Page 3 of Thomas
Huh.He marveled. It hadn’t felt like it was quite that bad.
After making some ruckus at the table and sweeping past Thomas to draw the heavy curtains over the window closed, Mira returned to his side with a dampened napkin. She knelt, then placed the cool compress atop his hands as they rested against his thighs.
Thomas sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. Mira hesitated, glancing up at him with apologetic and concerned brown eyes, then gently pressed the cloth more firmly over his hands to stop the bleeding.
They were silent as she cleaned the newly formed wounds. Diligently, Mira went back and forth between Thomas and the old-fashioned wash basin in the corner of the room, rinsing and wringing out the napkin to clear the remnants of his blood and flesh.
When the gnarled blisters atop his hands were no longer leaking out, Mira sat back against her haunches and sighed. “You refuse to drink the blood you’re given, so your skin burns—even from indirect light.” She raised her chin to meet his eyes. “Are you… trying to die?”
Thomas didn’t think he was intentionally trying to die. He wasn’t intentionally trying to live either. The indifferent white space that filled him was like an empty void where he felt and thought nothing. Because nothing mattered anymore.
Ideally, he would erode into a cloud of dust. Or turn into a pillar of sand that suddenly dispersed and was carried away on the wind, as if he’d never existed. An inconsequential life.
Mira’s fist gripped the material of her skirt as she dropped her head. “Lord Blakeley is becoming impatient with your lack of feeding and eating. The decline in your bodily health is obviously worsening with each passing day. If you don’t feed of your own will, your father will order another injection.”
This was a peculiar thought for Thomas, because for months, his elder father had been intent on killing him. At least, he’d thought that was the ultimate goal.
He’d been kept isolated within the dark depths of the castle’s underbelly among the rats and parasites, then given blood that was inadequate for his vampiric nature. He’d been sick so many times that he’d eventually stopped feeding altogether, forced to live in his own filth and without any medical attention when his skin began to dry out, split and crack from starvation.
His elongated fangs became a permanent fixture within his mouth, throbbing angrily and giving him an unfathomable headache—like a jackhammer wreaking havoc and pounding inside his skull.
The darkness had become an impermeable and constant thing as he drifted in and out of consciousness, like existing in a poisonous and toxic womb. Across every inch of his skin, all he registered was pain. An itching, burning fire.
At the exact precipice when his demise seemed imminent, Thomas had been abruptly pulled out of the dungeon. He didn’t remember much about that day, except that the light had been too bright and he couldn’t hold himself upright. His limbs were deadweight and his head felt as if it weighed a thousand kilos.
He’d been bathed, forcibly injected with blood that didn’t immediately make him ill, then laid to rest in his bedroom.
That was a week ago. At least, he thought it was. Time felt slippery now.
“Sir Thomas?”
His eyes flickered down to Mira in the dim light of the room. That title felt peculiar, too. “Sir.” A formality bestowed upon a vampire of honor. The eldest son of a purebred family with a long and illustrious history in one of the oldest vampire aristocracies in the world.
“Will you speak to me?” she asked.
Thomas blinked slowly. He hadn’t spoken to anyone in so long. Well, aside from “Yes, father” and “No, father” that day he’d been dragged to the breakfast table to eat with his clan. That morning was another blurry memory. He’d barely been able to keep himself from falling out of his chair and onto the floor, let alone lift a fork or take hold of a glass.
So, he’d sat there, silent and detached. Again, the light of the room had been too bright, and his younger brother, Oliver, had openly stared at him in abject horror the entire time, as if he were dining with a monster.
Thomas swallowed. The subtle movement felt uncomfortable now that he was focused on it. The walls of his throat had become the same texture as sandpaper. “What… would you have me say?” His voice was raspy and quiet. He didn’t recognize it.
Mira straightened. “Will you feed of your own volition? Or should I request another injection?”
He glanced away and toward the heavy burgundy drapery covering the window.Neither, he thought. The tone of her voice was soft, but the words themselves felt like a threat. He wanted to be left alone in silence.
“He won’t let you die,” she went on when he didn’t respond. “He… Lord Blakeley didn’t want you to die. His intent was never that simple. I—Well, we think he wanted to teach us all a lesson of his control. Of what would happen should any of us disobey his command. If he would do this to his eldest son, how much worse would it be for the rest of us?”
Quietly, Thomas took that in before shifting his gaze to her. “We?”
“The serving staff,” Mira clarified. “We had no idea… We never imagined that he would take things this far.”
A bitterness that had nothing to do with his lack of feeding materialized in the back of Thomas’s throat.
In those early days, disbelief and upset over being caught had overwhelmed his emotions while he sat in the dungeon. How had his eldest father found them? He and Dawn had been so careful with their plans to elope and escape. They hadn’t told anyone about their intentions.
How had his fathers even known?
Thomas’s shock and suspicions were cast aside when the hunger had set in. The need to feed and blatant lack of resources had swelled like an opaque and ferocious balloon within his entire being, taking up every rational thought.
