The Alpha's Unwanted Bride

Chapter 684: REVELATIONS II

The world didn’t end.

That was the strangest part.

After the words left his mouth.

”Scarlett was your mother”

Nothing shattered.

No thunder cracked. No light exploded. The sky didn’t fall.

I was still standing on the balcony.

Still breathing.

Still alive.

But something inside me went very, very quiet.

I took a step back.

Then another.

My heels brushed cold stone and I didn’t remember walking that far. My chest felt hollow, like someone had scooped everything out and forgotten to put it back.

”No,” I said again, softer this time. Not to him. To myself. ”That doesn’t make sense.”

Aiden didn’t move. He didn’t reach for me. He didn’t try to convince me.

He just watched.

And somehow, that made it worse.

”If Scarlett was my mother,” I continued, my voice strange in my own ears, ”then why did my life look like that?”

I laughed once, sharp and broken.

”Why was I unwanted? Why was I whispered about? Why did Bale look at me like I was a burden? Why do he treat me that way?!”

”What way?” Aiden asked his eyes flashing sharply.

I scoffed. ”Your brother hated me. I was raised as his daughter. He let her die in a cell and he raised me in hell! Hell is an understatement for what I went through!”

I shook my head.

”Why did the packs let me rot on the edges of everything?”

My throat burned.

”If I was a princess,” I said bitterly, ”then why did no one come for me?”

Silence stretched between us.

The land below continued to live.

The children running, water flowing, dragons circling far above, but I felt completely detached from it.

Aiden exhaled.

Slow. Heavy.

”You’re right,” he said quietly.

That made me look at him.

Not I’m sorry.

Not you don’t understand.

Not it was complicated.

Just...

You’re right.

”I failed you,” he continued, his voice steady but weighted. ”I told myself I was building a world where you wouldn’t suffer. I told myself I needed knowledge, power, answers. And while I was searching... I tried everything to find you.”

He looked away, toward the horizon.

”You were living the cost of my absence.”

The words landed deeper than anger ever could.

My hands curled into fists.

”So you just.... what.... left me?” I demanded. ”You left my mother? You left me?”

”I didn’t know how cruel it could be,” he said honestly. ”I believed blood would protect you. I believed Bale would love you as his own.”

A humorless smile touched his lips.

”I was wrong.”

Something in my chest cracked open.

Not rage.

Grief.

”I spent my whole life thinking I wasn’t enough,” I whispered. ”That there was something wrong with me.”

Aiden turned back to me, eyes shining not with pity, but with something like regret sharpened into resolve.

”There was never anything wrong with you.”

My stomach tightened suddenly.

Not emotionally.

Physically.

A sharp pressure bloomed low in my abdomen, stealing my breath.

I hissed and bent forward slightly, instinctively bracing myself against the balcony rail.

Aiden was at my side instantly.

”Jasmine?”

”I’m fine,” I said automatically, though I wasn’t sure it was true.

The pressure eased, replaced by a slow, heavy pull.

The baby moved.

Not a flutter.

A roll.

Aiden’s eyes dropped to my stomach.

His expression changed.

”What is it?” I asked, suddenly afraid.

”The child,” he murmured. ”It’s reacting.”

”To what?”

”To this place.”

That fear I’d been holding at bay crept in fully now.

”What does that mean?”

”It means,” he said carefully, ”that your child may be more bound to this world than you are.”

My breath caught.

”And if I give birth here?”

Aiden didn’t answer immediately.

And that was answer enough.

My hand pressed protectively over my stomach.

”And if I don’t?”

His jaw tightened.

”That choice,” he said quietly, ”may decide more than just your fate.”

My head spun.

Too many revelations. Too many consequences.

And then

Otto.

The thought hit me so hard it almost staggered me.

”Otto,” I breathed. ”Where is Otto?”

Aiden hesitated.

My heart dropped.

”He’s alive,” he said quickly. ”But he cannot cross. Jasmine no one has crossed since you came here. No one. And you only came here because of the blood in your veins. Your emerald necklace”.

Panic clawed up my throat.

”So what?” I snapped. ”I just leave him?”

”I didn’t say that,” he replied calmly. ”I said time is no longer on our side. And he is in safe hands. Those people at the distant lands are loyal to me.

A shadow passed overhead.

I looked up instinctively.

High above the city, massive shapes circled dragons. One of them went lower than the rest, its scales catching the light in molten red and gold.

Freya.

Her gaze lingered.

I felt it.

Not threatening.

Assessing.

”She’s watching you,” Aiden said quietly. ”And the child.”

”That’s comforting,” I muttered weakly.

”Dragons do not watch without reason,” he replied. ”Especially not like this.”

I shook my head, overwhelmed.

”No,” I said suddenly. ”I can’t.... this....”

I gestured helplessly at the throne behind us, the city below, the prophecy hanging in the air. ”I didn’t come here to rule anything. I didn’t come to fulfill prophecies. I came to survive.”

Aiden studied me for a long moment.

Then he nodded.

”And that,” he said softly, ”is exactly why the world waited for you.”

I turned away from the balcony, pressing my back against the cold stone, grounding myself.

”I’m not sitting on that throne again,” I said firmly. ”I won’t wear a crown. I won’t be paraded. I won’t be claimed.”

”I wouldn’t ask you to,” he replied.

I looked at him sharply.

”Then what do you want from me?”

His voice was quiet.

”Time. To teach you what you are. And a choice.”

My stomach tightened again, not with pain, but with urgency.

A choice.

Stay here, learn, prepare...

Or go back risk everything to save Otto.

I closed my eyes briefly, resting my palm over my belly.

”I won’t let my child grow up without me,” I whispered. ”And I won’t abandon the one person who never abandoned me.”

When I opened my eyes, resolve settled into my bones.

”For the first time,” I said, ”the world isn’t chasing me.”

Aiden watched me closely.

”It’s waiting,” he finished.

I swallowed.

And somehow, that terrified me more than being hunted ever had.

My hands rubbing tummy. ”I don’t want to die like my mother.”

”What do you mean you don’t want to die the way your mother did?” He asked, his eyes heavy with worry.

And then I realized that in all this craziness, in the entire madness, he still didn’t know how mother had died.

I gently rubbed my tummy and nudged at it gently.

”She died giving birth to me.” I said after a few seconds of silence. ”She gave me this necklace. I never got to meet her.”

He chewed his bottom lip and said nothing.

He simply looked into the horizon his mind completely elsewhere

”Why did you say you didn’t want to die like her?” He asked me.

I sighed heavily. ”My baby. Is.... Well special...”

I wasn’t going to refer to my baby as normal.

He was special.

”Before this one.” I said gently tapping at the tummy. ”I was pregnant. A girl. Her pregnancy was special too. In four months I was almost ready to give birth.”

”Four months?” He gawked at me in disbelief. ”That’s not possible.”

”I’m.....” I swallowed hard.

My father whom I still couldn’t believe, I had I just met, was the Leader of this place.

Had so much prestige.

Could even command dragons.

And here I was.

The daughter he had never met and been supposedly waiting to see his entire life was a wolf-less girl.

Wasn’t even an unshifted as Otto had said.

There was no name to what I was and that made it hundred times worse.

What was I going to be to him?

He was looking for some sort of messiah to complete a prophecy.

I was nothing of the sort.

”I don’t have a wolf.” I said.

He smiled weakly. ”That’s not possible.”

”Can you perceive my scent?” I asked him.

”No... but I thought that’s because you....

And then his voice trailed off when he saw that I was serious.

And then the smile on his face fell.

What I had been expecting finally came.

Once again I had become a disappointment.

In as much as I still didn’t want to believe any of the story that he was my father, it hurt that he was very obviously disappointed.

”The father of my babies is an Alpha. My babies. They are wolves. None like me. I can’t go through the usual she wolf pregnancy. I can’t shift and give birth to wolf babies. I have to remain a human being and push out a wolf baby. I’ll have to die.”

He seemed stiff

”You see.” I managed with a very weak smile. ”I’m not the one you want.

He sighed heavily and walked up to me.

He caught my shoulders and held them firmly

”Jasmine don’t ever say that.” He said to me as he looked into my eyes. ”You’re my daughter. That’s all that matters.”

And in that instant, I felt love and accepted by a family member for the first time in my life.

It felt surreal, but I let myself feel the warmth of his embrace