Page 37 of Where Broken Wings Fly

I was a little too proud as I held my chin high, my eyes pointed upwards as I fought to hold steady beneath his intense glance.

“Let me offer you the same courtesy.”

I frowned at him as I watched that straight-lined mouth curve upwards.

“A coward knows a coward.”

“I’m not a coward,” I shot out before I could stop myself.

“No? Tell me then, why did you leap from your own life so quickly?”

I had no answer for him, at least none that I wanted him to hear. And he knew that, his grin growing wild and poisonous as he flicked a brow upwards. “Nothing?”

“You made your point.” Grumbling to myself, I started to walk on. Both of us knew I had no idea where we were going, so Raegan snickered to himself as he lingered in my shadow.

I shot a furious look over my shoulder at him. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“To seek the company of the only damn creatures in Saoghal who expect nothing of me.”

15

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There was no way that the creatures we were visiting were the ones that we ended up halting in front of.

Raegan had led me, wordlessly, the rest of the walk towards Cluaineach’s own little barnyard, which was filled with many of the same animals of Choilltean.

After pausing and chatting with a pink-hued pixie, Raegan motioned for me to follow him back behind the barn. Feeling nothing but utter disdain for him, I huffed and obliged, only to release all of the tension in my body as I looked upon the animals hiding out behind the barn.

Foxes.

A gathering of them, four or five creatures with thin spindly legs and long, stretched bodies that ended in impressive bushes of tails swinging behind them. Each of them had coats resembling the orange of a bright sunrise, patterns of white as clear as snow. Their sharp, triangular ears flicked to us immediately as we approached, all of them just as tall as large horses from where they stood several feet away.

I guess I knew where Raegan got his fox-like stare from.

With a gentle smile on his face, the Prince approached the first of the group. Reaching a hand out to the pointed face of the creature, Raegan stroked at his fur as he let his forehead near the nose of the fox.

It was odd to see royalty not only so gentle with an animal, but to also mutter the same questioned request of partnership that the other pixies resorted to. It was hardly a whisper, yet I picked up on every letter as it poured from his mouth.

“Caraid?”

The elongated muzzle of the fox pressed against Raegan’s torso before he let out a shrill bark, the noise sounding like a woman screaming as he tipped his snout to the sky.

I approached the second of their group, reaching out a shaking hand that grazed against the sharp whiskers on his black snout. The fox regarded me, sly eyes monitoring every move as I pulled in a deep breath.

“Caraid?”

That same scream came from the second fox, except instead of greeting me the same way the other had greeted Raegan, he turned on his haunches and leapt through the field, gathering with the others and taking off before I could so much as blink.

“How unfortunate,” Raegan beamed as he pulled himself up onto his fox’s back.

“Bite me, Raegan.”

Something flashed over his face, his pupils expanding and his nostrils flaring. Within a breath he had managed to conceal that, resorting to lifting his brows suggestively before he rolled his eyes and nudged gently at the sides of his mount, taking the lead where I would have to follow behind.

~

I walked for three and a half hours.