10th October of 1986 was when Lionel Bellone expected to finally see his second child.

Veronica hadn’t truly caught his eye in any exceptional way; a socialite that seemed to have little to occupy her time besides attend dinners and gatherings, at one of which she had first met him.

The newest identity he had assumed was supposedly 31 years old, only 3 years her senior, yet he very clearly stood head and shoulders above many of the other affluent people around them, and that quickly caught her attention.

For Lionel, it had merely been a matter of convenience.

He did not think back to the first time he had experimented this way, even though the first offspring had turned out to be a disappointment.

His blood had not properly taken, and the child he had produced was mundane, unremarkable and fragile, meeting her end in a way that most of these creatures did, at the hands of a common band of wandering cutthroats.

The woman that had given birth to her had mourned, as if this wasn’t the inevitable fate of all their kind.

But the killing had stirred something territorial within him, and he had traced the killers through the woods in which they found refuge, and slaughtered them to the man.

He had not tried this again till now, but circumstances were emerging on the horizon that might make an heir desirable.

However, it was beginning to look like he might need to start from scratch once more.

With each passing month, Veronica’s health worsened; nausea, atrophied muscle, hypoxia- the list of symptoms grew progressively worse, and Lionel wondered if she or the child would survive.

It would be inconvenient to have to start over again.

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Against all odds, Veronica had held out, though the doctors told him the possibility of her not surviving the delivery were significant.

And finally, in the late hours of 10th October, Lucia Bellone was born.

The child was born at 3 kilograms of weight, and struggled in the doctor’s arms with unprecedented tenacity, shrieking at the top of her lungs.

The medical staff parted before Lionel, who wished to check up on his progeny himself.

Struggling within his grip, the child was the picture of health, unlike her emaciated mother.

She stared at him with a sullen expression, while he studied her impassively for any obvious deficiencies.

He found nothing out of the ordinary, but not necessarily exceptional either; the child resembled him closely enough, but otherwise with no indication of his nature having passed on.

When Veronica asked him what the child’s name should be, he merely settled on something reminiscent of his own father, then left mother and child to recuperate at the hospital.

If the child had inherited any of his nature, it would likely take some time to manifest, but Lionel had waited this long, and he was content to wait for a while longer.

The next night, however, was a surprise, when he walked in to see Veronica, her expression twisted in pain, as Lucia nursed at her breast.

The child was latched on with a fierce tenacity, tears forming around Veronica’s eyes as she tried to pry her away without manhandling her too badly in the process.

Lionel had no such qualms and simply plucked the child away with a hand, then frowned.

The flesh of Veronica’s breast where Lucia had latched on, with fists and with her toothless jaws, had turned an aggravated shade of red.

The child was now staring at him, suspiciously silent, and sullen, and Lionel felt something that could not be attributed to parental instinct.

The urge to end this child’s life.

The vampire blinked, even as his pupils began to constrict.

Then he handed the child back to her mother, and stalked away without a word.

Back at his own lair, Lionel examined this fascinating new emotion within himself.

To feel threatened… by a child.

He smiled despite himself, lips pulling back over sharp, triangular teeth.

He had created his heir.