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 sothing inside went very, very quiet.
I took a step back.
Then another.
My heels brushed cold stone and I didn’t rember walking that far. My chest felt hollow, like soone had scooped everything out and forgotten to put it back.
"No," I said again, softer this ti. Not to him. To myself. "That doesn’t make sense."
Aiden didn’t move. He didn’t reach for . He didn’t try to convince .
He just watched.
And sohow, 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 like I was a burden? Why do he treat that way?!"
"What way?" Aiden asked his eyes flashing sharply.
I scoffed. "Your brother hated . I was raised as his daughter. He let her die in a cell and he raised in hell! Hell is an understatent for what I went through!"
I shook my head.
"Why did the packs let rot on the edges of everything?"
My throat burned.
"If I was a princess," I said bitterly, "then why did no one co for ?"
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 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 ?" I demanded. "You left my mother? You left ?"
"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."
Sothing in my chest cracked open.
Not rage.
Grief.
"I spent my whole life thinking I wasn’t enough," I whispered. "That there was sothing wrong with ."
Aiden turned back to , eyes shining not with pity, but with sothing like regret sharpened into resolve.
"There was never anything wrong with you."
My stomach tightened suddenly.
Not emotionally.
Physically.
A sharp pressure blood low in my abdon, 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 an?"
"It ans," 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 imdiately.
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 so hard it almost staggered .
"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 ca here. No one. And you only ca here because of the blood in your veins. Your erald necklace".
Panic clawed up my throat.
"So what?" I snapped. "I just leave him?"
"I didn’t say that," he replied calmly. "I said ti is no longer on our side. And he is in safe hands. Those people at the distant lands are loyal to .
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, overwheld.
"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 co here to rule anything. I didn’t co to fulfill prophecies. I ca to survive."
Aiden studied for a long mont.
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 claid."
"I wouldn’t ask you to," he replied.
I looked at him sharply.
"Then what do you want from ?"
His voice was quiet.
"Ti. 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 ," I whispered. "And I won’t abandon the one person who never abandoned ."
When I opened my eyes, resolve settled into my bones.
"For the first ti," I said, "the world isn’t chasing ."
Aiden watched closely.
"It’s waiting," he finished.
I swallowed.
And sohow, that terrified more than being hunted ever had.
My hands rubbing tummy. "I don’t want to die like my mother."
"What do you an 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 ." I said after a few seconds of silence. "She gave this necklace. I never got to et 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 .
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 in disbelief. "That’s not possible."
"I’m....." I swallowed hard.
My father whom I still couldn’t believe, I had I just t, was the Leader of this place.
Had so much prestige.
Could even command dragons.
And here I was.
The daughter he had never t 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 na to what I was and that made it hundred tis worse.
What was I going to be to him?
He was looking for so sort of ssiah 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 ca.
Once again I had beco a disappointnt.
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 . 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 seed stiff
"You see." I managed with a very weak smile. "I’m not the one you want.
He sighed heavily and walked up to .
He caught my shoulders and held them firmly
"Jasmine don’t ever say that." He said to 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 mber for the first ti in my life.
It felt surreal, but I let myself feel the warmth of his embrace
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