Heart Of A Lycan King
Chapter 46

For the longest moment, I simply sat beside Donald and looked at him. He was a picture of pain and misery, staring down at his hands silently and looking like a part of him had just died. Silent tears pooled in his eyes, and several times his breath caught in his chest.

This was not the Donald I had known in the month’s plus I had spent here. No smiles. No bashful personality. No contagious laughter. He just looked…empty. Broken.

I liked the Erin blocked the bond for now to let me do this. It feels as though she was giving us privacy. And I liked it.

I wanted to help him; I really did. But I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I didn’t know whether to pat him on the back, or to tell him everything was going to be okay. But when I tried to put myself in his shoes, I thought it would be best to let him get it all out.

Pain is a slow poison; it eats you up from the inside slowly, and curls itself around you like a vicious snake until you’re unable to breathe and everything around you falls apart. Maybe letting him vent his anger out would be the best thing.

And so, I did not say anything. I sat back and let him talk. Talking was good; it was a chance for him to get his feelings out there and not bottle them up so much that he would feel like he was going to explode from the pain.

At some point, he sweats profusely, his body shaking. Other times, the shade of his eyes changes from deep brown to pitch black. Then there were the loud painful m***s. The sniffs. The agony.

“I loved her,” he whispered sadly, and I leaned in closer as he looked up at the ceiling and cursed under his breath. “Mates are supposed to be there till death. I mean, isn’t that the point of having a mate?”

“Donald, it’s alright,” I said quietly. Not sure if that would help. “Everything will be alright.”

“No, it won’t,” he said. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to have your soul ripped out so violently by the person you care about the most? Do you know how much it hurts to be hurt by someone like that?”

Of course I knew what it felt like. I knew what pain felt like, and that familiar feeling of your soul being ripped apart. But I tried not to allow myself to sink into that once again.

“I still love her,” he cried. “But I don’t know how to fix it. I can’t fully believe that this is all over. I can’t believe that it’s done.”

“Donald, you can’t blame yourself for whatever it is that happened,” I murmured. “Sometimes, things don’t work out the way we want them to. But that doesn’t mean it’s our fault.”

He shook his head, as if he wasn’t listening to me; as if he was trying to convince himself that this was all just a dream, a nightmare, and he wasn’t actually this heartbroken.

When I ran out to meet him after the call had ended, I found him clutching the steering wheel as his body shook. He had his phone in one hand, and he was staring at Phil’s picture. It took lots of effort before I was able to persuade to finally come into the house.

He was a mess.

I stood up, walked up to where Tiff stood with a confused expression looking at us and whispered. “It’ll be fine. I think he just needs a moment.”

“He looks…”

“Broken,” I finished, looking back at him.

I had seen him sad a few times, but this was something else. Phil had done a number on him, and he looked absolutely miserable.

“I don’t know what is going on with him, but I won’t watch him in pain. He…he looks worse than I did two days ago.”

“I guess you could say that,” Tiffany muttered quietly.

“I’ll go get him water and see what I can do,” I said as I rushed to the kitchen, picked a bottle of water and a glass and went back to him.

I filled the glass and passed it to him. “Here, drink this,” I whispered.

“Thanks,” he replied, gulping the water in one go. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard and fast. Then he flashed a quick look towards me. I had never seen Donald this way.

“She rejected me,” he said, the words heavy as they hung in the air like an executioner’s blade.

My lungs constricted so tight I could barely breathe. Hearing about rejection made me remember Matteo, and that was the last thing I needed to think about.

“She rejected me,” he continued. “Just like that, Natasha. No warning, no chance to explain myself; nothing. Just rejection after I bared myself before her,” he choked, his eyes bloodshot as he gripped the glass tightly until it shattered in his hands. I jumped back, horrified by the sight. But Donald didn’t react to that. Or the b***d that was now trickling down his hand.

“I’ve amounted to nothing all my life. I’ve gone nowhere. I do the weirdest s.hit for money. Heck, I’m not even a complete man. Why would someone like Phil ever want me?” he laughed humorlessly, as I remained seated, still unable to figure out what to say.

He turned away from me and began unknotting his tie with violent jerks of his hands. “We fvcked yesterday. It was perfect. I had her in my arms, in my embrace, and that was the one moment I had ever felt alive, but I guess that wasn’t enough. She f*****g rejected me after the night we had!” The tie fell to the ground, and he loosened his top buttons like his shirt was suffocating him. He covered his eyes with his palm as he breathed raggedly.

I shifted toward him hesitantly. I placed my hand on his face, replaceing it drenched with hot tears. My throat was too swollen to speak, so I wrapped my arms around his back and let him cry.

“We shifted. My wolf nearly marked her. But she said not yet. I swear by Nyala, she didn’t give any indication that she didn’t want any of that. Not even when she…saw me down…there,” he puffed a ragged breath and ran his hand through his hair. “She…looked like she loved it,” he sniffed.

“It’s not your fault, Donald,” I finally managed to say.

“It is,” he sighed, sniffing. “If I was a full man, if I wasn’t incomplete, she’d have wanted me as much as I wanted her.”

He pulled back from the embrace to look at me, and the sadness I saw in his eyes broke my heart.

“Ever since we found out we were mates a few months ago, all I’ve been trying to do is to get her to accept the bond. I had to travel with Baba because she said she needed space and that I am suffocating her. When I got back, it didn’t get any better. She avoided me, and then vanished for a whole week. Guess what? She went away because of me,” he laughed again. I was beginning to get scared of his laughs. “Do you know why this hurts more?”

I only shook my head.

“Because she kept saying she’d think about it. That she’d give us a chance. But do you know what she told me yesterday?” his voice was hoarse and cracked. He looked like a shell of his former self, with no hope or purpose whatsoever. “She said I’m not man enough for her,” he laughed mirthlessly. “I mean, we FVCKED, Natasha. We nearly marked each other. She was a moaning mess in my arms, yet she rejected me after all that,” he laughed again.

But I knew what type of laugh that was. The unbelievable type that wrenches your heart and breaks you to pieces. The type that completely breaks you and makes you want to curl into a ball and be shot at.

“After all the talks we had, after I bared my whole self in front of her, Natasha, after I told her my worst secret, she said it was fine, that she understands all of that. We ended up having a wild passionate night, only to wake up this morning with her rejecting me. She…just looked me dead in the eyes and rejected me,” he finished.

“Did she say why?” I asked timidly.

“At first, she began by saying this isn’t going to work, that she isn’t good enough for me. She went on to say that she had tried to ignore everything and just accept me but she couldn’t. When I pressed on and asked her if everything was okay, she went on to say that I’m just not man enough for her. That she doesn’t want a man like me, and that she deserves better. But she’s right, because who’d want half a man as a mate?” he laughed mirthlessly again.

“You’re not half…”

“Don’t say that. I know who I am, in and out, Natasha. Believe me when I say I’m half a man any woman would ever want. She’s right. She deserves better. And I’m the worst man on earth.”

“Donald…”

“I would never blame her for this,” he coughed, as though to hide the tears threatening to return. “I’m a worthless piece of s.hit as always. I’ve always known that, but my feeble mind kept telling me it was okay to hope. It was okay to try. That maybe, just maybe, I can do something right for once in my life,” he rubbed his eyes frantically.

“You once told me not to let what other people say or think about me affect me…”

“That’s different, Natasha. You were forced to believe that. I wasn’t. I knew right from the start what I amounted to. I just didn’t have the balls to accept that. What did I do? Tell myself lies upon lies, and worked the s.hittiest job out there just to prove to myself that I was good. That I’m still a man. The f*****g loser that I am.” He hit his head with his hand so loud that I could feel the bang.

For a moment, I debated on calling Aiden, but decided against it. If he wanted Aiden to know, he’d have called him. However, there was a lingering thought in my mind, why would Phil hurt him this much? She could’ve easily rejected him when she found out they were mates if she didn’t like him. Why did she have to play with him this way?

And why does he keep saying he’s half a man?

As I sat there, my heart squeezed with so much hatred towards her. I don’t think I’ve ever hated someone as much as I hated her at that moment. Not even Matteo, nor Camila. And I knew just why, this was because Donald was my friend, and one I truly care about. Seeing him in pain caused me pain as well. Especially seeing him this broken…

“I’ll be fine, Natasha,” his voice cut me off. “I am just this way because I’m trying to process everything and accept the rejection. This is all on me, Natasha. It’s just so painful that for a moment I didn’t know what to do,” he mumbled.

“I understand that, Donald. I’ve been there once,” I said quietly as I began to clear the broken glass. “I know it is painful, but you don’t deserve the pain. It’s not your fault this is happening. You have nothing to do with this. This isn’t your fault as much as it wasn’t mine when Matteo rejected me. Regardless of what she may have made you believe, you are the perfect mate for someone out there.”

“I don’t think anyone would ever want me this way,” he sighed. “I’ve come to accept that. You don’t have to try to make me feel better, Natasha. I didn’t come here for that. I simply needed someone to talk to so I could contain that pain. I wonder how it’ll feel when I accept the rejection.”

“I can try talking to her and…”

“Don’t waste your time. She won’t accept me, no matter what you do. She’s already made up her mind. I’ll just leave when I accept the rejection. Maybe go to the humans or just…go somewhere else and leave this damn kingdom!”

“You can’t leave…”

“I can’t stay. I can’t stay knowing that she was once mine but doesn’t want me anymore. It won’t…help.”

“I…”

The words died in my throat when a strangled cry escaped his mouth as he clutched his chest and suddenly doubled over on the floor. He was like a wounded animal, and I realized that he was probably feeling the effects of the rejection. It was one of the most painful things a wolf could experience, and it felt like mental agony or someone dragging a hot knife through your chest and letting you bleed to death.

“F**k the f*****g mate bond!” he snarled angrily.

I was confused. I didn’t know what to do or how to help him. But when he continued to clutch his chest as though to rip it out, and when the strangled cry increased over and over, I understood what was going on at that moment. This had only one explanation

Doctor Phillison was being intimate with someone already.