I should be your Beta, not your Mate

52 - Truth

»I love you!«

I love you...

I love you...

I love you...

His words echoed in my ears. Again and again, I heard him say it.

I froze in my movement and stared at the ground with wide eyes.

I love you.

Heavily I swallowed the lump in my throat. Nervously my heart thumped in my chest, threated to break out and at the same time, I feared it would stop beating at all.

»St-Stop playing games with m-me,« I whispered.

That couldn't be true. He hated me. For all those years he harassed me with words, scarred me with those horrible marks, had never accepted me as his Beta or even as a person.

How? How could he love me? How could he even claim to know love? And then for me! For me! For me, the goddammit, useless, defective Beta.

»I'm not playing any games, Kyran!« he shouted desperately. »I love you and that for a long time.«

Again my breath hitched, and I gasped for air, trembling hard.

What did that mean? For a long time? How long? How? How? How? How was it possible that he loved me for a long time?

That... That couldn't be the truth. He had to lie.

Maybe he just couldn't endure me avoiding him because of the mate-bond because it drove us to each other. Maybe he tried to wrap me around his finger.

Maybe he had heard the talk between Ethan and me or Pa and me and had planned out how he could make me into a willing and submissive mate who he could mess with.

Maybe... Maybe... He had to lie!

»Stop lying.«

Tears welled up and my heart beat so out of rhythm that I feared I would collapse any second.

My hands trembled and to not drop to the ground, crying my eyes out, I pressed my hands against my chest which went quickly up and down.

I knew that I was about to or was already to hyperventilate but I couldn't bring myself to calm down. Couldn't force my heart to calm down and stop me from breathing faster and more hectically.

»I'm not lying!« He made a step forward but halted immediately when he noticed how much my body trembled.

»Please, let me explain,« he begged and sounded so despairing that everything inside of me got squeezed in torment. Tore me apart and at the same time, squeezed my guts.

What did he want to explain? That everything had a reason? What reason could there be that would explain him hurting the person he claimed to love? That couldn't be explained.

There was no explanation for it. That couldn't be forgiven. If he had explained it with the reason of hating me back then, then I could have accepted it, but love? No.

I actually wanted to scream right at him but only a hitched, trembling breath left my mouth. Hectically I slapped my hand over my mouth to muffle my sob.

I didn't want to cry in front of him. But that miserable sound had already left my body, what he noticed and whimpered despaired.

»I... I noticed that I had feelings for you when we were young,« he said with a trembling voice. »But... But I knew that you were my Beta and that I shouldn't love you. I hoped that I would forget you one day because you didn't have the same feelings for me or other men. But then you outed yourself and everything broke inside of me and drove me crazy...«