Kneeling, Shattering Bloodline

I woke up to the sharp, bitter tang of medicinal herbs.

My throat felt scraped raw, like I'd swallowed hot ash. My stomach was an aching, hollow void. The moment I weakly shifted on the mattress, the person sitting at my bedside jolted forward, her voice breaking on a sob.

“You’re finally awake, Sera!” Iliana grabbed my hand. Tears spilled over her cheeks, staining the thick blankets. “You’ve been unconscious for three days. Three whole days!”

I tried to speak, but my voice was a hoarse rasp. “The teleportation portal… how many days do I have left?”

“Tomorrow.” She cried harder, her shoulders shaking. “There’s only one day left.”

I froze. Instinctively, my hand drifted down to my lower belly. Thick bandages were wrapped tightly around my abdomen, the blinding pain from before now a dull, relentless throb.

Iliana’s face drained of color as she watched my hand. She bit her lip, trembling as if holding back a dam, before she finally choked out, “Sera… you lost the baby.”

I stared at her, my mind blank.

“Seven weeks.” Her voice shook violently. “The healer said… you were carrying a fated pup. Do you understand? It was yours and Veyron’s.”

My hand went rigid against my stomach, a phantom pain shattering through my bones.

Seven weeks.

So the nausea, the fever, the crushing exhaustion—those weren't just from my injuries. I had been carrying his pup. And after that brutal kick he gave me, the last tie binding us together had been snuffed out.

Tears breached my lashes, spilling hot and fast down my cheeks. My breath hitched into a sob, pulling agonizingly at my fresh wounds.

Iliana wrapped her arms carefully around me, her eyes bloodshot. “Don’t cry—please, Sera. If you tear the stitches, you'll start bleeding again—”

The bedroom door burst open with a deafening crash.

Veyron stormed inside, bringing a freezing, suffocating aura with him. His eyes were wild and bloodshot, like a feral beast. He didn’t waste a single breath on greetings. In a flash, he crossed the room, his large hand clamping roughly around my throat as he yanked me up off the pillows.

“Seraphine!” His voice was a ragged, terrifying snarl. “What the hell did you do?”

Black spots danced across my vision. His grip crushed my windpipe, making every gasp for air a brutal struggle. Iliana launched herself at him, desperately clawing at his arm. “Let her go! She barely survived!”

Veyron backhanded her away without even breaking eye contact with me, his glare sharp enough to flay me alive. “Ophelia lost the pup. The healer said she went into severe shock from the fall—her body couldn’t hold onto the baby.”

I gripped his thick wrist with both hands, my voice breaking. “And?”

“And?” His fingers tightened dangerously. “You shoved her down those stairs. You killed my child, and you’re asking me 'and'?”

My chest heaved. A bitter, broken laugh escaped my lips, mingling with the tears dripping from my chin. “Your child?”

The temperature in his eyes dropped to absolute zero.

I forced the words out between choked breaths. “I didn’t touch her… She faked the pregnancy.”

Veyron froze, his muscles locking up.

I stared straight back into his harsh eyes, making every word count. “If you don’t believe me, bring in any healer of your choosing to examine her. She was never pregnant to begin with.”

“Enough!” A frail woman’s voice, thick with weeping, drifted through the adjoining wall.

The connecting door hadn’t been shut all the way. Ophelia’s weak, pathetic sobs echoed clearly. “Veyron, please don’t fight with Sera because of me… the baby is already gone… it was a little girl. I dreamed about her last night, Veyron—she was smiling…”

She wailed as if her entire world had just collapsed.

Veyron looked back down at me. Whatever fleeting shred of doubt he might have harbored was instantly ground to dust under Ophelia's manipulative sobs. He released my throat, only to grab my upper arm before I could even draw a full breath, hauling me violently off the bed.

The stitches in my abdomen tore open. My knees slammed onto the hardwood floor, a white-hot flash of agony blinding me.

Iliana shrieked, “Veyron! She just lost a baby! Are you out of your mind?”

He snapped his head toward her, his glare a physical threat. “Defend her one more time, and I’ll banish you to the Northern Wastelands.”

Iliana paled, but she stubbornly stepped between us. “Then you'll have to kill me first.”

“Move.”

“I won’t—”

“Iliana.” I braced a trembling hand against the mattress and forced myself upright. My legs shook so violently I thought my bones might snap. “Step aside.”

She looked back at me, her eyes red and furious with injustice. After a few tense seconds, she ground her teeth and reluctantly moved away.

Veyron’s gaze dragged over the blood seeping into my abdominal bandages, his expression twisting with blatant disgust. His voice was cold and hollow. “If you still expect me to make you my wife, then march to the pack cemetery. Kneel there for a full day and night. Atone for the child you murdered.”

I just looked at him, completely and utterly hollow inside.

“Otherwise,” he sneered, towering over me, “step down and give the Luna title back to Ophelia.”

The room fell dead quiet. The only sound was Ophelia’s muffled, theatrical weeping next door.

Slowly, I forced my spine straight. I could feel fresh, warm blood trickling down my lower back beneath the thin cotton gown. Iliana reached out to support my swaying frame, but I gently pushed her hands away.

“Five years.” I met Veyron’s icy stare, my voice so dead and level it didn't even sound like my own. “I must have been entirely blind.”

A muscle feathered in his jaw. He said nothing.

“You want me to kneel? Fine. I’ll kneel.” I reached over and ruthlessly ripped the IV needle out of the back of my hand. A bright bead of blood welled up instantly. “But this is the last time. After this, you and I are done.”

I walked right past him. I didn't spare him a second glance; I didn't want to look at his face ever again.

Outside, a torrential rain hammered the earth. The cemetery’s stone markers stood in grim rows along the hillside, rising from the mud like cold, grey blades. The second my knees hit the ground, jagged gravel sliced right through my skin. Freezing rain lashed across my face. Yet I knelt there. Through the pitch-black night into the pale dawn, and straight through until dusk fell again.

Blood mixed with the muddy rainwater, tracking down my bare calves. The torn wound in my abdomen throbbed in agonizing waves. More than once, my vision grayed out and I swayed, teetering on the edge of a dead faint, only to force my spine rigidly straight again.

Just as I hit my absolute limit, the heavy, distant chime of the Bloodline Toll echoed across the valley.

My seven-day limit was up.

Using a nearby headstone for leverage, I dragged my battered body upright. My knees were completely numb. My thin dress was heavy, soaked through with icy mud and dried blood. Step by agonizing step, I walked to the Teleportation Hall and pressed my palm flush against the Silvercrown Council’s runic sigil.

Right as the blinding white magic surged upward, I heard a man's voice behind me, shouting my name.

I didn't turn around.

That night, when Veyron roughly shoved open my bedroom door, he was met with a hollow room. It was as if I had never existed.

The wardrobe had been completely cleared out. The medicine bottles were missing from the nightstand. Even the lingering scent of the moon-silver incense I always burned had vanished, leaving the air sterile and dead.

He froze in the doorway, a sudden, sharp panic finally breaking through his arrogant facade. He spun around and snatched up his Bloodline Mirror, his fingers trembling slightly as he forced a bond-call through to Iliana.

“Where is she?” Veyron demanded, his voice tight. “Where did Sera go?”

Iliana let out a short, bitter laugh over the connection. It dripped with venomous mockery. “She went back to the Silvercrown Council. To prepare for her arranged marriage.”

“An arranged—” The glass of the mirror cracked under his white-knuckled grip. “I was just angry today. I didn’t mean—”

“Didn’t mean what?” Iliana snarled, cutting him off. “You didn’t mean to force her to kneel in the dirt at the cemetery? Or did you mean you didn’t mean to murder your own child with your own bare hands?”

Veyron went perfectly, terrifyingly rigid. “What did you just say?”

Through the mirror, Iliana stared right through him, throwing each word like a jagged stone. “She’s gone, Veyron. I forgot to mention—right before you banished her to the cemetery to ‘atone,’ she had just miscarried a seven-week pregnancy. Your pup.”