Page 17 of Why Broken Wings Fray

“I do not believe a word that is coming out of your mouth, little human,” Raegan sighed, pushing up to his feet. “Yet I have a need for you, as it so happens. If you are able to prove your loyalty to me and my kingdom, then perhaps I will allow you this brief return.”

I wasn’t sure if the pixies could hear things like heartbeats, but I sincerely hoped not. Mine was thundering.

“What would you have me–”

“You are to swear into my ceadan.”

“Raegan, don’t–”

Raegan’s glare at Killian was enough to halt the words in his mouth. In lieu of whatever he was about to snap at his King, he let out a low growl and scuffed his boots against the ground a few times.

I wasn’t scared of Raegan, though. So I turned my attention over my shoulder, feeling the air knock out of my lungs as I latched onto the gaze of Killian’s much darker green eyes.

“Why is that a bad thing?”

Killian went to open his mouth, but Raegan answered for him. “It’s not.”

I whirled a furious glare back at Raegan. “Then what are we waiting for?”

It was possible Raegan could see right through me, because he simply twisted his small grin into a wild smirk and dipped his chin at me.

Killian had never been the brooding type, yet he looked like a frustrated bull from where he stood off to the side of the throne-room. His eyes would not leave me, no matter how blatantly I avoided them.

Raegan, having climbed down from his throne and dais, was now in front of me again. Only a few inches away, his height shadowing the natural radiance spilling through the room. Except, as always, Raegan generated his own form of vibrant warmth, a hue so pure and brilliant that I continuously found myself wishing to bask in it.

Instead of paranoia or fury in his eyes, he had resorted back to that mischievous, young-prince-look that I had come to hate-to-love over my short time knowing him. There, his head slightly angled, his eyes unblinking as he stared down at me, he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Tell it to me now, honestly, and I will not make you take the oath. No matter what you tell me, I will send you on your way and no punishment will follow you.”

I held that unblinking stare, even though all I wanted to do was melt from the intense way that he looked at me.

“I told you the truth, Raegan. Let’s get on with this oath so I can eat something.”

He let out a breathy laughter that was just as fake as it was accusatory.

“Killian, leave us.”

“But–”

“Leave us,” Raegan snarled, refusing to look away from me as he ushered that threat across the room. Something within my bloodstream heated at such a noise coming from him, but I couldn’t quite figure out if it was fear or something else.

Just as Raegan would not look away from me, I would not look away from him. So I was left listening to the faint patter of boots that suggested Killian’s departure, followed by the creak of the door as it shut once more.

“You truly do not wish to confess to anything before we proceed?”

“No.”

Raegan’s face—sharp, lethal, and forever sly—softened. “Then we shall begin. And I hope, deep within me where I thought I lost the ability to do such a thing, that you do not let me down, Olivia.”

He meant it, too. That only made me feel sick. But I nodded.

Wordlessly, still not breaking that eye contact with me, Raegan removed one of the rings from his right hand. A dark, near-obsidian looking ring that was somehow both dull yet capable of catching the light behind us. From his thumb he pulled it, until he placed it in his palm and offered it between us.

“Place your hand atop mine,” he said.

Swallowing, if only to rehydrate my drying mouth, I set my hand on top of his. The two of us paused for a moment, equally as entranced by the feel of our skin against each other, before Raegan cleared his throat and shook his head.

“This is an oath ring. What you swear upon this ring is bound by the gods and their magic, until such a time comes that you are released from the oath by the Crown or by divine will. Do you understand?”