Page 53 of All That Has Flown Beyond
Kaiyo felt arms around him before his limp body was moved into the air, through it, onto something long and soft. A sofa. He opened his eyes. Ahmik’s frantic face met him.
“Need sleep. No ambulance.”
“Kaiyo…” The words were still coming, but they were just noise now.
“Sleep,” Kaiyo said and fell head-first into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER NINE
Kaiyo woke up in the past.
Ahmik’s scent was everywhere. It seeped into Kaiyo’s skin and robbed it of ink and scars. He woke up in the ghost of his seventeen-year-old self, haunting the place he called home. He blinked and expected to see another warm body beside him, amidst the smell of sleep and pack.
Kaiyo blinked again and raced through time.
His body ached. It was older, worn by growth and battle. The ghost dissipated, and he was left alone.
No. Not quite alone.
Kaiyo could feel it at once. The consequences of his actions. The price he had paid for saving Thea and Emil’s child. His Ousía wasn’t alone inside him anymore. It was tied to Garrow land. He would not be able to leave this place, not for months to come.
Kaiyo closed his eyes. The fucking irony of his life was the punchline blow of a bad joke.
Kaiyo tried not to acknowledge how good it felt. The sheer immenseness and simplicity of suddenly feeling like his Ousía wasn’t adrift anymore. It was anchored in a place he knew as well as he knew himself.
He could feel the Garrow pack too. The pain of that pleasure was inescapable. Kaiyo put a hand over his aching heart. There were no direct ties between him and the pack, but the earth they now had in common linked them together.
Kaiyo sat up with a groan. His muscles protested even as his Ousía sparked with life. He didn’t have to look around to know he was in Ahmik’s bed in the pack house. Even if he hadn’t recognized it, the land would have told him so.
Kaiyo slid to the edge of the bed, sitting for a moment as he tried to piece himself back together. He was just in his boxers, something he didn’t want to think much about, but the clothes he’d had on when they raced to Thea’s were folded neatly on the desk. After a moment, he gathered himself enough to stand up on shaky legs and put them on.
“Here goes nothing,” Kaiyo muttered as he approached the door. There was no escaping now.
He stepped outside the room carefully. It was quiet and still in the house, and he trod towards the bathroom, relieving himself and washing up slightly before returning to the hall. He startled slightly when he spotted Ahmik already waiting there, his eyes searching and intent.
“Are you okay?” Ahmik asked, taking an aborted step forwards. Kaiyo straightened his shoulders, masking his expression.
“Yes,” he said, a half lie. “Is the rest of the pack here?”
“I heard you wake up and called them. I thought…”
“No, that’s good. We need to talk. And I want to check up on Edu too.”
Ahmik frowned but nodded. He looked at Kaiyo for a moment with those deep, unfathomable eyes before turning and heading downstairs. Kaiyo didn’t sigh in relief but only because he knew Ahmik would hear him.
Kaiyo couldn’t help but take in the house as they went downstairs and into the kitchen. It was a lot shabbier than he remembered, not only as if affected by time but by neglect too. The wallpaper was stained, the wood floor dull, the windows a little dirty. It didn’t smell like food or pack. It smelt half-abandoned.
Kaiyo stepped into the kitchen distractedly, moving to make coffee before he knew what he was doing. Everything was still in a familiar place, and he only paused as he took out the filters from the cupboard. He turned to face Ahmik, who was standing, watchful, beside the round kitchen table in the middle of the room.
“Is this okay?” Kaiyo asked. Ahmik nodded, saying nothing, and Kaiyo turned back around.
Kaiyo was too preoccupied to pay much notice to the silence stagnating between them. He watched the water drip inside the coffee pot, feeling the new ties knotted inside him.
God. He was so fucked.
Kaiyo took a cup out for Ahmik. “Still take it the same?” he asked without turning around.
“Yeah.”
