Chapter 3

Alistair laid me on the bare floor of the empty sanctuary and ran out to find supplies.

He came back two minutes later.

Empty-handed.

His face was ashen.

"The potion storage is empty," he stammered. "Not even a basic hemostatic herb. No bandages. Nothing."

Lilith let out a small, cruel laugh. "Oh, those? Also sent to Isadora. Caius's orders."

"This is murder!" Alistair shouted. "She'll die! The child will die!"

"Then that is their fate," Lilith said with a cold shrug. "The coven comes first."

Alistair knelt beside me, taking my hand.

"My Lady, I am so sorry," he said, tears welling in his eyes. "I have no equipment, no potions, nothing."

"Then use your hands!" I screamed, grabbing his collar. "Use anything!"

"I can't risk it. Without a magical barrier, without tools to stop the bleeding—"

"Enough of this pathetic drama! Take him away!" Lilith suddenly barked.

Two guards entered the room, grabbed Alistair by the arms, and began to drag him out.

"Listen to me!" Alistair yelled back at me. "Remember the pressure point I showed you? The one on your abdomen? Push on it! It will stimulate the contractions! You have to push with everything you have on the next one—"

The door slammed shut.

It was just me and Lilith again.

She took out a scrying mirror made of blood-crystal and opened a channel.

"Caius?" Her voice was instantly wounded and frail. "You need to see this. Your precious mate is putting on another show for us."

She turned the mirror towards me.

I saw Caius's face. He was standing in the bright hallway of another, fully equipped sanctuary. His expensive clothes were disheveled, his brow furrowed with exhaustion.

When he saw me lying in a pool of my own blood, a flicker of shock and horror crossed his face before it was replaced by ice.

"What is going on with her?" His voice was tight, cold.

"What do you think? It's an act," Lilith said casually. "She's bled a little, but Alistair is always so dramatic. I think she's just trying to force you to come to her."

Caius's jaw tightened as he stared at me through the mirror.

Just then, a weak voice called from his side of the connection. Isadora.

"Caius… who is that…? Is it Rowan? Is she… is she blaming me again?"

"It's nothing. Don't be distracted," Caius soothed her instantly, but his eyes on me grew colder.

"Caius!" I screamed with my last bit of strength. "Help me… the baby… the baby is really coming!"

"Rowan, stop it," he said, his expression unchanged. "Isadora is struggling. The Ancestor's Blessing... it's causing a bloodline rejection. The healers are fighting to save her. She is the coven's priority."

"But I—"

"I'll deal with you when I'm done here," he cut me off coldly.

Through the mirror, I saw him turn to stroke Isadora's forehead.

"You deserve to pay for what you've done."

The mirror went black.

Lilith put it away, looking pleased.

"See?" she said, squatting down in front of me, her eyes filled with triumph and cruelty. "In Caius's heart, what are you? A pathetic lone wolf who slept her way into his bed for protection. A birthing tool. And now, you're not even useful for that."

She stood up, her voice a final judgment. "You thought marrying into the Alucard Coven was your ticket to the top? You and your mutt are just trash that needs to be taken out."

I closed my eyes, refusing to look at her anymore.

My body was soaked in blood, but my hand secretly moved to the necklace around my neck.

The moonstone pendant my father gave me. My last resort.

They all thought I was just a lone wolf. No pack. A nobody running a broken-down bookstore.

Of course they did.

They couldn't sense the royal blood sleeping inside me. The Alpha blood I had sealed away.

I loved him, so I chose to give up my birthright. What a stupid joke that turned out to be.

"If you are ever in danger from which there is no escape," my father had told me on the day I left my pack, "crush this. Every wolf of our kind will feel your call."

My fingers found the tiny trigger inside the pendant.

Lilith's voice was still droning on.

"...Isadora always said you were manipulative. I actually defended you. I was such a fool. A stray wolf who married for power. Who knows what you were really plotting."

With the last of my strength, I crushed the trigger.

There was no sound. No flash of light.

But I knew. The signal had been sent.

"In half an hour," my father's voice echoed in my memory, "my Royal Guard will tear this world apart to find you."

But my baby…

Could my child hold on until my people arrived?