pulls away, her skin closes. Being whipped is one thing. Seeing someone else makes my skin prickle and itch.

I can’t stand the sound of the crack being made, the way it whips through the air, the sound of tearing flesh. Flashbacks smash me as I try to block them out, and I want nothing more than to run. At this moment, I truly hate Kyson. Hate who he has become.

Once Peter finishes, her skin is red and angry but no longer bleeding.

That seems to bother Kyson. He wants blood, and plenty stained the stone ground, but he is not sated by it.

Mostly, I stare at the rose bushes, blocking out what is happening around me until I hear Ester shriek when Liam walks in with a bucket.

The potent scent of Wolfsbane reached my nose, and Clarice whimpers beside me, and I sit up straighter.

“Kyson!” I hiss. He growls, I know they need to be punished, but this seemed excessive even for him.

I watch in horror as he dips the whip in the bucket, and my heart lodges in my throat, and tears sprung to my eyes as he pulls it out.

The cracking sound sent spray everywhere, and her scream I felt to my core.

One scream and it sent me back to a dark place and has me twisting where I sit on the edge of the garden. The contents of my stomach spewed out into the garden. Kyson, though, is almost rabid, not caring he makes me sick.

Not caring for her screams or Peter’s begging.

He isn’t present, lost in his anger, and by the 100th one, Ester hung limply in the chains, yet still, he doesn’t stop.

I’m trapped in the darkest parts of my mind.

The darkest places I thought I would never be trapped in again.

Only this time, my mate’s actions trap me there until Clarice shrieks beside me.

Her hands that held me grip me tighter and Peter’s blood-curdling scream makes goosebumps rise, and my ears ring loudly, ripping me out of my own head that is tormenting me.

Peter lay on the ground, and Kyson stands over him with the whip.

Ester is a bloody mess, and I could have sworn that some of the white meaty-looking bits of her back are exposed down to the bone.

“Leave him,” Ester breathes. Yet she can’t move to lift her head. I gape at the scene before me. Peter clutched his face that is bleeding profusely. Kyson is enraged and, at some point, has shifted.

I swallow as he breathes heavily, and the nearby gardener is pale as a ghost as he stares at Peter and Ester. He reaches forward, gripping Peter’s arms.

“Please, no more! She can’t take it anymore! Let me take her place,” Peter pleads.

“No!” Clarice shrieks.

Kyson snarls, his upper lip pulling back over his teeth, and a sinister glint is in his black obsidian eyes. He tilts his head to the side.

“I’ll allow it.”

“He is a boy!” the gardener defends. I have no idea when he arrived here, but he obviously cares for Peter.

“He can’t even heal!”

Kyson shrugs, turning back to Ester. The whip cracks in the air, and her scream makes my blood run cold when Peter escapes the gardener’s clutches and tosses himself in front of his mother.

Trey clenches his jaw and stares ahead, which is the only sign that he disagrees with Kyson’s actions.

He is controlled solely now by his rage and hate for the pair.

I see him raise the whip, and I never even register the movement as I toss myself in front of my brother.

Peter can’t heal. I can’t, and I won’t allow Kyson to kill them. The sentence he gave Ester turned lethal when he had Liam bring out the wolfsbane. Enough is enough.

I feel the sharp tendrils of fiery pain split up my back and tear my dress and shoulder. I hiss, and my back arched, but I grip Peter, managing to stay upright as my own scream reverberated around the area.

Pain licks up my spine, and I clench my teeth when I hear a roar.

Gold flecks flit brightly, tainting my vision, and a collective gasp is heard when suddenly, Trey smashes into the wall beside Ester.

I see Liam trying to hold Kyson back and realize Trey has attacked my mate.

Trey got to his feet, and my command rolled over him moments later.

“Stand down!” I snap at him, and he whimpers, yet just that simple command makes me suck in a harsh breath as I turn to face my mate, who is now staring in horror at me. He takes a step toward me with outstretched hands before shaking his head.

“Move!”

“She has suffered enough!” I seethe through clenched teeth.

“When I say she has,” Kyson growls, challenging me, but I refuse to move. I nod toward the gardener, who comes over and grabs Peter, dragging him away when I undo the front of my dress.

“Fine then. I will take her place,” I tell him, popping the buttons on my dress.

“No!” Kyson snarls.

“You would have allowed Peter but I won’t allow that.

Therefore, he takes his mother’s place, and I take his.

So, which is Kyson?” I tell him, letting my dress fall to the ground, leaving me in just my undergarments.

Everyone averts their gaze, as I knew they would.

Ester groans, and I glance at her and swallow when I see her flesh sizzling.

It must hurt. The one lashing down mine seared up my spine like wildfire, and I want to douse my back with water.

“Azalea, move!” and I do. I turn around, offering my back to him, and he gasps where he had struck me instead of Peter. I know what he sees. Years and years of healed lash marks and one like Ester now has carved in her back.

“Azalea!” Kyson snarls, and I hear him come behind me, his long furry fingers wrapping around my arm as he grabs me and spins me to face him.

“What is Kyson? Can’t bear to see your mark on my flesh yet revel in hers? No! I won’t allow it!”

“Then I kill her.” he sneers, and Peter screams.

“You said lashes! You are already killing her. Look at her!” I scream furiously in his face. He seems taken aback but does look at her back, her flesh torn open and blood pooling at her feet.

“Enough or I take her place,” I tell him, and he stares at me.

His eyes narrow, and I can see the fury behind them, the argument I know that is coming, but here with witnesses, he refuses to give a show to them.

He wants us a united front, but I will not stand by this a moment more.

I never agreed in the first place but understood it had to happen, but he said he wouldn’t kill her, and any more lashes would.

We stand off, neither willing to bow to the other, and the air between us turns tense.

“Know your place, My King. Landeena’s word is final.”

“Not over me it’s not, My Queen. You may be Landeena, but I am your mate, and Alpha hierarchy still holds weight,” he snarls.

“Want to test that theory?” I ask him, though it is a test. I have come to notice he will back down when my title comes into play, making me realize I am so much stronger than him.

He seems surprised, and his eyebrows rise, my assumption correct.

With hierarchy, the Alpha is always most assertive, the most dominant in a mate bond, but not against a Landeena, and that realization is eye-opening when he takes a step back from me.

“Just remember, you may have power. That doesn’t mean you know how to use it.”

“Yet, Kyson. Not yet. But I think you and I both know you are dreading the day I do,” I tell him, and he growls.

“Release her!“ he snaps before turning his gaze back to me. “Cover up!” he snaps, turning on his heel and storming off.