“He isn’t a student, is he, Weryn?”Daemon asked.
Ryder shook his head.“No, I have never smelled him before.He is not one of ours.And though the Umbraling’s scent is heavy upon him, the Vampire who feasted from him is unfamiliar to me as well.”
“So… how could a random human and Vampire not from Nightvallen end up in the woods in the Ever Dark?”Julian asked.
Daemon’s red eyes burned.“That is the question, isn’t it?”
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.
