Page 46 of Mated To The King’s Gamma (Lycan Luna: Abbie & Gannon #3)

T he world feels wrong. It’s not pain. It’s not fear.

It’s just... off. Like I’m wearing someone else’s body, moving through their skin, borrowing their breath.

My heartbeat echoes in my ears—too strong, too steady—as if it belongs to someone else, and I’m merely borrowing its rhythm.

I’ve died before, but never like this. Never with such clarity on the other side.

I remember darkness. Not the kind that falls when you close your eyes, but the kind that swallows you whole.

Cold seeped through my essence, not just touching skin but permeating deeper—into bone, into thought, into my soul.

There was that strange sensation of slipping between states, like walking through a door that shouldn’t exist. One moment I was Abbie, broken and dying; the next, I was something else entirely—neither here nor there, suspended between the person I was and whatever I was becoming.

I don’t remember the actual moment I came back. Just the gasp—my own, tearing through my throat like I’d been underwater for too long. Air burned as it flooded my lungs, sweet fire and salvation. And then, sound rushed in: Gannon’s broken sobbing, louder somehow than my own racing heart.

“Abbie,” he kept saying, over and over, his voice cracked and raw.

My name in his mouth was all I heard, while Liam was pulling me back from wherever I’d drifted. His hands—those strong, gentle hands—cradled my face, trembling against my cheeks.

I came back to him. To warmth. To love. To a life that somehow felt both borrowed and more authentically mine than before.

And something inside me... cleared.

The thoughts in my head used to be a tangled mess of anguish—memories wrapped in barbed wire, fears layered with dread, self-hatred woven through everything like a poisonous thread.

Always there, always loud: Kade’s hands at my throat.

Mrs. Daley’s hissed insults. The butcher’s cruel touch.

My own reflection, twisted with disgust.

They’re still there. I can see them if I look. But they’re quieter now. It’s as if dying filtered out the static, leaving behind only what matters.

I realize death isn’t freedom at all—it’s just another doorway. Another transition.

Home was never on the other side of dying.

Home is Gannon’s arms wrapped around me, solid and warm. Home is Tyson’s innocent trust as he curls against my side. Home is this strange new clarity, this second chance that shouldn’t be possible.

I turn my head slightly, watching Gannon’s face in sleep. The worry lines between his brows haven’t fully smoothed away, even in rest. He barely leaves my side—as if afraid I might slip away again if he closes his eyes too long.

My fingers reach up, touching his jaw. His stubble is rough against my fingertips, and the sensation sends a shiver through me—a reminder that I’m here, I’m real, I’m still alive.

I press closer to him, breathing in his scent.

I remember Gannon’s arms around me when I first came back, how they felt like iron bands forged from relief and grief.

He held me so tightly I thought he might accidentally break me again, but I didn’t mind.

After the cold emptiness of death, the crushing heat of his desperation felt like the sun after an endless winter.

I clung to him just as fiercely, my fingers digging into his arm as if I could somehow anchor myself to this world through him alone.

Four days have passed since then. Fours days of Gannon watching me with wary hope. Four days of Tyson climbing carefully into my lap, patting my face with his small hands as if checking that I’m really here. Four days of feeling my body heal in ways that should be impossible.

I am scared, still. But it’s not the same fear that used to wake me screaming, or the terror that paralyzed me when Kade’s violence turned toward me. Now, I’m scared because I have something to lose. A life. A future. A son who needs me. A mate who loves me despite my scars and flaws.

Gannon says I’ll shift soon. That it takes a few days.

Cedric told them it’s normal—healing first, then the change.

My body still feels sore in places I can’t explain—phantom pains beneath healed skin, aches in bones that should be whole.

My senses sharpen by the hour; the crackling fire is almost too loud, the scent of pine and my mate almost overwhelming.

My balance shifts unexpectedly, making me stumble when I stand too quickly, as if my center of gravity recalibrates for something new.

But it’s the idea of shifting that grips my stomach with cold dread.

I thought I was dying the first time I shifted into a werewolf. No—I wanted to die. The memory rises, vivid enough to make my breath catch.

Bones cracking like twigs. My skin stretching, splitting, betraying me.

Pain—not sharp and clean like a knife wound, but deep and primal, rearranging everything I thought I was.

I screamed until my voice shattered, until human vocal cords twisted into something else, until the scream became a howl I didn’t recognize as my own.

It was agony beyond bearing, beyond sanity.

My mind trapped inside a monster I couldn’t control.

My thoughts scrambling for purchase as instinct overwhelmed reason.

The feeling of fur erupting through skin, of joints reversing direction, of teeth extending painfully in gums never meant to hold them.

“You’re thinking about it again,” Gannon says, interrupting the memory. His thumb traces circles on my shoulder, gentle and grounding.

I nod against his chest. “I’m afraid.”

“It won’t be like before,” he promises. I want to believe him. But the memory of that first shift sits heavy in my chest, a trauma as real as any scar.

“What if I lose myself? What if I hurt Tyson?” I whisper, remembering how I carved up Azalea without knowing.

I had no control of that first shift, all instinct and nothing more.

“What if I don’t come back?” I worry knowing their Lycan sides are more savage, same entity, one vessel I’m meant to share but I’ve seen plenty of Lycans here and they can be savages.

What if I can’t shift back? What if I am stuck in that state?

Gannon’s hand finds mine, our fingers intertwining. The contact sends a current through me, warmth and strength flowing from his skin to mine. Not just comfort, but something deeper.

“You won’t get lost,” he says with quiet certainty. “And if you do, I’ll find you. Every time. Now try to sleep love, you should sleep.” Gannon whispers, tucking me closer. I sigh and sink into his warmth, soaking up his scent.

Something inside me breaks. It starts deep beneath my ribs: a snap, a tremor, a quake in the marrow. And I know. It’s starting. The shift is coming, and I can do nothing to stop it.

I jolt upright in the tent, chest heaving.

Sweat beads across my skin despite the night chill.

Beside me, Tyson sleeps, one small hand flung across his face, his breathing steady.

Gannon’s arm lies heavy across my waist, a warm weight that suddenly feels like a chain.

I can’t be here. I can’t let them see this.

Another tremor ripples through me, and I bite down on my lip until I taste blood. Sweet, metallic—different somehow. Richer. My teeth feel too large for my mouth.

I can’t scare our son. I can’t let Tyson see me become a monster.

My breath comes too fast, too shallow, as I carefully lift Gannon’s arm from my waist. The skin along my spine prickles, heat building beneath the surface.

I slide away from them, my movements jerky and uncoordinated. My vision pulses, sharpening and blurring in waves that leave me dizzy. The tent’s canvas walls seem to breathe around me, expanding and contracting with my racing heartbeat.

My skin is on fire—burning, crawling with heat that makes me want to tear it off. Desperate fingers rake across my arms, leaving welts that fade almost instantly. My bones feel liquid and solid at once, pressing against tissue that no longer wants to contain them.

I hear Gannon stir behind me, the rustle of blankets as his hand reaches for the empty space where I should be.

“Abbie?” His voice is rough with sleep but already sharpening with concern.

I can’t answer. My throat constricts around words that won’t form. A sound escapes instead—halfway between whimper and growl, unfamiliar even to my own ears.

“I—I can’t—don’t—” I choke on the panic rising. My fingers scrabble at the tent flap, clumsily. I have to get out. Have to get away so I don’t hurt them.

The canvas gives way, and I fling myself into the night air. It hits my fevered skin like ice but brings no relief. The campsite spreads before me, a circle of tents around smoldering bonfires. A few guards stand watch, their heads turning in my direction.

Another spasm racks my body, stronger this time. My legs buckle, and the ground rushes up to meet me. Dirt and pine needles press into my palms as I collapse to all fours, hair hanging around my face like a curtain.

Pain lashes up my spine in electric waves—my vision tunnels, darkening at the edges. Someone approaches—cautious, wary. Through the veil of my hair, I see boots and recognize them. Liam.

He stands slowly, already reading my body and seeing what will happen.

The pain intensifies, and something tears loose from my throat—a scream that echoes through the clearing. My fingers dig into the earth, clutching desperately as if I can fight myself against the shift.

“I need Azalea!” I sob, clawing at the dirt as another wave hits me. Azalea will understand. “I need her—I can’t?—”

Behind me, fabric rips as Gannon bursts from the tent, my name already forming on his lips.

“Abbie!”

Gannon’s voice cuts through everything—through pain, through fear, through the roaring in my ears.

Strong and rough with panic. His footsteps pound behind me, and then those arms-those arms that have held me through nightmares and death itself—wrap around me, pulling me against the solid wall of his chest.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you.” His breath is warm against my ear, his hands splayed across my burning skin. He’s kneeling behind me in the dirt, uncaring of who watches as he cradles me against him.

“No, you don’t understand.” I writhe in his embrace, unable to stay still as pressure builds in my bones, as cartilage shifts and organs rearrange. “I remember—I remember it hurting so bad—I can’t do it again?—”

My words dissolve into a keening whimper as another spasm racks me. My fingers dig deeper into the earth, tearing furrows in the soil. The guards back away, giving us space. Only Liam remains close, his usual manic grin replaced with concern.

“You’re not the same,” Gannon growls, tightening his grip as I try to pull away. “You’re stronger now.” His voice drops lower, his lips brushing my temple. “Let me help you.”

I shake my head, unable to form words as tears streak down my face. How can he help? How can anyone help when my body is betraying me, when my skin feels too small, and my bones feel like they’re trying to escape?

Gannon shifts, moving around to face me. His hands grab my face, forcing me to look at him rather than at the ground or my own trembling limbs.

“Abbie—look at me.”

I do. Our eyes lock, and in his gaze I see not fear or disgust but a love that steals what little breath I have left.

And that’s when I hear it.

Low. Hypnotic. His calling.

It’s not a sound that just reaches my ears but something deeper—a vibration that enters through my skin, the points where his fingers press against my jaw, and the air between us. It slithers through my chest, down my spine, soft and seductive like velvet sliding over raw nerves.

It pulls at something deeper than the pain—something rooted in who I am now, something that recognizes him not just as my mate but as part of my soul.

I gasp, and my body stills for one blessed second. The pain doesn’t vanish, but it... recedes.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, his thumbs stroking my cheekbones. “Feel me. Not the pain.”

Then the shift slams into me again—bone grinding against bone, muscles stretching. My back arches, a cry tearing from my throat. But this time—I don’t fall alone.

Gannon’s forehead presses against mine, his breath mingling with my panting gasps. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

His hands slide down to my shoulders, my arms, finding my hands where they’re still buried in the earth. He doesn’t try to pull them free but instead covers them with his own, fingers interlacing with mine in the dirt.

And somehow, that grounds me. The connection—skin to skin, his strength flowing into me—creates a circuit that the pain can’t completely breach.

“It—hurts—” I manage between clenched teeth.

“I know,” he says, his voice a low rumble that vibrates against my chest where we’re pressed together.

Another wave hits, and I cry out—but his grip tightens, keeping me from falling completely apart.

The calling vibration comes again, stronger now, seeming to align with something inside me that’s been waiting, dormant, for this moment.

“Gannon—” I gasp, fear still threaded.