Ch. paid to leave pregnant with the vampire king heirs 4 paid to leave pregnant with the vampire king heirs 4

Chapter 4 

Chapter 4 

The bite mark was supposed to be a scar. 

At 3:04 a.m., it split open and bled. 

+45 Coins 

A severed bond dies. Everyone knows that. The mark fades, the link goes silent, and the human walks 

away. 

Mine didn’t die. 

Because three tiny hearts inside me carried his blood, and they were holding the bond open like hands on a door. 

Which meant two things. 

He could feel me. 

And the most dangerous vampire alive was about to learn I was carrying something his kind was never supposed to be able to make. 

I stumbled into the bathroom and pressed a towel to my throat, shaking. 

What poured down the bond wasn’t rage. It was grief. Raw, black, panicked grief, and under it something hunting. 

Where are you? Sloane. Please. 

“Don’t,” I whispered to the dark. “Don’t you dare.” 

I slammed every wall I had ever built against that bond and held them until my teeth ached. 

The next morning, I called a witch Felix knew in Ojai and paid a frankly criminal amount for a suppression tonic. Rosemary, silver dust, and something that smelled like a wet grave. 

It dulled the bond to a whisper. 

It also meant that for the first time in a year, I couldn’t feel him at all. 

I sat on my terrace and cried about it for exactly eleven minutes. 

Chapter 4 

Then I got up and ordered a jeweler’s bench. 

Four days later, Felix arrived with two assistants and nine cases of tools. 

+45 Coins 

“Good God,” he said, striding through my gate in cream linen. “You’re tanning. Is this what freedom looks like? It’s very beige.” 

He held my face in both hands and inspected me like a suspicious diamond. 

“You’ve lost weight.” 

“I’ve gained six pounds.” 

“Doctors have no taste.” He handed me a folder. “Read that.” 

Maison Aurelle. Creative Director, High Jewelry Division. Full artistic control. 

I stopped breathing. 

Aurelle was a two-hundred-year-old Parisian house. In my world, this wasn’t a job offer. It was a 

coronation. 

“They know about the severance,” I said. “It’ll be in every tabloid by Friday.” 

“They know. They don’t care.” He sat and crossed his legs. “You have the best eye on this continent and a name that makes headlines. Darling, that’s not a scandal. That’s marketing.” 

Here’s what nobody in the Vale Court ever bothered to learn about me. Before the contract, I had won two international design awards. I could grade a sapphire by candlelight. I shelved all of it to be somebody’s rare blood type in a ballgown. 

“Yes,” I said. 

“Obviously yes.” Felix nodded toward my living room. “Now, before you sign anything, look at that.” 

The television was on mute. A financial channel. 

The crawl read: VALE CAPITAL ISSUES STATEMENT. 

Then the statement filled the screen, sealed in red wax: 

Chapter 4 

+45 Coins 

Vale Capital confirms that the blood bond between Prince Dorian Vale and Mrs. Sloane Vale remains fully Thtact. Reports of a severance are malicious fabrications. The Prince’s counsel reserves all rights. 

I read it twice. 

Then I laughed so hard the babies kicked. 

That was Dorian, exactly. A man who believed reality was a document, and documents could be 

amended. 

I called Nina. “Are you watching this?” 

“Sloane.” Her voice was pure electricity. “They just made a false statement to a public market. They have handed us a gift.” 

“Two things. First, send a legal notice to every outlet that ran it. Attach the notarized Rite of Severance, 

the one with his blood seal on it.” 

“And second?” 

“Issue my own statement. Confirm the severance. Confirm the payment. Confirm I’m reserving my right to 

sue for defamation.” 

“Their stock is about to have a very interesting afternoon.” 

I hung up. The phone buzzed instantly in my hand/ 

A New York number I had never been able to delete. 

I answered. 

“Sloane.” His voice cut straight through the tonic like it was tissue paper. Low. Wrecked. Nothing like the 

cold man I’d married. 

“Tell me where you are,” he said, “or I swear to God I will walk into the sun to find you.”