Master

Chapter 58

Lincoln's P.O.V

"Kalem, where are we?"

I'd thought about how to start this particular conversation for the last five minutes, and this was the best I'd come to.

When Kalem and I had eventually found the strength to tear our lips away from one another, I'd been shocked to find myself immediately ushered back to the massive mattress within the cave by my very insistent angel.

I felt fine – better than I felt in all my years in fact – but no reassurances on my end could get Kalem to budge on his demands for me to rest and get better.

There was a panic that overtook him every time his eyes were away from me and the weight of it on him worried me. It was like he thought someone would snatch me away from him, or I'd drop dead if his attention left me for a moment.

I had no idea what Kalem had been through when I'd been unconscious, but it couldn't have been easy. I only hoped that as he saw me moving around, as usual, that fear would lessen.

For now, I was playing the role of an obedient patient, which left my mind to wander to all that still waited for us outside these desolate lands, such as where exactly these lands were.

The question makes Kalem stop the fussing he'd been doing with the numerous blankets he'd wrapped around me and look at me with a hesitant gaze.

"I don't know," Kalem replies carefully, his cheeks pinkening while his fingers find each other.

I blink at him, "You don't know?"

"I needed to get you safe, so I flew away," he answers as if it were the most normal thing in the world. "I saw all these sunflowers here, so I knew it had to be a good place!"

I find myself smiling because while the news was slightly troubling, I'd sorely missed Kalem's way of thinking.

"And the mattress?" I question with a glance down.

"I stole it," Kalem whispers before he covers his mouth as if that would put the words back away.

I hardly cared if Kalem stole someone's mattress, but it was amusing to know that my love had done something that was so scandalous in his eyes.

"You did?" I question, raising a brow and amping up my intrigue.

Kalem nods his head quickly, "I flew it here," he mumbles, hands still covering his mouth, "I stole the blankets too!"

Laughter bubbles up from my throat as Kalem confesses his sins to me as if I were some priest and this was a confessional. That laughter only grows as his entire body sags with relief, suggesting that his thievery must've been really weighing on him for some time.

"Gods, I've missed you," I groan as I offer him my hand.

He takes it immediately, hurriedly climbing onto the mattress so that he could cuddle within my arms, his wings tucking tightly behind him so that they wouldn't get in the way.

"But love, why did you come here and not the castle?"

Kalem stiffens before he slowly looks up at me, "Not safe."

I frown, not understanding how what was literally the safest place on the planet for us, could not be safe to him.

"P-People lie," he continues so quietly I almost miss the words, "people l-like friends, a-and I don't w-want any m-more bad things h-happening to you, Master."

I tighten my hold on my love, cursing myself again for not being as vigilant.

A closer look at Thén would've revealed him to be a snake in the grass. Similarly, if I'd taken a single glance around the desert, I could've saved my boy so much pain and agony. But I hadn't, and now he harboured this newly rooted fear that he might lose me.