Bonded For Blood, Not Love

"I helped Judy move a few plants, and you start throwing a fit about severing our bond? How dare you! Who the hell do you think you are?" Eddie continued. "If you really want out, fine! I'll send you the severance papers soon enough. But once I do, the baby belongs to the Dixons."

Gloria struggled to her feet, ready to chase after him and slap him across the face.

But that heartless man didn't want to waste even one more second here.

By the time Gloria staggered outside, all she saw was his back. She yanked off her shoe and hurled it at him.

"Eddie! I told you the baby is gone! You're the reason he's dead! You won't save your father, and you'll regret this!"

The night air was cold, and she had just miscarried. I hurriedly told the staff to help her back inside.

Gloria and I had grown up like real sisters. My father had treated her as his own daughter. Everyone in the Binders' respected her as the second young lady of the house.

Yet in Eddie's mouth, she became some girl my scheming family took in to serve me. It was disgusting for a man to use such petty, low tricks to drive a wedge between us.

That was the moment both Gloria and I finally gave up. Our hearts went completely cold.

We should have realized long ago that this was all a setup.

Last year, Gloria and I went into the mountains to gather herbs and ran into a werewolf in heat. He tried to drag us into a cave.

We would've been ruined if Lesley hadn't happened to pass by and save us. He said he was on his way to ask our father for medicine to save someone.

But Gloria and I had been deep in the back mountains. Why would someone in such a hurry take such a long detour?

Now that I thought about it, it was probably a staged rescue from the start.

He played the role of a steady, sincere man so well that I believed him. I begged my father to leave his seclusion and save that werewolf.

I had grown up around medicinal herbs, and my blood had special properties.

But I was human, and the one he needed to save was a werewolf.

Only a child born from a human and a werewolf, carrying my bloodline, could provide the cardiogen he needed.

I begged my father again, this time to let me marry Lesley. And because of that, Gloria met Eddie and was fooled by his sweet talk, too.

Thinking back, after the weddings, both men were always busy. Even when they came home, everything felt like a routine.

Once we were pregnant, they moved out altogether.

Because I liked it quiet, Lesley sent me straight to the secluded villa.

To outsiders, he claimed it was all my idea, making himself look like a devoted husband. But all I had asked for was to dismiss a few servants.

Now, it was obvious. They had wanted to move Gloria and me out from the beginning, to make room for Judy.

On Arthur's birthday, we had agreed that Gloria and I wouldn't make the trip because we were pregnant.

But they insisted, claiming it was about respecting elders.

I was heavily pregnant then, my belly heavy and swollen.

Lesley said the mountain road was too rough for a carriage and unsafe, so he made me walk the entire route.

I walked for a full day and night. I nearly collapsed on the way back and had to rest for two weeks afterward.

As soon as we returned, they dragged Gloria and me to see Judy, without the slightest concern for our condition or the babies.

Now, I understood. They just wanted to provoke her.

They wanted her to see that they had mates, and now children, too. That way, she would feel threatened and cling closer to them.

And it worked.

Judy showed up soon after. And our children paid the price.

She removed every obstacle between herself and them.

That night, the villa was unusually lively.

Judy even came by in the evening. She didn't look sick at all. If anything, there was a hint of smugness in her eyes.

Yet she spoke gently, as if she were innocent.

"I only see them as my brothers. You two don't need to be this angry."