Chapter 13 Kaira #2
It wasn't my aunt's fault I had failed to prepare myself for the worst, but I couldn't face them with all these… These feelings coursing through my body. This devastation I didn't know what to do with.
My mother would've said the truth could only set me free, and it was better knowing than staying in the dark.
But right now I'd have rather stayed in the dark, imagining the day when I would see my biological father and feel his love.
The love I missed out on since my family died.
The love I craved because it was the only thing that could mend me together.
I read once that there was a technique they used in Japan to mend broken things by pouring gold into the cracks, making them even stronger after the process, but no amount of gold could repair the cracks in my soul. No amount of mending could fix the tears in my body.
Wind slammed into me, waking me up from my tearstained stupor, making me finally see where I was at.
My eyes landed on the vast sea in front of me, on the violent waves riding toward the shore.
Before I could even grasp what this place was, my feet carried me toward the edge of a cliff, ignoring the cawing of crows somewhere in the distance and the roaring thunder over the sea.
I knew this place. Maybe I knew it better than the back of my hand at this point.
The tips of my toes came to the edge of the cliff, and even before looking down I knew what I would see—the black sand beach, spreading around the island, expanding in some places and moving closer to the cliffs on others.
It looked just like in my dream—violently beautiful, almost painful to look at.
With my hand in the air, my fingers moved against the wind, feeling its force on my skin.
And I felt it then.
The awareness.
The silent call from behind.
Just like every single time in my dream, it felt the same this time.
I looked down, expecting the crimson to spread on my stomach, to make the pain known, but nothing was there. Yet, he was. I knew it even before I turned around, and instead of feeling the pain that always followed my dreams, I allowed the tiny glimmer of excitement to pass through my body.
Taking a small step back, I turned around, and my eyes zeroed in on the spot where he always stood.
Where the shadows hid the face of a man I kept dreaming about, preventing me from seeing him fully.
But there he was now, standing tall, staring at me with those same emerald green eyes and the pain I knew as well as my own.
I would recognize those eyes no matter where I went, no matter how many lives I lived.
He haunted my dreams, my days, my every thought, but he was unmoving now, looking at me as if he were seeing me for the first time in his life.
There was something to be said about my foolishness in this moment, especially knowing someone was after me, but none of that mattered.
Nothing mattered right now.
His dark hair danced in the wind, longer on the top and shorter on the sides, strands falling over his forehead, touching his dark eyebrows.
His full lips pressed into a thin line as I took a step closer, my tongue tied, unable to say a single word as we stared at each other.
His skin held a slightly darker tone than mine, almost as if he had spent too much time out in the sun, but seeing the weather on this island, I highly doubted there were many sunny days.
Wide shoulders filled the black shirt he wore to the point of stretching it, and if it wasn't for the small twitch in his cheek as he stood there with his hands in the pockets of his pants, I would've thought I had conjured him straight from my dreams. The closer I got, the better I could see the column of his neck, the muscles visible at the open area where he failed to close the buttons and the tattoo on his neck.
The tattoo I saw before but didn't know what it meant. The tattoo that reminded me of the runes Elandra had over her arms.
Tilting his head, he studied me, dragging his eyes from the tips of my boots to the top of my head, pausing at my eyes as an energy I had never felt before vibrated around us.
And there they were, the shadows I saw so many times, touching his shoulders, his hair, staying in the background as if they couldn't interfere this time around.
And I couldn't wait any longer.
"Who are you?" My voice rang over the clearing, carried on the wind. I would've missed the flare of his nostrils or the parting of his lips the moment I spoke had I not been looking at him.
My hand itched to touch him, to convince myself he was real, to see if his skin felt as good underneath my fingertips as I imagined it would. He felt familiar, but not because of my dreams. Not because of my grief. He… There was something here, something I couldn't understand.
"Tell me," I demanded, instead of begging him. "I need to know."
"The better question is," he answered finally, his voice caressing the wounded parts of me and destroying the walls I had built to protect my fragile heart with simple words. "Who are you?"