Page 107 of Where Broken Wings Fly

“You are my caraid,” he huffed, hopping down to the next branch that brought him closer to us all. “I will not be separated from you, Little.”

My heart was trying to swell as I fought back tears at his strange revelation.

Killian clapped his hands together, forcing all of our attention back to him and shattering the tension that had been building. “Now that that’s all settled… Let’s all go get a drink.”

~

It was the last day of peace in Saoghal.

Even I could feel that. No matter how much nectar we drank, no matter how much food we stuffed into our mouths, no matter how hard we tried to dance the feeling away. It lingered, like a dusky cloud above us all.

Laughter was shared between the four of us, sorrow was spoken towards the empty place amongst us where Niamh should have been. But nothing, nothing was capable of allowing us to forget that my last night with my pixies was perhaps the last night of joy they were to see again.

It was spite, in the end, that made us push one another to enjoy the night all the more. As a group we swung around one another, kicking our feet and twirling our bodies to the melodious jigs that echoed through the dark streets of Choilltean. Drinks were passed back and forth as we floated around the large fires outside the strange little cafe, every pixie in the vicinity soon joining us in a raucous display of friendship and denial.

Time was the enemy of us all, even those of immortal lifespan. Because as exhaustion started to tear at each of our bodies, it was time for us all to call it a night. Shea departed first, utterly drunk as she tried to tear herself away from us and towards wherever it was that she lived.

Raegan was next. He didn’t say goodbye, instead snuck away when no one noticed. I had suspected it on him for the hour preceding his departure — the shadow that was growing larger and more demanding with every forced laughter and every false smile.

Which made me angry with him. Of our short time together, I at least expected some sort of goodbye. Ignorance allowed me to move past that, to believe that we would have our goodbye in the morning before I was sent away from Saoghal.

That only left Killian and I, dancing until our feet ached and until the muscles around our mouths couldn’t take the laughter any longer.

We resorted to swaying as pixies spun around us, our arms wrapped around one another and our heads pressed together.

“I wish that you could stay here,” he murmured, back to gripping my body as if it was his lifeline.

There was no point in saying that I wished that, too. “You gave me the greatest gift, Killian. I will cherish this time for the rest of my life.”

He pulled away and smiled at me, the first genuine smile upon his face that evening.

“And I know what I said before…” I didn’t know how to finish my sentence, so I resorted to simply pushing up on my toes and letting my lips graze against his. He met my gentle request with earnestness, pushing me against him where he let the harboured emotions in his chest come forth through his lips. I did the same, changing the angle of my head as his hands moved into my hair.

Finally, we departed from one another with heavy breaths and dishevelled hair.

Like the first day that I met him, Killian looked down at me with that familiar excitement etched into his face. “Perhaps there’s one last thing I can show you, Olivia.”

My eyes brightened with want as I let them scan his face. “And what is that?”

His lips curled upwards with his infamous mischief as his pupils widened. His hand slid along my side, finding curves and divots through my body that he brushed a gentle finger over. Only once he was satisfied with the slow mapping of my skin did he place his fingers against my spine, pushing me softly against him.

“Let me have you,” he pleaded, his voice soft yet still entirely Killian. “Just this once. Let me give you myself, just this once. And let us remember one another like that — raw and revealed, bound by the memory of how we felt against one another.”

I smiled up at him, thankful that he had finally asked, that he had finally given in to that ‘primal urge’ he kept talking about. I was bursting at the seams with curiosity.

“You can have me,” I murmured.

And shit, if the look on his face wasn’t the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

43

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Killian’s lips were against mine, his hands roving along the lengths of my body, his waist the seat that I had found for myself as we stumbled down the hallways of the Choilltean castle, yet I was thinking of Raegan.

Not thinking of him. It wasn’t like I was imagining his lips against mine or his hard length beginning to grind against me — no, I was thinking about how angry I was at him. How, in reality, I was devastated that he had snuck off without so much as saying goodbye to me. So angry, actually, that even the radiance that of Saoghal was drifting from me, leaving me back in a cavernous darkness within myself. I needed a distraction.

Killian was a really good distraction.