Chapter 1

Elena's POV

"He's the son I have with my current husband."

Cassian stared at me for a long moment after I said it.

Then he let out a cold laugh.

"Five years, Elena, and you still won't admit the truth."

I looked down at the boy holding on to my leg.

"He's two. My current husband and I had him."

Cassian's eyes moved to the boy's face. He clearly did not believe a word of it.

I had been pregnant when he left five years ago.

By his count, if that child had been born, it would be four now.

But vampire children develop more slowly than human ones, and different bloodlines vary a great deal. A two-year-old and a four-year-old are not easy to tell apart by appearance alone.

Cassian had clearly settled on his own answer already.

He frowned down at the boy for a while.

"He's four. Why can't he even walk steadily?"

I had just told him Lucas was only two, and he had paid no attention to it at all. To him I was only sulking.

"How have you been taking care of him all these years?"

There was blame in his voice.

"He's so thin. And so timid."

The sound of his voice frightened Lucas, who gripped my leg tighter and hid his face behind me.

Cassian's frown deepened.

"Why is he so afraid of strangers?"

I raised my eyes to him.

"Because you are one."

That finally put a crack in his expression.

The human standing beside him reached out and took his arm.

"Cassian, don't scare him."

The moment she spoke, that heavy perfume drifted over again.

It had filled the whole sitting room from the second the two of them pushed their way inside.

Only then did I take a proper look at her.

Five years ago, Cassian left me for her.

Back then she was still a human blood servant in the prince's household.

Cassian said he was tired of everything the clan had arranged for him, tired of what passed for a marriage among nobles.

He told everyone that the one he truly loved was Seraphina.

Then, while I was pregnant, he ran away with her to the human world.

She still had her arm through his.

Her clothes and jewelry were all designer now.

Her perfume was strong enough to bury her own scent.

And Cassian did not react to it at all.

He used to have an incredibly sharp nose.

If I changed my body wash, he could tell from across a room.

Now the boy was standing right in front of him, and he could not even read his bloodline.

I looked at Cassian again.

He was in far worse shape than he had been five years ago.

His face was pale, there were dark shadows under his eyes, and even his vampire presence, once so strong, had thinned out.

The human world is not a place a vampire can live in for long.

And Cassian clearly had not taken care of himself these past few years.

Alcohol, excess, feeding at irregular hours, all of it dulls a vampire's senses.

Add Seraphina's heavy perfume to that, and it was no surprise he could not pick up the boy's bloodline.

The thought made him seem pitiful enough to be funny.

"Cassian."

I sat back down with Lucas in my arms.

"If you came here today to claim him as your son, you've come to the wrong house.

"He is my husband's son and mine."

Cassian's expression went cold.

"Enough, Elena."

I looked at him, completely baffled.

"I know you still blame me.

"But you don't need to say things like that to get at me."

I laughed out of sheer anger. He really was this impossible to reason with, and somehow I had never seen it before.

"Why would I want to get at you?"

Cassian stared at me.

"You think I'll believe that five years ago you were begging me to come back, and then you turned around and married someone else?"

The smile faded from my face.

So he remembered.

He remembered how I had searched for him in those years.

He remembered me begging him to come home while I was carrying his child.

He knew all of it.

He simply would not come back.

Cassian kept going.

"For the first two years you had people looking for me all over the human world.

"Then you suddenly stopped.

"I thought you had finally come around and decided to be gracious about it.

"Now I see you're still throwing a tantrum."

Looking at him, I could see no reason to keep the conversation going.

I held Lucas and met Cassian's eyes.

"Everyone in your clan knows I divorced you and remarried three years ago.

"If you still don't believe it, there's nothing I can do about that."

Cassian's gaze swept the sitting room.

"Then where is this husband?"

"He's in the North on official business."

"Of course he is."

There was something almost satisfied in his tone.

I frowned.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Cassian didn't answer. He gave a short laugh and shrugged.

This was my parents' estate in the Central territory.

I had only come back with Lucas for a visit.

My father and mother had been home too, but a few days earlier several border clans had fallen into a dispute over territory lines, and they had left at short notice to settle it.

My husband was away as well.

Vampire hunters had been sighted in the territory he governs, so he had to stay in the North to deal with it.

My plan had been to wait for my parents to come back, let Lucas spend a few days with his grandparents, and then take him home.

Cassian had picked exactly this moment to appear.

My parents were gone.

My husband happened to be busy far away.

There was no one at the estate but me and my son.

No wonder he had decided that I had spent five years standing still, raising his child and waiting for him.

He had no idea that his child had never survived, that I had lost it long ago.

I looked up at him.

"Cassian, I don't owe you proof of my marriage.

"Whatever we were ended five years ago."

His face darkened at once.

Seraphina spoke up softly.

"Elena, we don't mean any harm.

"Cassian only wants to see his son.

"And raising him alone all these years must have been so hard on you."

I turned to her.

"Who told you I was alone?"

Seraphina paused.

Cassian spoke before she could. "You can stop pretending."

He looked at the boy in my arms.

"If someone really married you, why has no one told me in all this time?"

The question left me at a loss.

"Why would anyone tell you?

"Five years ago you ran off with a blood servant and every last person turned their back on you. Who would want anything to do with you after that?"

Cassian's face stiffened.

I was done talking.

All the noise had made Lucas drowsy, and he lay against my shoulder rubbing his eyes.

I stood up.

"He needs to rest.

"If there's nothing else, you can go."

I had just turned away when Cassian spoke. "Wait."

I didn't look back.

"The boy stays."

I stopped in my tracks.

I turned around slowly.

Cassian had already crossed the room to stand in front of me.

"He's my son.

"I don't know why you never told me anything about him all these years.

"But I'm back now, and I won't let him go on living like this."

Cassian glanced at Lucas.

"Four years old, this frail, and he can't even walk properly.

"You can't take care of him on your own."

He said it as though it were obvious.

"I'm taking him to the human world."

Seraphina came over as well, her voice gentle.

"Elena, you don't need to worry.

"I'll look after him too.

"I won't treat him badly just because he's yours and Cassian's."

I looked at the two of them.

For a long moment I said nothing, so angry I nearly laughed.

So they hadn't come today just to see Lucas.

They had even worked out my son's entire future for me.

I looked down and rubbed Lucas's back.

He was almost asleep.

I looked back at Cassian.

"I've said it more than once.

"He is not your son."

Cassian's patience was visibly gone.

"You can hate me, Elena.

"But don't use a child to make a point."

I nodded and turned away, unwilling to argue with someone so tiresome.

"Someone throw them out."

The attendants quickly forced them out. As the guards led him away, a humiliated Cassian fixed me with a dark glare and kept shouting that sooner or later I would come crawling back to him.

I paid no attention.

He would find out soon enough.

My husband and I were no longer people he could provoke lightly.