He stood there with the same steady presence he had walked in with, as if nothing in the castle—not the elders scattering behind Luther, not the guards whispering, not the faint pulse behind the isolation door—mattered more than the single sentence he had spoken.
"I am here to see my son."
Luther stared at him, jaw tightening as he took in the man's face again, this time without brushing it off. Up close, Eleazar looked nothing like the usual intruders that stumbled into vampire territory and begged for their lives. There was no fear in his eyes, no arrogance either—just a calm certainty that didn't belong to a human. Luther had lived long enough to know the look of someone who believed they had the right to stand anywhere in the universe.
"You are either insane," Luther said, voice low and steady, "or you truly have no idea where you're standing."
Eleazar finally met his gaze. "I know exactly where I am standing."
