“That’s a very long story.” He whispers.
“This has something to do with the secret you won’t tell me, doesn’t it?” I asked, but I didn’t need to. I felt I already had the answer. I gleaned it from the haunted expression of his features.
“Yes.” He confirms. I brace myself, ready for the ultimate heartbreak. I hope he isn’t still with her. I can’t have another female after my mate, not again. And if he was, then what the h3ll was he doing out here with me. He wasn’t about to break up with me, was he? Who could walk away from the mate bond after a taste of it? This all seemed too cruel to be real.
“Do you still love her” it was somehow easier than asking the alternative. I could get over it if she were in the past. Most wolves had one, after all. We were rather promiscuous creatures. But if she was in the past, why was she a secret? Oh no, he has some love child pup with her, doesn't he? The pup, I don't mind. I love kids, but she will always be around! What if she wants him back? What if he could still make it work with her? Did he want to? I don't want to give him up. I already lost one, mate. Does that make me a homewrecker?
Snap out of it. Sapphire all but yells at me. But my mind is a runaway train at the moment. I don't know if there's any stopping it.
“No.” His face hardens. “I killed her”, he seethes. The gasp slips from my lips before I can stop it.
This man seemed so gentle how could he do such a thing. Violence wasn't even on the list of things I had worried about.
Please, at least find out why before you run. Sapphire sounded so defeated. We had promised ourselves that he only got one chance, and we had the feeling he was about to blow it.
“Will you tell me?.” I ask for her as much as I do for myself. Whatever it was that made him do what he did, had to be big. He knew my history with Declan, and it was a gamble making such a comment to me. I wasn’t sure how I even felt about it. Horrified was close to accurate.
“Come here.” He pulls me against his chest, and after some hesitation, I decide to let him. “I may be cowardly for this, but I can’t look you in the eyes and tell you.” I cling to him as I feel him gently shudder beneath me.
Do you think we can come back from this? I asked sapphire gently
There’s a chance. Maybe he had to do it. Maybe it was a car accident. He may just blame himself. What if he didn’t actually do it? Sapphire tries to reason, but is she doing it for me? Or for herself? And if it were an accident, why did he seem so mad with her?
“Not too long after my 19 birthday, my Uncle made the announcement that he was stepping down and that I was next in line for his position. When I arrived here a few weeks later, they had a massive welcoming party for me. Everyone wanted a chance to meet their new Alpha. It was there that I met a beautiful girl. She immediately captured my attention. Looking back now, I should have known, but I didn’t. I let her fool me. I believed she was my mate. Her scent was so intoxicating, and when I touched her, it felt like my whole body would come alive. Duke wasn’t sold on her, but I was convinced that this girl was my destined mate. I gave myself to her that night, thinking that she was the one I was meant to be with. It wasn’t long at all before we became completely inseparable. She was my whole world. I marked her. I proposed to her, and I gave her everything I had.”
It felt like someone had just dropped an Anvil on my heart. It was crushed. Could you put a persons soul through a shredder? It sure felt like it. I tried to pull away, but he clung to me.
“Please, I’m not done yet.” He begs. “I need you to hear everything. Then you can hate me, but please listen first.”
And like a gluten for punishment, I stayed.
“One night about nine months ago, I was on my way to my room, the door was left often just a crack, and I could hear voices in there. Something deep inside me told me I needed to listen, so I did. The woman I believed was my mate was in my bed making love to another man from my pack. I was going to storm the room, I wanted to kill him, but Duke took over and made us stay hidden behind the door. It was h3ll. She finished him off, and when she rejected him. It was then that I realised that the whole time she was mating this guy, that I didn’t feel any of it. There should have been pain, but there wasn’t. Duke gave me back control, and I confronted them.”
My mind was working in overtime. She wasn’t really his mate? But he loved her so much? I don’t get it. Would he love me that much without the mate bond? Not only did he mark her, but he was going to marry her too?
Would you stop your spiralling and listen, please. Sapphire implored me, but it was easier said than done. How many times could I sit by and get hurt?
“She wouldn’t admit to it at first, so I dragged the pair of them down to the dungeons. It was hours worth of torture, but she admitted to the whole thing. She knew that I was coming to Waning crescent and that I hadn’t yet found my mate. She was a part witch and placed a double curse on me. The first would be that I would love her, the second would be that I believed we were mates. The man she was in bed with that night, he was her true mate.”
The way he was speaking of what happened to him. It was like he was there, reliving it all over again. I feel awful for what he's been through, but my feelings are still mixed.
After a moment of silence, where we both just absorbed everything, Kyle was finally ready to tell me the rest of his story.
“It was strange. The moment I knew the truth, it was like the curse broke. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s like I was miserable, and then I wasn’t anymore. But I had felt so happy all those months. It was a total mind f.uc.k. It was wrong of me because the poor bugger was played just like I was, but in my rage, I killed her mate in front of her.” He sighs heavily.
“It kind of felt that’s what she had done to me. I know it’s strange to say it felt like she killed the person that I loved when my heart never loved her, but my mind did. Even if it was a curse, it still believed it loved her. I told you it’s all too fuck3d up to explain, but I’m trying. After I killed her mate, I was going to make her live with it as punishment for what she had done to me. But Before I could even unchain her, she created yet another curse. This one was much, much worse. Because she placed her new curse, not on me but on my future mate.”
He pulled back enough to allow me to look into his eyes. I think he hoped that I would say something, but I was just too bewildered. After some time passed and he realised he wasn’t going to get anything from me. He tucked me back under his arm and started to play with my hair. I felt horrid for what had happened to him, it would be like Kyle rejecting me for what happened with Declan, but a part of me wanted to run before I felt any of his pain. I hated sitting here waiting for the other shoe to drop because a blind man could see that was what was coming.
“What curse.” did I even want to know? I wondered, probably not, but I needed to. I have stayed so far. I might as well get the rest of it.
“She couldn't kill you. What good would that have done? I didn't know you, you can't mourn a person you don't even know, and I would have likely met a second chance. She cursed me out for breaking her heart and vowed to do the same to me and the woman that I would mate. She wanted me to experience her pain, but she hated the idea of you getting everything she ever wanted even more. So she placed a curse on us. Whoever I mated and marked next would never be able to experience a live birth. We could get pregnant, we could carry it to term, but it would die minutes after delivery every time. I didn't even know you yet, but I couldn't bear the thought of ever putting anyone through that, let alone my own mate. The worst of it would be that it was my fault. I felt like I was killing my own pups before they even got a chance. Who takes out their anger on a newborn.” tears were streaming down his face; I wiped a few away, and he done the same for me. I hadn't realised that I, too, was crying.
“My mind was scrambled. How did I protect you? How did I protect my pups? I thought if she were dead, the curse would die with her. So I killed her, But it didn't. I can still feel it, like a black mark across my heart. I have been seeking out good witches. Only the kind who deals with light magic in hopes they can lift the curse, but no one has had any luck so far, and light witches are so few and far between.”
I told you he had a good reason. But she isn't bragging. Sapphire is just as upset as I am. I can feel it.
“When you came into my office that day, there was a part of me that feared you were just the same, but Duke felt the bond this time too. He knew better than I did. But I was scared. You had your trauma, and I was still healing from mine. I wanted to take more time than this getting to know you, but the mate bond is compelling me to want to be around you every moment of every day. I wanted you to get to know that I was a good guy, that I know hurting those two people was wrong, but I wasn’t myself. I’m not like Declan. I would never hurt you. I want to mark you, I want to mate you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But you had to know about the curse first. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t give you the choice. If you stay with me, we may never have a pup. I won’t even entertain the idea of getting you pregnant until the curse is broken, and that’s if we can break it. I don’t want to put myself through that. I don’t want to put you through that, and least of all, I don’t want to put an innocent little pup through that.”
“I ugh. I” I stutter and mumble. I should say something, but I can’t think of any words. I'm in shock. There’s just so much information to take in.
“If you want to reject me, I understand” his arms go slack around me, but he doesn’t let me go. He's just giving me the choice to leave if I want it, and I respect him all the more for it.
What are you going to do? I can feel Sapphire crying inside of me.
AN: thank you all for the comments. I truly love them all. I hope we still like Kyle.