Chapter 50
Chapter fifty
Yosh
The Wolf’s Den is nothing more than a distant light as we step into the dark.
I stay close behind Tom as we make our way through the snow, the lake and the lodges behind us as we move deeper into the woods. Every tree looks the same, and it’s beginning to feel like we’re walking without direction.
The cold bites at my face. Tom pauses a few feet ahead, searching for a point of recognition. He lifts a large fallen branch aside, clearing the way for us. Then he takes out his phone to light the path. The snow glistens under the pale beam.
I know where he’s taking me. I knew the moment he told me on the porch.
Up ahead, an iron gate appears, its spikes pointing toward the sky.
The path beyond leads into a small courtyard.
The fence around it looks ready to collapse under the weight of the snow.
In the center stands a multi-tiered fountain, surrounded by empty flowerbeds that will likely burst with color in spring.
But now it’s a lonely place, buried in snow.
Abandoned.
Forgotten.
But not by Tom. And not by me.
Tom kneels down. With the side of his arm, he brushes the snow away until the letters appear. Christian Thomas James McKenna, written in gold script.
The grave is so small. Cold grips me through my breath.
This little guy had only been three years old.
I remember that night on the beach when Tom trusted me with the rawest pain I’d ever seen, crying into my shoulder as he told me what had happened with Chris. And now, standing here, it’s becoming painfully, devastatingly real.
Tom crouches in front of the grave, smaller and more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen him.
He steadies himself with one hand on the stone.
I say nothing. This is his moment.
“Hey, little guy.” His voice is hoarse, both from cold and with emotion. I sniff back tears, wiping my thumb across my cheek as he speaks.
“I brought you something.” Tom pulls a small ziplock bag from his pocket. I can't really see what’s inside.
He walks over to the fountain and reaches into a small opening in the base, pulling out a box hidden inside. He sets the box next to the grave, tries to open the combination lock, but it's frozen solid.
He curses, letting out a frustrated grunt. After some tugging and prying, the lock finally gives out.
I peak over his shoulder as he lifts the lid. Inside is a collection of objects, each sealed in a small plastic bag like the one he brought.
My breath stutters as I look at them: a wolf plushy, toy cars, a mini guitar, marbles, a fountain pen; things that belong in a child’s treasure chest.
And mixed among them are objects meant for a teenager. A grinder with a hemp leaf. A pack of condoms, fake ID. VIP passes for Joan’s club, all printed with Chris’s name. The box is a time capsule filled with a timeline that never existed.
Tom places the ziplock bag on the gravestone. Only then do I see what it is: a keychain shaped like the island of Avalon. His thumb traces the plastic as he begins to speak.
“Brought you something for your car key. Your sister’s got a pigeon-shit green convertible from uncle Jay last month. Have you seen it? It’s fucking ugly.”
The laugh he lets out is weak and hollow. “Don’t tell her I said that, okay? I’m trying to make things right with her.”
He picks up the keychain, holding it up as if Chris were standing right there in front of him.
“I don’t know shit about cars, but I’m sure your friends would be impressed. Don’t let them drive. They’d probably crash it because it’s not theirs.”
His voice cracks on the last words. What starts as a soft laugh, turns into a muffled sob.
This hits hard. It feels like my heart’s been ripped out and thrown to the ground, breaking into a thousand pieces right next to Tom’s. I watch and break with him.
“I have to let you go. And you have to let me go. Please, because… I can’t take this anymore. I’m sorry, Chris. I’m sorry, it’s all my fault. Please, I’m so sorry. Please let me go.”
His hands dig into the snow, fingers splaying wide, his curls almost touching the frozen ground. A raw cry that sounds like a wounded animal rips out of him.
I choke.
My knees hit the snow before I even notice I’ve fallen. Cold seeps straight into my bones, but it’s nothing compared to watching him collapse in front of me.
I yank him off the ground against my chest, gripping into his curls, pressing his face into my neck. He clings to me as if I’m the one tread that keeps him from falling into the darkness.
My eyes stay fixed on the small keychain lying on the gravestone. It’s such a painful symbol of everything that could’ve been but never was.
My pain claws its way up. I know what it’s like to cling to something tangible, to keep the memories from fading when trauma tries to erase them. It’s how we survive.
“Yosh… I can’t do this… I can’t.” His nails dig into the bare skin of my nape.
“I don’t want to, but I have to let him go… I can’t take this anymore.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I whisper against his ear.
“You can let him stay with you, just not in the same way. We’ll work on that, baby. We’ll get you there.”
I kiss tears from his cheek, hush, and rock him in my arms as he lets the wounds bleed.
This is probably the first time anyone’s ever held him here at his son’s grave. His pain in the middle of the night, the silence, his arms wrapped around his cold body. Alone, always.
Fuck, this is real. This is so fucking real.
An owl flutters from branch to branch above us, its soft oohoo echoing through the bare trees.
I tip my head back to the stars; the white moon hangs proud above. Beneath that light, the wolf cries in my arms, his grief is wild and untamed, just like his heart.
I feel every shudder pass through him and I know there is nothing to say, nothing to fix, only his body that needs a place to break. That’s the only medicine I have right now.
Back inside the West House, we head straight for the shower. Tom’s body is cold, shivering, leaning weakly against mine as warm water runs over us both.
His lips, blue and icy, turn pink again under the stimulating touch of my thumb, then blood red and full.
He keeps looking at me with eyes that are small, perhaps a little confused.
“I’m here, Sapphire. I’m here. You’re not alone.”
His lips graze my collarbone, leaving soft kisses across my chest while his face rests against my shoulder. We say nothing in this moment where everything feels so fragile.
It sinks in. Whatever comes, he and I are there to hold each other through it. It makes me realize that I am ready to share my biggest secret with him, who I really am, where I come from. Not right now—this is his journey. But when we’re back in Avalon.
“Love.” It's nothing more than a hot breath that dissolves into the steam surrounding us.
His pupils twirl in the haze of his pain.
This is so intense. All I want is to make him feel loved.
He needs to know he’s not alone, so I kiss him everywhere, my lips taking claim of every spot on his neck.
Soft moans escape his mouth when I roam his back with my hands, and with every press and suck of his lips on mine, I feel his erection growing harder between us.
I hesitate, questioning if it’s right. Fuck, of course this isn’t right and I shouldn’t proceed. So I take a step back, but his fingers dig into my thighs, tugging me against him. A subtle nod of his chin follows, lips slightly parted, whispering a soft plea: “Take me.”
“No, Sapphire.”
“Please,” he begs, fingers sliding down my stomach. He looks me in the eye before whispering,
“I know what you're thinking, but I need to feel you. Make me yours, baby.”
My throat bobs as I swallow. This plea isn’t about sex at all.
Part of me understands. I know how it feels to surrender in the darkness of your pain, when you've felt so much that, in the end, it only leaves the raw clarity of not feeling anything at all.
His mind is telling him to chase a high to escape that numbness.
I take him by the hips, turning him around. One arm wraps around his torso to steady him, my palm splayed just below his ribs.
He grabs my arm tight, his other hand against the shower wall for balance.
“There's lube in the cabinet.”
“Always prepared, you.”
“Life of a sex shop owner,” he says.
“Conveniently safe answer.”
I can feel him smirk a little.
I reach behind me, the tiles on the floor getting wet as I open the glass door. My hand fumbles past folded towels and half-empty bottles until my fingers close around the bottle of lube.
I bring it back between us, flip the cap open with my thumb, and slick my fingers slowly, giving him those few extra seconds to breathe.
With two fingers coated, I ease inside.
He tenses, exhales, his head falling forward as he opens for me.
It doesn’t take too long before he pushes back greedily to meet me.
“It’s okay, Sapphire. I'm right here. Let go.”
I feel the hard grip he has on my forearm soften, his weight falling back against my chest.
I line up, whispering soft words of love as I press in. Short, deep thrusts, barely more than a pulse, have him shaking in my arms.
“Stay with me. Stay with me and you’ll never feel alone again.”
The words rise from the ache in my heart for the one I lost, who stayed with me until the end. The fire that follows is a fury I don’t want to fight.
“They never gave a damn about you, Sapphire. But I do. You’re mine. I’ll take care of you from now on.”
A gasp against the glass. My thrusts turn rougher, driven by everything I can’t say, deep and uneven, too full of pain and need to release. Emotion takes over until I’m moving on instinct, desperate to hold him together while I’m barely holding myself.
He cries out beneath me, begging, breaking, crying harder, and every sound tears through me like he’s giving me the pain I don’t know how to put down.
“Love...please.”
I take his stone-hard cock in my hand, neglected until now. The moment I wrap my fist around him and stroke all the way down, he cries out once more, water pouring over our open mouths.
Tom gasps into the steam as cum shoots all over the shower wall in short, powerful bursts.
This is so insanely intense, it takes me with him into that same dizzy high.
“That’s it, my beautiful Sapphire. Easy. You're safe.”
The words come out broken as tears slip down my cheeks, swallowed almost instantly by the shower water running over my skin. Invisible, but there. Still falling.
Broken sobs tear from him before his knees give out. I catch him against my body, holding him upright.
“Shh. I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.”
I turn off the water, keeping him in my arms until we find alignment in our breathing again.
The glass door gives with a soft push, steam spilling into the room and pulling us back into the cold, harsh reality waiting beyond the shower.
It takes everything in me to carry him to the bed. I dry him slowly, rubbing warmth back into his skin before dressing him in soft pyjamas and pulling the blankets around us.
Later, in the dark, he’s curled up against my chest like a little ginger fox.
For the first time I understand what it means to protect someone fragile with the shield of my own body.
It’s what he’s been doing for me since day one. Every night when I’d tried to hide my pain, he felt it anyway, and pulled me close to soothe me with nothing but the warmth of his skin and his kisses on my scars.
He’d never said it, but his body told me what my mind couldn’t believe. That I’m still alive, still breathing, and I’m loved.
My precious Sapphire. It's my turn to make you feel that.