Page 105 of All That Has Flown Beyond
This wasn’t heat or desire or impulsivity. Kaiyo knew the shape and feel of this kiss. It had been a long time since he let himself feel it in this form.
“Okay,” Kaiyo agreed, closing his eyes.
He felt at home.
**********
The muscles of Kaiyo’s shoulders and arms had suffered some damage, but the doctor told him it would heal with time and some physical therapy. Soon, the episode would be erased from his body.
Ahmik and the pack had handed over the three witches to the council, and they had sung with minimal pressure, giving away the ‘buyer’. That was the thing with hiring mercenaries—loyalty had to be earned, not bought.
Ahmik insisted on Kaiyo staying for a few days at the pack house after he was released from the hospital, arms still weak enough to need help with tasks such as cooking and buttoning his clothes. Kaiyo didn’t protest. He was tired of swimming against the current.
It was strange, lying in what used to be his pack house bed after being hurt. It had been too common an occurrence after the death of most of his pack. He remembered Thea and Ahmik’s tense anger, their worry. The way they took care of him despite the way they felt.
Kaiyo closed his eyes. He felt he had come full circle. The place he was in looked the same but was completely different. This wasn’t the injury of a reckless teenager. This was a place that had been weathered by storms. That had learnt to stand strong against them, growing wise to the elements.
“Hey,” Ahmik said, entering Kaiyo’s room when he was given a welcoming nod.
Kaiyo lowered his knees, where an e-reader had been propped up on a pillow so he didn’t strain his arms. He shifted to the side slightly as Ahmik sat at the edge of the bed.
“How are your arms?”
“Better.”
“Good.” Ahmik looked down. Slowly, he took one of Kaiyo’s hands in both of his before looking up again.
Kaiyo didn’t have to be a seer to know what was about to happen. He could feel it in the ache of his muscles, in the relief of their movement, in the flow of his blood. In a way, this conversation should take place somewhere else. Out in the moonlight, standing up and facing each other. In the climax of battle, when time was just running out.
But life didn’t move in a straight line.
“Stay,” Ahmik said. A simple, short sound. The balm to a wound dealt long ago. “This is your land. Not because you were tied to it, but because it’s always been yours. It was wrong to…it was wrong to take it away from you. To take you away from it. But…this is yours. We’re yours. I…I want you to be pack again. I don’t deserve you—”
“Don’t say that,” Kaiyo cut in. “If you really believe that you don’t deserve me, then you shouldn’t be asking me to stay. Both of us made mistakes. Both of us paid the price for them. There is no more debt. If I stayed, it would be because we deserved each other. There is no balance without that.”
Ahmik looked at him. “This is where you belong.” Then, softly, “It’s impossible to love you more than I do. You’ve always…sometimes, I wonder if you realize…how much you give, how…bright you are. I want you, so fucking…completely. All of you. There was never anybody else for me, Kaiyo. Do you understand? Never. You are part of the land, and of the pack, and of me. Of who I am. I want you here. I want you to want to be here.” Ahmik closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. “Do you?”
Kaiyo looked at him. He couldn’t speak for a moment. All the words he wanted to say were forming a lump in his throat.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. This is where I want to be.”
Ahmik laughed brokenly. He fell forward, wrapping his arms around Kaiyo, and Kaiyo ignored the pain of his own, squeezing back.
This wasn’t just love. It was family. Pack.
It was home.
**********
The last day of spring had been bright and blue, rich with the smell of honeysuckle. It had been a day of celebration and welcoming. Kaiyo would be tied to the pack officially the next day, would return to the land at his own will.
There was nothing left to fear at the turn of the season.
Kaiyo sat on the porch alone, the sound of his pack drifting from inside the pack house. He looked into the forest, dusk falling all around him.
Suddenly, a haunting ghost, a memory surfaced. The darkness of a room that existed apart from the rest of the world. Lying on a bed, unable to move, or to feel, or to care. He had been detached from his own body. From his own will. He hadn’t cared if the darkness swallowed him up and made him nothing at all.
The memory surfaced a piercing fear. Of being dragged back to that place, of having to even remember it in a moment of such peace, but Kaiyo didn’t push it away. Instead, he savoured it. Because suicide hadn’t been frightening then. It had been nothing in a long list of nothings. It had felt devoid of anything, just as he had felt devoid of anything.
