Blood Bonds: An Angel's Love

Sorry update took so long. Went out of town. Enjoy! Artemis sensei, sorry Lloyd came out like that last chapter. Thank you for your feedback, though, it helped me get back on track.


Chapter 13

“I’m sorry, Yuan, I can’t.” Lloyd broke away from the Renegade leader, shaking his head. “I know you miss Martel, that you loved her, that she loves you, but still, it’s not fair to Kratos.”

Yuan squeezed the wedding ring from his proposal to Martel in his palm hard. The one Lloyd’s entourage found on Izoold’s beach, he nearly crushed it. He trembled, fighting tears welling in his malachite eyes.

“Do you know how it feels…to love someone for 4000 years who’s died, you meet them then you cannot be with them?” He bit down on his lower lip to keep his face from twisting in pain. The stoic man wouldn’t let his emotions burst through.

“I…I can’t hurt…Kratos.” Lloyd sighed, imagining his lover’s reaction if he saw him with Yuan. Martel’s feminine spirit affected Lloyd emotionally, making him attracted to other males in his presence besides Kratos, but Lloyd wouldn’t let that control him. His faith to Kratos kept him steadfast to the one man he truly loved.

The blue haired half-elf gasped and stepping back he lost his composure. “Don’t tell me you and Kratos…” Aghast, he trailed off unable to finish, his throat tightening in shock.

Lloyd nodded solemnly, his brown eyes darkening beneath his bangs falling over.

Green eyes locked on Lloyd, they widened, Yuan’s mouth open without words. “I…I never…” He forced his mouth to form sounds. “Thought Kratos would do…such a thing!”

“Enough!” a deep voice rumbled out from the hall leading into Yuan’s headquarters.

Two pinpoints of fire, Kratos’s ruby eyes burned out between his auburn bangs. His mouth turned down, held shut, and body poised he managed to regain his steady self-control. “I know what you are going to say, Yuan,” Kratos said softly, his powerful voice softening and eyes growing gentler.

Yuan’s brows furrowed together, he faced Kratos. “The one I feel sorry for is that pitiful woman, Anna. If she never met you, she wouldn’t of died. What would she say if she saw her own husband and son in love?”

“Don’t insult Mom!” snapped Lloyd, lunging between his father and Yuan. “Mom put herself inside the Seed so I could be with Dad and save the world. She knows how Kratos and I…are.”

Sighing, Yuan glanced at Lloyd, his face heavy with weariness. “I apologize, Lloyd, Kratos.” Turning away, his cape flared out behind him. “When I think of the pain your family has endured, old friend, including this forbidden love between father and son, my pain of loosing Martel can’t compare.”

Yuan referred to Kratos killing Anna to save her, and the inner turmoil Kratos experienced loving his own son romantically.

Whirling back around, Yuan laid his hands on Kratos and Lloyd’s shoulders, joining them. Nodding in compassion, Yuan’s expression softened.

“You’re my friend, Kratos, my only true one.” Sentiment came through in his voice. “When Martel died, when Mithos descended into the madness he lives in now, when humans, half-elves and elves slaughtered each other savagely, only your friendship kept me afloat, kept me sane, gave meaning to a painful existence 4000 years old. I couldn’t forgive myself now for turning my back on you.”

In a rare display of affection Lloyd never imagined from the masculine Renegade leader, Yuan pulled Kratos in a hug of friendship. Botta and his men weren’t there to watch. He could be himself, pouring out his heart for his friend. A lifetime lasting eternity went into the warm of his arms around Kratos.

“I’ll stall Yddrasill, do everything I can to help,” Yuan offered. “However, there’s one thing I’d like in return.” He held Kratos an arms length apart.

Kratos raised a brow. “Hmm? Tell me.”

“To borrow your son’s Ex-sphere to further the Renegade’s goals,” Yuan replied elusively, masking his enigmatic intentions.

Crossing his arms, Kratos eyed him suspiciously. “…Would this in any way hurt Lloyd?”

“I swear on my honor he’ll be safe,” Yuan reassured, resting his hand on the hilt of his blade to symbolize his worthiness as a man.

“Very well,” Kratos agreed, his posture relaxing. “There are things I must do.”

“Before you go, I request that you wait.” Yuan extended an arm behind Lloyd, handing him his engagement ring to Martel.

Lloyd reached behind, taking it without Kratos knowing. Yuan had some plan to heal the rift growing between Kratos and Lloyd, feeling guilty he caused it by embracing Lloyd before when Kratos visited. This was also Yuan’s way of saying, you’ve always been my best friend, will be forever, this is what I want to do to show you I care.

Nodding, Kratos hid a smile, heading to the Renegade’s briefing room just adjacent to the large chambered headquarters.

Yuan closed Lloyd’s hand around the ring. “I’ve observed your skill with metal working and jewelry in that fine keycrest of yours. So take this, remake it with the feelings you have for your father, and give it to him. It has not only my spirit but also Martel’s. It shows we support you two in your bond.”

Smiling sadly, Yuan closed his eyes. “Besides, Martel would be sad if I continued grieving like Mithos going into madness. She envisioned the world healed through love. So perhaps healing the love between you two is a way of fulfilling her vision, one person at a time.”

Lloyd swallowed, blinking hard, feeling thousands of years of emotion poured into the ring. “Thank you…Yuan,” feeling overwhelmed and touched.

Kratos eavesdropped from the partially opened door next-door. /Yuan, always doing things for others, you never change, my friend. No wonder Martel loved you so deeply.

Yuan summoned a Renegade attendant to guide Lloyd to the blacksmith’s complex outside the main base building, where Renegade craftsmen forged weapons and armor. Out in this back structure adjacent, between the mountain and steel Renegade base, Lloyd wandered in reminded of his time as a child, watching Dirk at the forge. Suddenly, a painful feeling welled up within, he wished his life were simply as a child when sexuality didn’t confuse his life, and dad was simply dad, not someone he was torn between as a son and lover.

Sniffling, Lloyd’s boot heels dug into the sad, he sank against the forging building, his sight trailing up over the Triet mountain range bordering the great blue ocean beyond.

“I’m sorry, Kratos!” Lloyd cried clutching the ring Yuan gave him to his chest. Through teary eyes, he choked on his tears. “I wasn’t faithful, looking at Mithos, then Yuan like that. How can you forgive me?”

To help release feelings of guilt he felt inside, he let the mana building up free itself as his wings grew out of his back. He glowed white, a heavenly angel with feathers of light fluttering about as he completed his transformation. His feathered wings, like Remiel’s spanned twice the length of his body having grown massively in size, since his power grew as well. A dewdrop like tear rolled down his cheek, glistening like a diamond in the high desert soon, from light reflecting deep in its watery facet, both beautiful and sad at once. The radiant white light from Lloyd’s dazzling wings touched the teardrop transforming into a small pearly jewel, shimmering light pink in the palm of Lloyd’s gloved hand. He gasped at its splendor, seeing the gem embedded in Yuan’s engagement ring to Martel shatter as if it no longer belonged.

/Lloyd, my friend, place the new jewel born from the tears of your soul in the ring for Kratos, your one true love/, Martel’s sweet voice echoed in Lloyd’s head.

Nodding soulfully, Lloyd swallowed, slipping the tiny jewel hardened from his tear in the empty facet of the ring Yuan once gave to Martel.

“It seems your power has grown,” a deep base voice flowed out from around the corner of the forging complex Lloyd huddled up against.

“Kratos.” Lloyd’s breath caught in his throat at the sound of uttering his lover’s name.

Lloyd spun around, stunned to see the seraph in full beauty, his transparent fairy like wings materializing behind his muscular body in a colorful array of light blues and aqua fluttering behind. Both angels faced each other for the first time with wings revealed, making them glow like suns, illuminated from the inside out.

“I want to give you this,” Lloyd said softly, casting his visage down, holding out the ring with its new pearl jewel faceted in, a physical symbol of the infinite love joining Lloyd and Kratos soul to soul.

So the love between us I thought was destroyed at the Tower of Salvation when I betrayed Lloyd has been reborn, somehow through the grace of Martel, Kratos reflected, his eye running over the jewel, reflecting back his own lovely image and Lloyd’s dancing on its perfect surface.

“Lloyd, I saw it form from your tears,” Kratos said, taking it in his hand. “It means we’re meant to be together. Tonight, I’ll take you someplace special where you can give it to me in private.”

Feeling every cell of his being vibrate with love, a smile spread across Lloyd’s face. His round boyish face glowed with joy at the man he so deeply loved. It didn’t matter if this man was flesh and blood, his father. Their love transcended all divisions like kinship and race, they only knew they felt so alive, so happy beyond words in each other’s presence.

“But Kratos, I was the one who betrayed you, who hurt you.” It hurt Lloyd inside to gaze in Kratos’s piercing ruby eyes.

Smiling gently, Kratos embraced him, wrapping his fairy wings around the son he tenderly loved. “Love is like that,” he said wisely from 4000 years of life. “The purer, the more it hurts. Love and hate is like life and death, two opposite sides of a coin, seeming separate yet the same.”

Spreading his wings out to their full majestic length, tapered up gracefully from his shoulder blades in an arc above, Lloyd wrapped them back around Kratos, the two mutually joined in a hug of wings and arms intertwined.

“You must have seen everything, living so long,” Lloyd said softly, lost in Kratos’s love.

Nodding, Kratos pulled him closer, kissing his son on the lips. “Yes, I once grew tired of living, wanting only to die, but you taught me Lloyd, there’s no meaning in death. With you by my side, I can do anything, even restore the world to its original state.”

“Together, we will. I want you to know, Kratos, I love you so much. What happened before will never happen again, I swear, as long as I live.” Lloyd melted back in Kratos’s kiss, pressing deeply, letting his tongue dart out to lick Kratos’s lips.

Tasting like honey, Lloyd moaned, figuring it was from sweets Kratos had before meeting him, wanting to taste him more, savor every inch of his body and the taste that was uniquely his.

Holding a finger to Lloyd’s lips, Kratos shook his head chidingly. “Not now, I promise, Lloyd, tonight.”

Lloyd shook with excitement. He couldn’t wait for the newfound moments he’d share with Kratos when he’d give him the ring born from his tears, and the surprises that awaited.

TBC

Lemon next, I’m thinking:D It’s time, eh? But also, something else.