Chapter 332: In Another Life

Rebecca’s POV

​My fingers tightened together in my lap as I gathered the courage to say the words I had practiced all morning. "Kaden... you’re not a completely bad person."

​His eyes lifted to mine.

​"I used to think you were," I admitted, a small, sad smile touching my lips for barely a second. "There were times I hated you so much that I couldn’t imagine there being anything good inside you."

​The words hurt to say, but he needed to hear them.

​"Then I started to understand you. We met under terrible, awful circumstances. When we met, you had just lost Helen—you lost your mate, your wife, and your unborn child. You were grieving, angry, desperate, and broken, and then I was found beside her body when everything pointed toward me." ℯℯ𝑙.

​I swallowed hard.

​"That doesn’t excuse what you did to me. It never will. The prison, the choker, the torture... none of it is okay. But I understand now that under all that terrifying rage, you weren’t simply some cruel Alpha who woke up one morning and decided to destroy an innocent woman’s life. You were just a broken man who handled his pain in the worst possible way and didn’t know how to survive losing his family."

​His eyes glistened with more tears.

​"I think you need help, Kaden. Real, professional help. Not punishment. Not locking yourself inside a nursery. Not ordering guards to flog you," I added gently. "Talk to someone. A therapist, a healer, anyone who can actually help you deal with everything you’ve lost and heal from all the trauma you’ve carried for so long. Because hurting yourself isn’t going to heal you."

​He offered no argument. He only gave another slow, silent nod.

​The tears I had been fighting finally blurred my vision, and I blinked them away as I looked out over the quiet garden.

​"Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if we had met differently. If there had been no Helen’s murder. No accusation." My voice trembled slightly as the wind rustled the leaves above us. "Just you and me."

​My throat tightened painfully. "Maybe things would have been different."

​Kaden’s breathing changed slightly, his chest rising heavily.

​"I think I would have fallen for you naturally," I whispered. "And I think... I think I could have lived a happy life with you, Kaden."

​Kaden quickly turned his head away toward the trees, trying to hide the tears spilling over his lashes.

​I wanted to stop. God, I wanted to stop. But if this was going to be the end, he deserved the absolute truth.

​"Kaden, I know you love me," I said softly. "I’ve doubted almost everything between us, but I don’t doubt your love for a single second."

​My heart pounded hard in my chest. "And somewhere along the way..." I stopped, suddenly finding it difficult to get the words out. I had fought these feelings for so long, denied them even to myself, but there was no point hiding them anymore. I swallowed hard and finally looked into his eyes. "I fell for you too."

​Kaden’s head slowly turned back toward me, his reddened eyes meeting mine.

​"I don’t know when it happened. I don’t even know how it happened. I fought against it so hard. I tried to hate you, I tried to push you away, I reminded myself of everything you had done whenever I started feeling something for you, but I couldn’t stop my heart from feeling it."

​I let out a shaky breath, a tear slipping down my cheek.

​"Then we found out we were mates, and that made everything even more confusing. Sometimes I don’t even know how much of what I feel is truly mine and how much comes from the force of this mate bond pulling at my soul. Maybe the Moon Goddess made us mates for a reason. Maybe she wasn’t wrong. Maybe in another life, or under different circumstances, we would have been exactly what each other needed."

​A clear tear slipped down Kaden’s pale cheek. He quickly turned his face away again, staring blindly at a distant tree.

​I cried too, wiping my cheeks only for more tears to replace them.

​"But this is the life we got," I said, my voice breaking under the weight of the truth. "And too much has happened in it. Too much pain, too many secrets, too much tragedy."

​His broad shoulders rose slowly with a deep, shaky breath.

​"If I stay in your life, I will only cause you endless pain," I told his profile. "I don’t know if I’ll ever stop remembering what happened between us. There will be days when I look at you and remember the man who hurt me, and those memories won’t just vanish. And every time you look at me, you’ll be reminded of the baby we lost and what you did. We’ll keep hurting each other even when neither of us is trying to."

​Kaden lowered his head, a single sob shaking his frame, but he kept his lips pressed tightly together, refusing to speak a word.

​"I don’t want that for you," I whispered, my chest hurting so badly that breathing felt difficult. "You deserve to be happy, Kaden. You really do. One day, I hope you meet someone new without all this pain between you. Someone you meet under good, peaceful circumstances. Someone you don’t have terrible memories with, who will love you, give you peace, and give you the family you’ve always wanted."

​My lips trembled as my voice hitched in my throat.

​"But that woman can never be me."

​The words nearly broke on the way out. I pressed a hand against my chest, trying to steady my trembling body.

​"And I deserve that too. I deserve the chance to meet someone without fear or pain between us. I deserve to build a life where we only have good memories together instead of spending the rest of my life fighting old ones."

​Kaden finally looked at me again. His face was wet with tears now, his hands curled tightly together in his lap, yet he still hadn’t spoken a single word.

​Somehow, his complete silence made everything ten times more heartbreaking. I had seen Kaden furious, cruel, jealous, possessive, gentle, afraid, and broken—but I had never seen him sit so quietly while tears ran unchecked down his face.

​Laura whimpered deep inside me, louder this time, her grief echoing my own.

​I wiped the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand and forced myself to look directly into his dark, shattered eyes. This was why I had asked him here. This was what I knew we needed to do, even if every part of me hurt while doing it.

​"Alpha Kaden," I whispered, my voice trembling despite everything I did to keep it steady. "I think it’s time we let each other go."

​His eyes closed tightly.

​I swallowed the suffocating, painful lump in my throat and forced out the final word.

​"We have to reject each other."