The Wife the Vampire Chose to Lose

My father had always been against my marriage to Ryan Kane, a vampire of noble birth. He believed that as a human, I had no place in the vampire world. He warned me that if Ryan ever changed his mind, without his protection, my half-blood child and I would be nothing more than walking blood bags in the eyes of vampires. But I believed in Ryan—and in our love. My husband had always been gentle and attentive. He had even defied everyone to make me, a human, his vampire bride. That was before Ryan's human ex-fiancée had her engagement called off and returned to the country seeking his help. I went to the hospital alone. While I was learning that my pregnancy was high-risk, Ryan was there attending her prenatal checkup, even introducing her to the doctor as his wife. All he had for me was one cold line: "Keep pushing me and I'll file for divorce." I pressed my hand against my stomach and dialed a number I hadn't called in years. "Dad, you were right... I want a divorce." Two weeks. That was all it would take for me to disappear from his life completely. But later—that same vampire who had discarded me like I was nothing showed up at my wedding to another man, trembling all over, calling my name in a broken voice. Chapter 1 Elena's POV Eight months pregnant, the half-blood child inside me had put me through hell, yet there I was outside the prenatal examination room, watching my husband—the one who claimed he couldn't accompany me because of "work"—shielding his first love from the sunlight streaming through the corridor glass. Ryan drew her close, carefully angling the umbrella to block the light, and I watched clearly as he pressed a tender kiss to the corner of her lips. "Don't worry," he murmured. "I won't let anything hurt you or the baby. I'll protect you both." He had once said the same words to me. But compared to this—what he'd given me felt like a casual afterthought. That was Lilian, Ryan's first love. I had heard her name even before our wedding, whispered by some of his friends. Lilian had once wandered into the vampire world by accident. Ryan rescued her when she was injured and nursed her back to health, and the two fell for each other quickly—so quickly that they'd even talked about marriage. But at the last moment, Lilian retreated. Unable to bear the elder council's contempt toward a human bride, she refused to marry Ryan and returned to the human world. Three months ago, Lilian—now pregnant—had been abandoned by the man she was engaged to. With nowhere left to turn, she came back to Ryan for help. Ryan told me that seeing pregnant Lilian struggle alone reminded him of me, and that out of compassion for a human woman in her condition, he had taken her in. "Of course I trust you, but Elena..." Lilian dropped her eyes, her face a picture of concern—though I could see the mockery beneath. "She's going to be furious. Today you came with me to the checkup instead of her—what if she makes a scene again?" "What can she do without my protection? A half-blood kid with no father? That child has nothing." Ryan laughed softly. The sound was quiet, but it drove itself into my ear like a needle. "So what if she's angry? She can't leave me. Even if she finds out the child you're carrying is mine, she won't dare file for divorce." He said it so carelessly—almost with a touch of contempt. The smile on his face was utterly foreign to me. In that moment, something inside my mind snapped. My blood ran cold. The medical report in my hand crumpled into a ball. The doctor stepped out of the examination room and called Lilian's name. Ryan instinctively reached out to support her elbow and guided her through the door. "Doctor... my wife hasn't been feeling well lately. I'd like a thorough check this time." Ryan called Lilian his wife. Then what did that make me? From the moment Lilian returned to his life, I, my child, our love—none of it mattered to him anymore. I lowered my head slowly and looked at the curve of my stomach. Something pressed against my chest, heavy and aching. I finally took out my phone and dialed that number I hadn't called in years. It connected quickly. "What's wrong?" My father's voice was low and measured. My voice cracked slightly. "Dad." I said. "You were right. I want a divorce. Come take me home." My father was silent for a moment, then just sighed. But the steadiness in his voice settled something inside me. "My good girl. You've finally come to your senses." "Give me two weeks. I'll come for you then." "I won't let that vampire get close to you and hurt you again." My father would find doctors to help protect the pregnancy, and he would find a way past the guards surrounding Ryan's estate. I would be able to leave here safely with my child soon. Two weeks. That was all it would take for me to vanish from Ryan's life completely. Chapter 2 Elena's POV I had barely stepped into the stairwell when the click of heels echoed behind me. "I thought so," Lilian said lightly. "I thought I saw you back there." My fingertips stilled. I could already smell that cloying perfume. "So it really was you." Lilian stood on the landing, one hand resting on the railing, the other still cradling her stomach. The fragile act she had put on for Ryan was gone. Her expression was relaxed—almost entertained. "Hospitals are such busy, chaotic places." She tilted her head. "Standing there watching like that—did it hurt?" I turned slowly to face her. "Well?" She looked me up and down, her gaze anything but kind. "Now you finally know what it looks like when Ryan is actually happy." My throat tightened. I said nothing. Lilian seemed pleased by my silence, and kept going. "Shouldn't you be grateful?" she said softly. "Without me, you'd have gone your whole life without ever seeing him smile like that." She let out a gentle sigh, her tone edging toward something that almost sounded like pity. My nails pressed into my palm. I watched her looking down at me from the step above, and stepped closer, lowering my voice. "He smiles plenty around me. You're just not worth his smile." The air seemed to drop a few degrees. I stepped forward, emotion rising in my chest despite myself. "Are you done?" Lilian raised an eyebrow, smugness and sarcasm in her eyes almost impossible to hide. She had finally gotten what she wanted—watching me lose control. "What's wrong?" she murmured. "Finally had enough?" My chest heaved. The report in my hand was creased and crushed, my knuckles white. "You think you've won?" I stared at her. "By crawling into someone else's marriage like this?" The moment the words left my mouth, my hand went slack unconsciously. The report slipped from my fingers. The pages scattered and drifted down the steps. Lilian's gaze followed them instinctively. The next second, her expression changed. A brief, stunned pause crossed her face—one that was quickly replaced by something like excitement. She bent down and picked up one of the pages, her eyes pausing on the last line for two full seconds. Then she laughed. The sound of it rang through the empty stairwell, sharp and jarring. "Well, now I understand." She lifted her head, her voice laced with undisguised mockery. "No wonder you've looked so worn out lately." "'Extreme risk of complications during delivery,'" she read aloud, drawing the words out slowly. "Looks like it's you or the baby. Tough luck." A ringing sound filled my head. I couldn't believe the woman who had spent so long playing sweet and warm in front of Ryan was capable of this. Before I could respond, she had straightened and let her gaze drop to my stomach. "So your baby hates you too," she said, tilting her head. "Draining you dry just to kill you." The world went silent with my fury. The next second, I raised my hand and slapped her with everything I had. The crack of it split the air in the stairwell. Lilian stumbled back two steps, then crumpled deliberately onto the landing, clutching her face, releasing a theatrical shriek. "Are you insane?!" Her voice shot up immediately, breaking into sobs. "I was just worried about you! How could you hit me? I'm pregnant!" Almost simultaneously, a figure burst through the stairwell door. "What are you doing?! Why are you here?" Ryan's voice was sharp and furious. He grabbed my wrist with a force that sent a jolt of numbness through my arm, yanking me stumbling forward. "You pushed her?!" He stared down at me like he was looking at a stranger. Lilian burst into tears immediately, her voice trembling. "Ryan... don't blame her... it was my fault, I shouldn't have come to find her... as long as Elena feels better, it doesn't matter that she hit me..." Her whole body shook slightly as she spoke, looking fragile and innocent. Ryan's expression went completely cold. He stepped in front of Lilian, shielding her, and turned his gaze back to me. "Apologize," he said. I stared at him. "What did you just say?" "I said apologize." He repeated it without any softness, his tone leaving no room for argument. "You hit her. She's pregnant. She's physically weaker than you—" I laughed. It was a quiet laugh, but I couldn't keep the sarcasm out of it. "Do you know what she just said to me? What she said about our baby?" I bent down and picked up the scattered report, then walked over and pressed it against his chest. "Read this," I said. "Then blame me." The papers hit him and slid to the floor. Ryan glanced down briefly, then looked away before he had finished a single line. "I don't care about that," he said. "Your hormones are all over the place, but that's no excuse to hurt someone." "You're pregnant too. How could you be this cruel?" That hit me like a blunt blow straight to the chest. Cruel? I looked at him and suddenly felt his face was completely unfamiliar. "Three years of marriage," I said, my voice wavering slightly. "Is that really what you think of me?" He didn't answer. He just frowned, avoiding my eyes, impatience bleeding into his voice. "Then what kind of person are you?" he said. "You've been completely out of line lately." Ryan put his arm around Lilian's shoulders, pulling her close. In that moment, I felt nothing. Anger, hurt, pain—every feeling seemed to be cut off at the source. I bent down and collected the scattered report pages, one by one, folding them back into order. Then I looked up and met his eyes one last time. "Don't hold your breath," I said. "I'm not apologizing." "Ryan—who is actually your wife? Do you have any conscience left?" The words came out steady, without tears, without raising my voice. "Right now, you feel like a complete stranger to me." I turned and walked out. I didn't look back. The stairwell door swung shut behind me, completely shutting off the last bit of possibility between us. Chapter 3 Elena's POV I didn't realize I'd left my bag in the hospital until I walked out. The midday sun was so bright that I could hardly open my eyes. I was about to step down toward the shade of a nearby tree when I heard rapid footsteps behind me. "Elena, where are you going by yourself?" Ryan's voice came from behind me, with an urgency he probably didn't realize was there. I didn't turn around, but I could feel clearly that he had stopped at the boundary where shadow met light—and gone no further. "You're overthinking this. There's nothing between me and Lilian." His voice had dropped slightly, and then steadied again quickly. I stood in the shade and said nothing. A moment later, a stifled cry came from the direction of the stairwell entrance. "Ryan... my stomach hurts a bit." Lilian's voice was small and trembling. I heard Ryan draw a sharp breath. He called my name again—but this time there was a clear hesitation in it. I still didn't turn around. I could feel my unborn child reaching out too, quietly waiting for the care of its father. Before all of this, I would have gone running to Ryan in tears, desperate for comfort. The thought that my child and I might only have one chance between us—I didn't know how to face it. But I couldn't make myself forget what I had just witnessed and go blindly fall in love. Ryan made his choice quickly. Footsteps moved away in the opposite direction. "Go home on your own," he told me, his voice settling back into its usual cool and distance. "She's not feeling well right now." "And stop making scenes." Those words were a dull blade, slowly severing the last thread of hope I'd been holding. When I got home, the house was empty. I stood in the entryway and suddenly realized that this place hadn't truly belonged to me in a long time. The main bedroom—larger, airier—had been given to Lilian by Ryan. The lounge chair in the living room, the bowl of fruit Ryan had cut himself and left on the table—all of it was for another woman. The whole house was saturated with Lilian's perfume. As a vampire, Ryan's sense of smell should have been far sharper than mine, but he had chosen to notice nothing—even claiming that my nausea and vomiting were performed to drive me away. Somehow, she had become more of a mistress of this house than I was. More like Ryan's wife. And I was just someone who wasn't loved or taken care of by him. I didn't sit down to rest. I went straight to the bedroom and opened the wardrobe. Clothes were taken off one by one, folded and put into the suitcase. The gifts Ryan had given me I pulled out one by one and dropped in the trash. I endured the pain in my stomach, moving slowly but my mind had never been so clear. Last, I opened the drawer and took out the marriage certificate. I looked at it for a moment, then closed it again. Three years of marriage. In the end, all that remained of it was this single piece of paper. I was latching the suitcase when I heard the lock on the front door. Ryan was back. He came in with Lilian at his side, his hand at her elbow, careful and steady, as though she might shatter. "You frightened her," he said. "Lilian's still shaken up." Lilian stood beside him, pale, and spoke quietly. "Elena, please don't misunderstand." She looked at me, her voice soft. "I'm only staying here because the baby and I need somewhere to live." "Once the baby is born, I'll leave right away. Ryan and I... there's truly nothing going on." She had barely finished the sentence before the tears came. Ryan tightened his arm around her and murmured something to calm her. The moment those words left her mouth, something inside my chest nearly exploded. "Nothing?" I looked at Ryan. "Then what exactly is this you're doing right now?" He frowned. "Can you just be reasonable?" "She's a human pregnant woman. She needs care." "And what about me?" I shot back. "Wasn't I eight months pregnant?" He paused for a beat, then said impatiently: "It's different. Your child is strong—I can feel it. You've adjusted. Lilian's baby has always been fragile, and you're the one who hit her. I'm cleaning up your mess. How can you be this selfish?" "She stays here tonight. She'll keep staying." Ryan continued. "Don't even think about forcing Lilian out. That's not your call." For months, Lilian had been faking illness to draw Ryan's attention, and my husband had been spending nearly every night in her room caring for her. He had dismissed every sign of my own distress as jealousy or drama. What he didn't know was that the one in this house slowly being destroyed by pregnancy—dangerously so—was me. Not the woman playing fragile. I had confronted him before—asked him point-blank whether he regretted marrying me, whether he just wanted to be with Lilian. If that was the truth, I told him, I wouldn't beg. But Ryan had always deflected. He said that as a vampire, he could sense that Lilian's baby was unusually vulnerable, which was why he gave her more attention. He insisted he felt nothing for her beyond sympathy. And so, holding onto that small, pitiful scrap of hope, I swallowed my doubts until yesterday. I never expected to see the two of them being so affectionate in the hospital, openly passing themselves off as husband and wife in front of a doctor. "If you can't stand being around Lilian," he said, his tone going cold, "you can move to one of the other houses." The air in the room hardened. Lilian looked almost startled, reaching out to catch his sleeve. "Ryan, don't say that." She kept her voice gentle. "Elena isn't actually going to leave." She glanced at me. The triumph in her eyes was barely disguised. Ryan nodded, following her lead. "She won't go," he said with calm certainty. "She doesn't have it in her. And she wouldn't dare." "Without my protection, where would she even go?" In that moment, I understood something clearly. In his mind, I had no way out. I was simply a human he could threaten at will—one who would never dare defy him or actually go through with a divorce. I said nothing else. I turned and took hold of the suitcase I'd already packed. The wheels made a clear sound across the floor. Ryan finally registered that something was wrong, and looked up. "What are you doing?" I stopped, but didn't turn around. "You said so yourself," I said. "If I don't want to see her, I can leave." The moment I pulled the door open, the night wind rushed in. The light from inside, their silhouettes, three years of everything—I left it all behind the closing door. Chapter 4 Elena's POV The night wind hit my face, and I realized I was shaking. The delayed, almost unbearable wave of anger had locked my body in place. The first time Ryan and I met, he had stared at me for a long moment, then said he had fallen for me at first sight—and from that day on, he had taken care of me with a kind of gentleness. His warmth and attentiveness had blinded me to the fact that none of it was real. All I wanted was to give back the same love to the vampire who had faced down every objection for my sake—and I never once noticed that what he felt for me wasn't love. It was the grief of a man who couldn't let go of Lilian. If Lilian had never left. If he hadn't been startled when he first saw me—hadn't confused me for Lilian, another woman in a white dress—he never would have married me. He wouldn't even have bothered with the sweet words that made me fall for him. I was just a human bride used as a substitute. His love and his promises had always been a lie. Now that Lilian was back, every performance of tenderness had been quietly returned to its rightful owner. I stood under the corridor outside the main building, watching the light pour through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Their silhouettes moved across the glass—Ryan leaning close, saying something, and Lilian resting against him. This should have been the moment I turned and walked away. But instead, I found myself thinking about before. The first month of my pregnancy, I had been exhausted constantly. A human body was never built to carry a half-blood child easily, and I hadn't understood why—I had just assumed I was simply weak. One night I couldn't even keep myself standing. Ryan carried me to bed, cut his own wrist, and brought his blood to my lips. "Just a little," he said. "Vampire blood helps repair a human body. Try a small amount first." His voice was quiet. Patient. "Don't be afraid. I'm here. I'll protect you." I had believed, in that moment, that I was someone who was cherished. I believed he was giving me his blood because he loved me. Because I mattered. Looking back now, I could only find it ironic. All that tenderness, all that care—none of it had been for me. It was a series of experiments. He had been calibrating the dosage. Measuring the effects. Testing what happened when a pregnant human woman drank a small amount of vampire blood, more importantly, whether it brought her relief or caused harm. And once the person he actually wanted to protect had returned—he handed over every hard-won piece of knowledge without hesitation. I stood there watching as Ryan lifted his arm and passed a glass to Lilian, my chest rising and falling hard. The next second, I went back inside. Lilian was sitting on the sofa, a cup of dark liquid in her hands. I recognized it immediately. Ryan's blood. She was about to drink when I grabbed her wrist and held it. The cup slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor. "What are you doing?!" Ryan's voice was almost a shout. He shot to his feet, grabbed my wrist, and jerked me sharply backward. "Are you crazy?" His grip was brutal, his knuckles nearly cutting into my skin. I stumbled, my abdomen clenching hard with the sudden force, and I instinctively curved my body to protect my stomach. I looked up at him, my voice rough. "She's drinking your blood, isn't she?" Ryan's expression turned to stone. "That's none of your concern." "None of my concern?" I laughed once, my eyes burning hot. "So when you gave it to me, I was just an experiment?" Lilian rose from the sofa, hands out, looking as if she'd been frightened by all this. "Elena, please don't..." she said softly. "I'm just not feeling well. Ryan is worried about me, that's all." "He took care of you the same way before. Didn't he?" That sentence lit me on fire. "Took care of me?" I stared at her. "What you're enjoying right now—I paid for that with my life." Ryan's expression went completely cold. "Enough." "The way you're acting right now is pathetic." "If this keeps up, there's no point in this marriage continuing." Divorce. He said it like it was nothing—yet it landed precisely on my throat. "Enough with the theatrics," he said. "A half-blood with no father, no vampire protection—you really think that child would survive out there?" "No matter how powerful your father is, he can't stay in the vampire world." As his words sank in, the emotion drained from my face, piece by piece. The anger, out of control, the trembling—all of it slowly subsided, leaving behind only an unnervingly calm emptiness. I lifted my head and looked at Ryan. He clearly sensed something was off. In that instant, his brow flickered—a brief hesitation crossing his eyes as he studied my expression. He had never seen this look on me before. The kind born from hitting rock bottom, leaving nothing but cold indifference. For a moment, he was genuinely startled. His lips parted as if to speak, and his hand instinctively reached for mine. But only for a moment. Just as quickly, he masked that flicker of unease. His jaw tightened again, his expression settling back into its usual confidence and composure. As if he had already decided for me—decided that I would never dare leave him. Slowly, I pulled my hand free and stepped back. "So in your eyes," I said quietly, "my child was just a bargaining chip to keep me in line." He didn't deny it. Silence, in itself, was the answer. After a long moment, Ryan ordered the servants to lock the front gate and told me to go to the side bedroom and reflect on my behavior. I stared at the closed door, then turned and climbed the stairs without a word. This time, he didn't follow. Behind me, I heard Lilian call softly. "Ryan..." Her voice was soft, clinging. He hesitated for a second—then walked back to her side. Whatever flicker of heartbreak or hesitation that might have been meant for me dissolved into nothing. I walked into the bedroom, wrapped my arms around myself, and sank to the floor. My phone buzzed. A message from Lilian. "Don't get the wrong idea." "I was the one who had Ryan use you as an experiment first. He's just feeling a little guilty." "Don't fool yourself into thinking you still mean anything to him." The light from the screen burned my eyes. So that was it. From beginning to end, I had just been a substitute. Someone to experiment on. I turned off my phone and took a deep breath. I had to leave. No matter what it cost. Chapter 5 Elena's POV Long after dark, the estate had gone quiet—the kind of quiet that made it feel like an empty shell. I hadn't closed my door. I left it deliberately open by a crack. Light from the living room below came up through the banister in long, blurred columns. Lilian's voice drifted up, soft and faint, pitched to sound fragile. "Ryan, I don't feel well." His voice immediately dropped in concern. "What's wrong?" "I feel dizzy. The baby's breathing is erratic." She paused. "The blood from earlier... wasn't enough." He was quiet for a moment. I could picture his face—that measured, restrained expression, his brow creasing slightly. "You can't have any more right now," he said, steadily. "Vampire blood puts too much strain on a human body." Once, I had accidentally taken too much—and spent the entire night writhing in abdominal pain, unable to sleep until dawn. Ryan had stayed at my bedside through all of it, wiping the sweat from my face, his voice rough and low as he apologized and told me the dosage had been off. I had found it so thoughtful. It had never crossed my mind that the same careful patience, the same calibrated attention, would one day be transferred to someone else entirely. Lilian hummed softly, as if bearing something in silence. Then, after a few seconds, she spoke again. "I remember... the moonstone necklace you gave Elena—it stabilizes a half-blood child's breathing, doesn't it?" The air seemed to go still. That necklace. He had fastened it around my neck himself on our wedding day. He had bent close to clasp it, his voice low and serious, telling me it was the mark of a vampire bride—and a protection. As long as I wore it, he would always sense where I was. In that moment, I truly believed I was loved. A long silence fell below. "That necklace is a vampire bride's symbol," Ryan finally said. "It's meant to protect the human who wears it." "I know." Lilian cut him off gently. "I just want to borrow it for a few days. I'll give it back once I've stabilized." Her voice was soft enough to melt stone. "I know you're married to her. I don't mind. And I don't want Elena to feel like I'm taking something that belongs to her." The words came out light, but the wounded undertone was deliberate. I heard Ryan draw a long breath. He was weighing it. I could hear it. He knew what that necklace meant to me. After what felt like a long time, he finally spoke. "Don't talk like that." "That necklace... was always meant for you." There was something raw in the way he said it—like he was talking himself into something. "I only gave it to her because you left and got engaged to someone else. This is just returning it to where it belongs." Not long after, the bedroom door opened. Ryan stood in the doorway, and our eyes met directly. He clearly hadn't expected me to be sitting there, having quietly listened to every word. For a brief moment, his expression shifted—surprise, guilt, and a flash of frustration. He even took a step forward, as if to say something. "Elena..." He stopped. I wasn't crying. I wasn't angry. I simply looked at him. That too-quiet calm seemed to bother him. He frowned. "You heard everything?" He lowered his voice, as if testing the ground. "All of it," I said. A moment of tension stretched between us. His gaze dropped to the moonstone at my throat. The silver glinted cold and pale under the light. His throat worked. There was a moment of hesitation in him. I saw it. But almost immediately, he gathered himself and let it go. "Give her the necklace," he said, forcing his voice back to calm. "You're staying in this room anyway. You won't need it." "I'll still have someone watching over you. You'll be fine." He said it as though it were all perfectly reasonable, watching my face carefully. "All right," I said. The tension left his shoulders visibly. "But I have one condition." He frowned. He was probably already bracing himself for something like a demand to send Lilian away—another scene, more drama. "What?" I took a document from the drawer and held it out to him. "I need your signature on this." He took it and didn't look closely. "Asset division? You want more shares?" He actually laughed softly—the arrogance of a man absolutely certain that the woman in front of him was still the same Elena who had always depended on him, who couldn't bring herself to leave. "Whatever you want is fine." The pen came down without hesitation. Ryan Kane. Several letters, written steadily and without warmth. He handed the document back, his fingertips pausing for a fraction of a second at the edge—as though something had struck him belatedly—but he pressed the hesitation down just as quickly. "Satisfied?" There was something almost indulgent in his tone, as if he was dealing with a petulant child. I said nothing. Ryan stood there watching me for a few seconds, eyes on my face, waiting for the moment I would soften the way I always had—waiting for him to say the one gentle thing that would make me step back from the line. The silence was unsettling. He sighed softly and moved closer. "Stop all this." His voice was lower now, some of the sharpness gone. He reached out and tried to draw me toward him. The gesture was completely natural, almost habitual—his hand landing on my shoulder, thumb curling in, as if warmth could settle everything. "Elena." His voice dropped. "You're not going to leave me." I breathed in the cool, familiar scent of him. It used to calm me. Now it only made me think clearly. I turned and stepped out of his reach. His hand hung in the air. Just for an instant, I saw something uncertain move through his eyes. Then he buried it. In his mind, I was only calling his bluff. I was trying to unsettle him with distance—because the Elena he'd always known had loved him so deeply, had always come back. He was sure I wouldn't go. I lowered my head and, through the ache low in my abdomen, unclasped the moonstone from around my neck and placed it in his palm. For a moment, without the necklace's protection, I could no longer keep up the appearance of calm. The sharp, stabbing pain in my abdomen drained the color from my face. Ryan's brow furrowed faintly. Something in the air had shifted—he had almost caught it. But the trace of Lilian's perfume still lingering on his collar pulled his focus away. "Don't worry.," I said, my voice steady, my expression almost calm. "I won't be asking for it back. Lilian can wear it as long as she likes." Tomorrow, I would leave. Chapter 6 Elena's POV Light was already slipping through the gap in the curtains when I woke. The baby had been restless all night—as if she too sensed something was coming—shifting and pressing in small, insistent movements. I pressed my hand to my stomach. "Just wait a little longer.," I said softly. My father had said he would arrive before noon. Vampires moved poorly in the height of the sun. The human convoy would come at precisely that hour. It was the safest time. I sat at the window, waiting. Without the moonstone, I felt the absence at my throat like a space that had been cleared. But it wasn't loss. It felt like relief. Without it, he could no longer track me through that invisible bond—no longer sense the connection between us. Footsteps sounded below. Heels sharp against marble, light and quick, with that suffocating perfume drifting up like smoke. The door was pushed open without a knock. Lilian stood in the doorway. The moonstone at her neck caught the morning light and glimmered cold and silver. She reached up and touched it lightly—a small, wordless show. "Sleep well?" Her smile was soft. I said nothing. She came in slowly and stopped in front of me. "Ryan stayed up late last night," she said quietly. "He was worried I wasn't stable, so he stayed with me all night." She said it with her gaze on my stomach. "You know," she tilted her head, "when I put on this necklace, something occurred to me." "What?" I asked, evenly. "Ryan never thought of you as his wife." The words were light, but they cut like something honed sharp. "I'm the one he's really protecting now. Even after I was engaged to someone else—Ryan is still mine." She lifted her chin, triumph undisguised. "Without that necklace, you're nothing in this house." I looked at her and felt no anger. No urge to argue. That stillness seemed to unsettle her. Her expression shifted slightly. "Nothing to say?" She moved a step closer. "Don't tell me you're still waiting for something." Something tightened in my chest. "Waiting for Ryan to save you?" She suddenly laughed. "Don't be ridiculous." I released my grip on my sleeve. "He was exhausted last night. I slipped something into his drink—he's asleep." She said it flatly. "Don't worry. Ryan and I won't lose any sleep over your child's death." She raised a hand and clapped once, lightly. At the far end of the corridor, two shapes appeared. Not the household staff. Not Ryan's vampire guards. Ghouls. Lilian's pupils glinted with something cold. And then, for a moment, I noticed it—the vacancy in her expression, the hollow flatness that mirrored the creatures behind her. She had lost every last trace of her humanity. Lilian frowned, a little confused by my long stare. She looked mildly thirsty and told one of them to fetch the blood Ryan had stored for her. I rose to my feet and stepped back. A sudden, cramping pain seized my abdomen. "You're insane," I said. "Insane?" She tilted her head. "We're both human. You think I don't know what you've been planning?" Her smile turned thin. "I'm just handling things early." "The child inside me is Ryan's only heir. His only real heir." Her gaze went cold. In that moment, I finally understood. She had never intended to let me walk out of here alive. She couldn't accept the possibility that somewhere in the world, there might be another child with any claim to what was hers. "Ryan won't allow this," I said, stalling for whatever time I could. Her expression flickered. Then she laughed. "By the time it happens, he'll only think it was an accident." "An unstable pregnant woman falling down a flight of stairs. These things happen." Before she finished speaking, one of them was already moving toward me. I turned and ran for the stairs. My body was heavy and slow. I gripped the railing and made my way down step by step, heart slamming, lungs burning. "Get her." Lilian's voice came from above. Footsteps rushed down behind me. I could see the front door. Sunlight poured in from outside. It was blinding. I could barely see. Just a few more steps. Just hold on a little longer. Then a cold hand shoved me hard from behind. The world lurched. A tearing, explosive pain ripped through my abdomen. I watched the edge of the stairs spiral. My body folded and fell. The screaming in my ears—I realized too late it was my own. The impacts came one after another, hammering into bone. When the last step hit my back, I was nearly gone. Heat spread rapidly from between my legs. The red spread across the floor. Through blurring vision, the front door burst open. Against the blazing light, a familiar figure came running in. "Elena!" My father's voice broke open from somewhere far away. He had almost leaped from the car before it stopped, the driver too stunned to react. His footsteps had never sounded like that before. I saw the terror on his face. He ran to me. I tried to lift my hand, but I could barely raise it. Consciousness fell away in pieces. The last thing I saw was my father kneeling beside me, hands trembling as he cupped my face. And above us, on the landing— The moonstone caught the light for one cold, glittering instant.