Chapter 149: Chapter 149

The triplets hated their father, collectively.

Not in the blood curdling kind of way.

In the way children despised meddling parents. It didn’t help that even if they were many decades older, he could still make them feel small, still called them, "Little shits." Lucien appeared whenever he felt like in either of their homes and crashed in on their parties like he wasn’t "an old bastard", like they dubbed him.

Their world had changed gravely.

They were born in a time where horses and carriages served as transport, where castles were great monuments and monarchy was the only method of ruling.

But as the years transversed swiftly, their world evolved. Kings became presidents, heads of states, governors and mayors, until the title lost its meaning and became something more of bloodlines than it had any major significance except the wealth and respect that came from being a part of history or a long dead line.

There were machines that did everything you needed it to, and sometimes, those machines spoke back.

The Lycans dwindled over time. They were never a vast number to begin with, but with the human machines and weapons, one day, they decided they had finally had enough of them and began hunting them. Some they kept for experiments, and when they realized they couldn’t quite learn how the Lycans functioned or what made them so divine, they decided they were more trouble than they were worth.

A lot of them died. It didn’t matter how much they fought back. The human population was more than a hundred times greater and they sought extermination.

Ebonheart was lost to history, and those of them left alive have scattered across the Earth, living mostly in serenity. Even the humans have blotted out their names from their history book.

But to the triplets growing frustration, their father, you see, refused to keel over and die.

Once in every little while, unpredictably, Lucien Draemont came down from the little mountain he had stolen their mother off to--all for himself, because Lucien decided one day that the triplets could get the fuck out and stop stressing the hell out of their mother... anyways. He often came down from that mountain, only to wreck havoc on his sons’ peace of mind.

As you must have noticed, even in their lives, he was an active main character. And it didn’t matter how many times they moved cities, change apartments, they couldn’t outrun him, couldn’t hide from him.

He just breezed in, in those outdated garments that still looked regal on him and his crown cinched to the side--more of a fashion statement than anything--whenever he wanted to, with a cheery smile, "Missed me?"

Of-fucking-course not.

The other week, Tristan, the rake amongst the three, brought home a woman from the club and their father prowled in at the moment she was sucking him off on the chaise. Dıscover more novels at nοvelfire.net

Then the woman decided she thought their father was sexier. And she began flirting with him, too.

It would have been a bloody spectacle if they didn’t know their father never saw anything except Mother. You could have paraded the entire country full of naked, beautiful women in front of him with nice tits and ass, and he wouldn’t even notice.

And when Penelope had hopped to him and called him Daddy, Lucien had looked disturbed, asked her if her father was lost. And when she explained it was just a kink she was into, he looked at all three of his sons and it was clear he was wondering where he had gone wrong in raising them. And he’d simply fled. He hadn’t returned in three months, thank fucking gods. Maybe their Mother finally has him held down in one place.

Jessamine, of course, never had the same problem. She was always their father’s favourite. She was the most pampered and she had a wistful, whimsical look about her. Like she was completely detached from reality and in a world where Daffodil petals were plucked and she could wish upon the stars for her prince charming.

It irked her brothers to no end, because old as Jessamine was, she was coddled and pampered and couldn’t tell when she was being lied to by men. She fell in love as easily as the breeze blew and they’d lost count of how many men they’d had to beat up in the last few decades whenever she showed up wailing, "He had a wife and four kids all along."

But of course, this part of the story isn’t Jessamine’s. Hers will follow... at some point, as all things run their due course.

Those words echo in the back of my mind repeatedly, until it is all I can hear, until all I can see is my mother’s face, pale from so much lost weight and failed rounds of chemo.

I still have my labcoat draped against my shoulders, still reek of the chemicals from the college’s laboratory, where I’d gotten the call. I didn’t have the money for a bus, having spent every dime and mortgaged our home for a loan for her treatment.

I’d wanted to be a doctor for her. Now I know I’ll never be one. I’ve lost faith in the universe. I’ve lost faith in whatever God they say exist.

I stare at my shoes with a sense of detachment. They’ve come apart at the soles. I never really could spare any cash to get myself another. A small laugh erupts from my chest. Shoes? I didn’t even have enough to bury her. Sinking is what I am. In loans. Too many now that the security at the banks already know what I look like and are more than eager to turn me away.

And it had all been for nothing.

I stare at the single dollar bill in my hand. I’d picked it off the bench at the park three hours ago, where I’d sat waiting for the tears to come. But they didn’t. And I have decided that my last meal will be a burger from the very best in the town of Rosemont.

The eyes of the guards by the door follow and I see them consider that I might be a thief. Or a beggar. But they let me through anyway. I go through the motions like a body possessed by someone else and I barely hear the words as I hand the money to the cashier and receive an extra large cheeseburger.

Sinking? More like drowning. It feels like my head is under water.

I don’t see or hear the car coming.

Too late do I realize I’m in the centre of the road and I gasp, falling to the ground as the Aston Martin slightly grazes my knee as the driver jerks to a halt.

My gaze falls on my burger. I watch it scatter. The lettuce and ham in the snow. The bread in the mud.

It is something so small. It could’ve been the way the mud splattered against my coat. Or the way the stranger peered at me like I was nothing. Like I was no one. Like I was inconsequential. Like I didn’t even exist. Like I belonged there, sprawled by his feet and he wouldn’t hesitate to step over or on me if I didn’t move.

Or maybe it was just how much of a terrible day I’d had.

But it began with slow tremors. And then, it became tearless sobs. What a shit day.

My vision swims. My head hurts. In my peripheral, I see the driver step out of his car. I see him walk around and stop by me, dressed in a dark suit, his head cocked to the side as he watches me sob.

And then, he reaches for his pocket, pulls out a hundred dollar bill, and tosses it at me. His voice is rough with a lilting forgotten accent, and his words are like a fuse to a temper I hadn’t known existed.

"Go die somewhere else."

My eyes bulge and my head snaps up. I could tell you that the driver was ruthlessly handsome, or that his skin was pale as moonlight, and that every angle of his face seemed to have been carved and curved with care, and there was a weird situation happening on his skin, glistening lines rolling like torques up his neck and his face.

But all of this is tertiary information for the cortex of my brain. The secondary message I received is crippling fear. There is something very wrong with him.

The primary information, however, is anger. I snatch the dollar bill off the ground, even as the traffic we have caused begins to honk and yell for us to get out of the way. I rise to my feet, though my legs shake, and I stare into a bizarre pair of eyes. "Excuse me?"

His face is made from stone. "You’re excused. Move. Or I will run you over."

I don’t. Purely out of surprise. You tell yourself that when someone speaks to you like you’re shit, you’ll lash out. You’ll respond in kind. But the truth is, it takes a few seconds to process the words. A few more seconds for it to sink in.

In those few seconds, he seems to come to a conclusion as his eyes track to where the note shakes in my fingers. "I see." He pulls out another bill and pushes it into the front pocket of my labcoat. "Enough?"

"I do not need your money!"

His eyes drift to my greasy hair. I haven’t washed it in days. Then my glasses hanging just to the side because the side frame is broken. They drag to my neck, my tattered shirt, my baggy jeans that keep getting bigger with the more weight I lose. And then, my ruined shoes. "I think you do."

I take a step forward, even as that part of my mind screams again that there is something behind those eyes. "Look, I do not know who you think you are. You do not just throw money at people in the streets like they’re beggars--"

"If it looks and smells like one, then it must be one."

I don’t know why I do it. It’s not the first time I’ve been bullied. It’s not the first time I’ve been insulted. I’ve had much worse than this, to be honest.

But it’s been a long day. And his words stink of condescension. It’s the worst kind. The kind that doesn’t come from a place of anger, but simple belief.

I slap him. And before I can bear the consequences of my actions, like being sued, I flee.