My Vampire Husband Never Believed Me, I Married Someone Else After Rebirth

Elena's POV

By the time I died, I had been bedridden for three months.

The wound in my abdomen had long since scabbed over, but the dull ache never truly went away.

The doctor said the silver bullet had done too much damage.

I had been eight months pregnant, and surgery after so much blood loss had nearly destroyed my body.

I would likely never be able to have children again.

I listened in a daze. No one sat at my bedside. The husband whose life I had saved by taking that bullet was nowhere to be seen.

At first, I told myself I was simply recovering slowly.

Then the fevers started coming back.

I couldn't keep food down.

Later, I couldn't even sit up without the maid's help.

The doctor came several times a day.

They changed my medicine again and again.

But everyone grew quieter around me.

I knew.

I probably didn't have much time left.

In those three months, I only ever asked one question.

"Is Cassian coming today?"

The maid always looked down.

"He's been very busy lately."

The first week, I believed it.

The second week, I still held on to hope.

After a month, I stopped asking.

It wasn't surprising that Cassian never came to see me.

Ever since Sophia died in the North, his hatred for me had only grown.

He was convinced I had driven her away.

He was also convinced that everything I had done for him over the years had an ulterior motive.

Whenever I waited for him to come home, he assumed I was trying to win him over.

Whenever I helped him clean up after a banquet, he assumed I was trying to prove I deserved my place as his wife.

Even when hunters attacked three months ago and I took a bullet for him, losing our baby, he thought I had done it only to make him feel indebted to me.

That day, I had been eight months pregnant.

The baby was lively inside me.

At night, he liked to kick.

When Cassian occasionally came back from his study and stood by the bed to talk, the baby would go still.

That small thing had made me secretly happy for a long time.

I had even dared to hope.

Maybe after the baby was born, things between us would slowly get better.

Even if Cassian still didn't love me.

At least the child would make us a family that couldn't be torn apart.

Then the hunters broke into the estate.

Everything happened too fast.

All I saw was a flash of silver.

The bullet was heading straight for Cassian's chest.

My body moved before I could think.

I shoved him aside.

The next second, a searing pain tore through my abdomen.

I crashed to the ground.

Blood soaked through my skirt in seconds.

I pressed my hands to my stomach, the pain so intense I could barely make a sound.

But I could still feel the baby moving.

Fast. Frantic.

My child was fighting to survive.

I grabbed Cassian's sleeve.

"Save him.

"Cassian, save the baby."

Those were the only words I remember saying.

The doctors worked through the night.

When I woke, my abdomen was wrapped in thick bandages.

The rounded swell of my belly was gone.

I laid my hand there and felt around for a long time.

Nothing.

The doctor stood by the bed.

"I'm sorry.

"We couldn't save the child."

I didn't cry out loud.

But the tears wouldn't stop falling.

I had been eight months pregnant.

I had already picked out a name.

His nursery was ready.

The wardrobe was lined with tiny clothes.

Some of them I had chosen myself.

But he never even got the chance to be born.

Cassian came to the hospital that day.

I lay in bed, watching him.

I had long since given up hoping he would comfort me.

I only thought that it was his child too.

Surely he would feel at least a little grief.

But Cassian stood by the bed, and for a long time, he didn't come any closer.

His gaze fell on the bandages around my abdomen.

His expression was cold.

"No one asked you to take that bullet for me."

I froze.

Cassian went on.

"You always do this.

"Act on your own and then expect everyone to be grateful."

The tears stopped, clinging to my cheeks.

"I didn't..."

My voice was so hoarse it was barely a whisper.

"I just saw you were in danger."

He was quiet for a moment.

His gaze never wavered.

"Elena, tell the same lie often enough and no one will believe you anymore."

I understood.

He thought I was putting on an act for him, that I had risked my own body and my child's life just to make him feel guilty.

After that day, Cassian never came again.

My body never recovered.

On the day I died, it was raining outside.

The window wasn't shut all the way.

The wind blew in, damp and cold.

The maid knelt by the bed, wiping her tears in secret.

The doctor told me to rest and not force myself to sit up.

But I kept watching the door.

It stayed closed.

I waited for a long time.

I couldn't even say what I was still waiting for.

Maybe I just wanted to see Cassian one last time before I died.

To tell him that I had never lied to him.

Years ago, I was the one who drew the hunters away and saved his life.

Sophia had been at his side, yes, but only after they were already safe.

The one who lied was Sophia, not me.

I never expected anything in return for what I did.

I just loved him too much to let him get hurt.

But explaining had never made a difference.

Cassian had never loved me, and he was never going to believe me.

By the time my consciousness finally faded, the door still hadn't opened.

I closed my eyes.

The last thing I felt was the hollow ache where my child had been.

In the darkness, I kept sinking, looking back on my brief and pitiful life.

I had spent my whole life trying to prove that my love was real, and this was where it had led me.

If only... I could do it all over again.

I would never beg Cassian to believe me.

And I would never love him again.

...

When I opened my eyes again, it took me a long time to understand what had happened.

My shoulder hurt.

But it wasn't the heavy, blurring pain I had known on the verge of death.

This was sharper. Clearer.

I slowly raised my hand.

My fingers looked young, the skin smooth.

There was none of the sickly pallor left by months of illness.

I reached for my abdomen almost at once.

Flat.

Soft.

No wound.

No scar from the three months of recurring infection.

I shot upright.

Pain tore through my shoulder.

"Elena!"

Someone cried out.

I looked up.

The hospital room was full of people.

My father, Frederick Ashford.

Several family elders.

And Sophia.

She stood by the bed, her eyes red from crying.

Cassian was right beside her.

He still looked young.

His face didn't carry the permanent coldness it would have after our marriage.

But when he looked at me, there was a slight furrow in his brow.

I stared at him.

My mind was completely blank.

Then I finally remembered where I was.