"You actually showed up. How unexpected."
The voice came out in a near growl, fury bubbling up within it. The longer Theron had spent away, the more the Patriarch had learned about just how much this little bastard had screwed him over.
It started in small ways. But it continued to bubble forth until there was no denying it at all.
Even when Patriarch Thistle thought that things were in his control, they weren't at all.
Theron was responsible for it all.
From Burne's, his most trusted aid's, death. To Thornhulk, the son of a valued vassal that turned against them because Theron assassinated him. To the deaths of Lani and Surgen, this brothers' sons and the fallout that nearly crushed the Thistle Clan as a result afterward.
Everything Patriarch Thistle learned made him feel like he was losing his mind. This boy had been beneath his thumb to the point that even his wife was a facade to make them think they had a weak point on him that didn't exist at all.
