Selina clutched the soggy contract with both hands, the ink bleeding into her skin like it belonged there. Her eyes snapped up—wild, red-rimmed, unblinking.
She didn't speak.
She roared.
The kind of cry that shattered silence, cracked heavens, and made grown men shrink back in shame.
"YOU USED MY SON AS A TRANSACTION?"
Eclipse flinched.For once, he didn't know how to lie.
He just stood there—drenched, guilty, and somehow still too calm.
"It wasn't meant to be like this—"
She lunged.
Fist clenched. Ringless finger aimed at his chest.
"Tell me, then. How exactly was it meant to be?"
He didn't block her.Didn't defend himself.
Because what was the point?
Selina wasn't just angry.She was betrayed on a molecular level.
Every cell in her body rejected him now.
And yet—he was still her child's father.Still the man who knew how she liked her coffee.Still the man who whispered apologies in his sleep.
But none of that mattered now.
Because Ethan was no longer just her son.
He was leverage.He was inheritance.He was royal property.
And Selina?She was done being someone's breeding clause.
The rage inside her wasn't fire anymore.
It was ice.
Sharp. Silent. Deadly.
It moved through her veins like frozen razors, cutting logic, slicing memory, and numbing the part of her that ever said "I love you."
Because love doesn't write contracts with your child's name in bold.
Selina turned sharply, storming through the chapel doors.
"Where are you going?" Eclipse called after her.
She didn't look back.
"To get my son. And to remind every last bastard in this bloodline…""…I am the only one who decides who he becomes."
Ethan was asleep. Peaceful. Oblivious.
Selina stood by his bed, hand hovering above his hair, but not touching him.
Because now—even her love felt tainted.Because now—every time she looked at him, she saw paperwork.
A contract.A condition.A chain.
And she was ready to break every single one.
A knock on the door.
Slow. Deliberate.
She opened it.
Eclipse stood there—alone, but holding something.
A sealed envelope.
"This is the other half of the contract," he said."The half you never saw."
Selina took it.Tore it open.
Inside—
a pregnancy report.Not hers.Another woman's.
The date?Only three months ago.