Chapter 331: Get Rid of It

At first, Aira froze without moving an inch, allowing the water to slide against her skin even as she remained completely still. Enough so that she wasn’t even aware she was holding her breath as she gently turned her head to look right at Zyren.Her gaze was steady, even as she found his own to be just as unmoving, which only seemed to cause her more panic as she slowly spoke.

"That was a joke, right? It has to be!" she told him, daring him to say anything but agree, even as anger burned in her eyes while she fixed her gaze on him.

Zyren, on the other hand, was completely calm. He allowed his arms to fall outside the tub, his posture relaxed, even as he fixed his gaze on her—steady and unreadable. He opened his mouth to repeat what he had said.

"You’re pregnant. You’ve been for a while. I thought you would figure it out, but clearly you haven’t."

But even before he was done speaking, Aira was already vigorously shaking her head.

"No! I can’t be! I’m a human!" Her voice rose as she pushed away from Zyren, moving to rise from the tub with a stunned expression on her face.

She looked down at Zyren as she stood in the tub, naked and dripping wet, while he lay there with his gaze sliding from her face to her breasts and then down to her legs without the slightest hint of shame.

"Yes, but we are bonded! The goal of a bond is to bring us closer than other normal people!" he said calmly.

Aira panicked even as Zyren remained completely unbothered.

"I took drugs!" she snapped, eyes furious as she glared at him.

"I don’t believe you," she told him.

Zyren responded with a small smile.

"The drugs clearly didn’t work. I can hear a heartbeat," he said, meeting her gaze.

Aira’s gaze hardened, her first response being to head out of the tub.

But she had just lifted her leg to step out when Zyren grabbed her, pulling her back down on top of him. Aira clawed at him, beyond furious.

"Let go of me, you animal!" she screamed.

"That’s why you said all those things! You want me to bear your child!" she yelled, boiling with anger as realization struck her. It was why Zyren had said those things, why he had told her after sex.

He wanted her to not touch the baby.

She froze as she recalled the oath he had asked of her in exchange for killing Lord Dangrey.

Don’t touch it.

Her eyes grew cold and icy as she glared at him with all the hate she could muster and screamed right in his face.

"I’ll get rid of the baby if it’s the last thing I do!" she promised, bitterness saturating her voice as she refused to have the child of a manipulative dog like him.

Then she paused.

Confusion flooded her mind at the next words that came from Zyren’s throat—deep and low, with a hint of teasing.

"Sure. If that’s what you want."

Her head instantly whipped back to stare at him as though he had just announced that he was a werewolf.

A sly smile rested on his face, making her think he was joking—until he continued.

"I’m not sure I’ll know what to do with a child. I’m a monster by human standards. The child would probably be better off dead."

He said it with such ease that Aira knew that, joking or not, he believed every word.

"Things would be better off that way," he added, pulling her closer to his chest as he kissed her nose.

"Moreover... I hate the entire process of it. We’ll speak to Savira, and she’ll get rid of it without pain."

His gaze softened even as his black hair cascaded and pooled over his shoulder and along his collarbone.

Aira turned around to fix her gaze on him, searching his eyes, and realized that he meant every word.

That was the reason.

It was the sole reason he had told her now instead of waiting for her to find out on her own—when it might be too late, too risky for the baby to be removed.

For a moment, Aira found it hard to find the words. Zyren slid his hands into her hair and leaned forward, kissing her on the lips. His hands moved around her waist until she was mostly lying on him, her legs settled between his.

"The last thing you should ever think I’ll lie about is that I want you," he told her, pulling back just enough for her to look into his eyes. His expression was lazy, almost indulgent.

Aira simply nodded and leaned against him without speaking, allowing silence to fill the space between them. After a while, she heard Zyren speak again, direct and unyielding.

"...When will you get rid of it?" he asked.

Aira felt her heart race steadily in her chest.

The thought of having Zyren’s child was something she could never have foreseen in her entire life. Her father and brother were dead because of him, yet... yet the fact remained.

She liked him.

No matter how hard she tried to deny it, she really liked him. And more than that, the more he wanted to get rid of the child, the more she found herself wanting to keep it.

"I’ll figure it out."

Barely had the words left her mouth when she felt Zyren frown, even though she could not see his face. She heard him respond.

"You know the kind of man I am, little flame. I do not care about anyone’s life but your own," he said frankly, driving the nail in deeper.

"What makes you think I would care about it once it’s born?" he asked, his voice cold, bordering on cruel.

Zyren meant every word.

He was half vampire and half werewolf—a mistake that should not have been born. He had swallowed thousands of cores and performed countless rituals just to stabilize the mixture of blood within him.

No part of him believed that any child of his would be born NORMAL.

A mistake he intended to prevent before it ever happened.