And that’s why I was unable to turn the key. I pulled the key out of the lock and quickly hurried back to my car. I banged my head on the steering wheel, accidentally scaring myself when I made the horn go off.
Knowing what Matt had done in our home made my stomach turn.
Knowing it got him murdered would’ve done the trick, but fortunately or unfortunately I had already thrown up any food still in my stomach from lunch the previous day.
I had come home to a grisly scene. Matt, naked, laying in the center of our living room.
He had looked so perfect and peaceful, I almost didn’t notice the leather belt around his throat. As I stepped closer, I looked into his eyes and saw that they were blood red. I ran to him, checking for a pulse I already knew wasn’t there.
I can’t go back in that house. Even though my sister and her husband had already come by and cleaned everything, also changing the locks as whoever killed Matt also took his keys.
They left his phone behind though. And that’s how we know whoever came over had been invited. For sex.
With my husband.
Thatcher is tall and stocky like his father. He has wavy brown hair with sunkissed highlights, with a hairy chest and full beard already. He is nearly 21 years old, he spends a lot of time outside and loves to spend time on the beaches. Very handsome and charming, with a jovial manner. As the youngest son he has always been the less serious of his siblings. Thatcher prefers the company of men, of all different shapes and sizes. He prefers the loose fitting robes/kaftans typically worn by the wealthy of Viridia, he’s also frequently barefoot, something less common.
The story takes place in the nation of Viridia and begins just after the year of mourning has officially ended following the deaths of Princesses Claudia and Charlotte when the story kicks off. The Princesses died in an ‘accidental’ carriage wreck, and both Princes were supposed to be with them but had been detained by the King.
Thatcher is the wild younger son, interested in chasing boys and having a good time while his brother worries about preparing to be the next King. The story opens with a scene of Thatcher having an endearing moment with his father in the study before they head to a banquet to send Prince Richard and his newly pregnant wife off on a tour of the Viridian Isles in the Channel. Princess Mary and her family are in attendance and plan to stay in the city for an extended period during the next few months, her husband has stayed behind to rule the city and is not present.
After sharing a moment the following morning with his brother where Richard explains he has found some letters that lead him to be unsure if the child carried by Nadia is his or not. Thatch reassures him and convinces him to try and enjoy himself and not confront Nadia while on the progress before sending him on his way. Thatch shares a brief moment with a former lover, Sir Phillip, who is accompanying his brother on the journey. Thatch proceeds to return back to his laid back lifestyle, enjoying the time before he turns 21 and his father forces him to join the royal navy, where he is expected to one day be named High Admiral by his brother when King.
After a few months, the ships carrying the crown prince has returned with just the Princess claiming that during a storm they got separated from the other ships and Richard was thrown overboard. Nadia is now heavily pregnant, due within the next month or so. With Richard presumed dead, Thatcher becomes the temporary heir until Nadia gives birth, when he will be supplanted by his new niece or nephew. Thatch is just fine with this scenario, as he has no desire to be the next King.
One thing keeps bothering him though, the news his brother shared and the suspicious timing of his brothers disappearance. Could Richard have confronted Nadia about the letters and something happened? When one of the missing ships returns, with the captain telling of an attack by Sibirsk Thatch gets more suspicious with this conflicting story. He confronts Nadia who blames it on being distressed and pregnant and misspeaking. This makes him even more suspicious, and he starts looking into the situation. Thatch meets with a groom of Nadias household who reveals that Nadia has indeed been having an affair with none other than her cousin Lord Lyle, who is the real father of her child. The groom also reveals he believes that the attack on their ships was no accident.
Thatch goes to Lyles chambers to confront him, and finds he is gone, and waits with Lyles husband, Lord Tyber. Hes upset and starts asking questions, and Tyber distracts him with wine and seduces him. Following their encounter, Thatch falls asleep, and wakes when he hears a sob, and opens his eyes to see Tyber standing over him with a knife. Tyber immediately drops the knife and starts sobbing, and confesses he had been put up to it by Lyle, who threatened to kill him if he didn’t help.
Tyber reveals that Kalen and Lyle have hatched a plot beginning with the marriage of Nadia to the Crown Prince. Nadia resented the arranged marriage and her new husband, and was easily seduced by Lyle to become his lover. After getting pregnant, they hatched the plot with Nadias father/Kalens brother, the king of <foreign nation> to kill Richard and have Nadia return home with Lyles child in her womb, where they planned to poison the King once the baby was born and Lyle/Kalen would rule the Kingdom through the infant child and Nadia, with support from their homeland.
Tyber says they planned to kill Thatch to ensure the King doesn’t name him regent and prevent their rule. Tyber apologizes and confesses his love for Thatch, and begs him to run away with him. Thatch is convinced his father can solve this mess, and tells tyber to go to his chambers and wait while he fetches the king.
Upon entering the kings study, he finds his father alone, on the ground having been stabbed repeatedly. His father dies in his arms while he sobs, screaming for help that isn’t coming. After his fathers last breath, he looks down and sees that his father was murdered with the dagger he and Richard gave him for his birthday, that matches his own dagger perfectly. As he picks up the bloody dagger and stands up over his fathers body, Mikhail enters the chamber, sees the bloody scene and screams and runs off.
Thatch runs out, and tries to explain what happened to Mikhail and runs directly into his cousin Eleanor. He tells her what has happened and she tells him to go wait in his chambers and she will go find Queen Agatha to sort everything out.
He returns to his chambers and finds tyber sleeping peacefully having exhausted himself from crying. He bolts the door behind him, and as he paces and tries to make sense of what happened he notices someone trying to unlock his door. When he calls out, he discovers it is Lyle with the royal guards who have come to arrest him.
He wakes tyber, and is able to escape out a secret passage he usually uses to sneak his lovers in and out of the palace, and him and tyber make their way to the temple to find his grandmother the high priestess. His grandmother hides them both in the temple so she can try to figure out how to clear his name.
Over the next two weeks she discovers that Queen Agatha has been placed under house arrest in her chambers and accused of working with Thatch to steal the throne for her son and is accused of planning to murder Nadia to place Thatch on the throne. Celle discovers her daughter Mary is in on the plot as well at this time, making it clear the minor branch of the family has been plotting to seize power.
It is also revealed that the carriage accident that killed the princesses was no accident, and the plan was to wipe out all of Brindens possible heirs. Nadia gives birth to a son, who is declared King by the usurpers, with a regency council named to rule the nation for the next 20 years.
After much debate over what to do, Thatch decides that he must flee, but first he must to return to the palace and collect money and jewels he needs to start a new life in exile. He makes it into the palace, and is stabbed in the side as he gathers his things.
“Patsy come along, we must be getting on to Washington Palace or we will miss the ceremony,” Thomas Jefferson chastised his teenage daughter. As he spoke, he had to take a second look at his daughter who seemed to have become her mother reincarnated overnight. The same long, dark hair, the same fair skin and green eyes, and unfortunately for him, the same stubborn headedness.
“I am coming Papa, I don’t know what the rush is, we’ve already seen that dreadful place; and it’s quite laughable to refer to it as a palace if you ask me.”
“Yes my dear, I quite agree. Once I ascend the throne your first task will be to update the place to remind us more of our beautiful Monticello.”
“I don’t understand why we can’t just live at Monticello, you will be the King, don’t you get to decide?,” Patsy complained as they climbed into the carriage for the short drive to the new official residence of the King.
“Yes, well I have every intention of us spending as little time as possible in this dreaded city, don’t worry my pet we will be back in Monticello before you know it. This place will be used for diplomatic entertainments.”
“If you say so Papa.”
As the carriage bounced along the newly constructed roads with Patsy going on about the latest gossip in the capital, Jefferson reflected on his current situation. King George was in his late sixties and in poor health, he couldn’t be expected to live for much longer. Then Thomas would be able to begin reforming the nation to fit more to the idea of what he hoped it would turn out to be.
The King had faded in popularity, starting with his backing of the French monarchy during the attempted revolution by the Third Estate. King George and Ambassador Franklin may have been able to save the French monarchy, but it had put the young American monarchy at risk. The first thing Thomas intended to do was sever the unpopular French alliance, and rebuild a relationship with their former rulers in Britain. Thomas understood that the French monarchy likely wouldn’t survive another attempted revolution and the English offered a much more stable relationship if they could get over the whole revolutionary war situation.
“Papa! You aren’t listening to a word I’m saying are you?” Patsy interrupted his thoughts of the future when she realized he hadn’t spoken nearly the whole ride.
“Yes of course I am my pet, so and so is scandalized by so and so, I’m sure it’s quite the drama.”
“You know, for a future King I would expect you to have a lot more interest in the happenings of the court.”
“Well if I took an interest, then what would you do? Is that not what I have you for? Now, come along, we’ve arrived, it’s time to get this over with.”
The carriage had pulled up to their destination, and Thomas prepared himself to deal with the crowd that he would be forced to be polite and generous to. Patsy climbed out of the carriage with a roll of her eyes and a grin for her charming, yet difficult father. Thomas alighted from the carriage, and as he did so, a groom stumbled into him.
“Watch it boy, have you no sense of how to walk?”
The young man was having a hard time disentangling himself from Thomas, and he suddenly looked up into Thomas’s eyes with a malevolence Thomas hadn’t seen since the Great War with Britain.
“The Prince Regent sends his regards.”
“Pardon me, wha-“, the rest of Thomas’s words were cut off as the groom plunged a knife into his chest. Suddenly the world seemed to go silent, until Thomas saw Patsy turn around to see what was happening, and let loose a blood curdling scream.
The groom dropped Thomas to the ground, and absconded into the crowd. Patsy collapsed sobbing, pulling her father into her lap as life quickly drained from him.
What could this remarkable creature be? I’ve never seen something quite like it. It reminds me of the little stuffed toys I’ve seen, what were they called? Teddies or something like that?
I wonder how large these creatures got. With a fierce face, I imagine it had to have been massive, at the very least the size of my motorbike.
It says here that they were kept as pets. I can’t imagine having something quite so terrifying wandering around my apartment. It had to have eaten voraciously, I doubt with the food shortages we could even sustain it. I wonder if that’s why there are no more pets left in Springfield?
