Chapter 22
WILL YOU TELL ME ABOUT THE SCAR?
He didn't startle when I entered, didn't turn.
His shoulders rose and fell with each deliberate breath, the rhythm too controlled to be natural.
The only light came from the small fixture above the sink, casting him in silhouette, hollowing out the spaces beneath his shoulder blades.
He wore a thin gray t-shirt that hung loose on his frame, revealing the hard edges of a body that carried too much and ate too little.
I reached for the main light switch, hesitated for a second, then flipped it on.
Light flooded the kitchen, harsh and unforgiving.
Kearan blinked against the sudden brightness but didn't flinch away from it.
Dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes.
His skin looked waxy, almost translucent in places, the aftermath of whatever he'd absorbed from Trux still working its way through his system.
"Sorry," I said, not entirely sure what I was apologizing for. The light… The fact that I'd seen him in this state. All of it, maybe.
He shook his head, a barely perceptible movement. "Don't be."
I crossed to the small table tucked in the corner of the kitchen and pulled out a chair. The legs scraped against the linoleum, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet. I sat down and waited.
For what, I wasn't sure. For him to leave, maybe. To retreat back into the careful distance he maintained between himself and everyone else. To pull on that mask of controlled indifference that kept the world at arm's length.
Instead, he turned from the counter, his movements slow and deliberate, like each required conscious thought. He lowered himself into the chair across from me, his eyes never quite meeting mine.
We sat in silence. I didn't ask questions. Didn't demand explanations. Just existed in the same space, breathing the same air, letting the quiet stretch between us like something tangible.
Minutes passed. The refrigerator hummed. A clock ticked somewhere down the hall.
"I don't sleep much," Kearan finally said, his voice low enough that I had to lean forward slightly to catch the words. "Not since I was a child."
The admission hung in the air between us, simple and devastating. Something fragile unfurled in my chest… not quite hope, but adjacent to it. Like watching a door open a crack after years of being sealed shut.
"I used to think it was the price," he continued, fingers tracing invisible patterns on the tabletop. "For what I can do. A cosmic balance. Power for peace."
I kept my body perfectly still, afraid that any sudden movement might break whatever spell had loosened his tongue.
"I was wrong," he said. "It's not a price.
It's a feature. The healing... it changes my nervous system.
Makes it more sensitive. More receptive.
" His eyes focused on some middle distance beyond my shoulder.
"I feel everything more intensely than I should.
Pain. Temperature. Textures. It doesn't shut off just because I want to sleep. "
It was more words than I'd ever heard him speak at once, each one measured and precise, like he'd spent years considering exactly how to explain it if anyone ever asked. Which, I realized with a sudden pang, no one probably had. Except for Grayson, maybe.
"What about meds?" I asked. "Sleeping pills, or—"
He shook his head. "My metabolism burns through them too fast. And they dull my abilities. Make it harder to control what I absorb." His mouth twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile. "A choice between sleep and functioning. I choose function."
The kitchen light buzzed faintly overhead, a counterpoint to the silence that fell between us again. I waited, somehow knowing he wasn't finished.
"What happened earlier," he said after a long moment.
"With Trux. The Hesolga." He took a breath, hands spreading flat against the table.
"It wasn't just panic or rage. Hesolga is.
.. primal. Ancestral. His human and raccoon natures are ripping him apart about the bond.
" His fingers curled inward, nails scraping against the tabletop.
"He's running out of time. Soon I won't be able to bring him out of it. "
"I know," I said, the words barely audible. I needed to mate and claim both Kearan and Ryker, but Kearan was so distant, so damaged. And Ryker… we'd tried, and it failed.
Kearan nodded, a single sharp movement. "You should try again…" He looked down at his hands, turning them palm-up as if reading something written there. "With Ryker," he swallowed hard. "It should work this time."
Ryker… I couldn't. Not yet. Between the two of them, Kearan would probably be the more open to mating. "How long will this affect you?"
"I take all of it," he finished. "The fear. The rage. The physiological response. It floods my system instead of his." For the first time, his eyes met mine directly. "My body has to process what his couldn't handle."
"Jeez, Kearan." The words escaped before I could stop them. "No wonder you looked like death after."
Something flickered across his face… not quite amusement, but adjacent to it. "It passes. Usually within a few hours. My system adapts. Neutralizes the foreign elements."
"Usually?" I pressed, unable to stop myself.
His gaze dropped to the table again. "Usually."
Silence fell between us, thicker than before.
I watched him breathe… the careful rise and fall of his chest, the tension he carried in his shoulders even now.
He'd given me pieces of himself tonight, small fragments of truth I knew had cost him.
But there was still something he was holding back.
Something that weighted his words with meaning beyond what he was willing to say outright.
My eyes drifted to his arm, to the burn scar partially visible beneath the edge of his sleeve. The scar he touched when he thought no one was watching. When he was absorbing someone else's pain.
"Will you tell me about the scar?" I asked, my voice gentler than I'd intended. Not a demand. Not even really a question. Just an opening, if he wanted to take it. I knew what happened, at least briefly, from what Grayson told me. But I wanted Kearan to open up.
He went very still, that particular stillness of prey that knows it's been spotted by a predator. For a long moment, I thought he wouldn't answer. That he'd retreat back into silence, pull the walls up again, reinforce the boundaries I'd just breached.
Instead, his right hand moved slowly to his left forearm, fingers hovering just above the scar tissue visible beneath his sleeve.
"I tried to heal someone," he said, each word pulled from him with visible effort.
"Someone who... mattered to me." His voice dropped lower, barely audible now.
"I knew I was past my limit. Knew I should stop.
But she was still in pain, and I thought—" He broke off, jaw tight.
"I thought I could handle just a little more. "
My throat ached with the weight of his confession. "What happened?"
"The transfer became irreversible." He pulled up his sleeve, revealing the full extent of the scar…
an intricate pattern of burn tissue that spiraled from wrist to elbow, like lightning captured beneath his skin.
"Once it starts, the energy has to go somewhere.
It can't just... stop. It has to complete the circuit.
" His fingers traced the edge of the scar, almost reverently.
"When I couldn't channel it safely anymore, it manifested physically. Burned from the inside out."
I stared at the scar, seeing it with new eyes. Not just an old injury. Not just a reminder of pain. A physical manifestation of love pushed too far. Of sacrifice without limit.
Then I realized what he had said. She. It hadn't been Grayson. There had been someone else.
"Who was it?" I asked so softly it barely disturbed the air between us.
He shook his head once, sharp and final. That was a line he wouldn't cross. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.
"The burn is permanent," he said instead. "Proof of what happens when love and power mix without a ceiling." His mouth twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile. "A reminder to be more... careful."
I sat with his words, turning them over in my mind. The scar was a warning… but also a badge of honor. Evidence of how far he would go for someone he loved. What he was willing to sacrifice.
"Does it still hurt?" I asked finally.
He considered the question with the same deliberate care he seemed to give everything. "Yes," he said simply. "Always. But not in the way you think."
I nodded, understanding more than he'd actually said. Physical pain fades. Memory doesn't. Whatever had happened… whoever he'd tried to heal… the real wound wasn't in his arm.
"I think," I said carefully, measuring each word, "that sometimes we hold on to pain because it's the only thing left of something that mattered. Like if we let the pain go, we're letting that person go too."
His head came up sharply, eyes meeting mine with an intensity that stole my breath. I'd struck closer to home than I'd intended.
"And if I did?" he asked, voice rough. "Let it go. What then?"
"Sunk cost fallacy."
Kearan's eyes widened a bit.
"Just because you've invested feelings and pain in something that seems like it didn't work out, doesn't mean you need to keep investing in it.
" I reached across the table and took his hand.
Not the scarred one. The other one. Palm to palm, fingers intertwining with his.
"Yes, I know it is usually for business or projects, but the same thing can be applied to relationships.
I don't know the situation so it may not even apply, but why keep investing hurt and energy into something that's tearing you up inside? "
He stared at our joined hands, something complicated moving across his face. For a moment, I thought he might pull away. Instead, his fingers tightened around mine, holding on like I was a lifeline thrown into dark water.
"That's why I eventually cut my mother out of my life.
She acted like I owed her every moment of my time, every aspect of my life.
And for a long time, I gave her exactly what she wanted, even if it meant chipping away at myself until there was an empty shell left.
And even that wouldn't satisfy her. I'd given her everything as some kind of cosmic repayment for my conception, birth, and rearing, but it was never enough for her. "
We sat like that, hands linked across the table, silence wrapping around us. Not uncomfortable now. Just quiet. The kind of quiet that comes when words have done all they can and touch has to carry the rest.
The door opened softly behind me. I didn't need to turn to know who it was. Grayson's presence brushed against my mind, gentle as always, asking permission before fully connecting.
He crossed the kitchen without a word, pulling out the chair beside Kearan. Grayson didn't seem surprised to find us here, hands linked across the table. He probably felt me wake through our bond. Felt Kearan's distress too, in whatever way he sensed such things.
"Couldn't sleep?" Grayson asked, his voice pitched low and intimate.
Kearan didn't answer. Didn't need to. The answer was written in the shadows beneath his eyes, in the pallor of his skin, in the tension still radiating from his shoulders.
Grayson just nodded, accepting the silence as a response.
He settled into the chair, close enough that his shoulder brushed Kearan's, offering support without demanding acknowledgment.
The three of us sat together in the kitchen's quiet, each lost in our own thoughts, yet somehow connected by the simple fact of being there. Of choosing to stay.
Minutes stretched into an hour. The clock in the hall chimed three.
Outside, the wind died down, leaving nothing but stillness and the faint sounds of the compound settling around us.
Kearan's breathing deepened, slowed. His body leaned imperceptibly toward Grayson, whose arm came up automatically to steady him.
"He's exhausted," Grayson murmured, voice barely disturbing the quiet. "The Hesolga took more out of him than he's admitting."
I nodded, watching as Kearan's head dropped further, his body finally surrendering to the sleep he'd fought for so long. His hand remained in mine, grip loosening but not letting go even as consciousness slipped away from him.
"Should we move him?" I whispered.
Grayson shook his head. "Not yet. Let him rest while he can."
So we stayed, Grayson and I, keeping vigil as Kearan slept between us, his breathing deep and even for the first time since I'd known him.
His weight settled more fully against Grayson's side, head coming to rest on his shoulder.
In sleep, the hard lines of his face softened, years falling away to reveal the man beneath the careful control.
Grayson's eyes met mine over Kearan's head, something warm and complicated moving through his expression.
"He's opening up," he said softly, a statement rather than a question.
My thumb moved in small circles against Kearan's palm, a gesture of comfort he probably couldn't feel in sleep, but that I couldn't stop myself from offering, anyway.
Grayson's gaze dropped to our joined hands, lingering there.
Something flashed behind his eyes… not jealousy, exactly.
Something more complex. Understanding, maybe. Or recognition.
"Good," he said finally, the single word carrying more weight than seemed possible.
We fell back into silence after that, the three of us linked together in the quiet kitchen… Kearan's head on Grayson's shoulder, his hand in mine. Connected. A circuit completed.
Outside, the night deepened toward dawn, stars wheeling overhead in their ancient patterns. Inside, we kept our quiet vigil, guarding against whatever nightmares might try to find Kearan in his sleep.