Chapter 174

174 Unfulfilled Wish

Jerome was in his wolf form when the Crown Prince came inside the King’s chamber and fell down on his knees.

Along with the grief of having to lose that one person who he had been following his whole life, he was also feeling this extreme sourness in his heart because of the way his alpha had passed away.

The alpha’s last wish was to see his son’s face one last time before the angel of death claimed his soul. Even until his very last breath, he kept on taking Everard’s name, asking where he was and how he was. He kept on clinging onto his life with a single thread, waiting for his son to walk in through the door.

However, in the end, he wasn’t that lucky to fulfill his dying wish.

For a split second, Jerome felt like slashing his claws across the Prince’s chest for coming in this late. He felt like shouting at him for making the King pass on to the afterlife with a heavy heart and an unfulfilled desire.

It took a great deal of determination for him to put aside his anger toward the Crown Prince.

Jerome swiftly reverted back to his human form, grabbed a spare towel, and wrapped it around his waist. He then glanced at the Crown Prince.

Everard was still looking like a lifeless statue. His moist and puffy eyes were fixated on the King’s cold face.

Jerome closed his eyes and deeply sighed. He rubbed his eyes with his palms and then rubbed his whole face. He let out a shaky breath and walked towards Everard.

.....

He patted Everard on the shoulder and tightly gripped it, almost as if he wanted to hurt the Prince.

In his head, he was screaming at the Crown Prince, ‘All he wanted even at his last breath was to see your face and hold your hand. But you didn’t come!’

However, he filtered out his thoughts and asked in a passive-aggressive voice, “What took you so long, Your Highness? The late King was waiting for you, you know...”

“He was waiting for me...” The moment Everard heard Jerome, his already shattered heart felt as if it was being crushed into further smaller pieces. It hurt so bad that if someone told him that something invisible was slicing his heart open, he would believe them.

Everard’s tears finally started to well up again. He rested his head on Jerome’s arm, closed his eyes, and began to silently shed his tears.

Jerome’s eyes were also glistening with tears. He looked up at the empty ceiling and tried to contain his eyes. But he couldn’t do that at all. The tears began rolling down his temple the very next second.

Jerome sniffled and said to the Crown Prince in a ragged whisper, “He asked me to say that you would make a great King. And that...” He breathed in through his mouth to cool down his sore throat and completed his sentence, “And that he loved you.”

It now became extremely unbearable for Everard. He grabbed Jerome’s arms and began to cry his heart out.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye to him...” he whispered in between his soul-crushing cries and hiccups. “And I didn’t even get to say that I loved him too... I never said that... I never said that I loved him... ever...”

He looked at the bed through his teary gaze and mumbled in his broken voice, “And now, I will never get to say it...”

Everard slammed his fist on his chest and angrily shouted at himself, “I should have said it when I had the chance! I should have said it instead of shutting him down and walking away! Why the hell did I even walk away? I should have been here when he passed away! I should have stayed by his side!”

“Not by the side of some...” Everard bit his tongue and let out a disgruntled scream while pulling his hair. “Aaaahhhhhhhhh...”

Jerome was equally devastated as Everard about the loss of the King. And seeing Everard shouting and crying made him want to do the same.

However, he swallowed his tears and gently patted Everard’s head. He then tried his best to speak in a consoling voice, “It wasn’t your fault, Your Highness. You walked away because you had to. Besides, you had been taking care of your father continuously for several days and nights in a row.”

“Yes, but... you don’t understand!” Everard now felt disgusted by how he went running to a woman he barely knew for a week or two instead of running back to his sick father. And he screamed in utter anguish, “I should have come back here as soon as I got a hold of my mind! At least then, I would get to stay by his side until his last breath.”

His emotional state spiraled down again with regret.

And he beat himself up on his chest while shouting at himself, “At least I would get to say that I loved him too...” That became his greatest regret out of everything.

“I am sure that he always knew.” Jerome grabbed Everard’s wrist so that he wouldn’t break his own chest. He knelt down in front of Everard and consolingly said, “I’m sure he knew how much you loved him. So, please, don’t let yourself break like this.”

Though Jerome said that, he himself was breaking down on the inside. Only he knew how much it hurt when suddenly the very person who you lived for disappeared from the face of the Earth. He had been living for his alpha until now. He had been dedicating his whole life to his alpha.

And now that the alpha was no more, the very purpose of his life was lost.

He was feeling as if a huge hole had been punched in his chest, almost as though a whole chunk of his life was now missing.

In the end, he sat down along with the Crown Prince and shed his tears to mourn the death of his beloved alpha.

—

While Everard was drowning in the sorrow of the death of his father and going through agonizing pain, Ruby was also feeling everything that he was feeling. She felt a throbbing pain in her heart as though someone had pierced a dagger in it; she was convulsing on the floor, shouting and screaming in pain.

She could hear Everard’s thoughts and got to know about the King’s death. She wanted to flee to his side, but since she was still in her wolf form, the werewolf guards didn’t allow her to leave her cell.

As she wasn’t able to be on his side, she tried consoling him by talking to him telepathically.

‘What is happening? He can’t hear me or is he not talking back to me?’ she asked herself when no matter how many times she tried to talk to Everard, she didn’t get a single reply.

Somehow, she felt as if she wasn’t able to get through to him, almost as if he had completely shut her out of his mind.

‘What if he shut me out because he could hear everything I said to him? It would only make him irritated. He is already going through so much pain... I shouldn’t be a bother to him.’

She instantly decided not to think of a word in her mind considering how he was able to hear her inner thoughts earlier.

Instead, she began pacing around in her cell in circles to keep her mind calm.

She tried to revert back to her human self so as to get out of the cell. But she didn’t know how to do that. She was feeling too restless to focus on changing back to being human.

Thus, she impatiently waited until the cold night passed.

The guards finally left her alone when she began her transformation again. And the moment she was back in her human form, she slipped into the clothes that she had prepared beforehand.

Ruby then took off to find her grieving Prince, in case he needed her.