Chapter 4

Corinna's POV

Aldric found out the truth eventually. He stopped the wedding and pulled me out of it himself.

He told me I was the only one he loved. My family tried to come between us, more than once. It never worked.

I actually thought he was going to save me.

But then Celia started putting on her show for him — frail, suffering, always just barely hanging on — and the irritation on his face slowly, quietly turned into something else. Concern. Care. The kind he never had for me.

That's when I knew. He'd turned into one of them.

A laugh tears out of me, raw and broken, tears and blood running together.

"Fine." I open my eyes and look at my parents like I'm already looking at strangers. "I'll sign. But I'm adding something."

My father's eyes narrow. "Adding what?"

"I want to be cut off from this family. Legally. Permanently." Every word lands flat and clear in the cold air of the operating room. "I sign your surrogacy contract, you get the baby. In return, I'm done. Corinna is done with the Vane family. We're square. You're not my parents anymore."

My mother's face twists. "You ungrateful little — how dare you even say that out loud? You think you're anything without this family?"

"I'm a dying woman." I look at her, steady. "Can't even grant a dying woman one last request? Or are you just scared that once I'm gone, the next time Celia coughs, you won't have anyone left to bleed dry?"

"Shut your mouth." My father is shaking, but he glances over at Kalen, who's already looking impatient, and his jaw tightens and he gives in. "Fine. You want out that badly? Fine."

My mother flicks her fingers and adds the severance clause to the bottom of the contract.

I don't hesitate. I press my bloodied fingers to the page.

Deep in my chest, the last two chains I've been carrying finally snap loose.

Three chances. All used. All gone.

I'm free.

"Everyone out." Kalen's voice is flat. "I'm starting."

My parents take the surrogacy contract and walk out without looking back. Not once.

The door shuts.

Kalen picks up the blade.

"Don't blame me for this," he says quietly, almost to himself.

"Goodbye." I stare up at the ceiling, my voice barely there. "Kalen."

He pauses for just a second. Then the blade comes down without hesitation, cutting across my swollen belly.

No anesthesia. Nothing for the pain. It's the kind that doesn't feel like pain anymore — it feels like being torn open from the inside out, body and soul coming apart at once.

I scream. I can't help it. The sound rips through the whole room. I pull against the restraints until my wrists are raw, until something beneath the skin gives way.

Kalen's face stays blank. His hands are steady and precise. The healing magic flows only toward the extracted womb. Not a drop reaches my wounds.

"Cord blood... heart's blood..." he murmurs, moving fast.

The pain starts pulling me under. I see the baby in the dark somewhere, reaching toward me, and then a cold hand snatches him away.

"My baby..." Blood comes up with the words.

"Got it." Something in Kalen's voice loosens, just slightly.

He sets a crystal vial of deep red liquid on the tray beside a short length of cord.

Then he looks down at the small body that was just taken from me.

He goes completely still.

No breath. No movement.

Stillborn.

The moment the curse loses the protection of my body, it consumes that tiny life instantly.

"Useless!" Kalen slams his hand across the tray, sending instruments clattering to the floor. "A stillborn's blood won't be half as effective!"

He grabs the long extraction needle and drives it straight into my heart.

The pain stops.

Not because it's over. Because something worse is happening. I feel the life draining out of me in real time, fast, like water pouring out of something that can't hold anymore. The vampire's curse tears loose all at once.

Black markings crawl out from my chest, up my throat, across my face.

My vision blurs. Sound starts fading out.

The vitality monitor screams.

Kalen watches the numbers drop. For the first time all night, his hands slow.

"Cor..."

He doesn't finish.

"Forget it. Just get the blood." He sounds like he's forcing the words out. His voice isn't steady anymore.

I watch his face, contorted and unrecognizable, and then the dark takes me.

It only lasts a second.

A voice comes through the dark, clear and calm and immense.

"Poor child. You have suffered long enough. Your body is gone, but I will let your soul remain a little while longer. Long enough to see what becomes of those who betrayed you."

Then I'm weightless. I open my eyes and I'm floating, suspended somewhere above the room.

Below me, on the operating table, is a body. Pale. Hollowed out. Black curse markings crawling across every inch of skin.

My body.

Kalen stands beside the table alone, still holding the half-filled vial of heart's blood. He hasn't moved. He looks like something inside him switched off.

The door bursts open.

Aldric storms in. "Kalen! Where's the elixir? Celia's running out of time!"

He shoves Kalen aside and looks around the room. "What are you standing there for? Where's Corinna? Is she still pulling this? Someone get her up. Celia needs her magic, now!"

He's still yelling when his eyes drop past Kalen's shoulder to the table.

His voice cuts out.