Page 5 of Thomas
Thomas drank to his satisfaction, then stood and made his way back across the room toward his large four-poster bed. He climbed atop the duvet and lay down across the bottom of the mattress, exhausted. He needed sleep.
As the dizzying haze of unconsciousness gradually overtook him, Thomas decided that yes, he would live. Not to thrive or dream as he had in his university days. Nor to experience the world and all its offerings, seek knowledge, find camaraderie or fall in love.
No. He’d live to see the day when his elder father suffered as he had. He’d live to witness him broken, starved and rotting on a cold stone floor with no one around to help him. Thomas wanted to see him abandoned and decaying.
Whether this fate would happen by Thomas’s hands or not, he was uncertain. Regardless, the thought soothed him like the darkest lullaby as he drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Chapter Two
Across the span of a few months, Thomas’s body grew stronger. Along with it, his rage and disdain. The violence inside of him sat low and deep like a feral animal waiting for the most opportune moment to strike and tear its prey apart.
The dreary day swept past the windows of the town car as he sat in the back seat with his fathers. Thomas stared through the glass, not seeing the heavy fog draping the naked tree branches as the car ascended the hills of Upper Avalon. The late-morning air was cold. Frigid and damp.
When Thomas and Dawn had been excitedly making their plans to elope, it had been warm. The magnolias had just started to bloom.
It seemed like a lifetime ago. And what had become of Dawn? The not knowing created a crippling, tearing sensation in his chest cavity every time he thought of her. Thomas had not heard a single piece of information about Dawn since they’d been dragged apart at the cabin along the coast. In his heart of hearts, he hoped that she was safe, at the very least.
“Try not to be so surly and… taciturn when we arrive at Lord Ashford’s estate,” Thomas’s elder father spat into the stiff silenceof the back seat. “He has gifted our clan a generous dowry for this arrangement, and I would not like to see him dissatisfied and asking for his money back.”
Thomas neither moved nor spoke in response to this, but kept his empty gaze fixed beyond the window. He had no idea why Lord Cameron Dwight Ashford had suddenly proposed a bonding arrangement to his family for Thomas’s hand. Inevitably, though, he would find out.
“I would hate to think that the expensive education that we provided for you has gone to waste given your present, strangely muted state,” his elder father went on. “I have heard that Lord Ashford is an intellectual man in his own right. Do try to dredge up some verbal stimulation for him? If not physical.”
At this, Thomas turned from the window to stare directly into his elder father’s face. A face that, to his great misfortune and detriment, mirrored his own much too closely for his fragile emotional stability. Even down to the eyes. Thomas’s were the exact same shade of pale and icy gray.
“You auction me off like your prized pony,” Thomas said, “then lecture me on how I should perform for my new master?”
“A pony would be more pleasant and much easier to wrangle than you,” his elder father returned, sneering.
Thomas did not speak. Only sat motionless, taking in those cold eyes and angular features. Despising him. Wanting to launch across the small space and gouge those eyes clean out of their sockets.
His elder father chuckled, amused. “You do despise me, don’t you?”
Thomas tilted his head, considering. “More than you could ever fathom. I wish that you would suffer every violence and misfortune that you have bestowed upon me. That you would be left to slowly rot and die in your own filth.”
The man grinned. “Good. Use that passion to make something of yourself for Lord Ashford—something other than a mute and scrawny cynic.”
“That’s enough—from both of you.” Thomas’s younger father, the viscount, sat forward, admonishing them. He turned toward his husband. “Whydo you provoke him? It doesn’t help anything. We’ve talked about this.”
“Because he provokes me first! And Winston, my dear, with a little provocation, we can be certain that he’s as sharp as ever—look at how expressive he is! Such colorful sentiments. Rest assured, I have not broken him as you feared. He is our offspring, after all. Of course he’s strong.”
Thomas closed his eyes and shifted his head back toward the window, wishing with every fiber of his being that he could tear this man apart with his fangs and blunt fingernails. The rage and injustice coursed hot through his veins.
What cruel fate had cursed him with these two monsters as his parents? Had he done something so vile, so incomprehensible, in a former life that he deserved this?
“You’re antagonizing him,” Thomas’s younger father chided. “Please don’t. We’re nearly there.”
A brush of fingertips atop his knee made Thomas jump from surprise and shift closer into the corner. He whipped his head around and saw his younger father was leaning with his hand outstretched toward his leg. Seeing Thomas’s reaction, he quickly drew it back.
Once upon a time, Thomas had reveled in the affection and attention he received from his younger father. The doting assurance of Thomas’s intellectual prowess and his loving embraces. The casual, playful fluff of Thomas’s hair with his fingers for no other reason aside from their mutual physical nearness.
When Thomas was little, his younger father used to tell him, “You were formed from the very best parts of Charles and I.” Thomas had genuinely believed him, then. He’d carried that confidence with him, always.
“I’ve heard good things about Lord Ashford,” his younger father said softly as he sat up straight once more. “I think this pairing will be comfortable for you.” His blue eyes were glossy and sincere, radiant despite the overcast light from the abysmal day outside.
Turning his head, Thomas ignored him. As if he cared about this pairing. As if he cared about anything other than seeing his elder father suffer.
When it came to his younger father, Thomas’s feelings were… complicated. The man had been acquiescent in all the brutal acts committed toward Thomas, without question. Inactive and never once lifting a finger to aid him when he needed it most. This in and of itself was a form of criminality. Like watching someone who was incapacitated slowly die of thirst, never attempting to bring them water.
