Page 6 of Thomas
Discreetly, Thomas glanced over at his face and those ridiculous blue eyes. There was an inherent innocence there. Thomas’s little brother, Oliver, held the same odd, beguiling quality in his visage. If Thomas had inherited all of his severe and pale physical traits from their elder father, Oliver had gotten everything softer and more appealing from the younger. Even their skin tone had that same warm, sun-kissed quality. They both seemed to glow with blamelessness or some indiscernible humility.
Thomas’s elder father had always been distant and cold. Hawkish in his dealings with the serving staff. Plain-spoken and curt to Thomas and his siblings. Thomas hadn’t seen the cruelty coming, but now that it had happened, he found he wasn’t surprised by it. In hindsight, it was a short leap across a chasmthat Thomas hadn’t thought his elder father was capable of making.
As for his younger father… was he some sort of hostage? Aside from passivity, what was his part in the strange bedlam that was their household?
“Lord Ashford has also distinctly rejected any traditional or celebratory practices as part of the terms within your bonding contract,” Thomas’s elder father explained. “Thus, no supervised mating attempts, banquets or wedding ceremony. A waste, in my opinion. But I imagine this gives yousomemodicum of comfort.”
Still looking out the window, Thomas declared, “The only thing I’d find comforting is your untimely demise?—”
Thomas jolted as the muscles and tendons in his throat suddenly constricted and burned. His hand flew up to his neck and his eyes widened. He couldn’t breathe.
“Charles, stop!”
At the sound of his younger father’s voice, the tension burning in his throat ceased. Thomas bent, coughing and with his eyes watering, desperate to draw in breath. When he glanced up in the midst of hacking his lungs out, his elder father’s eyes were glowing bright silver.
“He needs reminding of his place,” the man said, staring down at him with an emotionless expression. “I will not tolerate his continued impudence.”
Thomas sat up and back against the seat. He rested his head there with his eyes closed and concentrated on slowing his breathing. The ache in his throat was dry and throbbing and he felt weak all over, as if his body had suddenly remembered its former trauma and reverted back to that time.
They rode the rest of the way in silence. As the motor of the engine quietly hummed in the backdrop, Thomas fought off the urge to pity himself.
He couldn’t wield his vampiric nature the way his elder father did. That kind of power and manipulative control took years and a great level of discipline to master, if one ever achieved it. The sad truth was, physically, magically, he was powerless. Yes, he had morbid insults and cutting observations, but that only served as an annoyance to his elder father. Like being bitten again and again by a mosquito before slapping and crushing it.
His elder father would always win.
The land belonging to the Ashford Clan was sweeping and vast. They passed through an imposing gate that served as the main entrance to the estate, then across a stone bridge situated over a sprawling and reflective lake.
The estate sat in the open fields, mirrored beautifully in the placid waterfront. It reminded Thomas of a sculpture positioned at the center of a natural gallery. The front portico was Grecian in its architecture, but the building’s façade was the color of golden sandstone. Warm, bright and impenetrable to the dreary weather.
Their two cars pulled up to the front door, whereupon they were hastily greeted by several Ashford House servants. They shuffled about, helping to unload and bring Thomas’s luggage into the main foyer, then on to his room, he supposed.Mine and Lord Ashford’s, he thought grimly as he stepped out of the car and into the frosty air.
When he’d been informed that he had been essentially sold to Lord Ashford for marriage, Thomas had felt indifferent to the news. Even now, he had no idea what he was walking into. It didn’t matter. After being kept in total darkness, starved and abused for three months by his own fathers, he figured thatwhatever this new circumstance brought, it couldn’t possibly be as bad as that.
He decided to approach the situation with apathy until there was distinct cause for him to feel otherwise.
At the very least, the arrangement had put an end to Thomas’s elder father dragging him around to aristocracy parties in a weak attempt to pawn him off on some unsuspecting purebred for a bonding contract. Thomas had shrunk even further into himself from the shame and humiliation. As if anyone would have voluntarily chosen to be mated with a pale, silent and withdrawn husk of a vampire man with a sour disposition.
Or so he’d thought, anyway.
There hadn’t been any traditional formalities nor anticipatory meetings between himself and Lord Ashford. The unorthodox nature of the arrangement made Thomas feel like he was an item sitting on the final sale rack. Last chance to buy—no exchanges, returns or refunds.
As Thomas slowly rounded the car and moved toward the main double doors of Ashford House, he adjusted his overcoat. It hung limply on his tall frame, like most of his clothing post-imprisonment. He’d never been a particularly hefty purebred, but he’d at least been sturdy and finely muscled in a vaguely appealing way. That was gone now. The blood bags had helped to recover his basic strength, but he had little appetite for food these days.
Mira appeared in front of him and bowed courteously, making him pause. “My lord, shall I accompany you with your fathers, or would you like me to?—”
“Go and help with settling his things,” Thomas’s elder father commanded, rudely flicking his fingers. “Leave him be.”
Mira nodded, then hurried off to follow the other servants. She would live here with him, apparently. After Thomas hadbeen told the news of his arrangement, Mira had burst into his room, excited to tell him that she would be moving with him.
Thomas hadn’t cared.
They walked through the misting rain, beyond the portico with its towering pillars and into the warmth of the foyer. The walls inside were creamy and golden as well, and the floors gleamed beneath their feet, marbled and tiled with elegant, swirling designs in rich earth tones. An electric crystal chandelier hung from the high ceiling and cast flecks of light across the room.
Thomas inhaled, then started, blinking.This scent…The air within the estate felt familiar, somehow. Inherently comforting and disarming.
“Welcome to Ashford House, my lords. I am Lennon, primary manservant of the estate. Please follow me?” The grayed, not so tall and somewhat gangly first-gen man bowed politely, then lifted a hand toward a corridor as he walked forward.
He guided the three of them into an intimate sitting room with windows overlooking the expansive lake. Before Thomas could take in any further details, his attention zeroed in on the purebred already seated within the room.
