Chapter 9 Past Wrongs
Past Wrongs
Grayson tucked his legs under him on the couch. The fire in the gigantic fireplace in the Weryn Palace’s front room crackled and popped merrily before him. He could feel its pleasant heat all along his front.
A plate with a sandwich and those awesome homemade potato chips was on the cushion beside him. Coke with lime was on the table to his left. He nibbled on a chip and chased it with some soda.
The food and fire were calming, not to mention being inside the Weryn Palace, even if Ryder wasn’t back from his outing with Julian. Grayson could feel him here. In every board. In every piece of furniture. It even smelled like him.
Kaito knocked on the threshold. “Can I join you?”
“Of course.”
Grayson smiled and gestured for him to come in. He moved his sandwich to the table so that Kaito could sit down on the couch beside him.
“You look a little better,” Kaito said after sitting down and studying him for a few moments.
After leaving Rachel at the coffee shop, Grayson had been shaking.
He hadn’t been able to stop it. He could barely speak.
Dani and Kaito had wanted to take him to the mansion that the Ashyr were currently inhabiting since the Ashyr Palace still remained closed to them and dangerous for Grayson to even be around.
But Grayson had insisted on coming here.
Demos and Siban had welcomed them all in.
And not just the three of them, but Nero and Eiji, too, when they arrived later.
“I’m certain that Ryder would want you to consider his palace your palace, Grayson,” Demos had said. “Make this your homebase. No one can bother you here. Especially not reporters or the Sect members.”
Grayson was more grateful than he could say for that offer.
The moment he curled on the couch with a blanket he’d felt better.
The food had helped as well. Knowing that he wasn’t just hiding from the world, but also introducing a potential new fledgling to his Bloodline had him also feeling less stressed.
He wasn’t allowing Grayson’s past to stop the future.
It was as much of a “success” as he could rationalize after what had happened in the coffee shop.
Grayson grimaced as he asked Kaito,“I suppose claiming that I’m not impacted by speaking with Rachel about–about my mother is pretty unbelievable?”
Somehow the conversation between him and Rachel had completely spun out of control. His emotions had swirled up inside of him and he couldn’t control them. He had to get away from her and the past.
Kaito smiled gently. “Master, you do not have to lie to me. I know your strength. Being affected by your past is not a weakness.”
Grayson rubbed the front of his throat. “I don’t think I’m trying to lie to you so much as myself. This–this recent past is only a weakness if it distracts me from our current difficulties. I’ve managed to keep it at bay, but… but I’m not sure if it will stay that way.”
“Perhaps it should not. You helped me resolve many things in my First Life so that I could go with my Second with no regrets,” Kaito offered, his handsome face wrinkling with concern. “Maybe you need to do that too.”
Grayson though did not want to discuss resolving anything with his mother. He couldn’t–just couldn’t–go there quite yet.
“Perhaps. But, forgive me, did you come in here for some specific purpose? I thought, for sure, that Eiji would be very interested in you and vice versa yet you are here with me. I don’t want to distract you from him,” Grayson said.
Dani, Nero, Kaito and Eiji were meeting in a nearby room. Grayson could hear laughter flowing from there.
“Goda-sama is a brilliant, strategic thinker. A general in his own right,” Kaito smiled broadly. “I like him very much.”
“But?” Grayson made a “go on” gesture even as his heart sank.
Was he wrong that Eiji could find a home in the Ashyr? He had thought that Kaito would bridge some of the cultural differences for Eiji and give the older man a sense of belonging. But perhaps he had looked at this way too simply. He undoubtedly had now that he thought of it.
Kaito nodded and flashed a smile that acknowledged Grayson’s observation as correct, that there was some hesitation on his part. “But, in some ways, the things that should draw us together–the same race, nationality, culture, and more–is what separates us.”
“I see.” Grayson nodded.
“The Japan of the past is not the Japan of today,” Kaito pointed out.
“In a way, I am as different from him as Nero or Dani is. But while both Goda-sama and I expect that difference with others, we seek understanding between us. But that understanding is only half or less. So it leads to less connection rather than more.”
“You’re right. I should have anticipated this. Even those who celebrate the past don’t really know it. Not like we do. I shouldn’t have presumed there would be a connection there,” Grayson admitted.
“In some ways, we are very alike. Both of us, for example, enjoy Nero’s company very much,” Kaito said and there may have been a faint flush on his cheeks. “But for different reasons.”
“Nero? Are you and he–I thought I might have sensed something–”
“Together? Yes, we are. We live together. Have several homes in Kyoto and Andalucia. He loves his olives and I still love my fishing.” Kaito said, tilting his head and smiling.
“I’m so happy for you, Kaito.” Grayson reached over and put a hand on top of Kaito’s nearest one.
“Thank you, Master. After losing you and all that occurred afterwards…” Kaito’s lips flattened. “Some of us fled one another. Not able to bear the memory of what had been. But Nero and I grew closer. Soon, it became clear to both of us that our lives and hearts were intertwined.”
“That’s truly wonderful. I’m only sorry that Eiji cannot join in your family–”
“On the contrary, I think he will fit in. He and Nero are comparing their younger days running gangs. They are as thick as thieves together already.”
“I always forget that I met Nero when he was practically retired from being a boss of several criminal organizations,” Grayson grinned. “So you think that Nero might be interested in Eiji as a fledgling? And would you find that acceptable?”
Grayson knew that Kaito agreeing to it was just as important as Nero doing so. He couldn’t imagine either himself or Ryder bringing in a fledgling that the other did not care for.
Kaito nodded briskly. “It would be ideal. With us having a romantic attachment, any fledgling we brought in would have to understand and respect that connection. Goda-sama, being older, will not need Nero either as a father-figure or a lover, but as a teacher and friend.”
“I’m glad. That does, indeed, seem ideal. One thing has worked out.”
Grayson’s honest pleasure about that allowed him to start eating his sandwich instead of having his stomach filled with knots. It was delicious. Roast turkey, dill havarti cheese, tomatoes, lettuce and a ton of fresh mayo. The bread was rustic with seeds that added a nutty chew.
Kaito shifted so that his elbows rested on top of his thighs. “May I speak freely, Master?”
“Always,” Grayson told him, meaning it.
“You have always valued loyalty above all things. Skills can be taught, you’ve always said, but loyalty is innate and more precious,” Kaito reminded him.
Grayson nodded. “Seeing how close the Weryn were always impressed me. Working together, knowing that someone had your back, feeling secure that you could trust them… it is invaluable. Especially when you are asking them to do something dangerous and difficult that takes discretion.”
“Your mother in this life…” Kaito paused, rolling his lips together. “You thought she was disloyal to you, yes? Before you spoke to the reporter?”
Grayson grimaced. “I thought she had rejected me, which would have been understandable after what she saw I did–”
“Before that,” Kaito pressed. “By bringing that man into your home, she showed poor judgment. By allowing him to remain she showed that she was more loyal to him than you. And when you defended both of you, she showed more disloyalty by rejecting your act of defense.”
Grayson hadn’t considered it that way, but Kaito wasn’t wrong. He nodded. “I hate that kind of weakness, Kaito. To put a lover over one’s own children… I know some would say I did that when I got together with Weryn.”
“He only did what he did because he went mad after you were gone,” Kaito argued. “We all did. And it was a mad time. Now, we can see things more clearly.”
“Rachel said that my mother tried to take the blame for my stepfather’s death.
They didn’t believe her, of course. There was no way to think a human being had done that,” Grayson paused and grimaced.
“It’s like losing control when we’re young Vampires and ripping someone’s throat out.
We have people to cover that up. But I was alone. ”
“Except you were not. She covered for you. Unsuccessfully, but she did,” Kaito pointed out.
“Rachel says that she’s never given up looking for me.
” Grayson’s hands fisted in the blanket in his lap.
“That she’s even kept my room the same and spent thousands on detectives…
I thought I had nowhere to go, Kaito. I lived my whole life hiding because I believed there was no safe place for me. But there was.”
Kaito put an arm around his shoulders. Grayson tucked himself against his fledgling’s chest.
“All that pain and loss was unnecessary,” Grayson said as Kaito stroked his hair. “And I don’t know what to do about that.”
“You must forgive yourself and her,” Kaito advised.
“What if I had just waited a moment, an hour, a day? Why did I just assume one look of fear meant it was all ashes?” Grayson asked.
“You were angry at her,” Kaito guessed. “For bringing him into your lives in the first place.”