Marcela’s hand tightened over her stomach.
“My family?”
Guzmán nodded.
“They’re already at the outer gate.”
Adrián rose slowly.
The tenderness that had been on his face moments earlier disappeared.
In its place came the expression that had made generations of people fear the lord of the Dark Forest.
“They sold her.”
His voice was almost calm.
“They don’t get to come back because they discovered she has value.”
Marcela looked down at the pregnancy test.
For years, Gabriel Mercado had called her useless.
Now she knew exactly why he had returned.
Not because he regretted losing his daughter.
Because the “defective merchandise” had suddenly become priceless.
A servant entered.
“Mr. Mercado insists on speaking with Miss Marcela.”
Adrián looked at her.
“I can send them away.”
Marcela hesitated.
Then shook her head.
“No.”
Adrián’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“I want to hear what they came to say.”
Gabriel Mercado entered the great hall with Laura and Jessica behind him.
The change in their attitude was almost comical.
Two weeks earlier, Laura had watched Marcela leave with a single bag.
Now she smiled as though welcoming a beloved daughter home.
“Marcela!”
She opened her arms.
Marcela didn’t move.
Laura stopped awkwardly.
Gabriel cleared his throat.
“We heard the good news.”
“From whom?”
His expression flickered.
“A family has ways of finding things out.”
Adrián stood beside Marcela.
“No.”
Everyone looked at him.
“You had someone watching my estate.”
Gabriel paled.
“I only wanted to make sure my daughter was safe.”
Adrián smiled.
His fangs appeared slightly.
Gabriel took an involuntary step backward.
“Your concern is touching.”
Marcela almost laughed.
Jessica stared at her stomach.
“Is it really true?”
Marcela looked at her.
“Yes.”
Something ugly flashed across Jessica’s face.
Jealousy.
For six years, Jessica had possessed everything Marcela supposedly could not have.
Beauty.
Praise.
Suitors.
The promise of children.
Now Marcela had something none of them had imagined possible.
Gabriel immediately changed his tone.
“Then you must come home.”
Marcela stared at him.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
He stepped closer.
“This arrangement was made under false information. We believed you were infertile.”
There it was.
Not we missed you.
Not we were wrong.
We miscalculated your value.
Marcela’s voice turned cold.
“And if I had still been infertile?”
Gabriel said nothing.
“Would you have come?”
Laura interrupted.
“That isn’t important now.”
“It’s the only thing that matters.”
Gabriel’s patience disappeared.
“You are a Mercado. This child is connected to our bloodline.”
Adrián’s expression darkened.
“No.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“No?”
“The child is connected to Marcela.”
Adrián placed himself slightly in front of her.
“You surrendered every right to speak of blood the night you priced your daughter like livestock.”
Gabriel’s face reddened.
“You paid that price!”
Silence fell.
Marcela turned toward Adrián.
For the first time, pain crossed his face.
Gabriel smiled when he noticed.
“That’s right. Don’t pretend you’re noble. You wanted an heir and bought the cheapest woman available.”
Marcela felt as if someone had poured ice into her chest.
Adrián didn’t deny it.
That hurt more.
She looked at him.
“Is that true?”
“Marcela—”
“Did you choose me because I was cheap?”
His eyes met hers.
“At first, I agreed to meet whoever your father sent because I needed to know whether the compatibility existed.”
Her heart sank.
Then he continued.
“But the first night you arrived, I canceled the contract.”
Gabriel froze.
“What?”
Guzmán stepped forward with a document.
“The Mercado debt was settled without conditions thirteen days ago.”
Marcela looked at Adrián.
He said quietly:
“You were never obligated to stay.”
“But you didn’t tell me.”
“I told you that you could leave whenever you wanted.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
He lowered his eyes.
“I was afraid that if I told you your family had already been paid, you would think I was trying to purchase your affection.”
For the first time, the terrifying vampire looked almost uncertain.
“I wanted you to choose whether you stayed.”
Marcela’s anger weakened.
Gabriel, however, stared at the document.
“You paid everything?”
“Yes.”
“Then the child—”
“Is none of your business.”
Gabriel suddenly laughed.
“You think you can keep it?”
Marcela stiffened.
Adrián’s eyes became dangerous.
“What did you say?”
Gabriel pulled a folded document from his coat.
“The agreement states that any child resulting from the union becomes part of the Mercado-Luna succession arrangement.”
Adrián took the paper.
Read it.
Then tore it in half.
Gabriel shouted:
“That is legally binding!”
“No,” Guzmán said.
Everyone turned.
“The contract contains a fraudulent medical declaration.”
Gabriel froze.
Marcela felt something change in the room.
“What medical declaration?”
Guzmán looked at her.
“Miss Marcela, we investigated Dr. Esteban Calderón.”
Her stomach tightened.
The doctor who had told her at sixteen that she would never have children.
“What about him?”
Guzmán placed another folder on the table.
“He was paid by your father.”
Marcela stopped breathing.
Gabriel’s face went gray.
Laura whispered:
“Gabriel…”
Marcela opened the folder.
Bank transfers.
Medical notes.
An amended report.
Her hands began to tremble.
“The accident did injure you,” Guzmán said gently. “But the specialist who treated you originally wrote that your chances of future pregnancy were reduced, not destroyed.”
Marcela stared at Gabriel.
“You knew?”
He said nothing.
“You knew I wasn’t sterile?”
His lips tightened.
Finally:
“We needed Jessica to make the better marriage.”
The room became completely silent.
Marcela could barely process the words.
“What?”
Gabriel exhaled impatiently, as if the truth were merely inconvenient.
“You were older. If everyone believed you could still have children, certain families would have considered you first.”
Jessica stared at him.
“Dad…”
He continued:
“Jessica had better prospects. We couldn’t let you compete with her.”
Marcela’s face went numb.
Six years.
Six years of believing she was broken.
Six years of humiliation.
Six years of watching Laura and Jessica pity her.
All because her father had wanted a more profitable marriage for his favorite daughter.
She laughed.
Once.
Then again.
Tears finally came.
Not from weakness.
From disbelief.
“You destroyed my life for Jessica’s marriage prospects?”
Gabriel reached toward her.
“Marcela, don’t exaggerate—”
Adrián moved.
Gabriel never even saw him cross the room.
One second he was standing upright.
The next, Adrián had him pinned against a stone pillar by the collar.
“Say that again.”
Gabriel’s face turned white.
“Adrián.”
Marcela’s voice stopped him.
He immediately released her father.
That mattered to her.
Even furious, he listened when she spoke.
Marcela wiped her tears.
Then looked at Gabriel.
“Leave.”
“Marcela—”
“Leave.”
“You are my daughter.”
“No.”
Her voice didn’t shake.
“You had a daughter.”
She placed the fraudulent report back inside the folder.
“Then you sold her.”
The Mercados did not leave quietly.
Three days later, Gabriel filed a claim alleging that Marcela had been coerced into staying at the Dark Forest estate.
It was his worst mistake.
Adrián’s attorneys responded by submitting the original sale agreement, Gabriel’s gambling records, and the evidence that Dr. Calderón had been paid to falsify Marcela’s diagnosis.
The scandal spread quickly.
Dr. Calderón lost his license and faced criminal investigation.
Gabriel’s creditors abandoned him.
Business partners withdrew.
And the social circle that Laura had spent twenty years trying to impress suddenly wanted nothing to do with the family.
Jessica’s engagement collapsed within a week.
She came to see Marcela alone.
No makeup.
No expensive clothes.
For once, she didn’t look perfect.
“I didn’t know about the doctor.”
Marcela studied her.
“I believe you.”
Jessica started crying.
“I was cruel to you.”
“Yes.”
“I thought Dad loved me more because I deserved it.”
Marcela’s expression softened, but only slightly.
“He loved what you could give him.”
Jessica lowered her head.
Marcela understood that lesson better than anyone.
She didn’t hug her.
She didn’t immediately forgive her.
But she said:
“You can decide what kind of person you become after today.”
It was more mercy than her family had ever given her.
Months passed.
Marcela’s pregnancy progressed normally.
Adrián became almost absurdly careful.
He had the library stairs reinforced.
He ordered every rug inspected.
He once summoned three physicians because Marcela sneezed twice during breakfast.
She finally glared at him.
“I’m pregnant, Adrián. I’m not made of glass.”
He looked completely serious.
“You are carrying the first child born into my line in almost four centuries.”
“And?”
“And I reserve the right to panic.”
She laughed.
It was the first time she realized how happy she had become.
Not because she was pregnant.
Because for the first time in her life, the people around her cared whether she was happy too.
One evening, she found Adrián standing alone on the terrace.
“What’s wrong?”
He hesitated.
“The baby will age differently.”
Marcela already knew.
A child born of vampire and human blood might live far longer than she would.
Possibly centuries.
Adrián looked toward the mountains.
“One day, both of us may have to watch you grow old.”
Marcela took his cold hand.
“Then don’t waste the years worrying about the last one.”
He looked at her.
“Marcela…”
She smiled.
“You gave me three days when everyone else had already decided what my entire life was worth.”
She placed his hand against her belly.
A small movement answered beneath his palm.
Adrián froze.
Then slowly smiled.
And Marcela understood something.
Her family had believed the greatest miracle was that the infertile daughter could become pregnant.
They were wrong.
The miracle was that after being treated like merchandise her entire life, she had finally found a place where she was allowed to be a person.
When her daughter was born months later, Gabriel Mercado learned about it through the newspapers.
He sent flowers.
They were returned unopened.
He sent letters.
Marcela never read them.
Because she no longer needed her father to regret losing her.
His regret did not define her value.
Neither did motherhood.
Neither did Adrian’s fortune.
Years later, people still told the story of the human woman sold to the monster in the Dark Forest.
But they always told it incorrectly.
Marcela had not been rescued because a vampire made her fertile.
And Adrián had never truly bought her.
He had been the first person to open the cage and ask whether she wanted to stay.
She had chosen him.
And every day afterward—
he made sure she never regretted it.
