Margaret’s POV

This time, I truly had no intention of holding back.

Before I could even raise my hand, Adrian rushed forward and grabbed my wrist.

“Calm down.”

He moved too fast.

It felt like he had already decided to protect her.

“This is my fault,” Elara said softly, cutting in before I could speak.

“If I hadn’t asked you to come with me to the prenatal checkup, if I hadn’t moved in here, none of this would have happened.

Her head was lowered, her voice so light it almost dissolved into the air.

“I never should have appeared in the first place.”

“I should just leave.”

I thought coldly.

Then leave.

But to my surprise, Adrian spoke first.

“You can leave.”

His words came quickly, as if he had finally made some kind of decision.

“I’m not going to force my wife out of this house.”

For a moment, I was genuinely stunned.

I had already prepared myself to be blamed.

To be told to step aside.

To be asked to compromise again.

Elara clearly hadn’t expected it either.

But she froze for less than half a second before her face suddenly drained of color. Her hand pressed against her abdomen, her breathing growing shallow.

“It hurts…”

“The baby doesn’t feel well.”

I watched Adrian’s expression collapse inch by inch.

Almost instinctively, he reached out, his hand hovering in front of her stomach. His movements were careful, reverent, as if he were facing something unbearably fragile.

The sight made my stomach churn.

Every time she showed weakness, he lost all sense of principle.

“Adrian,” I said, my voice tight.

“You’re not really buying this, are you?”

He didn’t look at me.

“She’s a pureblood vampire,” he said, as if stating an obvious fact.

“Her emotions and surroundings directly affect the baby”

The moment those words left his mouth, I already knew the outcome.

Because I was human.

Because my emotions would not endanger a half-blood child strong enough to draw nourishment from my body.

So I could give way.

I could be sacrificed.

Elara stayed.

And I was told to move to the small room on the first floor, next to the nanny’s quarters.

He said it was temporary.

That she needed a quiet, stable, dark environment.

That once her condition stabilized, I could move back.

I didn’t argue.

I had heard “just wait a little longer” far too many times.

It was also from that day on that I seriously began to think—

Maybe this child shouldn’t be born.

A child whose father could never stand beside them.

A child destined to be ignored, compared, and abandoned in this house.

“I’ll behave,” I said quietly.

“I won’t cause trouble for Elara. I’ll take care of this pregnancy. Unless…”

Adrian’s gaze softened. He thought I had finally given in. He pulled me into his arms.

“Unless what? I’ll agree to anything.”

“Unless you give me my phone back.”

He hesitated.

I hugged him first.

“There are vampires everywhere here,” I said softly. “I don’t have anyone to talk to. I just get lonely and bored sometimes. Don’t worry.”

……

The moment my phone was returned to my hands, I finally realized that I had regained something essential.

An exit.

Adrian didn’t know that I was not the true blood heir of the Hawthorne family he believed in.

The family that raised me was a declining old noble house in the human world. They hadn’t adopted me out of kindness, but because they needed a daughter—someone who could maintain a marriage with a vampire clan and secure continued funding.

As for my biological parents, I had already found them two years ago.

But at that time, I still loved Adrian deeply. I was still married. I couldn’t leave.

They never forced me.

They only left me with promise and a number.

If one day I became unhappy, or simply wanted to go home, they would come for me.

I never thought I would actually dial that number.

But now, they were the only ones I could rely on.

To my adoptive parents, I had always been nothing more than a bargaining chip.

As long as the vampire family’s support continued, my life didn’t matter.

……

The nights grew longer.

Adrian’s life revolved almost entirely around Elara.

He accompanied her to checkups, adjusted the light-blocking systems in the house, personally selected blood supplements suitable for her pregnancy.

At the slightest sign of discomfort, he would immediately drop everything and stay by her side, his voice low and patient.

And I spent most of my time alone in my room, still not permitted to leave the house.

The servants occasionally saw me in the hallway, but they would lower their heads quickly, avoiding my eyes.

More than once, I saw Adrian with his arm around Elara as he led her down the stairs.

She leaned into him, whispering something. He bent down slightly to listen, fully focused.

I didn’t stop.

I didn’t say a word.

But Adrian would always freeze at that moment, his gaze lifting over her shoulder, landing on me.

He always wanted to follow.

Every single time, Elara would gently tug at his sleeve, whisper his name, saying she felt unwell.

So he stopped.

He turned back to comfort her.

And by the time he looked up again, I had already disappeared at the end of the corridor.

He stood there, watching the space I had already left behind.

……

Later, Adrian told me that Elara wanted to spend the last two months of her pregnancy in a polar night region.

A place without sunlight year-round, where darkness and magnetic fields stabilized pureblood pregnancies and benefited fetal development.

His tone was calm. Rational.

“You don’t need to go,” he added.

“You’re human. A mixed-blood fetus is actually more sensitive to light cycles.”

In that moment, I finally understood the subtext.

Her child required the world to bend around it.

Mine only needed to be “placed.”

“I’ll be back before you give birth,” he said at the door.

“Wait for me.”

I nodded. I even smiled.

Elara called him from downstairs.

He answered, “Coming,” and turned to leave.

At the doorway, he suddenly paused, as if sensing something, then came back and pulled me into his arms.

“If you don’t want me to go,” he said quietly,

“Just say the word.”

His embrace was tight. Almost suffocating.

I could feel my baby responding to him, a sharp pain in my abdomen.

But inside my heart, there was nothing.

“Go,” I whispered.

“Go stay with your precious pregnant vampire friend, my husband.”

He stiffened.

I no longer had the patience to wait for his hesitation.

“Either you clear this house of her completely—her presence, her things, everything.”

“Or stop making those promises to me.”

He couldn’t speak.

And I turned into the bathroom and closed the door.

This time,

I was truly done waiting.

Margaret’s POV

The moment Adrian and Elara left the house, I finally allowed myself to breathe.

It felt as though something heavy had been pressing down on my chest for days, and only now did it lift—just slightly, just enough to remind me what relief felt like.

Twelve hours.

That was all I needed.

Just twelve more hours, and I would be gone. Gone from Adrian, gone from this mansion, gone from every lie that had been told in my name and against my will.

For the first time in days, the pain in my body dulled. Even the constant ache in my lower abdomen seemed quieter, as if my body itself sensed that the end was near. Hope did strange things. It softened the sharpest edges of fear and convinced me, briefly, that I had already survived.

When I spoke to my birth parents on the phone, I told them about the guards—at least thirty vampires stationed around the estate, rotating shifts, watching every entrance.

My father laughed.

“Thirty?” he repeated calmly.

“Don’t worry. Even if there were three hundred, your father could still handle it.”

I smiled faintly, convinced he was exaggerating to ease my nerves.

Still, something about the steadiness in his voice settled me. For the first time since Adrian chose Elara over me, I felt safe enough to believe that someone, somewhere, truly had my back.

I didn’t expect that fragile peace to shatter so quickly.

That evening, I sat alone in the living room with a book open in my hands. I hadn’t turned a page in several minutes. My eyes traced the same lines again and again without comprehension, my mind drifting toward the ticking clock on the wall.

Then the doors opened.

Not gently.

They were pushed wide with unmistakable intent.

Elara’s mother walked in first, her posture rigid, her lips drawn tight. Adrian’s parents followed close behind. And then, trailing them like an afterthought, came my adoptive parents.

The room felt smaller instantly.

They looked at me as if I were a criminal awaiting judgment.

Adrian’s mother didn’t waste time. She slammed a stack of papers onto the table with a sharp crack that echoed through the room.

“Sign it,” she ordered.

“Divorce him. And terminate the mixed-blood thing in your womb immediately.”

“The Valemont family will not tolerate this kind of humiliation.”

Elara’s mother let out a soft, mocking laugh. She added that if she so much as hinted at what I had done, the entire city would know by morning.

Before I could speak, my adoptive father stood, crossed the room, and struck me.

The sound was loud. Final.

“You’ve ruined us,” he said, his voice trembling with anger and fear. “You’ve brought shame to everyone.”

My cheek burned. My ears rang.

And in that moment, something inside me went numb.

I was tired. So unbearably tired of defending myself in a world that had already decided I was guilty.

I bent down, picked up the papers from the floor, and before signing, I asked one last question.

“If one day you realize that the only child who truly carries Adrian’s blood…”

“Is the one I’m carrying now—”

“Will you regret this?”

Silence answered me.

I signed.

But even that wasn’t enough.

Adrian’s mother immediately demanded that I be taken to the hospital to terminate the pregnancy.

I refused.

No matter how deeply Adrian had betrayed me, this child was still alive. Still mine. Still innocent.

Her gaze hardened.

“You really think I’ll let you give birth to that thing?” she said softly.

“Accidents happen all the time. Human women are fragile. They lose things so easily.”

I turned to my adoptive father, my voice shaking.

“You’re really okay with them killing your grandchild?”

He looked away.

And in that moment, I understood everything.

Keeping the vampires’ financial support mattered more to him than my life. More than my child’s.

The next second, Adrian’s mother grabbed my hair and struck me again.

“Stop wasting our time,” she snapped.

“Choose. You, or the thing inside you. Only one gets to live.”

“I won’t choose.”

Her smile was thin and cruel as she gestured to the guards.

They dragged me away.

I fought, but my strength was nothing against theirs. My knees slammed into the floor, pain flashing white through my vision. My body trembled, overwhelmed, betrayed by its own weakness.

When I regained awareness, the world smelled like disinfectant.

I was in the hospital.

“Hey! Are you vampires kidnapping this woman? Let her go!”

A man’s voice rang out. Just a stranger who cared.

The needle pierced my skin.

Cold spread through my veins, fast and merciless.

Tears slid down my temples.

I had told myself I was ready.

That letting go would hurt less than letting my child live in a world like this.

So why did my chest ache, as though something vital were being ripped from me while I lay there unable to resist.

As my consciousness began to fade, I saw my birth parents forcing their way toward the operating room, my mother shouting my name, my father already moving ahead of her. Several vampires lay sprawled on the floor behind him, struck down as though they had never stood a chance.

His face was bloodless with fury, terror burning beneath it.

They were stopped at the door.

Glass stood between us. I can feel my baby was dying inside of me.

It was already too late.

Then everything went black.