The AeternaBloom Poison

§PROLOGUE

The lie had a taste.

It tasted like organic kale, ripe mango, and the faintest hint of vanilla from the ridiculously expensive protein powder Dashiell insisted on.

It tasted like health.

But through the crack of the master bedroom door, slightly ajar, I finally learned its real name.

“She’s swallowing it down like a good little pig,” my husband’s voice purred, low and intimate.

A woman’s giggle, light and sharp as shattered glass, followed. Lilith. His secretary.

“Are you sure this AeternaBloom stuff is still working, Dash? She seems less… bloated this week.”

“Patience, my little spark,” Dashiell soothed. “The custom hormonal blend is subtle. It’s not just about making her fat. It’s about keeping her system too chaotic to hold a pregnancy. The weight gain is just the… aesthetic bonus. It keeps her docile. Too ashamed to go out.”

My hand, holding a tray with their afternoon coffee, began to tremble.

The hand-painted ceramic mugs rattled against the silver tray, a tiny earthquake announcing my presence.

“That bitch, advising you to diet, causing your hypoglycemia… I’m just helping her understand what poor nutrition *really* looks like,” he continued, his voice dripping with false righteousness. “Now she’s a blimp. Who’s the expert now?”

“And soon, she’ll be gone,” Lilith cooed. “Our baby will need this room. The feng shui is better.”

The tray slipped.

It crashed onto the marble floor with a sound that echoed the shattering of my entire world.

Three years.

Seven miscarriages.

Nearly one hundred pounds of unexplained weight.

It wasn't my broken body.

It was his perfect poison.

§01

The silence that followed the crash was heavier than the hundred pounds I carried on my frame.

I stood frozen in the hallway, the scent of spilled Colombian coffee mingling with the bitter aroma of betrayal.

The bedroom door flew open.

Dashiell stood there, his tailored Tom Ford suit unrumpled, his expression a mask of husbandly concern.

Only his eyes, for a split second, were cold as a morgue slab.

“Ramona? Darling, are you alright?”

He rushed to my side, ignoring the mess, his large hand gently touching my hair.

“You’re pale. Did you slip?”

Behind him, Lilith Beck peeked out, clutching a silk robe to her chest.

Her face was a portrait of innocent alarm, but her eyes danced with triumphant fire.

She was everything I wasn’t anymore. Slender, sleek, radiating the kind of effortless confidence I’d lost somewhere between my second and third miscarriage.

“I… I’m fine,” I stammered, my voice sounding foreign and weak. “The tray was just heavy.”

“Of course it was,” Dashiell said, his tone shifting to one of gentle admonishment. “I keep telling you not to overexert yourself. Ever since the last… procedure… you haven't been the same.”

He was framing my brokenness as a pre-existing condition, not a result of his systematic destruction.

The gaslighting was so smooth, so practiced, I almost believed him.

Almost.

But I had heard the words. *Good little pig. Hormonal blend. Too chaotic to hold a pregnancy.*

The pieces of my three-year-long nightmare clicked into place with horrifying clarity.

The exclusive Swiss “wellness” powder, AeternaBloom, that arrived in discreet packaging every month.

The way he’d personally blend my morning smoothie, calling it his “act of love.”

The nutritionists and doctors he’d hired, who all echoed the same thing: “unexplained secondary infertility,” “hormonal imbalance,” “maybe it’s stress, Mrs. Kendrick.”

They were his puppets.

“Let me help you up,” Dashiell said, his arm circling my waist. His touch, which once felt like a safe harbor, now felt like the cold grip of a snake. “Let’s get you downstairs. You need to eat. Your body needs nourishment.”

He was going to lead me back to my cage and feed me more poison.

As he helped me to my feet, his gaze fell on the shattered mugs. “Don’t worry about this. I’ll have the maid clean it up.”

He steered me toward the grand staircase, a prisoner being led to her cell by the warden himself.

Lilith watched us go, a small, knowing smirk playing on her lips.

It was a look that said, *Your home is mine. Your husband is mine. Your life is mine for the taking.*

And I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that she was right.

§02

The dining room table was a polished mahogany monstrosity, big enough for twenty.

But it was always just the two of us.

Or now, the three of us.

Lilith, having changed into a demure sundress, joined us at Dashiell’s insistence. “To keep Ramona company,” he’d said.

The maid served my meal.

A large bowl of oatmeal porridge, a side of avocado toast, and a vibrant green smoothie.

My usual “health breakfast,” designed by Dashiell.

“There you go, Mona,” he said, using my pet name. It sounded like an obscenity now. “Everything you need to get your strength back.”

He pushed the smoothie towards me.

The AeternaBloom smoothie.

My stomach churned, not with hunger, but with revulsion.

I stared at the viscous green liquid, and all I could see were the ghosts of my seven unborn children.

“I’m not hungry,” I said, my voice a dry whisper.

Dashiell’s smile tightened. The warmth in his eyes vanished, replaced by a flicker of irritation.

“Ramona, we’ve talked about this. You can’t be a picky eater. Your metabolism is a mess because you don’t eat consistently.”

The audacity of it—blaming me for the very symptoms he was creating.

Lilith placed a delicate hand on her flat stomach. “Dash is right, Ramona. You have to think of your health. All this stress… it’s not good for… well, for anything.”

The unspoken words hung in the air: *for getting pregnant.* She was mocking me.

“I said I’m not hungry,” I repeated, pushing the glass away.

The atmosphere in the room dropped ten degrees.

Dashiell’s mask of concern fell away completely. His face became hard, his jaw clenched.

“You will drink this,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “I spent a fortune on that supplement. It’s for your own good.”

He grabbed my chin, his fingers digging into my flesh.

“Don’t make a scene.”

He brought the glass to my lips, tilting it.

The cold, sweet liquid touched my mouth, and a primal wave of nausea washed over me.

I twisted my head away, and the smoothie spilled down my chin, staining my white blouse a sickly green.

Tears of rage and helplessness pricked my eyes.

“Stop it!” I cried, my voice cracking.

Dashiell slammed the glass down on the table.

“You’re being hysterical. Look at you. A mess. This is why you can’t get better. You fight me at every turn.”

He stood up, grabbing a napkin and roughly wiping my face.

“Don’t you forget about your brother, Ramona,” he hissed, his voice a venomous whisper meant only for me. “Sam is in the best care money can buy. My money. And I can stop paying for it just as easily.”

My heart stopped.

Sam. My younger brother.

He’d been Dashiell’s driver, caught in a terrible accident a year ago that Dashiell had walked away from without a scratch.

Sam had taken the impact, saving my husband’s life.

Now he lay in a private room at Cypress Spire Medical Center, in a persistent vegetative state.

Dashiell had promised to care for him for life.

I never realized it was a promise attached to a leash.

My leash.

The fight drained out of me, replaced by a cold, hollow despair.

He had me. He had all of me.

I looked at his handsome, cruel face, then down at the smoothie.

Slowly, I picked up the glass.

My hands shook, but I brought it to my lips.

And I drank my poison.

§03

Days bled into a gray, featureless fog.

I moved through the Kendrick Estate like a ghost, my only purpose to be a vessel for Dashiell’s poison.

He became more brazen.

Lilith was a permanent fixture in our home, her laughter echoing in hallways that once held my own.

She wore my clothes, used my private gym, and sat in my seat at the dinner table.

My mother-in-law, Margo Kendrick, flew in from Europe, not to comfort me after my latest “tragedy,” but to celebrate Lilith.

“Lilith, my dear, you are the savior of this family,” Margo announced over dinner, her eyes, as sharp and cold as Dashiell’s, flicking towards me with disdain.

“Unlike some people,” she continued, her voice dripping with contempt, “who are not only barren but have let themselves go so disgracefully. You look like a pig, Ramona. An absolute pig.”

I had once been the recipient of the Kendrick family’s scholarship, a poor girl Margo had “plucked from obscurity.”

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