My Vampire Ex Returned To Claim My Husband’s Son

Five years ago, I married Cassian, the vampire I had grown up with. We had known each other since we were children, and both clans were glad of the match. I believed we would stay beside each other the way we had promised when we were small. Then Cassian fell in love with a human maid. By that time, I was already carrying his child. He turned on his own clan for her anyway and ran off with her to the human world. Everyone was laughing at me. I stayed behind in the vampire territories alone, pregnant, calling Cassian more times than I could count and sending people out to find him. He never came back. In the end, he refused even to hear any news of me. He only had someone deliver a message. "Stop chasing after me." My health got worse and worse in those years. I lost the baby too. It took me a long time to finally let go of that marriage for good. Then, five years later, Cassian came back. He had brought her with him. When he saw my son standing beside me, he actually frowned and asked, "How could you raise my child like this? He's four and he looks two." I stepped in front of my son, my voice flat. "Look closely, Cassian. He isn't yours." His face darkened. "You're still trying to lie to me?" I smiled. "He's the son I have with my current husband." 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. Chapter 2 Elena's POV On the third day after Cassian came back, I hosted a small banquet in my parents' place. My father had arranged it, and the guests were all members of the major clans of the Central territory. With my parents called away to the border, the hosting fell to me. I hadn't wanted Lucas out in front of everyone, but he had only just arrived at his grandparents' house and the place was still strange to him. No matter how the servants coaxed him, he would not leave my side. In the end I had to bring him into the hall with me. Lucas sat in a small chair beside me, holding a pastry and oblivious to why everyone around him kept looking his way. Before long, one of the ladies came over. "Elena, is this the child?" I frowned, not following. "Which child?" She looked distinctly awkward. "I heard Cassian is back. Everyone is saying he came back to claim his son." I understood at once. Cassian had been in the Central territory three days and the story had already gone around. Five years ago he abandoned a pregnant wife for a human blood servant and took her to the human world. Five years later he came back and found a child at my side. As for my remarriage, the wedding had been quiet and few people knew of it. Afterward I had lived in the North for years and rarely came back to the Central territory for banquets. So in other people's mouths I had become the poor wife who, even after her husband abandoned her, had given birth to his child and waited alone for five years. "You have it wrong," I said plainly. "Lucas is two. My current husband and I are his parents. He has nothing to do with Cassian." The lady blinked at me. Someone nearby was already coming over with a smile to smooth things over. "Elena, there's nothing to be embarrassed about. You and Cassian did grow up together, after all. If he's willing to come back and take responsibility now, that can only be good for the child." I turned to her, my voice cooling. "What is there for me to be embarrassed about?" Her smile froze. I didn't explain any further. I bent down and wiped the crumbs from the corner of Lucas's mouth. I had expected the banquet to be over soon. Half an hour later there was a commotion at the door. I looked up and saw Cassian walk in with Seraphina. Neither of them had been invited. The servant receiving guests probably still saw him as the golden Blackwood heir of five years ago and didn't dare stop him. Cassian had barely stepped into the hall before several young nobles who knew him went over to greet him. One of them asked with a grin, "We hear you came back to claim your son?" Cassian glanced at Lucas. Then he nodded, in front of the entire room. "That's right. He's four already, and I don't want to miss any more of him growing up." A low murmur ran through the hall. I set down my napkin. "Cassian." He looked up at me. "How much longer are you going to keep talking nonsense?" The hall slowly went quiet. Cassian showed no embarrassment at all. He looked at Lucas and spoke as calmly as if every word of it were fact. "Elena, this was going to come out sooner or later. I'm back now, and Lucas deserves to know who his father is." Cassian took a few steps closer. "In five years no one has ever laid eyes on this husband of yours. I know you still blame me, Elena, but you don't have to deny your own child's parentage just to get back at me." The way the room looked at me began to change. Some of them pitied me. Others wore the expression of people who thought they understood exactly what was going on. Cassian must have noticed it too. Instead of stopping, he went on, "For the first two years after I left, you kept sending people into the human world after me, and you called me over and over begging me to come back." "Then you stopped, and I thought you had finally accepted it. Now I see you're just still sulking at me." He was actually laying out that whole miserable stretch of my life in front of a room full of people. The doubt in their eyes deepened as they looked at Lucas. Seraphina came to Cassian's side then and took his arm gently. "Elena, we never wanted to hurt you." Her tone was soft, and it even sounded sympathetic. "I know how hard it's been raising him alone. Cassian only wants to make up for the years he missed. I'm happy to take Lucas in and care for him the way a mother would." When she finished, a good number of faces around us softened. A husband who had walked out on his pregnant wife for five years had suddenly become a father willing to take responsibility. A human blood servant who had wrecked someone's marriage had become a kind soul willing to take in a child. And I had become the bitter mother keeping a father from his son. I looked at the two of them and lost all interest in explaining anything. This was my parents' estate. Tonight's banquet was mine to run. Cassian seemed to have forgotten that he had lost the right to stand here long ago, and that his old standing could no longer be used to push me around. "Mary." The maid came over at once. "My lady." "Check tonight's guest list." Mary bent her head over the register and had an answer quickly. "Mr. Blackwood and Miss Seraphina are not on the list." Cassian's face darkened slightly. "Elena, I only came to see a few old acquaintances. There's no need to make a point of a guest list." "Whoever you want to see, you can wait for them outside." I looked at him. "This is my parents' estate. Anyone without an invitation is not welcome at tonight's banquet." The ones who had hurried over to greet Cassian said nothing. He clearly had not expected me to throw him out in front of everyone. "I am still the Blackwood heir." "Are you?" I smiled, and I did not cover for him. "Five years ago you turned your back on your clan for the blood servant standing next to you, took the money and ran off to the human world. After you left, the Blackwoods started grooming your younger brother instead. Surely you know that." Cassian's face changed. I gave him no chance to cut in. "You've been back three days. Your father hasn't sent anyone for you, and the clan has not announced your return. So in what capacity are you standing here representing the Blackwoods?" The hall went completely silent. The people who had been crowding around him a minute earlier edged away without thinking. Someone couldn't help asking, "Cassian, does your father really not know you're back?" Cassian didn't answer. Another one spoke up hesitantly. "I thought you had already worked things out with the clan." "That is my family's business," Cassian said coldly. "Then go home and handle it there." I let my eyes travel over the hall. "Everyone here tonight was invited as a representative of their clan. Cassian has been gone from the vampire territories for five years and the Blackwoods have not acknowledged him. As for Seraphina, she used to be a human blood servant in the prince's household." Seraphina went white. I looked at the ones who had gone over to talk to Cassian. "If anyone is willing to vouch for their presence here tonight in their own clan's name, I will let them stay." No one spoke. Even the ones who had been urging me to accept Cassian looked away. Cassian was no longer the heir with a brilliant future he had been five years ago. He had betrayed his clan, disappeared into the human world for five years, and come back without their acknowledgment. No one knew what the Blackwoods would do with him. And no one was willing to drag their own clan and their own future into it for the sake of a little drama. Cassian stood there, color coming and going in his face, his fangs beginning to show with anger. "Elena, are you humiliating me in front of everyone on purpose?" "You walked into my parents' estate uninvited and told a room full of guests that my son is yours. "So who is humiliating whom?" I looked at him calmly. Cassian's hands slowly closed into fists. I turned to the guards. "See these two out. From now on they do not set foot on this estate without permission from me or my parents." Two guards stepped forward at once. "This way, please, Mr. Blackwood." Cassian didn't move. He glanced around as if waiting for someone to speak up for him. But the few who had welcomed him earlier had melted back into the crowd, and not one of them would look at him. His expression darkened further. Without a word, he took Seraphina and walked out of the hall, and the doors closed behind them. The hall was quiet for a moment. The lady who had urged me to accept Cassian gave an awkward laugh. "Elena, we were only going on what we'd heard." "It's fine." I sat back down. "Now you know that what you hear isn't always true." She said nothing more. The others changed the subject soon enough. Cassian had meant to use this banquet to make everyone believe Lucas was his son. Instead he was thrown out in front of all of them. For him, that much humiliation was nowhere near enough. Still, watching people who used to know him keep their distance settled something in me. He had come to my door of his own accord, and I was not going to let him off. I had all the time in the world to settle the accounts of five years ago. Chapter 3 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." 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.