Chapter 4

As the weeks passed, Chloe's belly grew rounder and heavier.

I was forbidden from taking even a single step out of that dusty storage room.

Then came a day of torrential downpours.

Nicholas wasn't home. Without warning, his personal bodyguard kicked open the door to the storage room.

"Monster, Mr. Hayes has ordered you to the hospital immediately to give blood to Miss Chloe."

A blood transfusion?

My spiritual vessel was so weak and depleted that I barely had any physical form left. Where would I get blood to give?

This was a death sentence!

"No! I'm not going!" I scrambled backward into the corner, frantically curling myself into a tight ball.

"Nicholas promised he would leave me my last life! He swore it!"

The bodyguard didn't listen to a single word. He lunged forward, grabbed my arms with brutal force, and bound my wrists with a thick nylon rope he had brought along.

"Let go of me! You can't do this! Call Nicholas! Let me speak to Nicholas!"

My struggles were completely futile.

The coarse rope cut deep into my fragile, semi-translucent skin.

Rain whipped through the open doorway, chilling me down to the marrow.

Completely deaf to my screams and weeping, the bodyguard hauled me across the floor like a sack of garbage, dragged me down the stairs, and threw me into the back of a black SUV.

At the hospital.

I was marched down the corridor flanked by guards, looking every bit like a condemned prisoner.

Nicholas rushed over, out of breath. He didn't spare me a single glance, utterly focused on demanding updates from the doctor regarding Chloe's condition.

The doctor said she was hemorrhaging and needed an emergency transfusion, but the hospital's blood bank was critically low on her rare type.

Nicholas turned and pointed directly at me. "Take hers. Take as much as you need."

My heart plummeted into a freezing abyss.

"NO—!"

The sheer terror and despair that had festered inside me for months finally exploded.

With a surge of strength I didn't know I possessed, I snapped the ropes and hurled myself at Nicholas's feet, clutching the cuffs of his trousers.

"Nicholas! I can't give blood! I... I'm pregnant! I'm carrying your child! Our child!"

I knelt on the cold hospital tiles, sobbing and pleading, desperately hoping to buy myself a few minutes to find an opening to escape.

Yet Nicholas merely paused in his tracks, looking down at me with cold, indifferent eyes.

There was no joy. No surprise. Only a chilling, condescending disgust.

"Pregnant?"

Nicholas spat the word out, the corner of his mouth twisting into a mocking smirk.

"You're an inhuman spirit-cat. Chloe told me months ago that a creature like you can never conceive a child with a mortal man. Stop these pathetic, disgusting tricks!"

His gaze turned vicious as he barked at the guards, "Pin her down!"

The bodyguards surged forward, slamming me violently against the cold floor.

A nurse hurried over carrying sterile needles and collection bags.

The freezing alcohol swab rubbed across the crook of my elbow, sending violent shivers through my body.

The gleaming steel needle looked like the fangs of the Grim Reaper, creeping inexorably toward my exposed vein.

Just then, a frantic voice called out from the lab corridor.

"Wait! Hold on! This patient's blood panel is completely abnormal... The markers show that she's actually pregnant!"