Clayton was more of a gift than Mal ever could have imagined. If Mal could spend the rest of his eternal life protecting, teasing, and loving him, it wouldn’t be enough.
This was love, the ever-elusive feeling that all sentient creatures were constantly going on about. Something he’d considered a glorified myth.
Mal had found love.
Mal loved Clayton.
The universe must surely be shaking in its boots. Giving something like Mal such a fragile thing to love and protect was a terrible idea. What would happen if he ever lost Clayton?
He hoped he never found out.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
CLAYTON
He knew it wasn’t real. He knew that the disjointed events flowing past him at breakneck speed were all an illusion, but the emotions were so real they cut to the bone.
The last thing Clayton had ever wanted was a speed run through all the shitty highlights of his life. The first time around was more than enough, but his origin? That was another story.
He had parents. Real, biological parents who had loved him. Who, in theory, still loved him, though he had no proof they would still want him grown and fucked up as he was now. He’d long ago left the cute stage, and if he had magic, it was well beyond his control.
He’d grown far from the adorable, beloved toddler who’d helped his family fight to stay together. Clayton couldn’t evenkeep his own ragtag band of misfits together, and his parents? They were one of the coolest couples he’d ever met.
Out of all the things he’d imagined his parents to be—and he’d imagined everything under the sun—powerful, fae royalty had never made it onto the list.
If Clayton hadn’t seen it himself, he never would have believed he could be related to Elena and Naerith.
Mal did, though. On Clayton’s second time through his life, he was able to catch all the details about Mal he’d missed. The fond looks behind Clayton’s back, the laser focus on Clayton whenever he was in the room, and the way reality around them shimmered and fluctuated while he was getting Clayton off. Using the eyes of love rather than incredulous frustration, Clayton easily saw how utterly obsessed Mal was with him.
Thank the gods for that. It gave Clayton full permission to be equally obsessed right back. He’d realized it as soon as Mal had come onto the scene of the retelling. Clayton barely paid any attention to anything else. Every minute detail about his monster was greedily consumed so Clayton could learn more about him.
He couldn’t even be mad at Mal for not telling Clayton about his parents because it was easy to see the moment Mal realized the truth about Elena and Naerith. He saw the moment where Mal had considered telling them all and then changed his mind shortly after.
Something about Clayton’s full acceptance of Mal had allowed him to take in every detail about Mal’s microexpressions and let him interpret them into a language only he could understand.
He could tell Mal liked Naerith and Elena, that he liked every member of Clayton’s found family (the ones who lived on his boat, at least), and that he wanted Marshall to die more than almost anything else in the world.
Mal wanted Clayton more than anything, and he wanted Marshall to die the second most.
That… that was going to be a problem for later, Clayton decided.
Once Clayton concluded pondering the second go-round of his life, he realized he was standing in an endless void.
“Is that it? Or was there something I’m still supposed to do?” Clayton called out. Now that he was at the end, he was able to remember that he’d been sucked into another zone and separated from his companions.
What he’d just gone through had clearly been the work of some form of sentient creature, and Clayton had never met one he couldn’t communicate with, so why not try?
A vague humanoid outline formed out of the swirling mist of the void.
“Hello,” Clayton said politely. It never hurt to be polite in an opening encounter.
The figure nodded to him and gestured to his right. The mist parted, and Naerith and Elena appeared. They were holding one another tightly while crying and consoling one another. The moment they laid eyes on Clayton, they froze. Clayton, being the polite, polished young man he was, took their lead and froze up as well.
They all stared at one another, Clayton from sheer terror of rejection and the unknown, while his parents seemed to vacillate between shock and grief.
Elena was the first to break the stalemate and race toward Clayton, arms outstretched. She slammed into him and held him close, pressing her face into his neck as she sobbed, “My boy, my precious baby…” over and over again.
