Chapter 44
JASMINE’S POV
When I saw him, I had a sudden surge of emotions.
Surprised, confused, and elated.
Why had he come? And how had he even known that I was in trouble?
I knew that he didn’t want me dead because he tried to keep punishing me, but seeing him at the door.
I didn’t know how to feel.
The girls all froze once they saw him.
“What is going on here?” That was all he said.
They quickly withdrew from me and jumped off.
I sat up slowly and weakly.
I could feel the bruises and my bottom lip bleeding.
Plus, my forehead hurt severely.
The girls were vividly shaking and stood with their eyes downcast.
“I asked a question.” He said. “What is going on here?”
His voice had only further scared them, and now they were shaking.
“We were just teaching her a lesson.” The girl who first attacked me said,
“A lesson,” Xaden asked as he walked further into the room.
I slowly got up to my feet and adjusted my dress, which was now in shattered pieces.
“Do you know what a lesson is?” He asked.
The girls were still shaking.
“She is an enemy—your enemies’ daughter. I brought her to the pack by myself. If anyone is going to punish her, it would be me and not you, ” he said.
There was a pregnant silence in the room.
“Are you the Alpha?” he asked.
No one could reply.
“ANSWER ME!” He demanded.
The girl who had been the first to beat me jumped and quickly said, “N-no Alpha Xaden. “You alone are the Alpha.”
“So now tell me, ” he said. What possessed you to make such a decision by yourself?”
They were all now trembling, and they fell to their knees.
“Please forgive us, Alpha Xaden.” They wept.
He just watched their backs and gazed at them.
“You know the punishment.” He said.
They shrank in fear.
I quickly went to stand in front of them.
“Please don’t punish them,” I begged.
He looked at me, surprised.
And then I fell to my knees and pleaded. “Please do not. I am fine and alive.” I said.
“This has nothing to do with you.” He said it without paying me any regard. “But with the fact that they disobeyed my laws,”
“It’s because of me,” I said. “They disobeyed your laws. If I weren’t here, they would never have.”
He ignored me.
“Twenty lashes of cane.” He said that, and the girls began weeping.
“Please,” I begged him. “I’ll take the punishment myself. Just don’t beat them.”
He stared at me. “They attacked you and could have killed you had I not arrived, and yet you don’t just want them to be forgiven, but you will take the punishment on their behalf.”
I swallowed, and the tears were already brewing in my eyes.
“It’s because of hate that I came here. What my father did to your people.” I expressed it to him. “How long will we all suffer because of the hate planted as seeds in our minds?”
He just looked at me, and then I looked down at my hands.
He had said after all that I was here to be punished that he would order them to whip me.
“There are ten girls in this room, ” he said. If you want to serve their punishment, it will be twenty times the ten.”
I swallowed.
“Two hundred lashes.” He said. “You would receive two hundred lashes to your back?”
Could my entire body take that?
Maybe I would die from the whipping.
But thinking of them receiving it.
They hated me because of what my father had done to them. How would I show them I was not the same as my father if I let them take the fall?
Like the other people in the pack, I was unaware of the notorious stories my father had given them when he had gone through them like a breeze.
I would tell these girls another story in my name, and they would only resent me more.
They might never speak to me or attack me again after Xaden had whipped them, but they would never forgive me, and the seed of hate would only further grow in their hearts and be passed down to generations.
I nodded. “I accept it.”
He said nothing, and just at the moment when I was waiting to hear him order a wolf to execute the punishment, he surprised me by saying.
“I will pretend like none of these happened.” He said. “And let this pass on to others. If such occurs again, your heads would be on a spike. That I promise you all.”
The girls were trembling behind them, all scared.
It was amazing to think that just a few minutes ago, they had joined to beat me up, and here they were, scared to their wits.
“Forgive us. Thank you, Alpha Xaden.” They chorused as their heads touched the floor to bow to him. “There is no one as merciful as you.”
“Get up,” he said to me.
I did as I was told.
“You will sleep in Loren’s quarters.” He said.
I blinked at him in surprise.
Who was Loren?
As if reading my mind. “He is the healer.”
I nodded and followed him out.
He went on fast strides, and I had to run up to meet him.
“Thank you for what you did,” I said.
He stopped and turned short of me.
“You think I did it for you?” He asked me.
The hate was as explicit as Crystal’s and had returned to his eyes.
I shivered and saw his onyx eyes glow.
I took a step back.
“I don’t know what games you’re playing.” He said it to me, and I shrank. “But I’ll find out, and when I do, you will be begging for death.”
He turned to a guard. “Take her to Loren’s quarters. Tell him that she is to reside with him from now on.”
And with that, Xaden left me standing.