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“You will feel all over once you sink your teeth into her neck, boy. Now hurry up, drain her,” he snapped at his son. Thomas, looking terrified, shook his head, and I noticed, like me; Thomas was power born, a rarity, not many are born with magic. He was already picking up on his gifts long before he was old enough for manifestation. Tobias also knew this and knew his brother would be punished and locked in his room away from him if he didn't do as he was told. He also knew Thomas couldn't hurt the woman.
When neither boy moved to do as they're told, the father became even angrier. He grabbed Thomas by the back of his neck and dragged him closer, forcing his face into the woman’s neck. The woman whimpered as Thomas thrashed against his father’s grip.
“One of you will finish her, or it is a week in the cellar; now choose,” his father bellowed while his son wailed in his grip. Shakily, Tobias stepped forward, trying to look brave. “I'll do it,” he murmured before a sob escaped him. He doesn’t want to hurt her. He didn't want to bite her. Vampiric-Fae were born with fangs, relied on blood, and they were just curious where their parents went every day at tea time, so they followed and peeked through the door. Their curious minds not realizing what they would witness by doing so. They didn't expect it to be like this, not truly understanding the meaning of what they were yet because they were so young, curiosity got the better of them.
His father looked over at him and shoved away his twin, who fell down beside the table. “Go on then,” his father waved him forward. Tobias hesitantly took a step forward. He swallowed, staring down at the petrified woman slowly bleeding out on the table. He hesitated only for a second until his father gripped the back of his neck, forcing it into her bleeding neck.
Tiny fangs protruded past his lips as a foreign hunger took over Tobias, something he didn’t truly understand, it reminded him of how much he loved his juice cups each day. Yet knowing the source of where the addictive sweetness came from scared him. He shook his head, tears trekking down his face as he realized where his juice came from each morning and where his parents went every night to feast on the flesh of others and drain their lives. For his childlike mind, it was shocking but not as shocking as his father's twisted anger when he couldn't bring himself to do it.
His father's angry roar made him jump. Meanwhile, the father gripped Thomas by his hair and forced him against the table.
“On with it,” his father snapped and snarled, thrusting a knife into his brother's hand. Thomas shook like a leaf in a strong gust as he tried to resist.
“Please, daddy,” he begged and pleaded as the woman sobbed, knowing her death was sure to come. His father gripped his brother's hand and hovered the knife above her heart while Thomas fought not to take her life. Feeling her fear and reliving it, Tobias knew if his brother did it, he wouldn't be able to shut her death out. That he would feel every second of her life slipping away along with his.
Tobias shoved his brother's hand away, earning a snarl from his father, but he ignored the sound to whisper into his brother's ear.
“Close your eyes, Thomas,” Tobias whispered consolingly as tears pricked his eyes once more, his vision turning to a blur as Tobias did as he was told, and Tobias sinks his teeth into the woman's neck. She thrashed against him as he gave himself over to instinct, taking her life so his brother wouldn't feel it, so that he wouldn't have her blood on his hands.
No, Tobias would carry the burden of her death, not Thomas. Even at this young age, Tobias understood the full weight of what he had done, what he had taken from the woman who was now staring up with wide vacant eyes at the ceiling.
The light had gone from her eyes, and the color drained from her skin, her lips turning shades of blue. He took her life as her body turned cold before his innocent eyes that saw too much and couldn't unsee what he had done. His rose-colored glasses of his parent’s were removed, and he saw the monsters they truly were. Human life meant little to them, and he vowed not to be like them.
As the memory faded and a new one took its place, I found that Tobias was always Thomas' protector. He did the things he knew Thomas couldn't handle. With each passing day, he was sure that more and more of his humanity left him, leaving a cold-hearted monster.
In this memory as it twisted and formed, Tobias was in his early teens. He waited impatiently for the Demonic-King to arrive. The blood of his father's latest victim stained his lips, and once again, Tobias was forced to take another life. He stared off vacantly, head held high as he was taught from the day he could walk.
Tobias was of royal blood, his parents are the well known Vampiric-Fae, King Aldric Kade and Queen Beverly Kade. A title bestowed to him once he came of age. He was to be the next King. A title he didn't really want but to spare Thomas, he would take it.
I watched as Darius walked in with his father, the Demonic-Fae King, Xandrious Wraith, a respected council elder like his father and a ruler of a barbaric Kingdom. But Tobias knew that in both cases, such respect was built on fear and not earned. Darius followed behind his father, eyes ahead and vacant. Tobias found himself doing the same, something that was unsettling and unnatural to see but also something so familiar.
He had grown up around Darius but ruled by their father's iron fists, neither really spoke. They obeyed as good sons should. They attended all the same functions, sat at tables together, and sat side by side but never spoke.
Yet today, he found Darius staring at him as he approached. Tobias met his gaze and saw the same dead look in Darius' eyes he saw every morning in his own reflection in the mirror. It was no secret what Darius was. Everyone knew he had extraordinary gifts for a boy his age, but unlike Thomas his weren’t kept secret. Darius had gifts that elders wished they had, his dark magic was feared even as a child. Tobias also knew he was King Xandrious’ greatest weapon.
“Tobias, take Darius here for a walk around the castle, his father and I have much to discuss, and I want no interruptions,” his father ordered. As they both left the ballroom, he tipped his head to his father, and so did Darius. They walked without speaking, walked in silence, when Tobias stopped abruptly, staring off at the river at the back of the castle.
“Darius?” Tobias called, having spoken the boy's name for the first time. Darius' cold, calculating eyes peered at him momentarily before they glanced away back to the river.
“Your brother is upset,” Darius spoke so coldly and calmly it sent chills up Tobias’ spine as he watched the Demonic-Fae boy point toward the trees. Tobias followed his hand, his shoulders sagging wondering what his mother had done to him this time.
“Wait here,” Tobias said, about to cross the manicured lawns to fetch him when Darius' hand fell on his shoulder. He fished in his pocket and retrieved a handkerchief from inside his suit pocket.
“Clean up, you have blood in the corners of your lips, and your brother is an empath. He shouldn't scent her death,” Darius told him. Tobias, shocked, returned the glare.
“Her?” Tobias asked, and Darius nods his head. “It gets easier. Eventually, you will feel nothing,” Darius said.
“What do you mean, Thomas is not an empath?” Tobias lied. Darius raised an eyebrow at him.
“Death, that gets easier. As for your brother, I won't say anything. His secret is safe with me,” Darius reassured him. Tobias and Thomas had gone to extreme lengths to hide what he was from their parents. And now Tobias worried, with a rival kingdom's son holding knowledge that would surely get Thomas beaten by their father.
“How?” Tobias asked, accepting the handkerchief.
“I can feel his magic,” he said, simply crossing the lawns to get Thomas himself.
Yet as they approached, they found Thomas sitting on the ground, hugging his pet rabbit to his chest. Tobias gasped and rushed to his brother's side.
“She killed him, she killed him,” he sobbed. Thomas had raised the baby rabbit himself after its mother tried to kill it. He had it for three years.
