Chapter VIII

Your Words

Halloween of 1980

T he front steps of the castle were decorated with dozens upon dozens of carved Jack-o'-Lanterns, some tiny, some massive, and all with different faces that glowed from low burning candles lit within them.

Having arrived after a few hours of walking the residential streets of London in search of candy on this Halloween night, at last, young Jeremiah and Dominick returned from their night out, and the little dhampir gleefully lugged the weighted pillowcase full of treats up the stairs along with a teddy bear he'd brought to accompany him.

"Thank you for taking me out," Jeremiah said as Dominick stopped at the top of the steps. "I'm still surprised Father allowed this since my costume was a vampire!" He leered brightly with his top fangs on full display, dressed in a small suit with a red cloak, and his blond and black hair was tied at the nape of his neck. He did very much look like a small, charming Count. "I had so much fun!"

"Yeah, I guess it was fun," Dominick shrugged. It certainly wasn't something he would have ever thought he'd partake in, but he could admit walking the local neighborhoods with Jeremiah had been entertaining enough. Interacting with other children wasn't something the boy was used to, so watching as other boys and girls complimented his costume was nice.

Dominick had even been convinced to join his young brother in dressing up for the night. While his costume merely consisted of his typical attire of dark trousers and a partially buttoned long-sleeve, a black and white skull was painted onto his face as his lengthy tresses swept down his shoulders and back.

"I'm going to eat so much candy!" Jeremiah exclaimed, jostling his bear and the sack of sweets. "It'll last till the end of the year!"

Dominick huffed with his hands in his pockets, propping a foot on top of a rather large pumpkin. "You're hilarious if you think I'm going to let you eat more than five pieces."

"Five?!" Jeremiah shouted.

"Five," Dominick glared down at the exasperated boy. "Take it or leave it, you little runt. If Father returns and you're bouncing off the walls, I'm the one who will end up with a lecture."

"Not fair…" Jeremiah groaned, tossing his brother his bear.

Following Dominick as they entered the castle, Jeremiah rummaged through the sack of candy, sifting through to find his favorite pieces before it was confiscated. "Where is Father, anyways?" he asked. "He's always leaving, and I really wanted to ask if he would take me instead, but then I thought he'd say no. He's always busy."

Entering a large, furnished lounge area, Dominick dropped down on a sofa as Jeremiah took a seat in the center of a large rug, letting the teddy bear rest in his lap. With his eyes closed, the blood child hummed in thought. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy spending time with Jeremiah, or that he didn't understand why he was the first and only choice more often than not to watch over the young dhampir, but he could admit there were a lot of other things he would be up to right now, with Halloween in full swing no less.

As if to jest, Dominick looked at the boy and folded his arms over his chest. "What, you don't like spending time with me? And here I thought I was the highlight of your night whenever I visited."

Able to smile, as he did very much love Dominick—this person who didn't quite feel like family was still his brother. "It's not that." Jeremiah chuckled but his smile faded a second later as he pushed the chocolates and tarts he'd chosen back and forth.

"You miss him?" Dominick brought the truth from the boy's lips.

"Sometimes," Jeremiah added, holding off on the reality that ‘sometimes' meant ‘all the time' instead. "I think he likes to be away. Father never looks happy to be here when it's just us…or really he never looks happy ever."

If there was anyone Dominick knew who wasn't as expressive as the next person, Demiesius Titus would be the number one person in that slot. It was true and Dominick had seen times before where the elder would smile, when he would laugh; perhaps not with his entire chest or with a beaming smile plastered on his face, but Demiesius wasn't a man untouched by happiness.

Then again, Dominick also understood there was a time when he'd been…happier, and his own heart twinged at the idea that this innocent boy had never quite known his father in those quaint years.

"Now, that," Dominick wanted to assure, his eyes meeting the almost doubtful stare looking his way, "is by far the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Brother, long ago before you were born, I figured I used to be the most important person in Father's life, but you became the most important person to him the instant you were born. I know this because I was standing beside him when you came into the world, and the look on his face when it was known you were finally here…" Dominick's smile grew at the light of reassurance on the small boy's face, and he tossed the teddy bear in his lap to its owner. "Don't ever think Father wants to be away from you. He is a very important person in our world, and his duties to it may take him to different parts of the globe for hours at a time. But do you know what?"

Jeremiah fiddled with his thumbs, knowing what Dominick was going to say before he let the words slip. "He always comes home," he said.

"That's right," Dominick stood and rustled a hand atop Jeremiah's hair, messing up the proper ponytail as the tie loosened. "He also commissioned that bear of yours so that it might absorb any loneliness you may feel when he is away. Does it not work? Shall we make another?"

Jeremiah looked toward the bear off to his left, the yellow sewn into its' ear to match where his own hair was blond, and the bright blue button stitched in the same spot as his sapphire iris. He knew there were things he didn't already know about his father, but the fact that the elder commissioned this bear…one of his favorite belongings…to suppress his sorrows. How nice.

"No," Jeremiah smiled to himself, and he embraced the stuffed animal. "This one is still good."

"Now, remember I said five pieces of your candy and then brush your teeth," Dominick warned.

"Yeah, yeah," Jeremiah waved the vampire off and tore the wrappings of his treats open, scarfing them down, and as Dominick thought five measly pieces of candy couldn't possibly trigger a sugary burst of excitement, only an hour later was he dealing with an active seven-year-old with endless energy.

Chasing Jeremiah all throughout the castle had gone on for several minutes, and while he wasn't quite raising his voice and barking orders, Dominick's insistence for him to slow down and calm down weren't working.

"Brother!" Jeremiah's voice called, and when Dominick caught up with him through the halls, the blood child's blood ran even colder when he witnessed Jeremiah's position.

The overactive boy was standing on the rail of the central balcony. There was a four-floor gap between him and the floor below, and a smile was spread across his chipper face. "Watch what I can do!" Jeremiah spread his arms, perfecting his balance.

"Jeremiah," Dominick froze, suddenly afraid for this child he already knew was nearly indestructible. "Get down this instant."

"Hold on," the boy insisted, "Watch me do this trick!" He then twirled on one foot on the railing and Dominick flinched when he wobbled and once he was facing forward again, the blood child was nearing him slowly. "I'm like a cat!"

The second he spoke those words, Jeremiah's footing slipped and his weight fell backwards. He gasped when he couldn't catch himself, and Dominick rushed as quickly as his vampiric speed would allow him, grasping his little brother's hand, but his fingers hadn't the best grip and Jeremiah went falling like a stone to the first floor.

The boy screamed from the sudden rush of dread that entered him, his black and blue colored eyes staying with his brother's terror-stricken gaze as the distance between them grew.

And then Jeremiah hit the tile floor of the atrium.

The abrupt stop was what scared Jeremiah the most. The back of his skull fractured and blood flowed from the open wound, forming a thick crimson puddle around his head. His spine and shoulder blades cracked, rendering him motionless, and the tibia in his right leg was sticking out of his torn skin.

"Dom!" he screamed, suddenly feeling as every broken bone in his body pieced back together, the sound of their snaps startling him with each unexpected jolt.

Dominick jumped the four-story distance and landed beside the boy like an agile feline. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," he tried not to panic, but he wasn't doing a very good job. From what he knew of dhampir's, they felt no pain, and killing them wasn't easy, but seeing the amount of blood pooling around Jeremiah's head and the tears flooding his face brought on a panic Dominick had never experienced.

"You're alright," the blood child tried to comfort, flinching when the bone of Jeremiah's tibia snapped back into place. "Does it…hurt?"

Seeming to not necessarily know what Dominick's question was asking, the alarm in Jeremiah worsened from the terror on his brother's face. He lunged from the floor, arms wrapping around Dominick's neck as his sobbing intensified.

The blood child's hand touched the back of Jeremiah's hair, palm coming away entirely blood-stained, but clearly there was no true damage done.

"What happened?!" a familiar voice demanded then, and when Dominick and Jeremiah looked up, the all-together staggered expression accompanying their father's face became known to them.

"Father!" Jeremiah hustled from Dominick's arms, his broken bones having reassembled themselves, and his arms encompassed around Demiesius' waist.

Although it could be seen well enough that Jeremiah was not suffering from these wounds, the idea that he could have been opened the floodgates of the elder's temper. The dip in Demiesius' dark brow presented his anger, and Dominick turned his gaze to the floor when the words: "You were supposed to be watching him!" rattled his bones.

"I'm sorry, Father." Dominick lowered his head. Arguing that it was an accident wouldn't save him.

Taking to a knee before Jeremiah, Demiesius seemed to examine him from head to toe. The fractures in the boy's skull had vanished as well, and all that was left behind were the remnants of blood staining his hair and clothing. "What happened?" Demiesius questioned in a far calmer manner.

"It was my fault," Jeremiah confessed, able to decipher the mix of concern and question in his father's dark eyes. "Dominick told me to get down, but I was standing on the balcony rail and fell. "

"You must not be so reckless, Jeremiah," Demiesius said, an urge in his tone. "Knowing what it is like to hurt is foreign to you, but that alone does not mean you should be careless with your life. Do you hear me?"

"Y–Yes," Jeremiah nodded. "I'm sorry, Father."

Wiping away a stream of tears beneath the dhampir's blue-colored eye, Demiesius continued with: "I place you in Dominick's care when I am away, because he is one of the few people I trust with your life. I put my faith in him to keep you safe, because that is what I want for you: to be safe. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Jeremiah's tears returned and he pushed into Demiesius' embrace.

Even though he hadn't meant to frighten his father or Dominick so much, it was oddly pleasant to know how much they cared for him, and his father's arms would always welcome him if he needed them.

As the night grew later and morning drew nearer, Dominick departed from the castle to return to his coven, leaving Demiesius and Jeremiah as the only two in the colossal home.

The young boy had been sad to see Dominick go; sometimes he wondered why they all couldn't just live together. The castle was big enough for an entire coven to fit in, so why not house everyone in one place? Then again, Jeremiah couldn't imagine a coven as rowdy as Dominick's living so closely with their father.

Snickering at the thought as he returned to his bedroom, Jeremiah stopped midway down the corridor, eyes going for the large open doorway to Demiesius' office at the end.

The immortal man was seated and focused, a feather-tipped pen in his hand jotting down whatever it was he always busied himself with.

It wasn't odd to find Demiesius preoccupied in his office, and Jeremiah assumed he was tending to important things, boring things, but there were moments when he grew curious. Sure, he assumed the role of a man in Demiesius' position was stressful and occupied a lot of time, but he couldn't always be pestered by duties, could he?

With a sly smile on his face, Jeremiah allowed the tendrils of his mastering to slink around him and swallow him whole. In a second, he materialized over his father's shoulder, eyes only able to catch a familiar name at the top of the page before Demiesius shut the journal.

Hamilton

"What are you doing?" Jeremiah asked, voice chipper.

Without addressing the question, Demiesius stood, a gentle hand upon his son's shoulder, and he led the boy out of the office. "It's late," the elder said, although knowing it wasn't unusual for Jeremiah to go without sleep most days. "Let's get you to bed."

"What about you?" Jeremiah asked.

"I have got a bit more to take care of," was all Demiesius left Jeremiah with after kissing his son goodnight, and soon the boy was alone in his bedroom, able to hear as the elder returned to his office and shut the door.

While disheartened by the realization that his father was essentially writing to someone who would never return a word of their own, as Jeremiah lay beneath his covers and did what he could to resist the sorrows Demiesius' own sorrows brought to him, he couldn't help but think how incredibly captivating it was to know a love like his parents had existed.

Pulling the covers of his blanket over his head, Jeremiah closed his eyes as the sunny cast of a familiar face showed itself to him. He hadn't known them long, but he was still able to smile, and he hoped — in his most lonely and darkened moments — his father might still find the strength to smile, too.

***

"Demi, you haven't fed this entire week," Jeremiah perceived, the whispers of Hamilton being what at last brought him from this slumber he'd sunk into for seven days and seven nights. His body was heavy, eyelids even heavier, but when they fluttered open, his first sight was that of Hamilton attempting to offer Demiesius a glass of crimson.

When the elder insisted the helping of blood wasn't something he desired, Hamilton released a defeated sigh, appearing to nearly jump out of his skin a second later when laying eyes on Jeremiah again and he was awake. He hastily set the glass down on the lamp-topped nightstand and took a seat at the edge of the bed, Demiesius standing over his husband's shoulder.

"Son," the elder kept his voice leveled, but there was an obvious anxiousness in him. "How are you feeling?"

Unsure of how he should be feeling anymore as the recollections of his difficulty in Saengsacho returned, Jeremiah carefully sat up in bed. He was dressed down in his underwear now, and when he brought the blanket away, his eyes passed over the grisly blemishes left behind after the assault brought against his body.

The trauma riddled upon Jeremiah's midsection, upper chest, and forearm appeared to be something that would never go away, and as much as he knew scars weren't something to be ashamed of, realizing these healed trails of discoloration were something he'd have to carry with him forever…made him consider the confrontation a failure. He had failed.

"I think I'm fine," Jeremiah answered, passing his fingers over the two inch (5.08cm) scar upon his stomach. "I'm sorry if I scared you two."

"Don't apologize," Hamilton hesitated to touch his son's hair, the black half of his tresses streaming down his back. "Your father and I were worried senseless about you, but it's a relief to see you awake." There was something more Hamilton wanted to say, but his words broke when he tried and he turned from Jeremiah. Blood drops rose against his eyes and he covered them.

Offering Hamilton a handkerchief from his pocket, Demiesius kept his eyes on Jeremiah when he stepped out of bed, seeing there were no further signs of ache in his movements as he pulled on a black T-shirt and joggers. "I don't mean to pester you so soon after your ordeal, but is there anything you can tell me, son?"

"You haven't investigated for yourself?" Jeremiah asked.

Folding the handkerchief, Hamilton tucked it away in a pocket of the lavender robe he was wearing. "Your father hasn't left the castle since you returned," he said. "Has hardly left your side either."

While oddly comforting, Jeremiah thought about the event, what he'd seen and gone through that night flooding into him.

In detail, he relayed everything from the infiltration done by Chung-hee and Hyun, to his own attempt before it all led to disaster. He was surprised Demiesius hadn't demanded answers from Ha-yoon or Min-jae since they'd been his last contact, but that was likely to change now that he was awake.

"You were injected with something?" Hamilton inquired, a scrunch in his nose at the idea of a toxin being administered into Jeremiah's bloodstream given the words the man who'd mainlined the serum was said to have spoken.

"I was…" Jeremiah touched a hand behind his right bicep, unable to feel the irritation from before, but he was sure whatever the drug had been was what activated his pain receptors. "From what little I know about Min-jae's home, they grow a lot of their own herbs, and I'm guessing they rely on certain ones for medicinal purposes. There was a flower in full-bloom, and I swear I caught their aroma when he stuck me. I should report to them," he added, more than sure Ha-yoon had panicked after he hadn't returned to her office that night. Then again, Jeremiah pondered on why she wouldn't have divulged anything to Demiesius in the first place.

"I do not think that is something I am comfortable with anymore," Demiesius stated. "Handling this myself should have been my first move."

"Father," Jeremiah ran his hands into his hair, as he could already tell where this conversation was heading. He didn't want to return to the overly protective clutches of Demiesius no matter his good intentions, or how valid his reasoning may be. "I know things took a turn for the worst last time, but—."

"Jeremiah, you could have died," Demiesius said firmly.

As though the elder were exaggerating, Jeremiah tried not to roll his eyes and turned away. "I've been alive for over half a century, Father," he countered. "I've suffered injuries far greater than stab wounds, and while I don't know why these were the first I've ever felt, I doubt they would have killed me. "

While true, given the vicious brawls Jeremiah had survived against a creature known as the lycan, still Demiesius and Hamilton wavered in allowing their eldest son to participate in the dilemma that remained Min-jae's father and now his village as a whole.

"Please, trust me," Jeremiah implored.

"It's not that we don't trust you," Hamilton interjected, stepping before his son again. "You can't be upset with us for worrying about what happened to you. We know you to be just about indestructible, and you've always returned to us unscathed through the years. Seeing you suffering and being unable to do anything about it, as parents…that was very heart wrenching. Having seen you that way, it's hard to trust the world with you. No matter how old you get, you're still our son, Jeremiah."

This wasn't a lecture. This wasn't a scolding or anything remotely close to an argument, but the thought of being protected under the watchful eyes of his parents wasn't something Jeremiah wanted. He'd grown so much through the years, had been able to show them he wasn't someone they had to worry for, yet this event that would likely stay with him forever would stay with them as well.

He wanted to see it as a privilege to have Demiesius and Hamilton love him to the point of wanting to protect every aspect of him, even if he were in his seventh decade of life, but their parental umbrella could sometimes feel like a canopy of doubt.

"Please," he said, looking from Hamilton to Demiesius. "I swear to you both, I'll be more careful, I'll take precautions, but please don't take me out of this. Father, I promise you can trust me like you've trusted Dominick for the last five centuries, like you've trusted every coven leader who has worked under the order of you as an Elder. Just, please, don't treat me like a child."

Demiesius and Hamilton looked from one another to Jeremiah, and it was the nature of wariness they could hardly set aside that prolonged the moment of silence. There was so much more they could say, and surely they could make a claim that Jeremiah hadn't a choice but to follow their demands, but…to make demands of him, even with the intention of wanting to keep him safe, such a command noticeably chipped away at their son's dignity.

"Give me this one chance," Jeremiah added. "One chance to, at the very least, help in what ways I can, and I will gladly hand the rest over to someone else. I can prove to you that I'm not a liability."

There was a change in the shadows of Demiesius' already umbrose eyes, and although it was not anger that accompanied his glare, the frustration was indisputable. He knew if he were faced with Sebastian and Avery, or Gabriel and Lysander asking this of him, there would be zero hesitation in the elder to deny their pleas. Yet, even as he could hardly help looking upon Jeremiah and still seeing the innocence of the boy he'd raised since he took his first breath, Demiesius beat down his restrictive nature as a father to the best he could.

"You are steeped in pride," Demiesius proclaimed then. "All your life, you have carried this need to prove yourself, to show your worth, and I want you to know there is no need for you to assert yourself over whatever and whoever this entity is."

"Father—."

"You can say what you want, but I am not blind," Demiesius continued without pause. "I know you, Jeremiah. I have watched you grow into the man you are now. I have faith in you whether you believe so or not, and all I want in this life is for you and your brothers to live happy and accomplished lives of your own. And…" he released a breath as Hamilton embraced him from the side. "It seems for that to be fulfilled; I must allow you to grow in what ways you feel are necessary. Take care of yourself moving forward, but keep in mind that if something of the sort happens again, I will take this matter into my own hands. Are we clear?"

"Very," Jeremiah nodded assuredly.

Demiesius neared Jeremiah then. He still stood some inches taller than the dhampir who was an even six feet (182.8cm), and he was able to see so much of himself and Hamilton in their son, but there was such an obvious man in front of him right now.

"Take care of yourself," Demiesius instructed. "That is what I want most if you are to take this on, and if there is one more thing I would ask, it is that you collect a sample of this flower you spoke of from Min-jae's village. Whatever it is they discovered in it, I want it under full investigation as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir."

Guiding Hamilton from the bedroom, Demiesius lastly said, "Have a word with your brothers before you go," and then the door was shut.

Almost unable to fathom the fact that his father had agreed to let him fulfill this task, Jeremiah took a moment to breathe before stepping beneath a hot shower.

As the water rained down on him, Jeremiah looked over his body once more. There was nothing outwardly different about it other than the new scars upon his flesh, but as he passed a soapy cloth over his arms and chest, he focused momentarily on every sensation gliding over his surface.

From the material of the washcloth and rinse of water streaming down his naked exterior, nothing curious stood out to him until an idea crossed his mind, and Jeremiah closed a hand around his wrist. He squeezed and the pressure arising from it told of his controlled strength. If he administered a bit more effort, the bones would surely break, and he would have the answer to a question he was probably a bit too curious to obtain.

He needed to know.

Unsure of how this would end, Jeremiah pursed his lips together and crushed the bones of his wrist. The snap rippled up his entire left arm to his heart, lungs shuttering as a sharp gasp left him before biting back a scream that nearly emerged from his mouth.

So it was true, he feared as he eyed his wrist, tears falling from his eyes as they mixed with the shower. Compared to the knife wounds, even this was almost unbearable, but after several minutes, it seemed he was still lucky to have a healing factor that would respond to put him back together, even if it weren't within a matter of seconds like before.

Whatever the serum produced by Saengsacho was for, it was something Jeremiah wouldn't want to risk getting into the hands of the wrong people. With brothers to concern himself with, and even Dominick's daughters coming to mind, allowing something with the potential of leading to harm for any dhampir around the world didn't sit right with him.

After he was entirely freshened up, Jeremiah threw on a simple dark emerald hoodie and jeans before venturing down to a spacious study. With it being a little past one in the morning, his brothers were congregated with whom Jeremiah could already sense were Dominick and the vaewolf twins. When he appeared in the open doorway, he kept his words to himself, a bit unsure of how to go about this.

He could imagine they must've been terribly shaken after seeing him in such an ailing state, and a sort of disappointment gathered in Jeremiah's mind at the idea that his brothers had seen him that way. Weak, fearful, vulnerable; those were conditions they'd never seen him in before.

Through his years as an elder brother, they all viewed him as strong and dependable, a reflection of Demiesius more like, and Jeremiah feared his brother's might consider his strength to have been chipped away at.

Before he could utter anything for himself, Jeremiah flinched when a high-pitched call of his name left Avery's mouth, and soon he was bombarded by the pretty dhampir, Lysander and Gabriel dashing for him as well. Soon Jeremiah was wrapped in all three of their embraces.

A bit taken aback but grateful for their enthusiasm, Jeremiah let the clinging be until they let up.

"You're alright, now?" Avery asked, wiping away tears on the sleeve of his nightwear.

"Yes," Jeremiah nodded, "I'm sorry for worrying you all."

A punch struck his upper bicep then and a jolt rippled through Jeremiah, but he tried to hold in the fact that he could indeed feel the mild power put behind it. Sebastian was standing off to his right with a dip in his brow. "You made us worry…" the young dhampir said. "Father and Dad wouldn't tell us anything until you woke up. What happened to you?"

Without giving up too many details or using words that would cause more fret like ‘kill' or ‘pain', Jeremiah tried his best to playoff his experience as being startled by this new sensation, even though agony and the idea of true death reaching him if the wounds had been worse were notions that frightened him. In the end, he didn't want the vision of him so tearful and blood-soaked to stick so drastically with his brothers.

"But I'm fine," he promised. "I'm going to figure out what's going on. You all have absolutely nothing to worry about."

Each young Titus boy nodded before returning to the table, Jeremiah's eyes passing over the vaewolf twins Lucius and Cedric who almost looked like they were suspicious of his clarification. If there was anything Jeremiah knew about them, it was that they were incredibly intuitive. They weren't the type to delve into someone else's business, but Jeremiah was almost sure Lucius and Cedric had immediately caught the minor fibs as he'd spoken.

With nothing more to add, Jeremiah supposed it was time to start from the beginning and he turned his back on the study.

As proposals of how he was going to go about this accumulated into his mind, Jeremiah was stopped a moment later when a hand touched his shoulder. His gaze met that of Dominick's who held onto a silence between them. He'd excused himself from the room so as to have a moment alone with Jeremiah.

Taking hold of the dhampir's scarred forearm, Dominick looked it over and passed his thumb over it as though he might be able to wipe it away. "This does not sit well with me," he said, and Jeremiah assumed it was more for the idea that Dominick had daughters of his own that could be affected by this strange serum if it ever reached them.

Dominick, however, had no such thoughts of his daughters being harmed. To him, his girls were far safer than any dhampir living outside of a place like Cluj-Napoca, Romania; the area in which he'd raised his family may as well be a sanctuary. With there being not a single threat to vampire kind within the country of Romania, the same couldn't be said for places like England and it seemed South Korea now.

"I'm worried for you," the blood child said.

"Don't be," Jeremiah tried, but Dominick was quick to interrupt.

"You can't say that to someone like me," he said. "I've known you since the night it was discovered you were conceived. We're not quite brothers in the traditional sense, but we are all the same, and never have I had to truly worry for your safety."

"Dom," Jeremiah started to turn away. "I don't want anyone to worry about me. I'll be fine."

By the time he was fully turned around, Jeremiah stepped back as Dominick was already standing in his face. "Listen," the blood child said anyway. "I know you and I have not been as close as we were when you were small, or ever since I started a family of my own, but that does not take away from you being someone I consider my little brother. All I want from you is to watch yourself. Your parents are trusting you and now I trust you to do that, too."

"I understand," Jeremiah simply agreed, his shoulders feeling a bit heavy with all this acquired trust stacking atop him.

Able to finally move on, Jeremiah watched Dominick return to the study to continue his lessons when a thought crossed him. "Dom?" he called, and when the blood child looked his way from a distance down the corridor, he said, "Father is Father to us both, but do you see my dad as yours, too?"

A humorous laughter shook from Dominick's lungs, a rather strong memory seeming to creep up on him from long ago. "If I refer to Hamilton as ‘Dad', he'll never let me live it down."

Jeremiah chuckled, "Whatever that means."

And then he was on his way.