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If you like music while you\'re reading, try "Always Love You" by Say We Can Fly. It\'s what I was listening to while I wrote this (this has been Gahrye and Kalle\'s song since King of Beast days *wink*)

*****

GAHRYE

He sat at the dining table chewing a steak that tasted like sawdust in his mouth. Kalle sat at the end of the table to his left, staring at her plate. He thought she might have swallowed one green bean.

Reece had disappeared after he ran back to the house, and hadn\'t shown up for dinner. Kalle was more worried. She didn\'t understand. But Gahrye did. His son was like him. When Kalle got upset she wanted to be closer, touching. When Reece got upset he needed room and solitude.

Gahrye swallowed the mouthful and it almost came back up, but he gamely speared another bite of steak and put it in his mouth.

He startled when Kalle\'s fork clattered to her plate and she dropped her elbows to the table, and her face into her hands.

"Why?" was all she said, but her voice was high and tight. Gahrye put his own fork down carefully and reached for her hand, pulling it away from her beautiful face and holding it between his own on the tablecloth.

"I don\'t know," he said honestly. "I wish I knew. The Creator isn\'t sharing."

Kalle shook her head, a single tear tracking down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her free hand. "Reece is going to—"

"Reece is going to be safe, and that\'s all that matters," he said bluntly. He didn\'t want to talk about it.

Kalle sighed, nodding. She\'d had time—they\'d both had time—to get used to this idea. But it was hitting them all over again, now that they knew there wasn\'t any hope.

"I wish I could be there to talk to Elia," she said, her voice breaking on her old friend\'s name.

Gahrye nodded. "I can take a phone. You could record something?"

Kalle\'s brow pinched. "Maybe? I don\'t know. I\'ll see how I feel. I don\'t know if I can have that conversation with a camera lens."

Gahrye sighed. He couldn\'t blame her for that.

"I can\'t eat," she said a moment later.

"Neither can I."

"Do you have to study or… or anything?" she asked, her voice even higher, as if she was afraid of the answer.

Gahrye shook his head. "No. I just wanted to give them some time. I\'ll leave in the morning."

Kalle squeezed his hand. "Then… why don\'t we go upstairs and just… be?"

Her eyes were pleading. She didn\'t have to ask twice. Gahrye wanted nothing more than to be close to her. So he got to his feet quickly and followed her out of the dining room into the massive entry lobby of the Big House, and then up the wide staircase.

She was wearing a long sweater and leggings and he was suddenly taken back twenty years, to their first months together in this house. They\'d been in this very room the day they decided to tie their lives together…

He\'d hesitated after locking the door and didn\'t turn around right away. Kalle had stepped into his back, wrapping her arms around him from behind, and laying her chest against his warm back.

He\'d sighed and slid his hands from her elbows, up her arms, to twine their fingers.

"You don\'t have to be nervous," she whispered. "If this is your first time, I can show you."

Gahrye had snorted. "It\'s not my first time giving my body, Kalle," he said dryly. "It is… it\'s the first time I\'ve come to this with my heart." He turned then, looming over her, everything in him honed, thrumming with need for her, fierce and intense. "I\'m terrified," he whispered.

Her breath had caught and he hadn\'t been able to move. Everything in him pulsed with vulnerability, as if the wrong move, the wrong word, would cut him open and bleed him out.

"What scares you?" she asked.

He dropped his gaze for a moment, taking her hands and stroking them with his thumbs. "In the past I\'ve always been someone to be pitied or ignored," he said slowly. "An object of disgust or just… dismissed." He cleared his throat, then brought his eyes up to hers and let her see the rage he usually kept bottled. "That is not me."

"N-no, it\'s not," she gulped.

"They don\'t know me, Kalle. Not really. Elia sees me, but… I realized this afternoon that I have done the wrong thing with you. I\'ve remained hesitant. I\'ve held myself apart. I\'ve expected you to… reject me. But you haven\'t. I\'m… overwhelmed by that."

"You aren\'t hard to love, Gahrye," she said softly, squeezing his fingers.

He huffed a humorless laugh.

"Gahrye—"

"No, let me do this, Kalle. Let me tell you, and then let me show you." He stared, letting her see the heat in his chest. Kalle nodded, and he blew out a breath. But their gazes never wavered.

"If you were in my home," he began, his mind flashing back to Anima and his home in a Great Tree, "As soon as I knew who you were, what you were to me, I would have asked you to walk the Flames and Smoke. The Anima would gather the females that were closest to you to prepare you, and the males near me would… well, the point is, we would have prepared. And on that night, we would have stood firm. We would have fought to be close to each other. Denied all others to join together. And when I won you, I would have gathered you up and brought you to the home I\'d prepared and offered it to you. And when you accepted, we would have joined in truth. And from that moment on, we would be together—always in each other\'s lives and hearts whether we were in each other\'s presence, or not." He paused, gathering himself, and swallowed.

"I understand that human traditions are different. That the vows are different. That the intentions may also be different. But I cannot change what\'s in my heart, or what I choose. So…"

With a shaky breath he lowered himself to one knee.

He hadn\'t expected Kalle to remove her touch and it made his nerves spike. But when she\'d seen him go down on one knee, she brought her hands to her mouth, staring at him, wide-eyed, over them.

He was determined to finish this, to have her answer. To give himself. So he blew out a shaking breath and held her eyes. He could hear her heart racing almost as fast as his own.

"Kalle," he said hoarsely. "I love you. You are… you are the one the Creator made for me. I\'m certain of it. I wish to never be parted from you. But I know that life will likely remove us from each other. Even knowing that, I do not want anyone else. Whether together or alone, will you have me for your mate? Your… your husband? Will you give me all of you, all of your heart, forever? Because I want to give you all of m—"

"Yes!" she gasped, grabbing his face, tiny whimpers breaking in her throat. "Yes, Gahrye, yes! I will! I love you! Yes!"

Snapping back to the present as they walked into their bedroom, the same room, Kalle didn\'t notice the sudden wave of nostalgia and love washing over him. She stroked a hand down his arm without meeting his eyes and walked straight to the bathroom. But after twenty years, he knew what that touch meant.

Letting her go ahead, Gahrye turned and locked the bedroom door.

His son was more Anima than he realized when it came to barging into closed rooms. And Gahrye wasn\'t taking any risks. He loved his mate, more than his own life. He wasn\'t giving up a chance to be close to her now for anything in the world. Not even his son.

This was precious. And they didn\'t know how many days they had left.