Ch. paid to leave pregnant with the vampire king heirs 8 paid to leave pregnant with the vampire king heirs 8

Chapter 8 

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Chapter 8 

My father is not a large man. 

He wears cardigans. He collects antique maps. He has never once in my life raised his voice. 

He walked to my gate at the speed of a man strolling to a garden party, two quiet men behind him, and every enforcer on that street took one step back 

Augustus Vale’s face did something remarkable. 

It emptied. 

“You,” he breathed. “You’re-” 

“Hart is my wife’s name,” my father said mildly. “Sloane took it when she went to design school. She wanted to be judged by her work, not by her family. I thought that was admirable.” 

The teacup made a small sound against the saucer. 

“My name is Gideon Saint-Clair.” 

I watched a three-hundred-year-old vampire’s knees actually move. 

Saint-Clair. Grand Master of the Order of the Dawn. The human order that wrote the Accords. The ones who decided, every hundred years, whether vampires were allowed to keep existing in the open. The family that licensed every Court on this continent, that seated Augustus Vale on the Council, and that could revoke all of it before breakfast. 

Augustus had spent a year testing my blood like livestock. 

He had never once looked up my mother’s maiden name. 

And suddenly I understood, in one dizzy rush, why I could do what no human bride had done in a thousand years. Dawn blood. Old blood. The blood of the people who had hunted his kind for centuries. 

“We were not aware,” Augustus managed. 

“You are now.” My father handed his teacup to an aide. “So you may go.” 

“The children-” 

Chapter 8 

+45 Coins 

“Are my grandchildren.” Still gentle. Still soft. “Whose name they carry is no longer a matter you have Standing to discuss. And Augustus.” A small pause. “If you frighten my daughter again, I will convene the Order to review the Eastern Court’s charter. Then I will instruct my people to short Vale Capital into the ground. We’re rather good at both.” 

Silence. 

Augustus Vale, the man who once made me stand outside his study for an hour because I’d worn the wrong color to a feeding dinner, turned around and got into his car. 

The Escalades were gone in ninety seconds. 

My father turned to me, and his whole face softened into the dad who used to read me star charts at bedtime. 

“Sloane. My girl. You’ve had a hard year.” 

I burst into tears in my own driveway. 

“With your mother and me here,” he said into my hair, “no one makes you do anything ever again.” 

That night he cooked. My mother burned the casserole. Felix drank too much and did an impression of Augustus’s face that made my father laugh so hard he had to sit down. 

For the first time in a year, my house was loud. 

And from the dark terrace next door, Dorian Vale stood alone, watching my lit windows. 

My father’s men had drawn a line at the property boundary. Dawn-blessed silver. He couldn’t cross it. 

He didn’t try. 

He stood there until the last light in my house went out. 

After that, his life got much harder, 

Every gift was returned. Every delivery refused. My mother personally handed back a box of antique Burmese rubies with a smile like a paper cut. 

He still came. Every single sunrise. 

Chapter 8 

Day fourteen: HEARTBROKEN PRINCE BARRED BY BRIDE’S HUNTER FATHER. 

+45 Coins 

Day nineteen: someone filmed him sitting outside the silver line at noon, in a heat wave, skin blistering, eyes closed, not moving. 

Twenty million views in a day. 

I watched it forty times at two in the morning like a lunatic 

My mother came in, took the phone from my hand, and said, “Sloane. What exactly are you waiting for?” 

And I told her what I hadn’t said out loud to anyone. 

“I’m waiting to know if he’s burning for me,” I said, “or for the three trueborn heirs inside me. Because if it’s them, Mom, I won’t survive finding out ten years from now.” 

She didn’t have an answer. 

Three days later, Vale Capital announced the Prince would give his first live, unscripted interview in a decade. 

On national television. 

My mother sniffed. “He’s going to hide behind business. Men always do.” 

I turned on the TV anyway.