Chapter 18 #2
“I’ve noticed that,” he said, turning to knock the ashes against the outer ledge of the window so that they fell outside.
When he finished, he let the cigar dangle over the floor.
The smoke coiled and gathered in a hazy cloud above their heads.
“I appreciate that—more than you can ever know. But I do feel I owe you some explanations.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Cameron assured him, sitting up straighter. “I hope that you never feel like you have to… I don’t know, pay me back for anything I’ve—”
“No, that isn’t what I mean. It’s more that I want to…
” Thomas took a deep breath and his throat bobbed.
He lifted his free hand to his forehead and pressed his palm there for a long moment.
With his eyes closed, he said, “I don’t remember this winter solstice party—where we first met.
The Havenwrath estate. I can’t remember it because a lot of things are fuzzy after the… after my fathers had me…”
“You don’t need to tell me anything you’re not comfortable with,” Cameron said softly, sensing the stress and panic rolling off his body.
“I know,” Thomas said, his distress not ebbing at all. “But I want to say it! I need to be able to say it and I want you to know so I can… Will you listen?”
“Of course.” Instinctively, Cameron reached and took hold of the cigar. As soon as Thomas’s hands were free, he lifted both palms to his face and took a deep breath.
“Thank you,” Thomas mumbled. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry, you’re fine.” Cameron made quick work snuffing the cigar out along the outer brick ledge of the window. Thomas dropped his hands into his lap and stared out beyond the glass. The glow from the silver crescent moon alighted his profile.
Tentatively, Cameron reached over and grasped one of his hands. Thomas had offered him a similar kindness earlier, so Cameron wanted to reciprocate the sentiment.
Thomas gripped his palm in return, then took another breath. “I mentioned Dawn to you before, do you remember?”
“Yes, of course,” Cameron said. “You loved her.”
Thomas’s eyes scanned Cameron’s face as if searching.
“I did… I asked my elder father for permission to wed her. He refused, and so she and I decided to elope in secret. We were saving up our allowances and planning to take the ferry to England. We wanted to make a life for ourselves, unattached to the aristocracy. But we never made it because somehow, my elder father found out. When he did, he… he had me imprisoned.”
The words were so shocking and strange that Cameron felt he hadn’t heard them correctly. “Imprisoned?” he reiterated, wanting to make certain he understood. “How? Where?”
“Our estate is very old, and beneath it lies a horrifying channel of dungeons and torture chambers, likely from the time of the Clan Wars. He placed me within one of these dungeons and left me there for three months—”
Cameron’s gasp was so sudden and loud that it made Thomas falter. “Three months? How—I cannot understand how…” Cameron shook his head, his heart racing.
“Yes. For three months, he left me in total darkness,” Thomas went on, much more calmly than Cameron felt. “He… he fed me subpar blood from bags that made me very ill. Eventually I rejected them in totality and stopped feeding. I thought I would die there. I thought that was his intent. To kill me.
“But when I had refused to feed for some weeks, they pulled me out of the dungeon and bathed me. I was thrust back into the light as if nothing had happened. They started providing higher-quality blood bags for me—yours, unbeknownst to all of us. I was expected to eat, attend parties and carry on until he found a mate that was willing to pay what they deemed I was worth. My fathers drained the money I had saved in my personal account while I was in the dungeon, so I was totally dependent upon them.”
Thomas took another breath before the tale of his nightmarish experience began flowing once more. “It was a lesson, for me and for everyone in my estate, I believe. An example of what would happen if anyone disobeyed his commands.”
Cameron sat staring into the dark room as he listened—a myriad of emotions racing through his heart, mind and body.
He was deeply disturbed and disgusted. Enraged and aghast. He and Lennon had suspected that Thomas had likely suffered from an abusive environment within his home estate, but he could never have fathomed something like this. Something so sickening and barbaric.
Thomas squeezed Cameron’s palm, and it refocused his attention on the man. He turned his head in the silence, meeting Thomas’s glassy eyes.
“I wanted to tell you all of this because I think… perhaps the experience has done something to my memory?” Thomas went on, stressed and rubbing his free hand into his hair.
“I can’t remember a lot of things prior to the dungeon—but it isn’t because you were unremarkable or unimportant, Cameron.
It’s nothing like that! I don’t… I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I am trying—and I can eat again, and gain weight, so that’s something, isn’t it? Progress, you might say—”
“Thomas, please.” Cameron said the words softly. The tears were running down Thomas’s cheeks. Cameron reached for him. “May I?”
Thomas shifted his leg down, scooted closer and leaned into Cameron’s embrace. Cameron held him around his shoulders and Thomas wrapped his arms around his waist beneath his jacket. Thomas’s body trembled from his silent sobs and Cameron pulled him in tighter.
They stayed glued together in the windowsill, the heavy snow falling just beyond the glass. Cameron held Thomas, grateful for him in his arms. Grateful that he was here, now, and no longer in that dreadful castle. No longer bound to his sadistic, negligent and truly criminal fathers.
A quiet thought drifted across Cameron’s mind.
He wondered if this was why Thomas might be drawn to him—because Cameron’s bags just so happened to be the first quality blood source that Thomas had received after his torture.
Thomas’s affection for him could be rooted in the simple relief of no longer being abused.
That might very well be the case, and Cameron had no way of ever knowing otherwise.
Regardless, in that quiet moment with Thomas wrapped in his embrace, Cameron vowed to himself that whatever he needed to do to ensure that Thomas had a good life from this day forward, he would do it.
Thomas’s utmost safety and contentment would be Cameron’s priority.
Thomas sniffed. When he spoke, his voice was husky. “I’m sorry, Cameron. I had envisioned myself being able to keep it together much better than this when I finally told you. With some semblance of dignity, at least.”
“Please stop apologizing to me. You have nothing to apologize for.” Cameron pulled up to give him space, but Thomas’s palms lingered on his waist. “Thank you for telling me what you’ve been through.
I… I’m grateful that you trust me with it.
” Cameron reached inside of his jacket to pull a silk handkerchief from his pocket.
He handed it to Thomas, who took it without objection.
He dabbed his eyes and the crusted tears there. “I’m a wreck.”
“I think you’re beautiful.”
Thomas paused, staring at him, and Cameron’s eyes widened because he’d surprised even himself.
Where the hell did that come from? “Wh-what I mean is,” Cameron stammered on as Thomas sat there, batting his heavy lashes in quiet bewilderment, “you… um, you remind me of snowdrops.” He reached up with his palm to massage the back of his neck.
God, he was making an utter mess of things. Why was he so terrible at this?
“Snowdrops are resilient flowers,” Cameron went on, not daring to meet his eyes.
“They break through the murky soil and are the first bright signs of life after the bareness of winter. They brave the harshest elements as the season turns—dips in the temperature, violent winds and torrents of rain. And yet they withstand it all and are ethereal and elegant. You… you remind me of that.”
Chancing a glance, Cameron shifted his eyes over to him. Thomas’s mouth had been agape when he’d made the initial proclamation, but it was closed now. There was a slight upturn of his lips.
“Thank you, Cameron.”
“I am not trying to accost you, to be clear.”
Thomas’s smile widened. “I didn’t think you were.”
“Because that would be obscene. I just meant that your resilience is beautiful… to me.”
A soft knock at the door surprised them both and made them turn their heads.
The door cracked open. Two small vampires in matching cozy pajamas came bursting inside.
The pattern covering the pajamas was a familiar series of playful and cutesy foxes smiling and tumbling around.
Cameron had bought them as a gift not too long ago.
“Uncle Cam Cam!” Robby, the youngest, charged forward, and Cameron stood to receive him. The moment he was within reach, he grabbed him by the waist and lifted him high overhead. The boy screamed with delight, as always, while Cameron twirled him around.
“Me next, me next!” Heath danced impatiently beneath Cameron, the top of his head reaching to just above Cameron’s wait. He’d grown a little taller since Cameron’s last visit.
Cameron growled like a bear as he set Robby on the floor, then switched to lift and twirl Heath. Both boys shrieked in merriment.
“You always come and hide in here when we have parties—you’re so predictable,” Rachelle teased, sauntering forward with Henry at her side, their palms clasped.
Haphazardly tucking Heath sideways and underneath his arm, Cameron turned to Thomas. “These are my nephews.” He pointed respectively with his free hand. “Thing One and Thing Two.”
“Don’t introduce our children that way!” Rachelle snapped, attempting to pull the giggling Heath from underneath Cameron’s armpit. Henry laughed, and Thomas did as well.
“That’s what they looked like when they were born,” Cameron explained, relinquishing his hold on Heath and letting Rachelle set the boy upright. “Little, squirmy vampire things. I’ll always think of them that way.”
“You’re despicable.”
“Thomas.” Henry politely cut into their usual sibling banter. “This is our eldest son, Heathcliff, and our youngest, Robert, whom we affectionately refer to as Heath and Robby… unless you’re Cameron, of course. Heath will be six this year and Robby just turned three.”
“It’s lovely to meet you both,” Thomas said, crouching down to the boys’ shorter statures. “My name is Thomas. I’m your uncle Cam Cam’s partner, like your mom and dad.”
Heathcliff marveled at this, his eyes brightening. “Does that mean Uncle Cam Cam is going to have kids someday, too?”
Cameron didn’t know what his expression looked like in that moment, but Rachelle slapped his bicep in a fierce and quick motion.
“Fix your face,” she scolded. For Cameron, the thought of having and being responsible for children was akin to the thought of having and being responsible for worms in his ears.
Henry laughed, well accustomed to Cameron and Rachelle’s antics. Thomas smiled… fondly?
“The boys wanted to see you before you snuck away,” Rachelle said. “And I want to have a private word with Thomas.”
Cameron tensed. “What? Why?”
She frowned. “Because he’s my new brother-in-law and we should be allowed a moment alone together to talk.”
“No, you shouldn’t,” Cameron protested. “To talk about what? What on Earth is there to discuss?”
“Now, now,” Henry chimed in calmly. He stepped over and took hold of Cameron’s elbow. “Come help me put the boys to bed, and—” Henry paused, sniffing. “Did you have a cigar in here?”
“We did,” Cameron said, shrugging. “We opened the window. Thomas likes the 1964 Anniversary Maduro.”
“Ah, then I know what to give you for a wedding gift,” Henry said, pulling Cameron along. “Come with me. Rachelle has already decided on her gift.”
“What gift?” Cameron said a little hysterically.
He was being dragged away by Henry and the two boys and it was all happening too quickly.
He didn’t want to leave Thomas alone with his bossy, pain-in-the-arse sister for fear of what she might say to him.
Especially after the very emotional moment they’d just had.
“It’s alright, Cameron, I’m fine,” Thomas said reassuringly as he turned to re-latch and close the window. “You don’t need to worry.”
“I won’t bite him, for God’s sake,” Rachelle added.
Cameron groaned, but then allowed himself to be dragged from the study and down the hall toward the boys’ adjoining rooms.