All Chapters of SEVEN YEARS, ONE CROWN : Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

You are the long-missing Lycan Princess. Daughter of the late King Aldric. Rightful heir to the Lycan throne.I read the line three times.Then I read it again.The letter was printed on heavy cream paper with the royal council's seal pressed into the top corner. Official. Real. Not a mistake.My name is Sera Calloway. I have been married to Alpha Damon Voss for seven years. I manage his household, attend his functions, raise his son, and smile at his pack members like I belong here.I have never been made Luna.I always told myself it was coming. That the mark was coming. That Damon was simply cautious, that the council was difficult, that the timing was never right.The letter said something different.It said I was never just a pack wife waiting for her turn. It said my blood was older than this house, older than Damon's title, older than anything he had ever built. It said the Lycan King election closes in fifteen days and as the only surviving heir of King Aldric, I had the right

Caden Rhys was not what I expected.I do not know what I expected exactly. Someone louder, maybe. Someone who filled a room with noise the way powerful men usually do, who needed you to feel their size before they spoke.He was sitting behind a large desk when the guard brought me in, and he did not stand up. He just looked at me.Grey eyes. Still. The kind of still that is not passive but is actually the opposite of passive. The kind that means he had already assessed everything about me before I crossed the threshold and was simply waiting to see if I would confirm what he already thought.He was younger than his reputation made him sound. Early thirties. Dark hair, jaw set, shoulders relaxed in the way that only people who are never genuinely threatened manage to be relaxed.I did not let myself be impressed.I walked to the chair across from his desk and sat down without being invited.One corner of his mouth moved. Not quite a smile.Sera Calloway, he said.You already know who I

"His name is Finn," Caden said. He is four years old. He has been with a family in the Greywood territory since three weeks after he was born.I sat down.Not because I chose to. My legs made the decision without asking me.Four years old. The same age as Luca. Which meant that while I was raising a child that was not mine, my actual son was growing up in a house with strangers who knew exactly who he belonged to and said nothing.Who placed him there, I said.Elder Theron.I looked up.Caden was watching me with that steady, careful attention he gave everything. Not cold. Just controlled, the way a person gets controlled when they have learned that showing too much too fast costs them.Theron knew who I was, I said.He has known since before you were born. He served your father's council. When King Aldric died and the bloodline was hidden for your protection, Theron was one of three people who knew where you were placed. Caden pulled a folder from the desk drawer and set it in front