Traded To The Lycan King by MG Wattsons novel Chapter 156

*Kyra*

I wonder what it feels like to lose two mates. What happens to me after losing Hayes? Do I just not get to have happiness again or will I slowly waste away and die?

Second chance mates are commonplace, but second chance mates aren’t rejected. Rejectable? Yes, and sure it has happened before, but it’s so rare that no one really knows much about the aftereffects.

If that is the case, then this mission, whether or not I die, is my last just as much as it is Hayes. Or would he choose me, even knowing that a rejection places me in an unknown place?

My stomach falls and I press my hand to it, feeling the pang of disappointment deep. Would I even want him to choose me just to protect me? Old me would have had him anyway I could have.

But I know what it feels like to be truly loved now. The woman I am now knows how I should be treated, how a man should adore me the way I adore him. The last thing I want is a bond with a man who not only doesn’t want me, but doesn’t want to be alive.

I scoff, shaking my head at the nonsense running through my mind. This bond is weaving into my thoughts, trying to control my emotions and me.

“What is so funny?” Hayes asks, causing me to look at him, startled, as I blink at him.

“Oh, I was just thinking in my head, that’s all.” I tell him.

“Can I ask you something?” He asks, clearing his throat.

“Depends on what it is, I guess,” I shrug.

“Did you have a good life? I mean, after you left me — uh, I mean our pack. Were you happy?”

His question surprises me, but the tenderness in his voice catches me off guard. It sounds like he not only wants to know but that he cares to know I lived a good life without him in it.

“It was rough the first couple of years.” I admit. “No one is all that keen on letting a lycan with no family into their pack.”

He frowns as he exhales. “I was worried about that, but it seems like Tyler was very accepting.”

“Tyler was…” I pause, smiling as I remember the first time I met him, the way his eyes lit up and he looked ready to scream to the world I was his mate. Regardless of his alpha being wary of the lonely lycan in the woods. “He was different from everyone else.”

“You loved him then?” He asks, and I chuckle.

“How could I not?” I say, a giddy grin still on my lips. “Tyler was…he was loveable.”

“Can I ask how he died?”

The smile falters on my face and I glance away, my hands growing clammy and my heart pulsing.

“I’d rather talk about how he lived than how he died, Hayes.” I whisper, clearing my throat from the lump that tries to form.

“Right. Sorry.” He says.

Awkward silence fills the air between us. It feels like we don’t know how to talk anymore. There is too much between us to be anything other than hotheaded or complete strangers. Yet, the comfort I feel when I am near him is unmatched by anyone else.

I don’t know how to navigate a life without Tyler or the hole in my heart. But being around Hayes again, it feels less daunting, facing it all. And I hate knowing that soon, I will lose this too.

“Looks like the rain is finally stopping,” I mutter, looking up at the small clearing above my head, hoping to clear away the remnants of our failed conversation moments ago. When I look forward again, I come to an abrupt stop, looking at the others who are standing at a raging river of water.

“Well, I suggest finding a different way over,” Marcos says. “There is no way we are making it across that, not even in lycan or werewolf form.”

“I agree,” Hayes groans in annoyance before letting out a muttered string of expletives.

But I refuse to give up, not when I can feel it in my bones that this is the way we need to go. My lycan is on edge, snorting and snarling in my head as I move toward the edge, scanning the river and the bank across from us.