The Gamma’s Second Chance (Crescent Lake #3)

3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

CASSANDRA

“How are you settling in, Cassandra?”

I pinch the phone between my ear and my shoulder as I wash the mixing bowl in the stainless steel sink, staring out the window. It looks out over a small yard that leads into the forest of redwood trees, and I can’t wait for a chance to explore the lands here. They’re beautiful, and expansive, and they call to me, begging me to delve into their hidden mysteries. “I don’t know, Mama. It’s only been a day. I haven’t even unpacked my bags.”

“Well, you need to do that soon. You’ll be there for a while, and you don’t want to be living out of a suitcase the entire time. Plus, your clothes will wrinkle, and I know how much you hate ironing.”

“Yes, but I’m still hoping a guest room in the packhouse will open up sooner rather than later.”

I shut the sink off, then grab the dish rag, drying the bowl off as my mother hums out her response. “Mmm.”

I sigh. “What?”

“I didn’t say anything,” she says.

“You said ‘Mmm.’”

“Did I?”

“You did!” I exclaim, setting the bowl down and leaning against the counter, my head tilting backwards as I gaze up at the exposed wooden beams in the ceiling.

She clicks her tongue at me. “Just don’t get your hopes up, sweetheart.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Silence. Then, “They have a lot on their plates. They are still dealing with the aftermath of the rogue attack on Silver Ridge. You will likely stay with the gamma for longer than you think you will.”

I swallow and look down at my feet, shuffling them on the cold, off-white tile floor. “I don’t know, Mama. He seems pretty upset at having me as an unexpected guest. And he has—“ I cut myself off, pinching my lips together. My eyes flick to Nolan’s small round dining table on the other side of the counter and then away just as quickly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already pawned me off on somebody else.”

She scoffs, and I picture her waving her hand in front of her face with her nose wrinkled, like she always does when she’s telling me I’m incorrect. “Alpha Wesley won’t let him. It makes sense for you to stay with him. It will make it easier for you to do your job.”

“Why does it have to be me, though?” I mutter under my breath.

“You know why.”

I refrain from rolling my eyes at her response to my rhetorical question. Even though she’s not here with me, she will know, and she will reprimand me for it. “I know, I know. I’m the only oracle with my skill who doesn’t have a mate.”

“And because you have other business you need to attend to in California as well.”

I cross my arms and don’t respond, staring at the pencil sketch of the lake shore hanging in a frame opposite me. It’s a perfect line drawn rendering of the view of the lake from the back steps of their packhouse, the same view I saw yesterday afternoon when Wesley’s sister, Madeleine, gave me a tour of the grounds.

The front door opens and slams shut, and footsteps echo through the house, heading in the direction of the kitchen. At the same time, the oven beeps. The unfamiliar sound is harsh to my ears, and I jump in surprise. “I’ve got to go, Mama. I love you! And Mpampa, too!”

I hang up and grab two potholders, taking the pie out of the oven and turning to set it on the counter right as he enters the kitchen.

Him. Nolan Shepard. The gamma of Crescent Lake. He may not remember me, but I sure remember him. I remember him exactly as he was that evening at Selene’s temple: six feet tall, hazel eyes, bronze skin stretching over hard-earned muscles and dusted with a handful of tattoos, all of it exposed beautifully by a pair of white linen pants slung very low across his hips…

I’ve thought little about him since they left the island, even with how he looked that night. But seeing him yesterday brought it all back, brought that image of him in those pants rushing to the forefront of my mind, and I’m struggling to push it into the recesses of my memories where it needs to stay.

And now I have to stay with him for Goddess only knows how long. A fact he has made abundantly clear he is less than thrilled about, based on his near tantrum in Alpha Wesley’s office yesterday.

I refrain from slamming the glass dish onto the white and tan granite counter. My teeth clench together as he gives me a wide berth to grab a glass from the dark brown wood cabinets. His gym shorts sit just as low on his hips as those white linen pants did on the island almost five years ago, and I tuck my hair behind my ears, then press my palms flat against the cool surface of the counter, blowing out my breath between pursed lips.

He may be handsome, but the tension and anger radiating from him now, coupled with his visceral reaction to having me as a guest yesterday, wash away the majority of my attraction to him. Good looks don’t make up for a rotten attitude and poor treatment of strangers. Not that I can’t still appreciate the artistry that is his body, but at least I won’t have to worry about fawning over him or being constantly tongue-tied while we work together to protect Luna Haven.

“I made breakfast,” I say, turning towards him as he leans against the counter near the sink, a glass of water against his lips. “It’s a spinach pie.” He takes several long sips, his striking hazel eyes locked on me, his face emotionless, and his arm muscles tense, crossed over his bare torso. “I saw you on a run, so I figured you would be hungry when you returned.” His brow arches at me. “I wasn’t watching you. Spying on you or whatever. It was…” I trail off as I search for a word or a way to explain it to him in the simplest of terms. “It was a vision. Kind of.”

He swallows and sets his glass down, his eyes not leaving my face. “I already ate. Before I left for my run, like I always do.”

“Oh.”

His arms both cross over his chest again, biceps bulging right next to his pecs. I force myself not to stare, to keep my eyes on his face and not his chest.

“Didn’t you see that, too? When you saw me go for a run?” he asks.

I laugh and shake my head, opening the flatware drawer and taking out a knife and a fork. “That’s a common misconception,” I say, cutting into the pie. “My abilities don’t work that way. I—“

I pause, glancing at the cabinet behind him, the one I’d have to press my body against his to reach. Part of me wants to know how that would feel, wants to get close enough to make out what the tattoo is on his chest. But a larger part of me recognizes the predator in front of me who is already holding his patience together with a fraying strand of rope, and I decide ruffling his feathers isn’t a good idea right now.

“Can you hand me a plate?” I ask, pointing at the cabinet.

He stares at me for a moment that feels like an eternity, that same stoic, unreadable expression on his face. I grit my teeth and keep smiling, waiting with endless patience for him to grab me the plate I need so I don’t learn firsthand how our bodies would feel if we pressed them together in a close space. He’s made it very clear how he feels about having me as a guest, and based on what’s on the table behind me, I can’t say I blame him for not wanting a strange female to stay with him in his house.

He finally turns around and grabs the plate, handing it to me. His fingers brush mine, and my lycan lifts her head off her paws from where she relaxes in my mind, cocking her head to the side in a curious examination of his touch.

I swallow and turn away from him to dish up my food, ignoring my lycan. “Anyway, no, I don’t ‘see’ everything. Or much of anything, really. We can’t become a true oracle until we’re marked by our fated mate, and only then will we know all our gifts and be able to use them.”

“So you haven’t met yours yet?”

I pick up my plate and shut the still-open flatware drawer with my hip, leaning against the cabinets and counter as I prepare to dig in to my spinach pie. “No. I have not.”

“What can you do then?”

I slide my fork through the pie, scooping the piece onto the tines as steam wafts into the air. My lips purse and I lean closer, blowing on the piping hot dish to cool it down before I take my first bite.

“I can see small, random snippets of things. Either before or as they are happening. Occasionally after they’ve happened. All of us can, but only a handful of true oracles have full visions. I can also manipulate, suppress, or hide auras from other beings,” I say.

I pop the bite into my mouth, chewing as I wait for him to reply, to react to what I said, holding in a moan at the taste of my food. And I swear to the goddess I see the exact moment the lightbulb in his head blinks on.

His tense body relaxes a hair and his eyes lift to my face. “That’s why you’re here,” he says, straightening. “To help Haven with her aura.”

I nod, holding eye contact with him. His wolf is in the forefront of his mind, drawn forward by our discussion of his luna. I keep my movements minimal and my body language unthreatening, and I push my lycan to the back of my mind, even though his wolf draws her forward slightly, so he knows I mean no harm to his luna.

I definitely don’t need him to view me as a threat. He already doesn’t want me here. No need to add fuel to the fire.

“Yes,” I say after I’ve swallowed my food. “I’ll be working with you for the remainder of her pregnancy.”

He nods slowly. “So you’ll be coming to her rehearsal with us today?”

“If that’s what’s on her schedule, then yes.”

He nods again. “Good.” He pushes off from the counter and stalks across the kitchen towards the exit. “I’m going to get cleaned up before we have to leave.”

I follow him and veer off to my left as he goes to the right so I can sit at the table, and that small black box catches my eye again. I pinch my lips together and glance at him over my shoulder before he walks through the doorway. “Who is the lucky female?”

He freezes and catches himself with his hands on the archway, the veins in his forearms bulging and pulsing, and his back muscles tensing and rippling. A tattoo stretches across his shoulder blades and down his spine, one that wasn’t there when they came to the island. The wings span the width of his shoulders, attached to the hilt of a sword that extends down his spine. I tear my eyes away from his muscles and the magnificent tattoo as he turns, not wanting to be caught ogling him.

“What?” he spits out from behind clenched teeth, his eyes narrowing on me.

I point at it with my fork. “The ring on the table. I’m assuming it’s for your… girlfriend? Mate?”

His narrowed gaze shifts from me to the unassuming box on the light brown wood table, and he stares at it. His shoulders rise and fall in incredibly slow, measured breaths, his eyes closing and his hands curling into fists.

Ten seconds pass. Ten long, almost painful, tension-filled seconds, where I don’t know if he’ll erupt in a violent backlash like he did yesterday or if he’ll hold it all in, tucking it away to save until it all builds and explodes from him again.

I hold my breath and back up a step as he strolls to the table and snatches the box into his fist, then he whirls around and speed walks out, leaving my question hanging in the air unanswered.

I let out my held breath and move to the table, excited to relax and eat the rest of my homemade spinach pie, but my excitement is short-lived.

“What the fuck?” Nolan’s voice echoes back to me from near the front door. “What is this shit?” he asks, and I set my plate down and poke my head out of the kitchen to see what he’s talking about.

He stares at the shiny black baby grand piano in his living room, where I placed a vase of fresh-cut yellow and white daisies. “Oh. I picked those up from the little market in the pack’s town last night when I bought the ingredients to make my spinach pie. I thought the place needed a little… brightening up.”

“And you chose to put them on top of my piano?”

“I did. It’s the perfect spot for them. Do you see how the natural light filters in through that window there?” I point to the beams of light shining across the surface of the piano. “It will highlight them beautifully almost all day.”

He crosses his arms. “Hmm.”

“It’s an exquisite instrument, by the way,” I say, nodding at the piano. “Do you play?”

His head turns, a slow swivel from the daisies to me. He stares at me, unblinking and unspeaking. Then he turns on his heel and heads up the stairs to his bedroom. “We’re leaving for the city in one hour, and you’d better be ready,” he says without turning around, his bedroom door shutting before I can respond.