CHAPTER 498: GOODBYE

After Jasmine had spent over an hour by her dead child’s grave she very slowly stood up from the shallow grave.

She turned around and saw that Nanny Nia and Fiona were still waiting for her.

She had nothing to say to them.

She had nothing to say to any of them.

A part of her was dead.

Gone.

Snapped just like that.

She was furious.

Angry like she had never been in her entire life.

She was burning and she could feel the rage seeping through her skin.

She was overwhelmed, dazed and in shock.

She still didn’t want to believe that the baby was gone.

The only thing apart from Xaden that she held dear to her life.

Now gone.

She bit her bottom lip hard.

She said nothing to any of them and resumed the walk slowly back to the pack.

It was the one thing she knew how to do.

Walk.

No one said a word.

They followed her quietly behind.

And as soon as she got close to the pack gates, Nanny Nia said behind her quickly.

"Jasmine your bedroom is available." Nanny Nia stated. "I spoke to Alpha Xaden and he said you could return back to your bedroom."

Jasmine paused, said nothing, and then returned the slow walk.

She didn’t want to return back to the room.

She wanted to run away from here.

She wanted to throw herself off a cliff and end it all.

As she slowly walked up the steps to the Pack house she felt a familiar presence and when she looked up, she saw none other than Xaden towering over hair.

His dark hair well placed on his hair, his beautiful blue eyes seeing through with his arms folded in a firm way that spelled of his dominance.

Still as handsome as ever.

But yet she was repulsed by him.

Repulsed by the father of her dead child who had accused her of sleeping around, planning his attack and also falsely punished her for a crime she did not commit.

She said nothing as she intended to go past him as though he was never there.

He stood right in her path blocking her from passing.

"Jasmine." He said softly.

She was too weak, too angry to even speak.

She just stared at him, her eyes hollow and dead.

He started to stutter and seemed unsure of what to say.

It was so unlike him.

Xaden.

The Alpha

Who always knew what to say.

And for the first time he seemed to not have the right words in place.

"Jasmine," he said again, his voice softer than she expected.

Her eyes lifted to his, hollow and lifeless. She didn’t answer.

Did he want to apologize?

In front of everyone?

Did he want to accept that he was wrong?

He faltered.

For the first time in her memory, he faltered. Xaden, who always had the right words, the right command, seemed to stumble over his own tongue.

He shifted his weight, lowered his arms, and then—

"Where are you coming from?" he asked.

The question echoed between them, absurd in its simplicity.

Jasmine’s lips parted, disbelief flashing across her face. Slowly, she exhaled, her voice breaking like glass.

She didn’t want to say a word to him.

She wanted to walk past him like cold Ice.

"Xaden." Fiona said in shock at his question.

But his eyes were down on her, waiting for her to answer him.

And so she gave him the answer he truly deserved.

"From burying my dead child."

The world seemed to stop. Xaden’s eyes widened a fraction, his mask cracking, but before remorse could surface, his instinct spoke first.

"And you didn’t think to tell me?" His tone carried hurt? offense even. "You went alone?"

Her heart froze. Of all the things he could have said, of all the ways he could have reached her, this?

After everything that she had been through.

His audacity struck her harder than any blade.

He still made it about himself.

"You... you dare to ask me that?" Her voice was low, trembling, but laced with fury. She took a step closer, her grief pouring out like fire. "Where were you when I needed you? When I begged you to believe me? When your accusations, your punishments, your distrust shattered me piece by piece? Where were you when I was screaming for help in the cell you locked me up? When I bled? Where were you?"

Her chest heaved, her hands curled into fists. "You left me to carry this pain alone. You buried me long before I buried our child."

Xaden swallowed, his composure cracking. He took a hesitant step closer, his voice softer. "Jasmine, I—"

"No." She cut him off, her voice steel now. "Don’t speak to me of rights or what I should have told you. You forfeited that when you chose to see me as an enemy instead of the mother of your child. You murdered your own child."

He seemed to flinch and she felt a pinch of satisfaction to see her words hurt him.

Her eyes burned with unshed tears, but her voice did not falter. "There are so many things you have done to me and I have always forgiven you. But this? I will never forgive you. My child is gone. And so is the part of me that ever looked to you for comfort."

She turned then, her hand brushing against him briefly as she stepped past him, like he was no more than a stranger in her way.

For the first time in his life, Xaden did not move, did not command, did not know what to say.

He stood frozen, his dominance useless, his power meaningless, as Jasmine walked away from him with a grief that no Alpha could control.

And in that moment, he realized he had not only lost his child, he was on the edge of losing her forever.

Or perhaps he already had.