Page 36 of Why Broken Wings Fray

Everything washed away like a violent wave, allowing me to take a steady, even breath again. “Why?”

“Don’t look so disappointed,” he murmured, his own face reflecting a similar want. “Yes, he has shared in the past. But you…” Killian trailed off as the look of indescribable want shifted, quickly becoming a ghostly type of jealousy. “You are something else entirely.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

He pursed his lips and frowned at me, a knowing disappointment creasing his face. “Yes, you do. And we both know that Raegan would sooner tear the head of his best friend clean from my body before he even entertained the thought of seeing me touch you.”

“Well I guess it’s a good thing that I don’t want that, then,” I hummed, side-stepping Killian entirely only to duck my head and cool the heat of my cheeks.

He let out a small, revealing chuckle as he met my stride.

~

“Olivia?” Killian asked after another hour of trudging through thick grasslands, seeing nothing but the towering mass of green in every direction. To his credit, though, the smell of the sea was growing stronger, the salt powerful as it cleansed my sinuses and threatened to give me the headache to end all headaches.

“Olivia?” he asked again when I had yet to respond, too focused on keeping my path even as my ankles threatened to betray me.

“Yeah?”

He was wide-eyed and full of excitement as he looked down his side at me. “After we visit Uisge… Would you take me through one of the human towns?”

My ankles weren’t the reason I collapsed then, it was the wave of excitement mixed with endearment that I had for this powerful pixie at my side. He laughed as he watched me drop, only to extend a monstrous arm that I gripped to and allowed him to fling me back to my feet.

“Is that a no?” he chuckled, as if nothing would ever be capable of dulling the childish radiance that was Killian.

“N-no. No, it wasn’t a no, I mean!” I stammered out, unable to slow my thoughts for a moment. “Of course I’ll take you through the streets, if that’s what you really want?”

I didn’t want to comment on the fact that we were both wearing shirts and trousers of cotton-like leaves and leather attire to further the look. Then again, it wouldn’t have been a stretch to claim we were coming from some sort of renaissance fair.

Sucking my lip between my teeth, I battled with the surge of thrill that rushed through me at the thought.

Killian, in the human world? So far, the heavy truth of him being a pixie and me being a human had always felt like a wedge. But now, the thought of leading him down cobbled-stone roads and watching his confusion at all things electricity? For once it would be him in a state of bewilderment and me chuckling at him from afar.

“Yeah,” he continued, looking away from me to keep himself from tripping. “I’d like to experience your world, just as you have experienced mine.” Then, as if he couldn’t get more adorable, Killian bobbed the end of my nose and grinned. “I’d like to see the magnificent place that reared one Olivia Loughty.”

“You remember my last name?”

“Of course,” he said through one of his genuine, sweet smiles. “I shall never forget a thing about you. Not a second that we have spent together.”

My stomach buzzed, violently and somewhat excitedly. It felt as if a thousand fireflies were contained within, bashing against the lining in a threat to erupt at any moment. Perhaps I had swallowed a few.

Before I could make a grave mistake like responding to that, the grass at last parted from our pathway and left the terribly long stretch of sand that sat between us and the water. Between us, and Uisge.

The blue was just as I remembered it – somehow so vastly different to how it looked as a human at human height. There was something about being this small, this insignificant against a big and wild world, that made the water appear near ethereal. The angle that we stood at made the reflection of the sunlight stronger, made the twinkling effect against the surface brighter, and the smell itself – that natural salty, fresh smell – was threatening to take me right back down to my knees. So for a moment neither one of us said anything, we simply stood and stared at the vast stretch of Uisge, at the beauty and the wonder that continuously shook me within Saoghal.

“Ready?” he asked, though I had to wonder if he was asking me or himself.

“Not at all,” I said.

“Good. Then we feel the same.”

He shot me a grin that was supposed to be wild but only looked uncertain. I grimaced.

Then we walked.

18

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