Page 34 of Where Broken Wings Fly

“How?”

Aisling sighed, her enjoyment of our conversation dwindling. “Well because Raegan was both of theirs.”

“Wait…”

My eyes snapped up from my plate, finding Raegan amongst the chaos. Taking a scan of his face, I whirled my gaze to Diarmuid.

Diarmuid's eyes. They were familiar to me because they were Raegan's eyes.

“Raegan was the Cluaineach Queen’s son?”

“And King Ronan’s,” Aisling added.

“An affair,” Rory giggled to himself like a young girl. “But when King Ronan came for Raegan, Queen Róisín fought back. As did her husband. King Ronan killed them both.”

“So… who sits on the throne of Cluaineach now?”

“No one.”

“There was no other heir?” I gasped.

Rory tilted his head at me. “We need no other heir. Prince Raegan is our heir.”

But he is the Choilltean heir.

As my focus wandered and my eyes went glassy, Aisling and Rory resumed their chatter amongst themselves, commenting on Raegan’s return and what it meant for their kingdom.

The whole time, I couldn’t help but to stare at Raegan.

The golden, blond hair of his. The vibrant, green eyes. Not dark and haunted and void of brilliance like those from Choilltean, but full of light and radiance like the pixies of Cluaineach. The version of him that had blossomed the moment we stepped out of Choilltean, that had shed the dark hair and the even darker eyes and left them behind.

Prince Raegan was the heir to the Cluaineach throne.

Prince Raegan was the heir to the Choilltean throne.

But what did that mean? What would that mean?

Beneath it all – did Killian know? Shea? Niamh?

I could no longer sit within the pool of dread that were my thousands of questions, because Raegan cleared his throat and silenced the room.

He lifted a hand towards me. “We must speak about the Rachainn, now.”

All I could do was stare at him. He tilted his head to the side as he held that eye-contact, as his eyes searched mine for the questions I held there. As his head tipped to the side, his hair parted and revealed his ears for the first time.

Elongated, like all pixies. Pointed, like all pixies.

But did they curve down, like those of Choilltean?

Or did they continue straight, like those of Cluaineach?

The truth of it was that they did neither. There was no telling what direction his ears would have once ended, because they were mutilated beyond identification. The top edges of them looked like a blade had run along the length in an attempt to conceal one side of his identity, but whoever had done it had little skill in handling such a sharp object and ended up shredding the tips altogether.

I must have been staring. Raegan’s face shifted into something full of fury and fire as he pushed at his hair, forcing the long length to conceal his secret once more.

“Olivia, if you would,” he hissed, his hand motioning for me to speak to Diarmuid.

I turned in my chair, my eyes finding Diarmuid at the opposite end of the table.