Chapter 4

Elena's POV

After the banquet, I had Mr. Hale set out Cassian's current position in a formal notice and circulate it to every vampire noble in the Central territory.

Five years ago Cassian left the vampire territories without leave, and the Blackwoods have not taken him back since.

He has lost every privilege of an heir and has no right to represent the clan at any function.

As for Lucas, I made it perfectly clear in the notice.

He is two years old, born after my remarriage, and has nothing whatever to do with Cassian.

Anyone who spreads the rumor that Cassian has claimed a son will be held to account.

Once the notice went around, the talk outside changed quickly.

The people Cassian used to know stopped calling on him.

When the estate he was staying at held a dinner, hardly any clan was willing to attend.

He had assumed that the moment he set foot back in the vampire territories, everyone would go on treating him as the Blackwood heir.

But five years had passed, and no one would take a risk for a man who had betrayed his clan and run off with its money.

On the afternoon of the third day, Cassian came to the estate again.

The guards did not let him through the gate.

He had to stand below the steps, glaring up at me.

"Elena, are you the one spreading those rumors?"

"I only told people the truth."

"You made them think my clan has thrown me away for good."

I shook my head.

Even now he was still lost in that foolish daydream where he could go back to being the spoiled young master everyone indulged.

"Your father has not sent for you, and the Blackwoods have not restored a single inheritance right to you. Those are facts. How am I twisting anything?"

Cassian was silent for a moment, and his voice went colder.

"This is between me and my clan. You have no place in it."

"Then your claiming my son is my business."

I stood inside the gate and did not wave the guards back.

Cassian stood outside it, looking worse than he had when he arrived.

Over the past few days the old friends who had meant to call on him had all changed their minds, and when the estate he was staying at tried to buy blood, the merchants demanded payment on the spot.

It was probably only then that he understood he had walked away from more than a marriage five years ago.

Without the Blackwoods behind him, he was nothing in the vampire territories.

But he didn't dare go home and confront his father, so he put all of that anger on me instead.

He accused me of spreading the news on purpose, of using my parents' influence in the Central territory to isolate him, and of caring so much about revenge that I no longer cared what this would do to Lucas's reputation.

As I listened, my anger slowly turned into disgust.

Cassian had not changed at all in five years.

When he makes a choice, he never thinks about what comes after it.

And when the consequences finally land on him, he starts looking around for someone to blame.

Five years ago he left his clan for Seraphina and decided that everyone trying to stop him was standing in the way of love.

Now the clan will not acknowledge him and the people who used to flatter him keep their distance, and he has decided that I caused all of it.

"I told them the facts, that's all."

I stood inside the gate and looked at him calmly.

"If you think those facts have ruined your name, you should be looking at what you did instead of coming here to blame me."

None of it got through.

He was soon back to Lucas, saying the boy needed his real father, and needed the Blackwood bloodline and the Blackwood resources.

If I kept a father and son apart, he said, I would only be destroying the future Lucas could have had.

That was when I finally understood.

Cassian still believed that being the Blackwood heir was a gift he could bargain with whenever he liked.

He had not even set foot inside the clan's home, his rights as heir had been taken back long ago, and he was already promising Lucas a share of property and standing.

He had never once asked what Lucas liked, and he had no idea how Lucas needed to be cared for when he was sick.

He clung stubbornly to the belief that this child carried his blood.

A child who could prove his line had continued and buy him his way back into the clan.

"Lucas's future doesn't need your help."

I did not explain my son's age or his parentage again.

I had said all of it far too many times.

What Cassian chose to believe was his own affair.

But if he wanted to use Lucas to repair his name, he would have to ask me first.

I told the guards to close the gates.

The heavy iron doors swung shut in front of him.

He stayed where he was, watching me through the bars for a long time. Before he left, he said only that he would not give up his son.

That night I had Mr. Hale contact every clan that had attended the banquet and ask them to keep their servants and their children in check.

The rumors about Lucas's parentage could not be allowed to spread any further.

Mr. Hale soon returned with news.

Most of the clans already knew Cassian had lost his rights as heir and that the Blackwoods had not acknowledged him.

The people who had spoken up for him during the day changed their tune by evening and claimed they had never believed Lucas was his.

I knew they had not truly believed me.

They had simply realized that Cassian was no longer worth currying favor with.

Still, the rumors were down for the moment.

No one would be calling Lucas a boy his father had abandoned just because a stranger had flattered himself.

I had assumed that with no support left outside, Cassian would go quiet for a while.

Instead, a few days later, three Elders of the Central vampire clans appeared at the estate gates.

Cassian and Seraphina came in behind them.

The moment I saw them, I knew why Cassian had not gone back to the human world in defeat. He had found another way in.

The Elder at the front had brought a custody dispute petition.

In it Cassian claimed that I had been carrying his child five years ago, and that after he left I had hidden the news of the child's safe birth.

Now that he had come back of his own accord to take responsibility, the petition said, I was refusing to let them reunite as father and son over an old romantic grievance.

Across the entire document, he had cast himself as a father who had come to his senses too late.

How he had abandoned a pregnant wife five years ago, run off with his lover, refused my calls, and sent word telling me to stop chasing him, none of that appeared anywhere.

I finished reading, and my fingers slowly tightened on the pages.

Cassian knew exactly how to twist the truth.

He was using the fact that everyone knew I had been pregnant, and he knew my begging back then had already ruined my name in the Central territory.

Everyone still pictured me the way I had been five years ago, hopelessly in love with Cassian, going into the human world again and again while heavily pregnant and coming back empty-handed every time.

The Elders proposed the simplest solution.

Lucas would submit to a blood verification.

I refused on the spot.

A vampire blood verification is kept in the clan archives forever.

The moment Lucas submitted to one, it would mean his parentage had once been formally questioned.

Even if the result proved he had nothing to do with Cassian, the record would never go away.

Everyone who ever opened Lucas's file after that would know his mother had once stood there with him while two men argued over which of them was his father.

Cassian could afford that kind of shame.

My son could not.

I had already sent a servant racing to the North for my marriage record with Lucien and the complete record of Lucas's birth.

The papers carry the joint seals of the northern council, the attending doctor, and the family, more than enough to end this ridiculous dispute.

Three days and they would be in my hands.

The Elders did not commit either way.

Cassian seized on those three days and insisted I was stalling.

He even suggested that if my conscience were really clear, I would not refuse a verification that gave an answer the same day.

Looking at him, I found it almost funny.

He was falsely claiming my son, forcing a two-year-old child to prove his own bloodline, and now he wanted to portray my attempt to protect Lucas as evidence of guilt.

After conferring, the Elders decided to hold off on the verification and gave me three days to produce the northern marriage record and the birth record.

Until the papers arrived, though, Lucas and I could not leave the Central territory.

Anger surged up in my chest when I heard it.

On nothing but an unsupported petition, Cassian had gotten the council of Elders to place travel restrictions on my son and me.

Stripped of an heir's privileges or not, his old name still bought him the favor of these rotting old men.

I wanted to tear the petition up on the spot.

But Lucas was upstairs.

He had no idea what was happening outside the estate, or that someone was going through the Elders to decide where he would live in the future.

Keeping him safe came first.

It was only three days.

Once the papers arrived from the North, every word Cassian had said would be a joke.

After the Elders left, Cassian stood below the steps looking a good deal surer of himself.

He probably thought the travel restriction meant the Elders believed him, and that he finally had a right to a place in Lucas's life.

I didn't argue with him. I only ordered the guards to increase their patrols from that day on, and to let no one near Lucas without permission.

Cassian looked back at the estate once before he left.

I held my son in my arms, ready for whatever came next.