The Alpha's Unwanted Bride

Chapter 509: PARENTS GRIEF

The silence in the room thickened once Nanny Nia closed the door.

Jasmine’s breathing slowed, her body stiffening as if bracing for impact. She didn’t look at him this time, her eyes slipping back toward the window, toward nothingness.

Xaden’s steps were measured, almost too careful, as though he feared startling her. He stopped a few paces away, his tall frame casting a shadow across her.

For a long moment, he simply stared at her profile, her delicate face, her vacant eyes, her frail shoulders.

She looked as though she could vanish at any second.

”Jasmine.” His voice was low, steady, but there was a crack beneath it she couldn’t miss.

She didn’t answer.

He clenched his fists at his sides, fighting the storm inside of him. ”You haven’t eaten. You barely sleep. Do you plan to waste away in here?”

Her lips twitched, not in defiance, not in agreement, just a faint acknowledgment that she’d heard him. Still, her gaze stayed fixed outside.

Frustration flared in him, but grief softened it almost instantly.

He exhaled harshly, running a hand through his hair. ”Do you hate me that much?” he asked finally, his voice hoarse. ”For what happened? For... the baby?”

That word. Baby. It cut through the fog surrounding her.

Slowly, Jasmine turned her head, her dull eyes meeting his. ”You let me bleed that night till my baby died.”

Her voice was soft, brittle, yet sharp enough to pierce him.

Xaden froze, guilt crashing into him like a tidal wave.

He opened his mouth to explain, but the words lodged in his throat.

The Alpha who feared no man, no war, no enemy, stood there, powerless before her grief.

He swallowed hard. ”Jasmine I was in a tight spot you can’t blame me for putting you in there.”

”Of course” she replied simply, turning back to the window.

The silence that followed was brutal, suffocating.

Xaden stepped closer, his hand hovering as though he wanted to touch her but feared she might shatter under it. ”Jasmine... I don’t know what’s true anymore. About Hunter. About you. About anything.” His voice cracked, the weight of his confusion spilling out. ”But I know I failed you. And I know I failed our child.”

Her body trembled faintly at his words, but she said nothing.

For the first time in a long time, Xaden dropped his guard.

He knelt beside her chair, his proud Alpha frame bent low before her. ”Tell me what to do,” he whispered. ”Tell me how to fix this. Because I don’t know how.”

Xaden’s words hung heavy between them, the kind of plea that would have undone her once.

But Jasmine only sat there, still as stone, her gaze fixed on the pale stretch of sky beyond the window.

Silence pressed in, louder than any scream could be.

Her hands rested in her lap, limp and unmoving.

She didn’t recoil when he knelt, but she didn’t reach for him either.

That absence cut deeper than any rejection, she simply wasn’t there for him to touch anymore.

Xaden’s throat worked, his chest tight. He searched her face for even the smallest flicker of what used to be there, anger, fire, love, anything.

All he found was the hollow calm of someone who had nothing left to give.

”Whatever it Is. Whatever you want to do. Say it. Do it. Tell me.” He pleaded.

Still, no reply. Only that endless, unbearable quiet.

Finally, Jasmine blinked slowly, as though surfacing from some distant place. Her voice, when it came, was flat. ”There’s nothing left to say.”

Xaden’s heart clenched. Nothing left to say. The words hit harder than a blade.

He rose stiffly, his body taut, jaw tight as though holding himself together by sheer force of will.

For a moment he lingered, staring down at her, but she never looked up again.

The Alpha left the room in silence, carrying with him the crushing realization that her indifference hurt worse than her hatred ever could.

Xaden’s words lingered in the air. ”I’d give anything to hear you curse me .”

For a heartbeat, Jasmine stayed still, her face turned toward the pale sky.

Then her lips trembled. Her chest rose, sharp and unsteady.

When she turned her head, her eyes burned—not hollow this time, but blazing, wet with rage and grief that refused to be swallowed.

”You want me to curse you?” Her voice was brittle, sharp as broken glass. ”Fine. I’ll curse you.”

She shot to her feet so suddenly he flinched back. ”Where were you, Xaden? Where were you when I screamed in pain? When I begged for someone, anyone, to help me? Where were you when my body failed me, when I held my dead child in my arms?”

Her voice cracked but her fury only sharpened. ”You weren’t there! You were too busy with politics. What people had to say about you. Too busy to think about me for once! About us!”

Tears streaked hot down her face, her fists clenched at her sides. ”And now you come here, now, saying you’d give anything to hear me curse you? You don’t deserve my silence, you don’t deserve my curses, you don’t deserve me!”

Xaden’s breath left him in a shudder, his face pale, eyes wide like a man struck. But she wasn’t finished.

”I died the day I put her in the ground,” she spat, her voice raw, shaking. ”And you....” her chest heaved, ”...you killed whatever was left of me when you chose lies over me. So don’t you dare come here asking for forgiveness, or words, or anything at all. You’ve taken it all already.”

Her knees buckled then, fury crumbling into grief, and she sank back onto the chair, sobs tearing from her chest.

She curled in on herself, trembling, broken open in a way that made even the walls seem to ache with the sound.

Xaden reached for her, instinct warring with shame, but she shoved his hand away with such venom that it cut deeper than claws.

”Don’t touch me,” she whispered, shaking her head. ”Not now. Not ever.”

And that was when Xaden understood fully: her hatred was brutal, but her rejection was fatal.