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.

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.

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.