The Alpha's Unwanted Bride novel Chapter 660

Chapter 660: RUNNING BY THE SEA

Otto didn’t stop riding until the castle lights disappeared behind the thick wall of trees.

Fog curled low around the forest floor, swallowing their path with cold, ghostly fingers. Branches snapped beneath the horses’ hooves, each sound too loud, too sharp, too dangerous.

Jasmine clung to the reins, her bare feet tucked tightly beneath her, toes numb from the freezing wind.

She kept looking back over her shoulder.

Even though she had followed this path so many times to see the Siren, she still felt scared and isolated.

She had never been here this late.

Even though she knew Hildegard was gone.

Even though she knew she couldn’t return.

Even though her heart hurt so much she could barely breathe.

"Jasmine," Otto said finally, his voice tight. "Stop looking back."

"I can’t help it," she whispered. "She’s in there. Alone. Because of me."

Otto’s jaw clenched.

He felt sick too.

He felt like vomiting from guilt.

But he forced himself to stay focused.

He had to.

If they fell apart out here, there would be no saving anyone.

"We’re almost at the clearing," he muttered. "Just hold on."

Jasmine nodded weakly, though she was shivering so badly her teeth clicked.

The cold wasn’t the worst part.

It was the silence.

The fear.

About thirty minutes later, the forest eventually spat them out onto a long stretch of moonlit sand, the sea roaring beside them like an angry beast.

The night wind sliced straight through Jasmine’s bones.

Otto kept glancing sideways at her as they rode, guilt flickering across his features over and over like a flame in a storm.

He hated this.

He hated that she was freezing.

He hated that she was barefoot.

He hated that she kept wiping tears away with trembling hands.

He hated that Hildegard was sitting in a cell waiting to die.

Now he wondered what she was going through.

Had they finally caught her?

He hated that Jasmine kept looking at him like she wanted answers and he didn’t know how to give her all of them.

After a long stretch of silence, Jasmine whispered,

"Otto... now can you tell me what’s going on?" She asked him.

He flinched.

He tightened his grip on the reins and spoke carefully.

"You were set up," he began, voice thick. "Someone planted the necklace. Someone told a maid to lie. And from what we’ve seen it was definitely Auburn. We think Cherry helped her."

Jasmine swallowed hard, staring at the dark horizon.

"The Queen..." Otto continued quietly, "was manipulated from all sides. It got out of hand."

Jasmine’s breath hitched.

Jasmine’s shoulders weakened.

She waited for him to go on.

He didn’t.

Because everything else he knew would crush her.

He didn’t tell her the one thing that she needed to.

That she was pregnant.

Hildegard telling him at the last moment still felt like a burned in his shoulders.

He said only what she could handle.

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