Page 71 of Where Broken Wings Fly

“I consider myself to have more humanity, for example. But there are some, like a certain Prince, that I doubt has any.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“That I wish I was joking or exaggerating when I say that Raegan will turn into something… raw and unapologetic, if he sees you so much as limp.”

“I don’t care,” I huffed, squaring my shoulders. “I’m going. Help me, or don’t. But I am going.”

He stepped around the bed, pausing in front of me before grabbing onto my arm. “Let’s say, if by some miracle, you managed to get to your feet—” He grabbed onto my other arm and began hoisting me up, setting my feet gently against the ground beneath us. “And you happened to stumble your way down to the meeting—” He tried letting me go, assessing my wobble, “—then I didn’t really go against Raegan, did I?”

Finally stood upright, my spine screaming beneath my flesh and my head spinning, I murmured an agreement to his loophole.

Taking my one arm and wrapping it around his, he offered me a sneaky grin before starting to lead us down to the throne room.

25

____________________

When I crossed the threshold of the throne room minutes later, Killian having entered a few minutes prior to me, I was expecting utter rage to be painted across Raegan’s face.

Instead, the Prince who sat at the head of the table had only a knowing smirk on his face as his eyes narrowed at me. It was a good thing so much royalty sat within those four walls, because I felt the need to swing a lengthy stretch of curses his way.

As I started my slow creep towards the table, I noticed the faces. King Ronan of Choilltean, who sat on the opposite head of the table still looking far too furious at Raegan to even notice me. Adjacent to King Ronan and looking as elegant as ever was Queen Tonn of Uisge, a male pixie on one arm and her son sat across from her.

Trying my best to remain small and insignificant, I made to walk right past them until Tadgh reached out and grabbed onto the bend of my elbow.

“This is her, Mother,” he said, his eyes whipping from my face to the Queen of Uisge.

Tears lined the Queen’s eyes as she jumped up from her seat, unwrapping her hand from the pixie at her side and walking around the bend of the table until she was standing before me.

My whole body tensed, growing even more rigid when the Queen of Uisge grabbed onto my hand and dropped down to both knees, pressing her lips to my knuckles. Everyone around us gasped as they watched the strange scene, but I couldn’t seem to breathe as I watched her down the length of my nose.

“My dear,” she breathed, her voice moist over my skin. “Thank you does not begin to describe my utmost gratitude.”

“Er,” I groaned out, my knees already starting to wobble from the task of remaining upright. “That’s okay, really.”

Please stand up. Not a single pixie in the room wasn’t looking at us — King Ronan, Killian, Raegan, Niamh, and Shea, even the King of Speur had one brow raised from where he sat a few chairs down from Raegan.

“You saved my son's life. How can I ever repay you?” she muttered, tears beginning to stream down her face.

I caught the back end of Raegan leaning back against his chair, folding his arms over his chest and looking far too pleased with my embarrassment.

“You owe me nothing. Please, please just rise.” I tried not to sound too bothered by her outward display of gratitude.

She nodded as she sniffled, Tadgh having risen from his seat to help his mother to her feet. They both looked at me as if I was the sun before offering me a curt tip of their chin and returning to their places.

Feeling even more wobbly, I pushed my feet to continue moving until I found the first empty spot. Dropping into it, I almost missed that Niamh was on my side, Shea was across from me, and an unknown pixie was to my right.

The moment I found reprieve in the simplicity of a wooden back of my chair, Niamh took my hand in hers and giggled.

“What’s so funny?”

In her best attempt at being covert, she pointed down the length of the table to Tadgh. “Looks like you’ve caught the attention of another prince of Saoghal.” Niamh thought her own statement was so funny she couldn’t help but to laugh. She was right, though, Tadgh was staring at me with a roguish smile on his face before he turned away upon my noticing it.

Another Prince – that sounded a little farfetched. So I pivoted my attention to Raegan, who was doing me no favours by proving Niamh’s point – staring at me only to blink away the moment I caught him. Which should have been a blessing, but that was when he caught Tadgh staring at me. I no longer wondered what Killian had warned me about — if looks could have killed, Tadgh would have been dead.

I swallowed those thoughts, instead searching the eyes amongst me to find Killian. He was sitting at Raegan’s side, where I imagined he would always be, and shot me a hearty wink as our little plan managed to successfully land me in this meeting.

The meeting kicked off when Raegan, who was growing more impatient with every second that ticked by, rose from his chair and cleared his throat.