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Chapter 3

ผู้เขียน: Clara
The next morning, Luka's fever spiked.

UV burns could turn septic fast at this stage. His body was still learning how to heal itself — the awakening window didn't just make fledglings more vulnerable to damage, it made recovery slower too.

I rushed him to the compound's healing chamber, his small body burning up in my arms.

That's when we ran into Kaelan.

He was standing in the corridor with Vivienne beside him, one hand on Damian's shoulder. Damian had a runny nose and was wiping it on his sleeve. Kaelan was watching him like he was made of glass.

Luka saw him first.

Despite the fever, his eyes lit up.

He pulled free from my arms and stumbled toward Kaelan, legs unsteady, both hands reaching out.

"Father." His voice came out small and wrecked. "You came. I forgive you for yesterday — did you come to stay with me while I see the healer?"

Kaelan looked down at him.

Then stepped back and pulled Damian closer.

"Didn't I tell you to come in the afternoon? Why is he here now?"

Damian shoved Luka hard.

"Stop calling him Father. He's MY dad!"

Luka was already unsteady from the fever. He went down hard, UV burns hitting the stone floor.

His cry echoed through the entire corridor.

Damian moved to kick him.

"Hey." I stepped between them, pulled Damian back, and scooped Luka off the floor. His skin was still burning. "Damian, apologize to Luka. Right now."

Kaelan's eyes flashed. "How dare you put your hands on him."

He pulled Damian behind him. "I told you to come in the afternoon. You did this on purpose."

"My fault?" My voice was shaking. "Your son is covered in burns because you left him in the UV zone yesterday. He has a fever of a hundred and four. Where exactly was I supposed to take him?"

Kaelan had already turned away. He crouched down and checked Damian — nose, forehead, color. Careful, quiet, thorough.

His son was on the floor behind him.

He didn't look once.

Vivienne stepped forward. Her voice was soft, her eyes softer — the kind of soft that always came with an agenda.

"I'm so sorry, this is such a mess." She glanced at Luka, then lowered her voice like she was sharing something difficult. "Damian caught a cold two days ago and he still hasn't slept properly. Kaelan's barely left his side."

A cold.

Damian had a cold.

Luka had UV burns splitting open across both arms and a fever pushing a hundred and four, and Kaelan had barely left Damian's side because the boy had a cold.

The healer stepped out of the chamber and pulled me aside.

"I need to speak with you about Luka's condition." Her voice was low. "The UV exposure has slowed his awakening progression. Having his sire present during treatment would significantly help stabilize him. Even an hour would make a difference."

I looked at Kaelan.

He was straightening Damian's collar.

"Kaelan." I kept my voice even. "The healer says Luka needs you with him during treatment. Just an hour. His awakening is being affected."

Kaelan looked up.

For a moment I thought he was going to say yes.

Then Vivienne touched his arm. Barely a brush. Light enough to look accidental.

"I don't want to make this harder than it already is." Her voice dropped to almost nothing. "But Damian asked for you this morning, and I—" She stopped. Pressed her lips together. "We're still human, Kaelan. Damian and I. We don't have centuries ahead of us the way you do. All we have is right now."

She looked up at him.

"You and Luka have all the time in the world. We don't."

The corridor went quiet.

Kaelan looked at Vivienne for a long moment.

Then he looked at Luka — really looked at him, for the first time since we'd run into them in the corridor.

Luka was still in my arms, burning up, watching his father with the kind of hope that had no business still being there after everything that had already happened.

Kaelan looked away.

"I'll come by later," he said. To me, not to Luka.

"Come on," he said to Damian. "Let's get you back to bed."

"Can you stay until I fall asleep?"

"Of course. I'm not going anywhere."

Their voices faded around the corner.

I stood in the middle of the corridor holding my son, who had stopped watching the place where his father had been and gone very still in my arms.

"Mom," Luka said quietly.

I tightened my arms around him.

"Damian just has a cold," he said. "Colds go away on their own."

He didn't say anything else.

He didn't have to.

I carried him into the healing chamber, sat down with him in my lap, and waited for the healer to begin.

The blood bond dissolution request was still sitting on my desk.

Half-written. Waiting.

I looked down at Luka's face — fever-bright eyes, burns across his arms, brows drawn even now — and I thought about what the healer had said.

His sire would help stabilize him.

His sire had just walked away to sit with a human child who had a cold.

I thought about the bonding ceremony. The way Kaelan had wiped his hands clean after.

I thought about four years of waiting for him to come back and mean it.

I thought about Luka spending a month carving that blood-seal stone.

Then I stopped thinking about it.

"File the dissolution," I said quietly.

Not to anyone in the room.

Just to myself.

For the first time, it didn't feel like giving up.

It felt like the only thing left to do.
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  • I Left With Son After Vampire Mate Chose Human Lover   Chapter 10

    The Covenant Council opened a formal review of Kaelan's conduct three weeks later.Abandonment of a blood-bonded fledgling during a critical awakening window. Misappropriation of a Dhampir's emergency stabilizing elixir. Prolonged dereliction of territorial governance — four years of records I'd kept showed every gap, every absent signature, every decision that should have been his and had been mine instead.He entered no defense.The Council stripped him of jurisdiction over one third of his territory and placed his remaining lands under a two-year oversight committee. His authority over the elite young bloods compound was dissolved permanently.In three centuries of rule, it had never happened before.He accepted every ruling without appeal.He still came to the border.Not every night. But often enough that Aurora's guards stopped treating it as a threat.He would stand at the outer perimeter for an hour, sometimes two. Never crossing. Never sending word ahead.Then he would leave b

  • I Left With Son After Vampire Mate Chose Human Lover   Chapter 9

    Aurora's border guards stopped him at the outer perimeter.Four of them, armed with concentrated UV emitters — the kind used against vampires who don't respond to verbal warnings."Turn around," the senior guard said. "Standing orders. No exceptions, regardless of rank.""I know," Kaelan said. "I'm not here to fight."He kept walking.The first UV blast hit his left arm and burned deep. He didn't stop. By the time he reached the inner border he had burns across both arms and along his jaw.He went down on one knee outside the healing wing.He was still there when I came out.I looked at him for a long moment. His burned arms. His ruined coat. Three centuries of pride on its knees on someone else's stone floor."I know the truth," he said. "All of it. Vivienne set that night up. She paid someone to dose my drink and make sure you were there. She'd known about the bond for years and she used it." His voice wasn't steady. "You saved my life that night. You recognized what had been done to

  • I Left With Son After Vampire Mate Chose Human Lover   Chapter 8

    It took him three days to pull the records together.Every entry log from the night of the gathering. Every purchase record from the weeks before. Every movement, every communication, every transaction that could be traced.Three days. Every thread led back to the same place.Vivienne.She'd been there that night. She'd had access to his drink. She'd been tracking the fated bond for years — knew exactly what it was, knew what would happen if his defenses came down at the right moment.She hadn't been trying to bring them together. She'd wanted him to wake up believing I'd engineered the whole thing.She'd known his pride would do the rest.And it had.For four years, his pride had run exactly the way she'd designed it to.She hadn't counted on me staying.She hadn't counted on Luka.When that stopped being enough, she came back in person.He confronted her the night he finished putting it together.The evidence laid out on the table between them. Purchase records. Entry logs. A stateme

  • I Left With Son After Vampire Mate Chose Human Lover   Chapter 7

    Meanwhile, Kaelan had just watched the last firework fade from the sky.Vivienne had worn herself out and was sleeping on the settee, Damian curled beside her.Something felt off in his chest.Not the muffled quiet of a blocked connection. Something different. Something permanent.He sat with it for a moment, not moving.Then he thought about the call.My voice, from hours ago: Luka is surging. He needs the elixir. Please.He'd told me to figure it out. He'd told himself I was exaggerating, that I was using Luka to pull him back, that I always landed on my feet and this time would be no different. He'd hung up and gone back to the fireworks.He picked up his phone.Called my number.The line was dead.He reached through the blood bond.Void.Not a block. Not distance. A permanent, irrevocable severance — the kind that only happened one way.He was on his feet before the thought finished forming.He reached Luka's room before dawn.The bed was made. Perfectly, carefully made. The traini

  • I Left With Son After Vampire Mate Chose Human Lover   Chapter 6

    Three days before we were supposed to leave, Luka collapsed.I was in the middle of reviewing the territory's monthly blood supply allocation — the same administrative work I'd been doing alone for four years, the work that kept this city running while its Prince was away — when I heard the crash from his room.He was on the floor when I got there.Eyes bled full red, pupils blown wide, blood instincts surging without warning. His body was trembling, bones shifting beneath the skin. The awakening was pushing forward ahead of schedule, violent and uncontrolled.A blood surge. The most dangerous phase of a fledgling's awakening.Without a stabilizing elixir, the surge would burn through his nervous system. I'd seen it happen to older, stronger fledglings than Luka."Mom—" His voice came out wrong. Too low. Not his."I'm here." I dropped beside him. "I'm right here. Don't fight it."I ran to the safe.I'd purchased the stabilizing elixir three months ago. It had cost more than most vampir

  • I Left With Son After Vampire Mate Chose Human Lover   Chapter 5

    That evening, Kaelan came home early.He stood in the doorway of Luka's room, taking in the empty medicine vials on the nightstand, the fresh bandaging on Luka's arms, the dark circles under my eyes.Something shifted in his expression. Not guilt. Just a flicker of discomfort, quickly smoothed over."I cleared my schedule tomorrow," he said. "Thought the three of us could do something."Luka was awake. He heard every word.He looked at his father from the bed and said nothing.Kaelan tried again. "I could walk you through some advanced drills. Techniques most fledglings don't get access to until much later."Luka's voice was flat. "Mom trains me."Kaelan blinked. "I know, but I could—""She's been training me since I could stand up," Luka said, eyes still on the ceiling. "That's four years. The whole time you were gone. I have her. That's enough. It always has been."The room went quiet.Kaelan's hand dropped to his side.I stood in the doorway and didn't say anything.Luka said it wit

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