공유

Chapter 3

작가: Hyacinth
Yes, I was pregnant.

Adrian knew.

In my previous life, I used the debt he owed me to secure the marking ceremony. After Ivy attempted suicide, Adrian blamed me for driving her to it.

Then he began forcing strengthening tonic into me.

He said the Blackwood heir needed to be powerful.

When I vomited, he pinned me down and poured another dose between my lips. He did it again and again until the pup grew far too large for my body.

When labor began, I begged Adrian to summon a healer.

He refused.

He trusted the strength of his Alpha bloodline more than my fear.

I still remembered the pain. My limbs shook as I screamed and pushed until blood vessels burst in my eyes, but the pup remained trapped inside me.

Blood flooded the underground room.

I died there.

Our child suffocated before taking his first breath.

After leaving the pack house, I returned to my apartment and rested a hand over the faint movement inside my abdomen.

It was time to end things with Adrian and leave Blackwood territory for good.

I slept for four hours.

When I woke, a message waited on my phone.

[My mother is ill. Come to the pack house.]

Adrian was cruel, but Helena had always treated me like her own daughter.

My parents and the Blackwoods had been close friends. After my parents were killed by rogues, Helena took me into her home and gave me the love of a mother.

I was leaving Blackwood territory. Before I went, I wanted to see Helena and say a proper goodbye.

The moment I opened the door, a basin of freezing water crashed over my head.

Cold soaked through my clothes. My weakened wolf recoiled, and pain pulled low in my abdomen.

The room erupted with laughter.

More than a dozen young wolves surrounded me, some already recording with their phones.

Ivy sat in the center of them.

There was no fear or fragility in her face now.

Only malice.

“Make her kneel.”

A male wolf kicked the back of my knees.

I struck the floor, tearing open the stitches in my injured arm.

Ivy walked toward me with a smile.

“Do you know how much Adrian hates you?”

She crouched in front of me.

“You secretly got pregnant because you thought his pup would force him to keep you.”

She picked up a bottle of wolfsbane liquor.

Two wolves seized my arms.

“You’ve spent eight years using every trick you know to trap Adrian,” Ivy said. “Today, I’m going to make you regret carrying his pup.”

Panic shot through me.

I twisted violently and covered my abdomen with my free arm.

“Don’t touch my baby.”

“I thought you didn’t want Adrian anymore.”

“I don’t. But this child has done nothing wrong.”

The faint wolf pulse inside me fluttered in distress.

He had not asked to be conceived in Adrian’s drunken mistake or become a chain between us.

He was still my baby.

I had failed to save him once.

This time, I had to protect him.

“Hold her still,” Ivy ordered.

More hands seized me. I kicked one wolf in the knee, but another twisted my injured arm behind my back.

Ivy forced the bottle against my mouth.

I clenched my teeth, so someone pinched my nose until I had to gasp.

Wolfsbane liquor poured down my throat.

I choked and struggled, scratching and biting at the wolves holding me, but they only laughed and tightened their grip.

By the time the bottle was empty, fire was spreading through my abdomen.

“If anything happens to my baby,” I gasped, “I’ll kill you.”

Ivy threw the bottle aside and picked up a curling iron. Its metal barrel glowed red.

Everything had been prepared before I arrived.

They had brought me here to torture me.

“If Adrian sees you with a ruined face,” Ivy said, gripping my chin, “maybe he’ll finally stop feeling sorry for you.”

She lowered the burning iron toward my eye.

Then someone screamed.

“Blood! She’s bleeding!”

A violent cramp folded me in half. Blood ran down my thighs and spread across the floor.

I wrapped both arms around my stomach.

One of the wolves stepped back.

“Ivy, this has gone too far.”

Panic crossed Ivy’s face.

Then she saw how desperately I shielded my baby, and her expression turned vicious.

“Good.”

She dropped the iron and kicked at my abdomen.

I twisted aside, taking the blow against my ribs.

She kicked me again.

The second blow broke my guard.

Ivy planted her boot on my stomach and pressed down.

I clawed at her ankle, but the others pinned me to the floor.

Blood spread beneath my body.

The faint pulse inside me weakened.

Ivy’s smile was the last thing I saw before everything went black.
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최신 챕터

  • This Time, I Won’t Beg for His Mark   Chapter 10

    One year after Rowan's death, my life had become ordinary. At the archive, I organized records of wolves who had left old packs to begin again. I understood them better than they knew.Helena came for dinner twice a month. My yellow dishes stayed in the cabinet, and I killed three balcony plants before learning what survived winter.Some nights I still dreamed of Rowan’s pulse and woke with my hand over my stomach. Grief remained, but it no longer made every decision for me.Blackwood Pack changed too. After Adrian surrendered control of the emergency blood reserve, the elders made the change permanent.Healers no longer needed the Alpha’s permission to release compatible blood in an emergency. The rule was not named after Rowan. He was my child, not a warning the pack could display after learning too late.Adrian remained a capable Alpha. Blackwood prospered under his command, but he had learned that being a good Alpha did not make him a good mate.He left the suite beside the empty

  • This Time, I Won’t Beg for His Mark   Chapter 9

    Ivy’s hearing took place six months after the attack. I returned to Blackwood territory for the first time since Rowan’s burial.Helena met me outside the Council hall. "You don't have to go in," she said. "Your written statement is enough.""I want to hear the decision myself." She nodded and walked beside me.The wolves who had once lowered their heads because I was Adrian's future Luna now watched me with a mixture of guilt and curiosity. I ignored them.Ivy sat before the elders with two guards behind her.When she saw me, tears immediately filled her eyes. "Serena, I didn't mean for the pup to die."The head elder struck the end of his staff against the floor. "You will speak only when questioned." Ivy lowered her head.The evidence was complete: the stolen messages, invitations, wolfsbane, and videos showing the assault and the final kick after I began bleeding.The two wolves who restrained me were confined and expelled. The others lost their positions and any right to future pa

  • This Time, I Won’t Beg for His Mark   Chapter 8

    I did not return to Blackwood Pack. After leaving the infirmary, I moved into a small house in neutral territory overlooking pine-covered hills. Nothing inside had been selected by Adrian. I chose yellow dishes and arranged the furniture for myself.The formal release of his claim remained locked in the bottom drawer of my desk. The bond ring was gone. I had thrown it from the rooftop, and I never asked anyone to search for it.My body healed slowly. My arm closed after its second stitching, and the bruises faded. Some mornings I woke with my hand over my stomach and remembered only when Rowan’s pulse did not answer.Three days after I left the infirmary, Helena brought a dark wooden box containing Rowan’s nameplate. A faint stain remained where Adrian’s blood had touched it."Adrian said you should decide what happens to it," Helena said.Rowan had never seen the nursery or the full moon, but he had existed. For months, his pulse had beaten beneath my heart."I want it buried with him

  • This Time, I Won’t Beg for His Mark   Chapter 7

    The release ceremony took place two weeks later in a private Pack Council chamber. I could walk short distances, though my arm remained bandaged and my wolf was still weak.Helena accompanied me to the Council hall. When we reached the chamber, I stopped. "I want to go in alone." Concern crossed her face, but she did not argue. "I'll be right outside." I nodded and entered.Adrian waited in the formal black coat of Blackwood’s Alpha. His control faltered only when he saw the empty curve of my abdomen.The claim had weakened since the miscarriage, leaving only brief, painful pulses beneath my ribs.An elderly woman stood between us. She had overseen the mate claims of Blackwood Pack for more than forty years. "The documents have already been signed," she said. "Today's ceremony will release Adrian Blackwood's claim on Serena Vale."The elder warned that severance would be painful and permanently break the connection between our wolves. We both consented."Yes," I said. Adrian answered a

  • This Time, I Won’t Beg for His Mark   Chapter 6

    I woke again the following morning with Helena asleep in the chair beside me. My entire body ached. The healers had stitched my arm again where the wound had torn open. Thick bandages covered it from my wrist to my elbow.A dull cramp remained deep in my abdomen. I placed my left hand over the place where Rowan's wolf pulse used to beat. Nothing answered. The grief was not sharp at first. It was too large to feel like pain. It was an emptiness that seemed to fill the entire room.Helena woke when I moved. "Serena?" She stood quickly and reached for the cup beside my bed. "Do you need water? Should I call the healer?""Rowan," I whispered. Her hand stopped. Her face crumpled. "I'm sorry."I closed my eyes. Adrian had chosen the name without asking me. At first, I had resented hearing him use it. It was one more part of my future that he had decided without believing I deserved a choice. Yet at some point, the pup inside me had become Rowan. When I felt his faint wolf pulse beneath my ha

  • This Time, I Won’t Beg for His Mark   Chapter 5

    Adrian froze: “The report said Rowan still had a pulse.”“He did when they tell you.”“Then release the plasma now.”“It’s too late.” Helena’s voice broke. “Serena miscarried. Rowan is dead.”"No," he said.Helena released his shirt. Adrian looked down at the dark wooden nameplate in his palm. [ROWAN BLACKWOOD] His fingers closed around it."The healer said Rowan still had a pulse.""He did." Helena's voice broke. "When the authorization form was brought to you, he was still alive. You tore it apart."Each word struck harder than the slap she had given him. "If you had signed it when they asked, the Alpha plasma might have stabilized him. But you refused. By the time the infirmary received permission to release the emergency reserve, Rowan's pulse was already gone."Adrian turned toward the operating-room doors. "Serena is still alive.""For now."“My blood is compatible. Take whatever Serena still needs.” He rolled up his sleeve as the infirmary’s chief healer stepped into his path."

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