CHAPTER NINE

The scene inside hit me like a punch to the gut. Cassandra lay sprawled on the bed, drenched in sweat, her face twisted in agony, gripping the sheets as though they were the only things tethering her to reality.

She wasn't alone.

On a bed identical to hers, across the room, lay another woman—also heavily pregnant, her body wracked with labor pains. The crisp white linens beneath her were stained with the unmistakable signs of childbirth, blood, and fluid seeping into the fabric.

Keres stepped in behind me, her voice low but sharp. "What the fuck is this?"

Before I could respond, Esther and the servitors rushed past us, moving with purpose. They knew exactly where to go and what to do, their faces set with a grim determination I hadn't seen before.

"Stay there," Esther called back as she moved toward Cassandra. "We'll oversee this."

Confusion clouded my mind, and instinctively, I reached for Pandora. She stood beside me, her blindfolded gaze staring ahead blankly, her hands trembling at her sides. "What's happening?" she asked, her voice wavering.

I exchanged a quick glance with Keres, both of us unsure how to explain what we were witnessing. "It looks like..." I faltered, "two women in labor. One of them is Cassandra, but the other..." I trailed off, trying to make sense of the scene.

We carefully moved Pandora out of the way, guiding her to a chair in the corner of the room where she could sit.

"It's chaos in here," Keres muttered, her eyes darting between the two women.

The room was a flurry of activity. Several servitors and what I assumed were trained medical personnel surrounded the second woman, their faces tense with focus. Meanwhile, others clustered around Cassandra, their hands moving swiftly as they wiped her brow and monitored her vitals. The air was thick with tension, and every time the woman on the other bed let out a scream of pain, Cassandra followed suit, her own scream echoing in unison. It was disturbing—unnatural. Every scream that tore from one woman's throat seemed to rip through Cassandra's body as well, as though they were linked in some perverse, shared suffering.

"It's like they're connected," I whispered, a chill running down my spine.

Keres nodded, her eyes narrowing as she took in the scene. "This is some fucked-up shit," she murmured, clearly unnerved by the eerie synchronicity between the two women.

I watched, helpless, as each contraction wracked the other woman's body, her back arching off the bed as she cried out. Almost immediately, Cassandra responded, her own body tensing in agony.

"What the hell is going on?" I whispered to Keres, my voice barely audible. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the bizarre and horrifying display in front of me. Every time the woman's pain escalated, Cassandra mirrored it perfectly, as if they were tethered by an invisible thread.

Keres shook her head, her mouth drawn into a tight line. "I don't know, but whatever it is, it's not right."

We stood there, frozen, trying to make sense of the madness. One of the personnel caught sight of us, her gaze snapping at me. "Electi—come!" she commanded; her voice sharp.

Keres and I exchanged a look, both of us clearly out of our depth. This was not my area of expertise. In fact, it was so far beyond anything I'd ever done that every instinct in me screamed to flee the room. My pulse quickened, panic creeping up my spine. Esther was too preoccupied with Cassandra to offer any guidance.

Keres, always quicker to act, grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the woman in labor, Pandora following close behind, holding my hand. "What do we do?" Keres asked as we approached, her voice low but steady.

The woman in charge glanced between us, already exasperated by our lack of action.

"Sponsa Diaboli," she addressed me directly. "Hold her hand."

My stomach twisted at the sight of the woman writhing on the bed, drenched in sweat, and sobbing in pain, but I stepped forward, reaching for her.

"And you—her leg," the woman instructed Keres, who blinked but nodded quickly, moving into position.

The woman's gaze turned to Pandora. "Assist as you can."

Pandora, still blindfolded, stood hesitantly beside the bed, her hands reaching out to touch the woman's arm gently, though she looked just as lost as I felt. I took the woman's trembling hand in mine, grounding my teeth when she immediately squeezed it with a strength that nearly made me yelp. She screamed again, and the sound echoed around the room, so raw and guttural it sent shivers down my spine.

Keres, now holding the woman's leg, looked across the room at the servitors attending to Cassandra. "What the fuck..." she muttered; her eyes wide with disbelief as she watched Cassandra mimic the same movements—the same screams—without being anywhere near labor.

I focused back on the woman in front of me. She was shaking, her breaths coming in quick, shallow gasps. I needed to distract her somehow—keep her from spiraling further into the pain.

"What's your name?" I asked, my voice soft but steady, trying to pull her attention away from the agony coursing through her body.

She panted heavily, blinking up at me with wide, tear-filled eyes. "E-Emilia," she managed to choke out between deep breaths.

I nodded, gripping her hand tighter. "You're doing great, Emilia. Just keep breathing, okay?"

Her body tensed, and she let out another piercing scream. I winced but held steady, feeling utterly useless in the face of her suffering.

"She needs to push," one of the personnel directed us. The atmosphere in the room grew heavier as everyone braced for the next round.

"Push, Emilia," I urged, doing my best to sound confident even though my heart was pounding in my ears.

Emilia gritted her teeth and bore down, her face contorting with the effort as she let out another guttural cry. Keres, still holding her leg alongside a servitor, grunted from the strain as the woman pushed with all her might.

This continued for what felt like an eternity—wave after wave of contractions, Emilia's screams echoing in the small room.

My hand was numb from the constant pressure, and I could feel my own anxiety climbing with every moment that passed.

Finally, one of the personnel stepped in with a pair of surgical scissors, positioning herself between Emilia's legs. There was an awful tearing sound that made me cringe—an episiotomy—and then, in what felt like one swift movement, a tiny, blood-slicked body slid out of Emilia, followed by a rush of fluid.

The room fell eerily silent.

The baby didn't cry.

It didn't even move.

My heart stopped. The heavy pause in the air was suffocating. One of the women attending to Emilia stepped forward immediately, her movements swift and precise as she grabbed the limp newborn.

She snipped the umbilical cord without hesitation, handing it off to another woman who began to work on the lifeless infant, their faces etched in grim determination.

Emilia let out a broken sob, her body wracked with exhaustion, but she was quickly told to keep pushing. The placenta still needed to be delivered. I squeezed her hand harder, trying to offer some sort of comfort, though I had none to give. I was shaking, unable to tear my eyes away from the scene unfolding before me.

Cassandra, lying across the room on her own bed, mimicked every movement, every scream, every push. It was as though their bodies were connected in some twisted, unimaginable way. Every time Emilia's stomach was pressed on, Cassandra's stomach responded in kind, flattening beneath the hands of the attendants.

Keres swore under her breath, and I couldn't help but agree. What the hell was happening? The answer came crashing down on me like a wave, cold and brutal. I remembered one of the last passages I had read in the doctrine. One of the most twisted parts of this entire place. My stomach clenched as the realization settled over me. The woman whose hand I held so tightly wasn't going to be the mother of this child. She was a Progenitor . A breeder.

The weight of it crushed me.

I looked at Emilia, really looked at her, and saw the truth in her hollow eyes, the resignation in her sobs. She had been used to bring a baby into the world, but it would never be hers. I could see it all, the full horror of it now.

Cassandra had never been pregnant, yet she mirrored all the stages of pregnancy down to the birth. All while Emilia, the one who had suffered through every agonizing moment of labor, would be left empty-handed, her purpose already fulfilled. The words from the doctrine echoed in my head: Progenitors exist to provide life, to continue the bloodlines that matter most. Their worth is measured in their ability to bear children.

I stared down at Emilia, my throat tightening. This was her existence, defined not by who she was, but by what her body could do. The people here didn't see her as anything more than a vessel. I held her hand a little tighter as if it would somehow make this nightmare easier to bear. Emilia's body shook with another sob, and Cassandra's chest rose and fell as if in relief, her own torment finally ending. There was no pregnancy, no true bond between her and the life that had just been brought into the world, but to the others, it didn't matter.

I wanted to scream.

Keres figured it out moments after I did, and I watched as silent tears rolled down her cheeks, her usual bravado crumbling. The room remained absent of the cries of a baby, and deep down, I knew they would never come.

There was only silence.

"I'm going to be sick," Keres muttered, her eyes flicking down toward the placenta before she bolted from the room. My heart twisted, unsure if I should follow her, unsure of anything. My mind couldn't process fast enough. Everything felt wrong, twisted beyond comprehension, and I was stuck in the middle of it.

The sound of hurried footsteps echoed through the house, and then Jamison was there. He stepped into the room, his eyes immediately sweeping over the scene, taking it all in with an expression I couldn't decipher.

Instead of going to Cassandra—his wife, his sister—he rushed to Emilia. I stepped back, nearly retreating into a corner as Jamison reached the bed. He dropped to his knees beside her, his hands gently cupping her tear-streaked face as she began apologizing, her sobs wracking her frail body.

"I'm sorry," Emilia wept, over and over, her voice breaking. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," Jamison murmured, his voice thick with emotion. "It's okay, Em. You're okay." Tears glistened in his own eyes as he leaned forward, pressing his forehead to hers, trying to offer her any comfort he could.

The sight of it made my stomach churn, not because of Jamison's actions, but because of Cassandra. She lay on her bed, mirroring Emilia's cries, mocking the woman's anguish as if it belonged to her. The look on her face as she watched her husband comfort Emilia was something else entirely—it was pure hatred. It twisted something inside me.

I couldn't stand to see it. Without thinking, I moved in front of Jamison and Emilia, blocking Cassandra's view. For a split second, her hatred shifted to me, her eyes narrowing in rage. But then she remembered who I was. Her gaze dropped, and her lips pressed together in a tight line as if she didn't dare show that hatred to me. My stomach churned violently, and I felt bile rising in my throat.

I needed to get out of the room.

I barely made it to the hallway before the sobs hit me. I pressed my palms against my face, trying to stifle the sound, trying to regain control, but the weight of what I had just witnessed was too much. It wasn't just how women were treated; it was how they were reduced to vessels, their worth determined by the blood in their veins or the ability to serve something greater.

If they didn't have the right station or lineage, they were cast aside and forced into submission.

I had just helped perpetuate the same lie. The weight of that truth suffocated me as I leaned against the cold wall, fighting back the wave of nausea and grief threatening to tear me apart. The Isle was a living breathing nightmare, and there was no waking from it.

I didn't hear Alexander approaching, but I felt him—like he was part of the shadows creeping toward me. One moment, I was unraveling, my thoughts spiraling, and the next, his arms wrapped around me, firm, and possessive, as if daring the world to pry me away. There was a gentleness there too, a softness that confused me, made me second-guess my instincts.

He was my captor, but at that moment, I found myself needing the control he provided.

Alexander whispered soft reassurances, his voice a low hum that barely registered over the storm in my mind. Words of comfort, manipulation—both. I clung to them, desperate for anything that would tether me to reality.

He ushered me out of the house with ease, plucking me from my chaos and into his domain. Before I knew it, I was in the back of a sleek sedan, the cool leather seats pressing against me like an embrace I didn't deserve. My hands trembled as I cradled my head, my thoughts still swirling with images of Emilia's hollowed eyes and Cassandra's twisted smirk. The lifeless child, the eerie calm after the screams—it all lingered, gnawing at the edges of my sanity.

Alexander closed the door softly, the click sealing me off from the horrors behind me. The driver remained impassive and silent, a mere ghost in the front seat, part of the Isle's cold machinery. I wrapped my arms tighter around my knees, pulling myself into the smallest space possible, as though I could disappear into myself and escape it all. Alexander left me alone in the car for what felt like hours, though it had only been minutes.

The silence didn't feel like a reprieve. It felt like he had given me just enough time to let the horror sink in and realize I had no way out—except through him. When he returned, slipping into the seat beside me, his hand found its way to my thigh. He didn't speak right away, but when he did, his voice was laced with a darkness I could feel in my bones. "It's a hard thing to witness, isn't it?" he murmured. "To see how fragile life is"

When I said nothing, he let the silence stretch between us like a taut wire until finally, his voice cut through the quiet. "The Isle can be cruel with its rejections," he murmured, his words lingering in the air like a curse.

I turned my head toward him, confusion pulling at my thoughts. "What?"

His gaze met mine, sharp and unwavering. "What you just saw. The Isle has a way of making its point known. Rejecting a new life is unfortunately one of its more temperamental attributes. Yet another reason we needed you here."

I swallowed, the weight of his words settling in my chest. "Me? What do I have to do with what just happened?"

His hand tightened on my thigh, a possessive reminder of the claim he held. "You are my Diaboli. You will soon be bound to the Isle itself. Together, we will give Stygian what it needs. I can do many things, Lolita, but I cannot fulfill the role meant for you."

"If what you're saying is true," I began, my voice shaky but determined, "wouldn't that baby have lived?"

His gaze darkened, his fingers pressing a little harder against my thigh, though his tone remained eerily calm. "That child was conceived before you ever set foot here, as were the others she lost before it. Nothing will be righted until we've had our final Rite, and you are carrying my heir. Or vice versa."

He paused, his eyes gleaming with certainty. "Both will tie you deeper to our home."

I didn't respond. What could I say? His words were like the chains tightening around me, pulling me deeper into this twisted fate he so easily spoke of. I turned my head, staring out the window as the car carried us closer to the estate. The trees blurred into dark shadows, the evening light casting shadows across the winding road.

My thoughts churned, but they couldn't settle . Carrying his heir ? It wasn't just the physical act that unsettled me—it was the deeper meaning behind it. How much more could I be tied to him?

The estate grew closer, its dark silhouette looming. The car's smooth hum was a backdrop to the chaos in my head, and I fought to keep my breath steady.

Like a crack in the suffocating fog around me, I remembered why I had wanted to leave the house in the first place.

The book. The genealogies. Erebus.

The tangled web that linked us in ways I hadn't fully processed yet. I wanted to confront him about it, demand answers for how deeply this went but now, I was being swept into something even darker. The overwhelming truth was there, lurking just beneath the surface.

I couldn't hide from it any longer.