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

22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

CASSANDRA

“Wait—”

Benjamin sprints around his desk, lunging for me and grabbing my arm, and Nolan growls, baring his teeth at him in warning. Nolan won’t win in a fight against him—Benjamin is a lycan, after all—but he won’t go down without trying.

Benjamin backs away, though, releasing me as soon as the growl leaves Nolan’s lips. I lift my chin and stare at Nolan, my eyes brimming with tears and my breaths shallow and shaky. He cups my face in his hands, and I relax at his touch.

“I’m fine,” I whisper, even though I’m obviously not.

My heart echoes in my chest, like the pounding of a deep bass or the beating of a timpani. It’s so loud I’m sure everyone in the packhouse can hear it reverberating off the walls of Benjamin’s office. My hands shake, the folder clutched in them flapping against my chest, and my blood rushes in my ears, drowning out any other noise.

Fine is not a word to describe me at this moment.

“Sorry,” Benjamin says from behind me. I glance over my shoulder at him. He stands with his hands on his hips, his brow furrowed. “I just… You seem so… Do I know you?”

I take a deep breath and turn all the way around again, Nolan’s hands falling from my face. I slip one of mine into his, squeezing it as hard as I can. “We’ve never met. But I’m your sister.”

The air leaves the room at my revelation. Both males freeze in place, and no one makes a sound. The fall of a hair onto the freshly waxed floor would be as loud as a dropped platter in a dining hall. Nolan’s hand loosens around mine, and I step closer to Alpha Benjamin—my half-brother—whose hand covers his jaw, his chest heaving harder with every breath he takes.

“This is a DNA test,” I say, holding the folder Wesley kept safe for me out to him. “It was conducted after Wesley—after he—after your father… um…” I swallow and lick my lips, avoiding Benjamin’s eyes and shifting my weight between my feet, unable to bring myself to put voice to his fate, even though he was the worst type of male there is. “After he died, his witch—Gladys—confessed everything to the thirteen crones. And later on, King Malachi had this DNA test done.”

The folder shakes in the space between us, still gripped in my trembling hand, and Benjamin stares at it. His shoulders rise and fall, and he shakes his head at the folder. “I don’t understand…”

“We didn’t know he was my father until after he died. He hid his true identity from my mother, and he used her to find Selene’s daughter. To find Haven.”

Benjamin’s eyes widen, and he meets Nolan’s gaze over the top of my head. “He did say something about an oracle.”

Nolan inhales sharply. “He said he ‘formed a relationship’ with one, and that’s how he knew when Haven was born and where to find her.”

I glance at Nolan. His face is unreadable, his hands hanging loose at his sides. My heart clenches, but I face Benjamin again, thrusting the folder at him. He takes it, but he doesn’t open it. Instead, he sets it on his desk and perches on the edge, his hands on his hips again as he scrutinizes me.

“The proof is right there in the folder if you don’t believe me,” I say, gesturing at it where it sits, unopened and unread by him.

He shakes his head and holds his hand up. “No, I don’t—I don’t need to see it. I believe you. I just—I’m processing this.”

I nod and inhale through my nose, blinking back the tears and folding my hands in front of me. A lump forms in my throat, and I swallow back what feels like one million burning hot pieces of molten silver. My knuckles turn white from how tightly I clasp my hands together.

I expected nothing less than this. I didn’t expect tears of joy and laughter and hugs.

But no matter what I expected, no matter how much I prepared for this to unfold exactly as it is, it doesn’t hurt any less. None of my mental preparations change the truth. I’m still a product of his father’s infidelity, and he’s still the product of the male who used my mother and who was willing to do unspeakable, Goddess-awful things to anyone who stood in his way or he deemed to have outlived their use to him.

Benjamin gives a dry laugh and runs his hand through the blond curls on the top of his head. “I’m guessing Wesley asking to meet with me about the mating ball was a ruse?”

I chuckle with him, even with my boiling anxiety and my sore throat, and nod. “Your absence yesterday made it easier to come up with a reason for us to arrange a meeting with you.”

His lips twitch. “Clever.”

“Haven’s idea.”

He nods and crosses his arms. “Look—um…” He trails off and blows out air from his cheeks, raising a brow at me. “I’m sorry. I don’t know your—”

“Oh Goddess, I didn’t even…” I groan and smack my forehead, then step closer to him, holding my hand out. “Cassandra. Stavros.”

He shakes it firmly—a positive sign—and I breathe a small sigh of relief. “Why don’t you explain everything to me? From the beginning.” He gestures towards the large sitting area in his spacious office, where two large dark brown leather couches sit perpendicular to each other, one facing the windows, and I nod, leading the way to the sofas. “Nolan?” Benjamin flicks his eyes to the door of his office.

Nolan. I almost forgot he was here, too. He’s said nothing beyond recalling something Pierce said to them all those years ago. He stands in front of the door, his face just as unreadable as it was a few moments ago, just as indecipherable as it always was before he kissed me and laid claim to my body.

I wish I could read his mind. I wish I had the abilities everyone always assumes I have.

What is he thinking? How does he feel about all this? Does my being the daughter of the male who ruined Haven’s early life change how he feels about me? Will he still want me? Are we strong enough to survive this, and can I be strong enough if we don’t?

I plead with him with my eyes. I’m too nervous and unsteady to trust myself to verbalize my need for him, too worried anything I say or do will prompt him to reject me.

But Goddess, do I need him. I need his grumpy, stoic personality that balances my smiles and sunshine. I need the fierce, possessive protector, the passionate, dominant male he hides beneath his calm, steely exterior. We’ve only been “us” for a few days, but it’s so natural with him. Despite the initial rocky start with the hot and cold and the roommate war between the two of us, the way we fit together is indescribable, and his reaction to this revelation may be what breaks me.

He meets my gaze and crosses the room to stand behind the couch. His intense eyes scan my face, his protective, steady presence saying more than any words could. My lip quivers as those molten pieces of silver return to my throat, but I push through them. “Nolan. I need…” I shake my head and lick my lips, my voice hurting from the burning metal inside it. “I don’t…”

He grips the back of the couch and nods, silencing my incoherent sputtering. “I’m here, Daisy.”

I’m here. Two words. One simple phrase. But it’s everything I need from him. He’s here. He’s with me.

I pull my lips into my mouth and nod frantically, my eyes blinking as I spin to face Benjamin again and sit on the edge of the leather sofa in front of Nolan. His presence at my back bolsters me, and his observant silence anchors me.

And I pray he won’t hate me or pity me when this is all over.

I rub the sweat from my palms on the skirt of my dress, then press my hands into my thighs as I count to ten, calming the violent waves crashing against the shores of my soul. “When my mother was an acolyte—an apprentice oracle—the rules for visiting the island were less strict. Alphas would come and go as they pleased, using the island as an escape from their stressful lives in their pack. They would enjoy the scenery, the weather, and find peace by meditating.”

“What changed?” Benjamin asks.

“King Malachi took over the throne. He felt his ancestors had grown too lax with the guarding of our secrets—werewolves and oracles—and he wanted to implement reforms. It took a while, but eventually, he made it so the only way anyone could visit the island was by putting in an official request to the high oracle. My mother met your father before the changes were made. He told my mother his name was Paul Tilley. At the time, the visiting alphas weren’t required to disclose the pack they were from—they were even discouraged from it—since the entire point of them visiting was to find a momentary reprieve. And my mother, being too trusting and too na?ve, didn’t question him. Or even think to.”

Benjamin frowns and tilts his head in question. “Couldn’t she see he was lying? Read his mind or—”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t work like that. None of us can read minds, and often any visions we have are momentary glimpses. Sometimes the flashes are so quick we can’t make heads or tails of them. My mother never saw anything related to him or his intentions. He visited the island—and my mother—off and on for several years. As time passed, the length between his visits grew longer and longer until they eventually ended altogether.”

“Did she ever tell him about you?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Benjamin asks.

I smile a little. “She met my father—my mpampa—and as fate would have it, he, too, was an alpha. They met at a mating ball in Greece, and she told him everything right away. She told him about me, about the alpha she’d been with for so many years. She explained if he accepted her in spite of all that, he’d have to give up his title. He’d have to move to the island with her since the magic of the island prevents true oracles—oracles who have been marked by their fated mate—from living anywhere else or even leaving for long stretches of time. He agreed and accepted her without batting an eye or judging her, and he raised me as his own.”

“Like Reid and Savannah,” Nolan says.

I glance at him and nod. He has a small, sentimental smile on his face as he thinks about his friend and the daughter he claims as his own, leaning his forearms on the back of the couch, bringing him closer to me.

I hold his gaze, seeking comfort in his warm, steady eyes. I long to reach for him, to hold his hand or find solace in his arms. But if I do, I will lose the momentum and confidence I have, and I need to finish my story.

I turn back to Benjamin, but I am hyperaware of Nolan’s presence behind me. “To protect all of us, he and my mother agreed to never search for my birth father or tell him I was his if he did visit again. My mother was too afraid he’d take me away from her.”

“He probably would have,” Benjamin says. “And he probably would have found some way to manipulate you and use you, like he did with Lennox.”

Nolan growls at that, and from the corner of my eye, I see him curl his hands into fists, one wrapping around the other, his skin paling from how tightly he grips them. “My mother didn’t know his true nature, though. She thought only of keeping us together as a family unit. It wasn’t until later that we learned his identity and his wrongdoings,” I say to Benjamin.

“How did you find out?” he asks.

“Like I said before—his witch, Gladys. She confessed everything to the thirteen crones, with King Malachi in attendance at her interrogation, and she mentioned my mother by name. Afterwards, King Malachi visited my mother to tell her everything since Pierce had Gladys use dark magic on her—spells to hide his mating mark from her, for example—and he was surprised to find she’d given birth to a child. Me.”

“Why would her having a child surprise him?” Benjamin asks, his arms crossing over his torso.

I blink and look down at my hands. I didn’t mean to say that much, but it’s too late, and I can’t take it back. Exhaling, I spit my next words out as quickly as I can. “Because one of the spells Gladys used was meant to make my mother infertile. It’s a curse on the most recent born of a bloodline, causing the line to die with them.”

“How’d she have you then?”

“Gladys didn’t cast the curse on my mother’s line until after Haven’s adoption went through.”

Nolan straightens, his hands on the back of the couch again, and I sense his eyes boring into the back of my head. Benjamin’s brows pinch together, and he shakes his head. “I—I’m not sure I follow.”

I grip the edge of the cushion, staring at an empty coffee mug on the table in front of me, avoiding Benjamin’s eyes and leaning forward to evade Nolan’s touch should he try to reach for me. “One night, when I was five, I woke from a deep sleep with a sudden, unimaginable pain in my abdomen. It was the worst physical pain I’d ever felt. Even to this day, I’ve never experienced anything as dreadful as that pain. My parents rushed me to the healers, where they found a tumor growing in my uterus. They tried to staunch it with their healing abilities, but it was nasty and fast-growing, and the doctors had to remove my uterus to prevent the tumor from spreading to any of my other organs. After I healed from the surgery, they ran more tests to determine the cause and check for any cancer cells. And although my scans came back clean—no cancer—they discovered all my eggs died.”

I swallow and blink, my fingers digging into the leather cushion, my nails leaving marks on the surface. Behind me, Nolan is tense. My lycan whimpers, urging me to seek his comfort. But I don’t know the true cause of his tension, and my focus is finishing my story, no matter how difficult.

I can’t hide from this.

My voice grates in my throat, but I push through the pain and the turmoil. “The healers thought the sudden pain was from my small size and how large the tumor had grown in such a short amount of time. We didn’t know dark magic caused it until King Malachi’s visit.”

Benjamin stares at me, his blue eyes wide as I finally look up from the drained mug on the table, his body as still as a marble statue. “Because your dad knew nothing of my existence, because he didn’t know if my mom had found her mate or had children, I now bear the burden of the curse he thought Gladys placed on her.”

As soon as those words leave my mouth, I gasp and cover my face, leaning my elbows on my knees. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t part of my plan to say that. And I didn’t tell you all this hoping you’d pity me or—”

“Or think my dad was a piece of shit? Because he was.” Benjamin barks out a harsh, sardonic laugh and shakes his head, staring out the window with darkened, red-rimmed eyes. He pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers and sighs, rising to his feet and pacing in front of the sofas. “I need some time. So I can tell Nicole and Oliver.”

I stand as well, folding my hands in front of myself once more. “Thank you for listening to me,” I say, inclining my head in a subtle nod. “I just wanted to meet you. I thought you deserved to know you had another sibling. If you don’t want anything to do with me or never want to see me again, I understand.”

I turn to leave the office, making my way around the couch and towards Nolan, who strides towards the door as well, his eyes straight ahead and his back ramrod straight, but Benjamin’s voice stops me. “No,” he says, walking towards me. “I just need some time to let this all settle and to tell my—tell our brother and sister.”

My heart swells, and I stare up at him, a glimmer of hope in my eyes. “Are you sure?”

“I would be no better than my father if I punished you for his crimes.” His hand rests on my shoulder, and he gives it a firm, reassuring squeeze. “We don’t get to choose our parents, but we can choose our family.”