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Chapter 3

Author: Levinne
Elena's POV

Partway through the banquet I took Lucas out to the garden beside the hall.

There were a few older children out there. Lucas soon picked up his little wooden horse and ran after them onto the grass.

I sat a short distance away watching him, and before long I saw several of the children close in around him.

One of them asked, "Was that man they threw out really your dad?"

Lucas shook his head.

"No."

"But my mom says he's your real dad."

"I have a Daddy."

"They said your dad didn't want you and ran off with a maid. Now he's back and your mom won't let you call him Daddy."

Lucas froze.

He was far too little to follow any of it, but he understood the part about a dad who didn't want him.

"My Daddy does want me."

"But that's what everybody's saying."

"Yes, he does!"

Lucas's eyes went red fast.

He hugged the little wooden horse against his chest, turned, and ran to me.

"Mommy."

I stood up at once and gathered him into my arms.

"What happened?"

Lucas wrapped his arms around my neck, and there were tears in his voice.

"Daddy didn't stop wanting me, did he?"

My hand paused.

"Of course he didn't."

I stroked his hair.

"Your Daddy is taking care of something very important in the North. When it's finished, he's coming to bring us home."

Lucas was still unsettled.

"Is Daddy really coming back?"

"He is."

I kissed his forehead.

"Doesn't he call you every single day? Yesterday he promised to bring you a present."

Lucas thought about it for a moment and finally nodded.

I had the servants return those children to their parents, along with a reminder to remember their place.

The children meant no harm. They were only repeating what they had heard from the adults.

But once word got out that Cassian had claimed a son in public today, there would only be more talk like it.

After the banquet ended, our butler, Mr. Hale, came to find me.

"My lady, shall I send word to the Lord of the North?"

I looked down at Lucas, already asleep against my chest.

Hunters had been sighted in the North, and Lucien had been dealing with it for a long time.

My plan had been to wait for my parents, stay a few days with Lucas, and then go home.

Cassian turning up was a nuisance, but not something I thought I couldn't handle.

"No need."

I tucked the blanket around Lucas.

"Lucien is handling the hunters. Don't trouble him with something this absurd."

Mr. Hale nodded.

"And Cassian?"

"As of today, he and Seraphina are not allowed onto the estate. If anyone says again that Lucas is his son, write down every name, visit each household, and issue a warning."

I looked down at my sleeping son, and my voice cooled.

"Cassian wants to use Lucas and me to repair his name. Then I'll make sure every last person hears how he turned his back on his own clan five years ago."
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  • My Vampire Ex Returned To Claim My Husband’s Son   Chapter 11

    Elena's POVTwo weeks later, the final verdict came down.Cassian had already had his claim to inherit revoked by his clan.The judgment required him to repay every asset he had taken without permission five years ago.The charges of illegally disposing of clan property and of attempting to take Lucas by force both held, and he was sentenced to several years in prison.Every account and property in Seraphina's name in the human world was frozen.She had personally sold off a number of assets that were not Cassian's personal property, and she had taken part in preparing to abduct Lucas, so she was sentenced to prison as well.Whatever had been sold or lost in failed investments could not be recovered, and stood as a debt the two of them would be repaying together for years.The news reached me while I was packing to go back to the North.Theodore and Rosalind were back from the border.Rosalind sat beside me folding Lucas's clothes, and when she heard the verdict she said only that Cass

  • My Vampire Ex Returned To Claim My Husband’s Son   Chapter 10

    Elena's POVBy the time I reached the holding facility, Cassian had been waiting a long while.In the few days since I had last seen him, the final trace of highborn arrogance had gone out of him.His clothes were still neat, but he looked awful, with deep shadows under his eyes.He stood up the instant I came in.Five years ago our positions had been exactly reversed.Back then I was carrying his child, waiting for his calls over and over, begging him to come and see me once.Now he was the one shut in here, with nothing left in his eyes but a careful sort of pleading.I sat down across from him and went through the divorce documents with the investigators first.The paperwork was in order.After I lost the baby four years ago, I had my father instruct a lawyer to handle the divorce.Cassian was still in the human world at the time, and after three failed attempts to reach him inside six months, the marriage lapsed automatically, entirely within the law.Once all of it was confirmed,

  • My Vampire Ex Returned To Claim My Husband’s Son   Chapter 9

    Elena's POVThree days after Cassian and Seraphina were taken away, his father, Alaric, came to the Central territory himself to watch him stand trial.He came straight to my parents' estate. He did not go to the holding facility to see Cassian first.Five years had gone by, and he looked much older.When he saw me he apologized for the choice Cassian had made back then, and admitted that the clan had failed to call his son to account in time for the sake of its own name, which was why Cassian had gone on believing he could return whenever he liked, and why he had done all of this to me.I did not comfort him.If the clan had truly brought Cassian back five years ago, a great deal might have gone differently.But the child I lost is not coming back, and what I went through does not disappear.A late apology only proves that they can see the consequences now.When I was small, Alaric treated me like half a daughter.He watched us take lessons together, watched us become engaged, and pre

  • My Vampire Ex Returned To Claim My Husband’s Son   Chapter 8

    Cassian's POVThe moment my father's people walked into the estate where we were staying, I knew this had gotten away from me.He had not come to see me himself, and he had not sent anyone to bring me home.The family steward brought nothing but a stack of records and a demand that I account for where the money I took five years ago had gone.I had always assumed that account was long closed.Five years ago, to get Seraphina out, I did help myself to clan funds without permission.My father was furious at the time, but he never disowned me publicly.So I decided he simply couldn't accept my choice, and that whenever I was willing to come back there would still be room for reconciliation between father and son.That was why I dared contact the Elders I used to know, and why I dared treat Lucas as my way back into the clan.The records in front of me now contained far more than I remembered.Several properties in the human world had been sold off cheap, two antiques from the collection h

  • My Vampire Ex Returned To Claim My Husband’s Son   Chapter 7

    Elena's POVAfter Cassian's question, the whole room went quiet.He stared at me as though he still expected me to deny everything that had just happened.All I felt was tired.From the first day he came back I had told him I had remarried and that Lucas had a father of his own.The servants had confirmed it, and now my husband was standing right in front of him.But he had decided that I was still standing where he had left me, and every explanation became sulking in his eyes."Yes. I divorced you, and then I married Lucien."I looked at him and said it one word at a time. "Three years ago."Something changed behind his eyes, shifting from confusion into a hurt I couldn't read.Cassian had finally understood the words, and he could not accept them.He looked at me, then at Lucas in my arms. His lips moved several times without producing a full sentence.Seraphina had lost her composure as well.She had been standing at Cassian's side the whole time, working her way into the dispute in

  • My Vampire Ex Returned To Claim My Husband’s Son   Chapter 6

    Elena's POVLucien crossed the courtyard and came straight toward the sitting room.The attendants who had been holding me let go at once and stepped aside.The Central Elders had already gone out to meet him.They bowed their heads to Lucien, and nothing in their manner resembled the way they had dealt with Cassian.The North governs every vampire territory in the north.Lucien had ruled it for years, and the army, land, and authority at his command were far beyond anything an heir without his clan's backing could match.He had come straight from the border, snow still unmelted on his black coat, and no one there dared get in his way."Lord Lucien, what brings you to the Central territory so suddenly?"The lead Elder tried to step forward and explain.Lucien didn't stop."The business at the border is finished. I've come to take my wife and my son home."The sitting room went completely still.Cassian stood a few paces off, the expression freezing on his face.Lucien had already found

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