Kraken (29 page)

Will spoke into the silence. “Was Ella raped?”

Lou stopped building the fire, and looked at him.

“I
know
you’re not asking me that. Because you would not be so stupid.”

“I thought no more secrets. If she was, it was hardly her fault. It’s just, I was thinking about my mother . . . I’m sorry.”

“We’re ready to go here. You checked the smokestack?”

“No, but I’m not sure how to. We might just need to chance it. Thanks for staying to help, Lou. I don’t even know you.”

“I’m not doing this for you, Will. I’m doing this for everyone on this island. You’re right. No more secrets and fear. Let’s just make sure we only have to do it once.”

Lou held a rolled-up newspaper in her hand. She pulled a matchbook from her pocket. A quick rasp, and a tiny single flame flickered in the middle of the ruin. She lit the taper and dropped it in. Will leaned over the edge, watching as the flame hovered, flickering, the flared up, catching on the balls of paper. It was silent at first, and then he heard the pop of dry wood as the larger tinder caught.

Cyrus’s voice rose again from the pit, sneaking through the cracks and chips in the stone around the edges of the huge metal doors. ”What are you doing, my love?”

Will stood silently next to the ore pit, feeling the first faint wisps of warm air curl around his feet. Lou drew him to the side, and they sat together by the storm lantern.

“What time is it?” asked Will.

Lou looked at her wrist. “A little after eleven at night.”

“Really? That’s all? It feels later.”

It took another hour for the soft orange glow to creep out of the furnace and start to illuminate the ruins. Lou got up a few times and opened the tiny inspection hatch in the firebox. The second time she tipped a bag of coal in, slowly, carefully.

Cyrus’s pleading was beginning to take on a more urgent tone.

“You don’t want to do this. I know you. You trust me, remember? I make it good for you. There won’t ever be anyone else who loves you like I do.”

It took a good long time for the floor under Will’s feet to grow warm to the touch. He could only imagine what it was like in the furnace.

Cyrus’s screams became constant. “You can’t do this!”

Lou’s hand found his, and they sat quietly together for a long time.

“Only a monster would do this to someone!” Cyrus screamed.

Will listened to the old smelting house ringing with Cyrus’s curses and struggles.

“Yes,” he said.

The worn, chipped edge of the brickwork pit let the terrible hissing cries and wails escape into the dawn.

The worn cotton quilt was soft and warm in the sun, and Will considered rolling back into the caress of the ocean. A hand stroked his back, cool and dripping from the sea.

“You going to put the stones back, then?”

Will shrugged, eyes still closed against the bright glare of the sun.

“I don’t think so. I’m not completely clear what they do. Do the stones take away people’s memories of the island? Or did they give Cyrus the power to do that? Do they make me . . . what I am? Moving them didn’t stop it. Could something that feels that good be entirely bad?”

“Well, keep them safe, then.”

Will nodded.

“I have a present for you.”

Will heard Aiden unzip their day pack, and take something out. It sounded like metal against the shingle. He opened his eyes.

It was a narrow tin box, about a foot long, rusted and stained. He sat up and forced the stiff latch open. It was full of letters and postcards.

“What’s this?”

“The builders found it under the floorboards of your old room. They’re yours.”

The paper was yellowed and crisp with age. Will picked up a sheet, scanning the cramped blue writing.

I
’ll be back soon
.

He grabbed another

As soon as I finish my degree we’ll be together. I won’t forget you
.

I just need to find a job: not long now
.

Moisture came to his eyes.

“She didn’t abandon me, then?”

“It makes no sense that she would have,” said Aiden. “Imagine what life would have been like on the mainland for her when she left. No schooling, no qualifications.”

Will shook his head.

“No, she was a nurse. ER. First response.”

“Then she would have done all that after she left here. Maybe she did it for you.”

“She would have known she was up against a ticking clock.”

“Yep. Nine years, more or less.”

“Less, I’m guessing.”

Will tucked the letters back into the tin and threw it gently back to Aiden.

“Thank you. Let’s take it home with us, huh? I’m not ready just now.”

He felt Aiden return to their warm cocoon, curling up wet and cold against his back and wrapping his arm around him. Will licked the salt from Aiden’s forearm and kissed his fingers.

“Hey.”

“Mmmmhmmm?”

“How did Parker’s parents die?”

Will was silent for a minute.

“Plane crash. Cessna. On the way back from holiday.”

Aiden’s silence was deafening.

“Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that myself,” said Will. “They don’t think we’re really real, somehow, do they. We’re just tools or toys.”

“What are they?”

“I don’t know. Something ancient.” Will looked out at the sea, where bobbing gulls were strewn like confetti on the dark water.

Will lifted Aiden’s arm and rolled over to face him, snuggling in against him. “Thank you for forgiving me for . . . what I had to do.”

Aiden stroked his fingers through Will’s salty stiff hair. “No. Please forgive me for not being strong enough to do it with you.”

Will smiled. “I’ll forgive you. If you’ll do something for me.”

“Name it.”

“Will you fuck me, please, Aiden? Let us make something human and warm and ours?”

Aiden’s cool lips nibbled at his chin, his cheek, his mouth. Their tongues met, and Aiden welcomed Will’s inside. With one hand Aiden reached for the pack, fiddling in a pocket for a minute, then pulling out the lube.

Will lay back on the quilt, as Aiden coated his fingers with lube.

“Give me some too,” Will asked, holding out his hand.

He waited till Aiden squeezed a long stripe onto his palm, then worked his hand between them, finding Aiden’s hard cock. He jacked him slowly, lovingly, wetly, while Aiden gently stroked Will’s hole, working one finger inside and coating his channel thoroughly.

“C’mon,” said Will. “I’m ready. I want you.”

Aiden tipped his head back and moaned. With his hand he guided his thick tip to Will’s slick hole. He hovered there, waiting, until Will abruptly pushed his body down onto Aiden’s, seating the warm spongy head inside him. They cried out together.

“Fuck, you feel good,” said Will. “More, please.”

Aiden slowly fed his thick length into Will’s hole, as Will’s hands grasped the soft cotton beneath him, as he writhed and begged inarticulately. Finally Aiden was balls deep, and he rotated his hips, screwing the full length of his dick deep inside Will. Will raised himself up onto his elbows so he could watch Aiden’s thick cock where it met and filled him. He moaned happily, catching one hand behind Aiden’s head and pulling him forward for a deep kiss, sucking at Aiden’s tongue. They overbalanced, Will falling back onto the quilt with Aiden on top of him, and he laughed.

“Oh, gods, sorry,” said Aiden. “You okay?”

“Oh, yeah. Now fuck me, hard, and I’ll be even better.”

Aiden lifted Will’s lithe long legs, one at a time, onto his shoulders. He pulled his hips back, then thrust forward again, pushing deep inside Will’s soft velvet heat.

“Oh, yeah, just like that.”

Will closed his eyes, losing himself in the rhythm of Aiden’s firm pounding. His hands reached for Aiden’s arse, grasping and kneading and pulling him closer.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, I can’t hold it,” said Aiden.

Will brought one hand back to his own cock, pulling the foreskin back and forth, enjoying the feeling as he rubbed over his sensitive red tip.

“Go,” he gasped out. “Any time is good.”

Aiden gave two almighty thrusts, groaning and writhing against Will’s groin as he shot his seed into him. Will increased the speed of his hand, working his cock quickly now, bringing himself to his own final release. Aiden’s cock deep inside milked the cum out of him, and it spilled in a pool on his belly.

Aiden made to pull back, and Will groaned and wrapped his legs around him.

“No,” he said. “No pulling out. Stay. Stay always. Fuck, you feel good inside me.”

Aiden laughed, leaning down and kissing the words from Will’s lips. He ran his hand through the pool of Will’s pearly cum, sucking it off his fingertips with relish.

“I would love to stay here all day,” he said, “but I have no shirt on and I am sunburned all to hell on my back from snorkeling.”

Will threw his head back against the quilt and groaned.

“Go on then.”

Aiden pulled out, and flipped over onto his back next to Will, his cum drying on his cock.

“That was good,” Will said. “Very good.”

“Think we can improve?” asked Aiden.

“Maybe. I think we might need to try again and see.”

Aiden hummed his happy agreement. “Next time you top.”

They lay in the sun for a long while, letting the rays seep into their skin. And then they swam. And then, as barn swallows spiraled in the blue summer sky, they joined with each other again.

THE END

While the flaws in this story are all my own, any redeeming qualities it might have wouldn’t exist without a lot of other people.

Anyta, thank you for everything, not least suggesting I write some fiction in the first place.

Thank you Eve, beta-reader extraordinaire.

Thank you also to Erica, Angie, and David.

Last, but certainly not least, thank you Julio-Alexi, for your friendship. The book wouldn’t have been written without it.

M.

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