Chapter 1

When I woke up in the hospital, my belly was already flat.

There was no connection left between me and my baby. I couldn’t feel anything anymore.

With the nurse’s help, I sent Lucien a message right away.

I want a divorce.

Not long after the message was delivered, my phone rang.

It was him.

“How many times do I have to tell you? Vicky and I have just known each other for a long time. We’re close. She’s my friend. Am I not allowed to help a friend?”

“Stop making things up. A miscarriage? Our children are strong. Vampire babies aren’t like human ones.”

“She already explained the subcard issue to me. It was my mistake. If you’re jealous, just say it. Don’t use divorce and the baby to threaten me.”

A man whose entire career revolved around money accidentally frozed my card.

And he expected me to believe it.

Before I could respond, he hung up on me.

Back then, when I became pregnant and my body weakened so badly that I couldn’t work, he was the one who said he would take care of me.

He promised he would give anything to me.

I tightened my grip on my phone and looked at my best friend.

Lucien never lacked money.

Yet because I couldn’t get any that night, my best friend’s baby died too.

I had been with Lucien for two years before marriage, married for a year, and I almost gave birth to his child.

During pregnancy, I grew frighteningly thin.

It felt like all my strength and nourishment were being drained by the life inside me, while Lucien and Ethan stayed full of anticipation.

They would place their hands on our stomachs, speaking softly, saying they could feel the heartbeats.

Sometimes they joked that the babies were talking and singing to them.

We were exhausted, but we were happy.

And then everything collapsed in an instant.

After Vicky returned, Lucien rarely came home.

She even visited us privately because of guilt.

She had married a human before. The marriage fell apart within two years and left her in debt.

This time, she said she had come back to seek help from her own kind.

As women, my friend and I sympathized with her.

We never thought twice.

She was also a vampire, skilled in ancient spells meant to protect unborn bloodlines.

Early in our pregnancies, she had placed protective magic on our children.

That cabin trip was supposed to be me, Claire, and our husbands together.

Instead, the night before, our husbands were called away by her.

Inside the fire, I experienced fear like never before.

The smoke choked me. The heat made it hard to stand.

I smelled something strange.

I pounded on the locked door, but it wouldn’t budge.

A sharp burning pain exploded in my palm.

A faint vampire spell flickered across the door.

Then silver beads poured in through the gap beneath it.

I was carrying a vampire child. My body reacted instinctively to silver.

One bead made me slip and fall.

After that, I couldn’t feel my baby’s heartbeat anymore.

Tears blurred my vision as I tried again and again to call Lucien.

When the call finally connected, it wasn’t him who answered.

It was her.

The vampire woman I once believed was harmless and kind.

“I’m sorry, Caroline,” she said lightly.

“You know Lucien. When he worries about me, he gets flustered. He must have accidentally disabled your card.”

“I mean, one night without spending Lucien’s money won’t kill you, right?” she laughed.

Through the phone, I heard my husband laughing with her.

“Rabbit blood, or deer blood?”

I looked down.

My blood had soaked into the wooden floor.

My child was dying, and there was nothing I could do.

Betrayal and terror numbed my body.

Outside the window, my best friend’s voice grew weaker and weaker.

I couldn't hear anything.

I replayed every moment of my relationship with Lucien in my mind and suddenly realized something.

He had never once joked with me.

When I finally gave up on surviving, my best friend ignored her own pregnancy.

She seized the car and drove it straight into the door.

In the roaring flames, the last thing I saw was her pants stained with blood.

She saved me.

But she lost her child forever.