#daemcnborn

After they found and rescued them, they brought him and Alfred to Magnus, his younger brother. Neither was really up to anyones touch but to the others. They had been through years and years of constant torture of Valentine himself. They had been made to figuratively go through hell, basically. Alfred wasn’t given food, so Jake constantly made him drink from him, leaving state in an almost constant state of anemia. On top of that they very carefully fed Jake only with a potion, that subdued him, basically drugged him and, sadly hooked him to the stuff brutally, so that leaving him without food became pure agony to him. So the days since Valentine fell - at least that was what he understood when they were brought out of their cage - had been the horror for him. On multiple occasions he ran so low on energy that only the now instinctual use of his magic kept him alive - and his sons whispers. 

It was some of the most shocking hours of his life. He had seen so many cruelties of humanity, but he had never been this intimately close to one that hit him so hard. He was currently working openly in their community, someone helping others about while taking care of the farm he and Eli acquired - posing as married couple, as that made things so much easier in this world.

When he helped in a household of new parents, he heard the two of them yell. Their baby was crying. Initially he didn’t care until he saw the father pick up the baby and leave. He saw it out of the corner of his eye: Scales. On the baby, bright and colorful, reflecting the light in a way that would have mesmerized him under different circumstances. The mother ran down, fell to her knees as her husband was carrying the child outside. She begged him not to kill the child.

He couldn’t stay, he ran after the man, ran to the woods where he placed the child - the changeling as he called it - in the woods. Jake waited, hidden until the man left and yet a growl made him stop and look. Demons. Demons were already there to claim the childs life. He couldn’t let that happen. He used his powers to lift the baby into the air and ran to catch it as the demons did the same. Strong arms enveloped the soft bundle safely as demons attacked him. He counted three bites and yet he he was nowhere near done. His cat eyes flashed as he fought them. 

Eventually he made his way back home, a glamour safely in place for himself and the child, covering his eyes, his injuries and the babies scales to the world. And yet he winced with every step. On humans his wounds would probably be fatal, but he was no human and he had a beautiful warlock by his side, who would take care of him - and the child.

His latest stunt had in some ways gone spectacularly wrong. The history books were richer of one more of his deaths now. As his wife was accused of being a witch, he lost it just for a moment, knowing she was carrying another child. And it was his downfall as he lost control of his glamour in the bloody courthouse. They arrested him and seized his property. The children would have been living on the street if it hadn’t been for Eli and friends. His wives pregnancy postponed her sentence, but not his.

This kind of survival was a trick he learned centuries ago, had to learn. It wasn’t easy, it was one of the hardest tricks he had to perform, dancing on the brink of death as they tried to kill him, with so much magic robbing him of his own signs of life for hours, if not days. He lost track of time in this strange limbo until his magic zapped him awake - six feet under the earth. Escaping his grave was a heavy trick considering how depleted his magic already was, as was hiding his eyes.

When he managed to get away from Salem to a safer place, he collapsed. Regaining his strength cost him weeks of laying low. After that it took him months to track down his wive, who was spared, almost half a year. He said his goodbye and released her, assuring her he was, for all intents and purposes dead. He just needed to see she was okay. Then he tracked her down, Eli. He never wanted her to see this, not knowing that he knew how to die without dying. She was so young, he knew to her it looked like she had lost one of her first warlock friends. It could be a scaring thing. And now he was in need of a new name, one he ... somehow didn’t want to come up with alone.