The Alpha's Unwanted Bride novel Chapter 501

Chapter 501: RUMOURS

The pack was never silent for long. Wolves thrived on noise, on chatter, on laughter, on the steady rhythm of lives woven together. But in the days after the burial, the noise turned into whispers.

Low, hissing words that carried farther than they should have, slipping under doors and through cracks like smoke Jasmine couldn’t escape.

Wherever she walked, eyes followed. Some lingered with pity, soft and heavy as chains. Others carried something colder, like fear, as if she had become a vessel of misfortune. A cursed thing. A failure.

"She lost the Alpha’s heir."

"Maybe the Moon Goddess rejected her."

"It’s not natural... maybe she’s cursed."

The words weren’t always said aloud. Sometimes they hung in the air, clear enough in the silence when conversations cut off as she entered a room.

Jasmine kept her chin high, but inside, grief was a gnawing, hollow beast. Every whisper fed it.

It was bad enough that she has lost her own child and she no longer had the will to live, but being taunted by the staffs about her misery?

She couldn’t handle.

Anna, of course, was the loudest among the quiet.

She never confronted Jasmine directly, not yet.

Anna was far too cunning for that. Instead, she dropped her poison where it would spread the fastest.

Among the younger wolves in training. Among the servants who worked closest to the elders.

"She’s weak. She couldn’t carry the heir. Tell me, what kind of Luna loses her pup before it even takes its first breath? She brings nothing but bad omens."

The words slithered through the pack like venom.

Jasmine tried to ignore it. She told herself not to break, not to give Anna the satisfaction. But her strength was worn thin. In the corridor outside the kitchen, she overheard two she wolves whispering.

"The Alpha should take a mate. A stronger one."

"Someone who can give him heirs."

"What did he even expect?" The lady sneered. "The daughter of our enemy? She is too useless to even do anything."

Her chest tightened. The walls seemed to tilt, pressing in. She wanted to scream at them, to claw their throats open, but she walked on instead, eyes forward, spine stiff, her nails digging into her palms until she smelled blood.

She resumed her work and then Fiona came in.

Jasmine smile lit up.

Her and Fiona had had a terrible altercation the last time she had seen her before she had left the pack.

But on returning, they had forgiven each other at once and it was good to know that Fiona didn’t believe the lies Anna had told.

"Hey you shouldn’t be up working." Fiona said when she saw Jasmine in the kitchen.

It had been two weeks since she lost her child.

Jasmine managed a smile.

"I just didn’t want to sit and be alone in the room and do nothing." Jasmine said.

"You should still rest." Fiona pointed out. "Loren and Marie said you needed it. For once they both agree on something."

Jasmine smiled but it was a dead one.

Fiona sighed and then leaned against the table.

"I need you girls to please request for more flour." Jasmine said to the girls who had been gossiping about her.

They did as if they didn’t hear what she had said.

Fiona’s eyes were widened.

"Didn’t you just speak to them?" Fiona asked.

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