Page 92 of Thomas
Scowling, Thomas shook his head. “Who the devil are you talking about?”
The viscount hastily stood and went to his husband’s side, attempting to support him. His elder father shrugged him off with a violent snatch of his arm. “Prince Alexander! Tell—Makehim apologize. It is—it’s your duty to this family. To—” He coughed again, spraying vile debris from his mouth and spitting. “To uphold our honor! You—my eldest son?—”
Thomas barked a laugh so loud that the elder vampire physically jumped. When the silence between them had bloated profoundly, Thomas said, as clearly as he could muster and with his whole chest, “Absolutely not. You must be out of your fucking mind.”
The pause after that statement was brief and charged with a subtle electric force that tingled across Thomas’s skin. Without warning, his elder father rushed forward, his eyes alighted white-silver as his skeletal hands lurched to grip Thomas’s neck.
Within that split second, Thomas’s nature unfurled and sprang to life and his own eyes alighted. He lifted his palms to—He didn’t know what. Push the man? Stop him in his assault, surely. Protect himself. Whatever the intention, the result was unlike anything he’d ever seen or done in his life.
It was as if his aura had concentrated itself and pulsed outward in a flash of glittery aqua heat and light. His elder father never made contact, because he was blown backward violently and away from Thomas’s body.
The man’s head made an ugly smacking sound against the hard wall before he fell limply onto the floor. There was blood on the wall where his head had made contact. His body jerked, then went completely still in a mangled heap.
Thomas’s eyes burned out and he gasped. He took a step back and bumped into Cameron, his spine pressed against his broad chest. His mind was reeling.What the hell just happened?
The viscount ran over to his mate and dropped to his knees. “Charles!” he called, his voice desperate.
“Did I… Have I killed him?” Thomas asked slowly, blinking and shaking his head because this no longer felt like reality. “Is he—is he dead?”
“Charles! No—no, this can’t be. Not like this, please.” His expression wild, the viscount turned to Cameron and Thomas. “I need to feed him, but go get help,please.”
Thomas didn’t think his legs were working, but when Cameron wrapped a heavy arm around his shoulders and guided him out of the room, Thomas moved without resistance. In the hallway, Cameron told Mira to go get one of the servants. She nodded and took off running down the corridor.
“Cam, I—I’ve never done—I don’t know how?—”
“I know,” Cameron said, embracing and pulling him into the warmth of his body. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Thomas was trembling, crying and terrified, but he wrapped his arms around Cameron’s waist and let himself be held. He was also definitely getting snot on Cameron’s shirt, which he would be severely embarrassed about later. Thomas pressed his face into him anyway and held on for dear life, gripping the material in his fists and willing his body to stop shaking. He didn’t know what else to do but take refuge in his personal safe harbor.
The days following Thomas’s visit to his home estate were quiet and soft. The sun shone golden and warm in Upper Avalon. A healing light for Thomas’s peaceful refuge.
He didn’t speak much. Mostly, he sat around on various comfy couches, window ledges and armchairs with a mug of cappuccino or herbal tea cupped within his palms. A knit blanket thrown over his lap and a book at his side.
Cameron had bought him another bouquet of white tulips, and it had made Thomas smile. Sometimes, his mate sat snuggled against him, or beside him and with Thomas’s feet in his lap, while they mutually read—a heavy palm rested on Thomas’s knee or thigh. Always present but demanding nothing of him.
His mate didn’t ask probing questions about how Thomas had accomplished such a spectacular feat with his aura—something it usually took purebreds years and years to master, if at all. He didn’t ask how Thomas was feeling, which was a relief, because Thomas didn’t know himself. There were many feelings, but none of them weresatisfied, like he had conjectured. Or like his elder father had acerbically asserted.
Cameron didn’t ask any questions, but he did offer information. The morning after their visit, he came into the lower library to tell Thomas that his elder father had not died. He was in worse shape—a coma, apparently—after the nasty knock on his head but still alive.
Yet again, Thomas’s feelings had been mixed. For all his grandiose declarations to murder his elder father when he’d first moved to the Ashford estate, in the true face of it, he’d practically fallen apart. Back then, he’d envisioned himself setting the castle ablaze and striding away triumphantly in a dark and fashionable trench coat that swayed around his ankles in the wind (he didn’t know why this specific article of clothing was paramount in the fantasy, but it was).
Or he had imagined himself orchestrating some clever scheme,Count of Monte Cristostyle, that would have led to his elder father’s complete ruination and subsequent impoverished death. Again, a remarkable vengeance.
But the ruination had already happened. Not by his hands but by the ones who came after him. Oliver. Prince Alexander. Even the viscount, perhaps? Hudson and the staff that abandoned him. A veritable domino effect of misfortune after misfortune.
Thomas had never envisioned himself as the closer. To be the one to go in and finish the job when his elder father was already so… pitiful and revolting. Technically, that wasn’t hisrole, because the man was still breathing, for now. Instead, he was another misfortune to fall upon his head. Another domino.
“Shall we walk the gardens this evening? It was warm out today and the cherry blossoms are starting to bloom. Green things are popping up all over.” Cameron took a sip of his red wine to give Thomas a moment to think it over.
They were having dinner. A week had passed since the awful incident with his fathers and Thomas had been moping around long enough. He nodded. “Yes, I’d like some fresh air. That sounds perfect.”
After they’d had dessert and given Sulee their sincere thanks, they walked the paved garden paths beneath the purple-coral twilight sky. Birds were chirping prettily and flitting among the pear trees. The air was warm against Thomas’s skin. Cameron’s palm was also warm and firm in his own, and it was quiet. Peaceful.
Thomas inhaled deeply, wanting to take all of it into his lungs. Into his being. Spring was fast approaching, and he was alive and in love and safe. He had a wonderful mate and books and responsibilities that he enjoyed. He could travel, explore and discover. Truly, he had a good life, and he was beyond grateful for it.
“One thing,” he said without preamble as they stopped along the pear trees to take in the emergent leaves and birdsong.
“Mm?” Cameron hummed.
