My sister Isolde and I used to be human.

The twin vampire princes, Caelum and Dorian, turned us and married us.

The entire vampire world celebrated. Two human sisters, personally turned by the Crown Princes? It was the highest honor a mortal could receive.

We believed we were loved.

We were fools.

Five months into my pregnancy, I was attacked by a group of exiled vampires in the forest beyond our territory.

I called Caelum nine times. He didn’t pick up.

The exiles circled me, cutting into my arms and legs with blades that burned. Pain tore through my body.

I called a tenth time.

This time, Caelum’s cold voice came through: “Haven’t you had enough? Vivienne is being tracked by hunters. Stop bothering me.”

Vivienne was the human girl that both princes truly loved. The one who had refused to be turned.

With nothing to stop them now, the exiles closed in. Their leader drove a blade into my stomach. I watched the light leave my body from the inside out, and felt my unborn child die.

When I was close to death, my sister Isolde found me and fought the exiles off.

But there were too many. Isolde was badly wounded. She called her husband Dorian for help. All she got was: “Looking for Vivienne. Don’t bother me.”

Isolde carried me and ran. A storm hit and we were caught in the open at dawn—deadly for wounded vampires.

The border patrol found us just in time. We barely survived.

When I woke up in the infirmary, my first thought was simple: Sever the bond.

After confirming that Isolde was also awake, I immediately called Caelum to tell him I wanted to sever the bond.

Two days of silence. He didn’t answer a single call or message.

“Our baby is gone,” I finally texted.

That got an immediate response. Caelum’s voice came through the phone, ice-cold with fury.

“Seraphina, is this how you are? You don’t hear back from me so you decide to get rid of our child? You’re out of your mind.”

“I told you to stay in the manor while you were pregnant. But you had to go wandering off. Then you called me nine times in a row while I was dealing with a crisis. Do you know what I was doing? Vivienne was in danger—hunters nearly got to her. She’s human, Seraphina. She could have died.”

“And let me be clear—I turned you. I gave you immortality. Everything you have, you owe to me. So stop using our child to manipulate me. If you want to lose the pregnancy, go ahead.”

From the background, I heard Vivienne’s soft, trembling voice: “Caelum, don’t be angry with her. She was just worried about you. This is all my fault...”

His tone changed instantly. Warm. Gentle. “Vivienne, this has nothing to do with you...”

He hung up.

I lowered the phone, smiling bitterly.

Of course. How could I ever compare to Vivienne?

She was the twin princes’ true love—the human girl who had grown up alongside them after her mother married into the royal household.

But she had refused to be turned—and that only made them want her more.

I placed my hand on my flat stomach. My baby had been five months along, growing strong. I used to feel its little kicks every morning. Now there was nothing.

The healer had told me the damage was severe. I might never be able to have another child. The weapon those exiles used had destroyed too much.

Caelum didn’t know any of this. He didn’t know that while he was busy saving Vivienne, he had lost not only his unborn child but any chance of future heirs.

The attack had never been random. It was targeted, and it was because of Caelum.

When the exiled vampires surrounded me, their leader struck me across the face. Through the dizziness, I heard him snarl:

“Your husband destroyed our home. Burned our entire settlement while we slept. Our hunting grounds, our shelter—everything gone because of him.”

“We heard his brother controls territory to the north. Once we have you, he’ll give it up in exchange.”

Hearing they only wanted territory, I felt a small surge of relief. At least they might spare my baby.

But after nine unanswered calls and Caelum’s cold rejection on the tenth, the exiles realized I was worthless to him. If the prince didn’t care whether his wife lived or died, what use was I as a hostage?

I had never known such terror.

I fell to my knees. I begged. I would do anything if they would just spare my child.

But my pleas meant nothing. The leader drove his blade into my stomach.

The pain was beyond anything I had ever felt. My baby was gone, just like that.

Yet only that morning, I had felt those tiny kicks inside me.

I began to lose consciousness. Without my baby, I didn’t want to live anyway.

Just as I was giving up, Isolde crashed through the trees.

She saw me covered in blood with my phone still clutched in my hand. Her face twisted with rage. “Why didn’t you call me? If I hadn’t felt something was wrong, what would have happened to you?”

She picked me up and called Dorian.

“Looking for Vivienne. Don’t bother me.” Those six words left her frozen.

She tried calling the border patrol, but we were too deep in the forest for the signal to reach.

She had no choice but to carry me and run while the exiles chased us.

They caught up. One of them drove a blade through Isolde’s shoulder, and the burning poison spread through her body. Others slashed at her arms and legs.

Still, she fought on, protecting me even as the poison destroyed her from the inside.

By some miracle, we ran into a border patrol. The exiles scattered.

But the damage was done.

In the infirmary, the healer confirmed what I already knew. My child was gone.

What I didn’t expect was the news about Isolde. The poison from the weapon had gone too deep.

Her vampire abilities—the speed, the strength, the healing—all of it was permanently destroyed. She was now a Thrall—the lowest caste, a vampire in name only, with no more power than the human she had once been.

My sister had given up everything to save me.

Isolde was in the bed next to mine. We didn’t speak for a long time.

She had heard everything—Caelum’s accusations, his contempt, the way he hung up without letting me finish a single sentence.

She forced herself to sit up and reached for my hand. Her grip was weak. Her face had lost all its color since the attack, and Caelum’s words had drained whatever was left. Tears ran down her face and dripped onto my wrist.

“We shouldn't have agreed to be turned into vampires and married them.” She whispered.

She was thinking about me, but my mind was entirely on her.

Before she met Dorian, Isolde had just graduated from Harvard Law. Top of her class, offers from three of the best firms in New York, a future most people could only dream of.

She had thrown all of it away the night Dorian asked her to accept his blood. She walked away from her career, her friends, her entire human life—because she believed he loved her.

Now her vampire abilities were permanently destroyed. She couldn’t go back to the human world. But in the vampire world, without powers, she was nothing. Less than nothing. She’d be classified at the bottom of the hierarchy, no different from a servant.

Trapped between two worlds, belonging to neither.

I was about to say something when her phone rang. Dorian.

“Caelum tells me Seraphina wants a divorce? Let me guess—your idea? Is it physically impossible for the two of you to not cause drama for a single day?”

“I already explained this—I’m dealing with the hunters who tracked Vivienne. It’s life and death. I told you not to contact me. Do you just not listen?”

“You know what, I honestly can’t even remember why we turned you two. All you ever do is conspire and threaten to leave. So leave. Nobody is begging you to stay.”

The line went dead.

Isolde dropped the phone on the bed and gave me a look that said “see? nothing new.”

Ten seconds later the tears came back.

I gripped her hand. “We’re still breathing. That’s what matters. Maybe this is just fate telling us it’s time to go.”

“Let’s heal first. Once we can stand on our own, we walk out. Deal?”

“Deal,” she managed, barely.

And then neither of us could hold it in any longer. She pressed her face into my shoulder and we cried until there was nothing left—every ounce of terror and heartbreak and humiliation emptied out at once.

We had given up everything for these men. Everything.

I kept thinking about the night we were turned.

The whole Blood Court had gathered. Hundreds of vampires watching as Caelum cut his wrist and offered me his blood. The act that would end my human life and begin my immortal one.

“Two human sisters, chosen by both princes,” everyone had murmured. “This bloodline will be unbreakable.”

I remembered drinking from Caelum’s wrist and looking into his eyes. The way he held my face afterward. I was so certain it was love. Across the hall, Dorian was doing the same for Isolde, and she looked at him the way I looked at Caelum—completely trusting, completely surrendered.

We believed we had been chosen. We believed it meant forever.

That illusion lasted until three months ago, when Vivienne came back.

Vivienne was the girl both princes had grown up with. The one they had begged to accept their blood, to be turned, to stay with them forever. She refused. She wanted to remain human. She left the Court and dated a human man instead.

When that relationship ended, she returned. And the moment she walked back through the manor doors, our husbands vanished.

Caelum stopped picking up my calls. He was out every night, gone before I woke. Dorian drank until dawn and pretended Isolde didn’t exist.

That was when we finally understood what we were. The princes had wanted Vivienne. Vivienne said no. So they found two human sisters and turned them instead—a performance, designed to make Vivienne regret her choice.

Every tender word, every promise of eternity—none of it had ever been real.

For three months we had husbands who didn’t see us. No warmth. No company. Not even a question about our pregnancies. They spent every spare hour around Vivienne—fetching things for her, checking on her, treating her like the only person who mattered.

We had chosen not to see it. Or maybe we saw it and told ourselves it wasn’t true.

Either way, the lie was over now.

Isolde’s voice came out muffled against my shoulder. “The healer confirmed it. My powers are gone permanently. I’ll never get them back.”

I smoothed her hair with my fingers. “And I’ll probably never carry another child.”

A long silence.

“We gave up being human for them,” she said. “And now we’ve lost the only things they gave us in return.”

I was lying in the infirmary scrolling through my phone when a video arrived from Vivienne.

It showed the aftermath of her "rescue." Caelum and Dorian flanked her on either side, attentive, protective, as if she were the most important person in the world. She was human—no immortality, no enhanced abilities, nothing—yet they treated her like royalty. They handed her warm blankets and fussed over her comfort while she sat there, one hand resting on her seven-month belly, smiling up at them.

"Thank you both," she said in the video. "You always show up right when I need you."

The comments underneath were full of envy.

"I wish I had someone who cared about me like that."

"Vivienne is so lucky. Both princes wrapped around her finger."

But a handful of people noticed what was missing.

"Where are the princes' wives? I heard Seraphina was attacked by exiles. Why didn't the princes go help her?"

Those comments disappeared quickly, buried under hundreds of fawning replies.

A minute later, Isolde held up her phone. She had received the exact same video.

Her voice was flat. "I felt nothing watching that. Absolutely nothing."

"Two husbands serving one woman. If that's what they want, let them have it."

I exhaled slowly. "You're right. It's not our problem anymore. I'm contacting the Blood Council now. I want to sever the bond. Today."

The Blood Council responded within twenty-four hours. They sent us the official severance application and forwarded copies to Caelum and Dorian for their signatures.

Two days passed. Neither of them responded.

I couldn't wait any longer. I called Caelum directly.

"Did you receive the severance papers?"

"Answer me."

What I got back was exactly what I should have expected.

"Are you still going on about this? The more you push, the less I want to come home. Stop testing me, Seraphina."

I didn't know what to say.

How had I spent two years married to this man without seeing how unbelievably selfish he was?

I was trying to collect my thoughts when Vivienne's voice drifted through the phone.

"Caelum, who are you talking to? Dinner's ready. Dorian and I have been waiting."

I heard him move, probably stepping into another room, trying to muffle the sound. Too late.

"No wonder you can't find time to sign our papers," I said. "You're busy playing house with Vivienne."

He panicked. "What is wrong with you? Vivienne is pregnant and she's human. She needs someone to look after her. I'm just helping out. It's not what you think."

The moment he mentioned her pregnancy, something inside me cracked open.

"You're looking after her baby? You dare talk about taking care of someone else's child? What about yours, Caelum? When did you ever look after me? When did you ever ask about your own baby?"

His voice turned cold. "This is absurd—"

Then Vivienne cut in, her tone sweet and measured: "Seraphina, I totally understand. Pregnant women get emotional, it's completely normal. Don't be too hard on yourself. Everything is for the children, right?"

Every word out of her mouth landed exactly where it was meant to.

My wound burned. I couldn't breathe properly.

And then Caelum, as if nothing had happened: "Ignore her, Vivienne. Your safety comes first. Whatever you need, I'll be there."

I stood there holding the phone, tears running down my face.

Two years of marriage. What had I been to him? Not a wife. Not a partner. A prop. Something he used to make Vivienne jealous, then forgot about the second she came back.

He ended the call without another word.

I sat on the edge of the bed, unable to move. The tears wouldn't stop.

Isolde was at my side in seconds. She pulled me into her arms and held on tight.

"Don't cry over him. He's not worth a single tear. Maybe your baby knew. Maybe it knew what kind of father it would have had, and it chose not to come into this world."

"Forget waiting for their signatures. We go straight to the Blood Council tomorrow and request a forced severance. We don't need their permission."