Sacred Flame: His Enemy, His Mate (BL) Chapter 68: Kael Draeven

Kael Draeven

What is life, really?

One mont, you have everything. The next, it’s gone, vanished in the blink of an eye.

You grow up with rules. Go to school. Get good grades. Listen to your teachers. Read. Write. Study until your brain aches. And sohow, you pass the exams because that’s what you’re supposed to do.

Expectations.

Love.

None of it was freely given. Because success wasn’t earned easily in my house, but like every other house, you have that one reason to prove yourself, either to please soone. Might be yourself. Might be others.

But for , that person was my mother.

She was my world.

I’d sat at the piano for hours, pressing keys with stiff fingers, trying to play sothing, anything, just because she loved music. Even though I never played anything good, I thought... Maybe if I tried hard enough, it would make her happy.

Even when my father barely ca ho, even when his mistress sent pictures of them together just to break her apart, she was still the center of mine.

She never said a word about those pictures. She’d stare at them, silent, fingers gripping the edges so hard they crumpled. And then, she’d take it all out on .

She was a good mother once. At least, I think she was. Or maybe I convinced myself she was because it was easier than admitting the truth. She loved my father, even if it was twisted, even if it bled her dry. And when he kept breaking her, she started breaking too.

Throwing things. Screaming. Shattering plates and flower vases against the walls.

Sotis, she locked in a room. Sotis, she hits . Hard enough that I curled into myself, small and trembling, until she finally saw the blood, the bruises.

Then, she’d fall apart.

She’d gather in her arms, rocking , her tears soaking my skin as she begged for forgiveness. She’d whisper promises that she’d never do it again. But the cycle always repeated.

Until that night she got one of those pictures and ssages again, that very night she put on that brown coat over her white dress and kissed my forehead with those cold lips I would never forget the feel of them.

"Stay here for ," she said. "Mommy has to go sowhere."

I didn’t think much of it then. I was too young. Too naïve. Maybe if I had been stronger, if I had held onto her, if I had let her break my fingers or slap raw, maybe, just maybe, she would have stayed.

Maybe she wouldn’t have gone after them.

But she did.

And she never ca back.

For the first ti in my life, the man who was supposed to be my father ca ho without being forced by mom. He actually ca, but not because he wanted to. Not because he cared. He ca because she was gone.

I hated him.

I still do.

But he was the only one I have left. And maybe... maybe I was just a stupid, lonely kid who craved sothing, anything, that felt like love.

So when he told to co with him, I followed.

I left the only ho I ever knew behind.

And that marked the beginning of a new life.

A life I never asked for.

But craving attention is a dangerous thing. It makes you willing to do anything, even for soone you hate. Even for the man who broke my mother.

So for the following years, I did everything he asked. Obeyed him without question. Beca exactly what he wanted.

Until I was ten.

That was the year he took sowhere new. A place unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

There were children younger than , fragile, crying, begging. None of them lasted. One by one, they disappeared. So taken. So killed. So just... wasted away.

That’s when I understood.

He wasn’t just a cruel man. He was a monster. And he wanted to make one too.

At ten years old, I was already lifting weights my body wasn’t built for. He called it training. If I failed, he whipped . Again and again, until my back felt like it had been split open and prayed for death.

And one day, just like those painful ones, I failed to lift sothing no child should be able to, he made sure I suffered for it.

The whip ca down again.

And again.

Avoiding my face, of course. He was careful like that, never leaving marks where they could be seen because he believes one day they’re going to be put into use, I never did understand what he ant by that until years later.

By the ti he was done, I couldn’t even lift a finger. I just lay there on the cold, hard floor, staring at the ceiling, wondering if this was what the rest of my life would be like.

And then,

A shadow fell over . I couldn’t help lifting my head, and there he was.

A boy, younger than obviously, Maybe five. He has short silver hair. Ocean-blue eyes and he was so beautiful, the kind of beautiful that didn’t belong in a place like this. He didn’t say anything, just crouched down and offered a bottle of water.

It was a small thing. A simple act of kindness.

But to , it was everything.

Later, I learned he was new, one of Father’s latest recruits who lost both his parents like every other Oga father grabbed after plucking out their parents for one or two reasons best known to him.

I thought he’d be like the others. Thought he’d curl up in a corner, cry himself to sleep, break apart under the weight of this place.

But he didn’t. Although, he just sat there sotis, staring into nothing. His eyes were distant. Empty. But there was sothing else, too, sothing I couldn’t na but seen clearly because it was so .

He was sad.

I wanted to comfort him. But how could I, when I couldn’t even comfort myself?

And what if I got close to him and he found out who I was? What if he ends up hating ? What if he looked at and saw only him? Father; the man who took both his parents.

So I kept my distance. Watched from the shadows, growing and fueling my own twisted feelings.

And as ti passed, I realized sothing,

He wasn’t like the others.

He adapted. He trained. He’s strong, stronger than I’ll ever be.

And without aning to, without realizing it, he beca an existence I couldn’t do without, an existence I just couldn’t stop myself from watching,

Like a drug I was addicted to. Call it an obsession or anything you want, but what I know is I just can’t stop myself from watching him.

But beneath his calm exterior was this fire within him, bright and burning, so fierce I knew it was bound to bring him trouble.

And it did.

The day he defied Father by doing sothing as stupid as standing up for the others, I knew it was coming. I knew what Father would do.

But that didn’t make it any easier to watch as he was made to go on his knees in front of the others, the whip was raised by father and lashed at his back, one, two, three... It cracked against his skin, and he scread. Loud. Raw. The kind of sound so excruciating it feeds sothing twisted, sothing deep inside my chest.

I wanted to stop it. Wanted to rip that whip from Father’s hand.

But I was weak.

Weakness was unforgivable.

Weakness ant I could do nothing but stand there, watching as he bled.

So I made a decision.

I would get stronger.

Stronger than before. Strong enough to take him away from this place.

Therefore, I threw myself into training. Harder. Longer. Until my body broke.

And Father noticed quickly.

At first, he only watched. Observing, calculating. He didn’t praise , didn’t acknowledge my efforts, but he also didn’t stop .

I pushed harder. Ignored the pain. Ignored the blood. Ignored the way my body scread for rest.

And after sotis,

He saw the shift in and for the first ti, he actually paid attention. Because I was becoming exactly what he wanted to be.

A monster.

But I knew I wasn’t training to please him. I was training to survive. To beco strong enough to carve my own path. To take him away from this hell before it destroyed him, too.

But Father wasn’t a fool. He saw the shift in . Saw the way I kept my eyes on that silver-haired boy even when I thought no one was looking.

And he used it against .

One day, he called into his office. His expression was unreadable, his voice cold as he said to , "You keep looking at him, Kael? Do you like him? Do you want to take him away?" he had clicked his tongue with a mocking laugh after that before saying, "An hopeless dream it is, but why not earn it? Do whatever I tell you and he’ll be yours."

And oh I do, I do like him so much I would do everything, and that’s how I ca to an agreent with father to be his tool and he’ll give us freedom.

That continued for years until I turned twenty three, and by this ti I had done all sort of dirty work anyone could do, kill, grab from others, destroy, all on the command of father, I was his son, and I’ve done well for the past years, earning myself a na in the underground world.

That was until I got my very last mission which would change everything including , because of the target I was supposed to kill, a man who just woke up from a thirteen year coma, who happens to go by the na, Sebastian Locke.