Page 27 of Why Broken Wings Fray

“Saoghal feels… Saoghal feels sick.”

He frowned at me where he stood a few feet past the doorway, looking around my room as if he had never seen it before.

“It has not been an easy year.”

I stared at him, at his rigid body and tense stature. “I know. I just crave Saoghal. I crave the magic, the endless possibilities, and the flourishing of life. Killian… I just want to feel something.”

He swallowed as he watched my gaze darken.

The few steps that lingered between us felt like miles as I made them, slow and intentional as I refused to look away from him. When I finally made it to him, he did not relax those stiff shoulders of his. Yet he, too, could not look away from me. Those dark eyes were soon glassy, a drunkenness to his gaze that made me place a hand on his chest.

Pushing up onto my toes, I was the one to initiate what had been sitting between us all dinner. My lips brushed against his, soft at first until something awoke in him. Hands were on my waist, pulling me against his body and demanding something of me as his pace quickened against my mouth. Both of my hands in his hair, I swore I felt every moment of sorrow and dread over the last year simply melt away at every tortuous brush of his lips over mine.

Just when I couldn’t breathe, when my body was alive with a thousand rushes of heated current, Killian pulled away from me. He groaned, low and pained as his forehead found my shoulder.

“What is it?” I muttered, stepping back and away from him.

When he looked at me, that look of lust and hunger had dissipated and left in its wake only sadness.

“Killian?”

He rubbed at his face with one of his hands, dragging the skin around his eyes as he let out a deep sigh. “I want to. I really do. But… I can’t.”

I took a few steps back, until my shoulders pushed against one of the posted poles of the bed. Wrapping both of my arms around my body, shame forced my eyes to his shoulders instead of his face.

“It’s not you,” he whispered as he stepped towards me. “Well, it is you.”

I was about to summon my anger from the day in order to chase him out of my room, but the sincerity of the look he was giving me was enough to make me wait.

“I just…” He groaned once more as he pushed at his face a second time. “I don’t think I can go halfway with you.”

“What? What does that even mean?”

I regretted looking at those eyes almost immediately, resorting to choking back a gasp.

“I want you, Olivia. Not just your body but your heart, your soul. But I will never be able to have you. Not in that way. I thought I could indulge during your stay and survive when you left – but I didn’t. Not at all. I have felt hollow since your departure and I do not think I can survive it again.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I just stared at him.

“I was relieved to see you today, I really was. But I looked at you and I felt that pain again. As long as you are destined to leave, which you will always be, I cannot go halfway. I cannot give you a part of me and not the rest. And I cannot accept a part of you and not the rest.”

“I’m not asking for–”

“I know. I know what you’re asking for, what you think will help you. And perhaps I am selfish as I cannot grant you this reprieve. If that is the case then I will forever be selfish because I cannot become the male I was after you left.”

My brows were convinced they needed to duel one another for domain over my eyes as I continued to frown at him.

“I’m sorry, Olivia. I truly am.” Then he was turning away from me, moving towards the slightly-askew door. “Get some rest. We leave tomorrow.”

~

My cheeks were so thoroughly red and hot that it transferred into my vision. I wasn’t capable of seeing much more than a few inches in front of me as tears threatened to blur everything out. That was why I didn’t see my next visitor. I only knew he was there because of how I always knew he was there.

“I have known Killian for several decades, yet I have never seen him skulk down a hallway as he just did,” Raegan said, leaning his weight against the doorway where he assessed me. I had resorted to flopping down on the edge of my bed, lacking even the energy to glare at him. “Can I credit that glorious attitude of yours for lashing him so?”

“Can I help you with something?”

“We haven’t been able to truly talk since your return and I wanted to, before you leave for Uisge.”