Over the past eight and a half months I’d been on a journey through death and back, one slow, agonizing step at a time. But sitting there in my dream come true with the women who loved me better than my mother ever had, knowing my man was alive and well celebrating that fact with his father on the back of their bikes on the Sea to Sky Highway, I took one of the final steps to being reborn.
It might have been King returning from the dead, but I’d been the one to ferry him home, to die spiritually alongside him, and I couldn’t wait for our return.
To awake, arise, and be forever Fallen.
King
Comin’ home.
So many books had been written about the act of returnin’, and I’d read them all. There wasn’t much to do in Alaska durin’ the winter months but fuck my gorgeous, pregnant wife and lay tangled together under the warm blankets readin’.
Yet as I stood on the threshold of my dad’s cabin outside Whistler listenin’ to the cacophony of familiar chaos within, I felt at a total loss.
How did one return from death?
There was no road map or bible for such a thing. I knew ’cause I’d googled it like a fuckin’ idiot. Cress caught me, but she hadn’t laughed ’cause my woman knew me inside and out. She knew how wrong self-doubt felt around my shoulders, an ill-fittin’ shirt. I kept pickin’ at it, adjustin’ it, wishing it would feel right when I knew it never would.
The problem wasn’t in the physical act of comin’ home.
I’d done it in a rented cage over the long, black frosted roads of wintry Alaska into equally wintry British Columbia, from one country to the other without any shift in the landscape. I’d done it with Elvis through the speakers, and Cress in the passenger seat pushed way back to accommodate her pregnant body. She read Paradise Lost to me from my high school copy, the pages warped from the press of fingers and the touch of a pen in nearly every margin.
It hadn’t helped to soothe me, not really.
’Cause I could come home easy as I pleased.
But that didn’t mean I’d be welcomed.
And wasn’t that the fuckin’ crux of it?
Knew Dad would cry ’cause he was known as a monster, but at his heart, he was all fuckin’ man, as human and in tune with it as they came. There’d be no grudge held, no anger or bitterness held over for weeks to come. The second my old man laid eyes on me, my death was over—not forgotten but overcome. He was a man of the future, not the past, and over the months of my isolation, I’d come to understand why he was like that.
When you’d lived through the worst of it, the only thing that’ll get you up in the mornin’ is the thought that maybe tomorrow will be better, just a little bit brighter.
H.R. too.
Not ’cause it was in her nature to forgive but ’cause we were a pair. It was a natural, irrevocable bond that couldn’t be shaken by anythin’, not even death. When you grow up with a toxic mother and an unfortunately absent father, you fuse. You become each other’s parent and guardian, protector and confidante. We were siblings and the deepest of friends.
But the rest…
My brothers in leather and motor oil, the men I’d chosen who meant more to me than most of my blood relations ever had.
I wasn’t sure how they’d react, and for the first time in my entire fuckin’ life, I was terrified of what other people would think.
“Honey,” my wife’s sweet voice poured through my ears and dispersed my dark thoughts.
I shifted to look at her beside me and wondered absently if I’d ever get over the sheer beauty of her. Standin’ there beside me, glowin’ and grand with the life we’d made together, I lost my breath to the force of lovin’ her.
“King, they’re going to freaking rejoice when they see you.” Her smile was crooked, eyes sparklin’ as she hesitated. “Maybe just don’t expect them to cry like my babes did.”
I snorted. “More likely to take a swing at me, I’m thinkin’.”
Cress slotted herself into my side, liftin’ my arm with her shoulder so I instinctively curved it around her. The apple and paper scent of her, of sweet orchards and quiet libraries, filled my nose and brought me another measure of peace.
What had I done in my past lives to buy myself the love of this woman?
She seemed to read that thought in my eyes in that mystical way women had of knowin’ their men. Her hands cupped my face, thumbs in the hollows of my cheeks, fingertips in the hair over my ears.
“There isn’t a soul in this house who will not respect you for the decision you made, King Kyle Garro. What you did for them, for us, isn’t a matter of opinion, but of fact. You became a hero that day.” She paused, breath fast over her tongue, heated by the flame of her passion. “Being a hero isn’t an easy thing, though. Just because you act in the service of others doesn’t mean you’ll only encounter thanks. Humans are complicated, and even though you did a good thing, the right thing, you hurt a lot of people in doing it. Pain can blind someone to the truth. If some of the men need a moment to hurt, I know you’ll give it to them, but I hope you do it knowing they still love you. Still admire you. That’s why they need a beat to ache, okay?”
Sometimes, in moments like these, Cressida made me want to cry.
I didn’t, but the ache was there in my tight throat and the burn behind my eyes.
Instead, I cupped the back of her elegant neck tight and brought her close enough all I could see was the verdant forest floor of her eyes.
“Do anythin’ for them,” I reminded her. “But at the end’a the day, Cress babe, I hope you know, I can give them that ’cause I know I always got the love of my life shinin’ her light on me.”
“Always,” she agreed easily to lighten the moment, poppin’ a kiss on my mouth.
I didn’t let her have it that easy.
My grip tightened on her neck, and my lips chased hers, catchin’ her mouth in a hot, sweepin’ kiss that rewarded me with a sweet moan like meltin’ candy over my tongue.
“Love you more than life,” I murmured against her damp lips before nippin’ at that lush bottom swell.
“Love you more than death,” she echoed, runnin’ her hands through my hair in that way she had now, like she was remindin’ herself I was real.
She winced slightly, nostrils flarin’ with pain as one of her hands flew instinctively to her belly. “Yikes.”
“What’s goin’ on?” I demanded, pressin’ my own hand to the swell. “You two okay?”
A deep breath and then a tremulous smile. “Just a really sharp pain. It’s fine. I think the stress and excitement have got him riled up.”
Cress was convinced we were havin’ a boy even though we’d decided not to find out for sure.
“Want me to call the doc?” I asked, already diggin’ my phone outta my pocket.
We’d had our doctor in Sitka transfer everythin’ over to the best women’s doctor in Vancouver, and we had a check-in with her tomorrow, but if my family needed attention, everythin’ else could wait.
Cress rolled her eyes at me, sassy even in distress. “We’re fine. You’re not getting out of this moment, King, so don’t even think about it.”