Wild

Chapter 43 - Crayai

Makai

"It's time, Kai," Dion tells me. "Are you ready to return home?" and I feel a lump in my throat as more memories of Crayai assail me. Home.

My fingers automatically tighten around his and I look back at my twin, a part of me that was missing even though I couldn't remember at the time. "Yes, I'm ready."

After Aris told me about my past and my family, I thought about what it would be like to go home. To see my birth pack and be around my people for the first time in years. I had thought that it would be planned ahead and under better circumstances, but home is home, and to my surprise, I feel ready.

Angel teleports us to a living room, and the first thing I notice are pictures. There are frames of a man I easily identify as Nathan Rouge- or Uncle Nathan as we called him as kids - and my parents, and frames with pictures of Nathan and my parents with Dion and me as kids, as well as images of an older Dion and Nathan. I move from frame to frame, being enveloped in the familiar surroundings as I remember being here many times before as a boy. But the pictures that have me riveted are pictures of me as an adult. Dion mentioned having older pictures of me projected, but seeing them is another thing altogether. It is uncanny how accurate the pictures of me are, and the main difference between Dion's images and mine is the longer hair and the brooding expression on my face.

Storm gasps as he takes them in, and I glance at Dion, wide-eyed. Angel's smile tells me that teleporting us here was deliberate. He wanted the first thing I see when I return home to be proof that I was never forgotten, and he achieved that.

"This - I don't know what to say, Dion."

Dion swallows, trying to look nonchalant, but he can't hide how emotional he is.

"You don't think I am crazy for doing this?"

I let go of the hold on my emotions and allow him to feel everything I am feeling now. He gasps, eyes filling with emotion.

"No, Di. I don't think you're crazy. Thank you for keeping our bond alive when I couldn't remember."

"Makai? Kai. Goddess, Kai. It's really you."

A man comes into the living room from the side, and I smile when I remember how much trouble Dion and I gave this man when he had to babysit us - which was quite often.

Nathan Rouge looks almost exactly as I had last seen him fifteen years ago, except that he is broader and older. The years have been very kind to him, and as I stare into the familiar hazel eyes of the man I had known as "Uncle Nathan" as a child, more memories assail me, and with it, the bittersweet emotions of missing my parents and the rightness of being home.

"Makai," Nathan breathed, staring at me with eyes full of emotion when he neared.

"Makai, my boy."

With that, he rushes forward and envelopes me into his arms. "Oh, Makai. You won't believe how good it is to see you."

"I told you he wasn't dead," Dion said, coming to stand beside me again.

Nathan looks at my brother. "You were right all along. You were right to never lose hope."

He turns to me again, eyes shining with unshed tears. "Welcome home, Makai."