Page 50 of Why Broken Wings Fray

I was relieved to see that he heard me, considering it came out as a whisper and a croaked one at that.

“I… I don’t know,” he admitted, falling down to his side and watching me across from him. “Like you. Whenever I catch your scent it’s like… Like walking into the sun after a day in the trees. It’s overwhelming and it crushes my chest, but it’s the type of overwhelm that I want, that I welcome. And I just want to stand in it.”

That made absolutely no sense, but I couldn’t deny that seeing him talk that way, watching his face soften and brighten, made me happy at last.

“And this room smells like me?”

It was so fascinating, that my presence in a space could be marked for the pixies to follow me.

“Yes. And, like others, too. Strangers, I think.” He paused to sniff a few more times, his eyes shutting slightly as he focused. “But their scent feels like… Like a challenge. So I assume they are male.”

You would be correct.

“Men,” I reminded him.

“Men.” He nodded. “But I don’t like it. If you truly wish to know, it makes me angry. It’s taking most of my focus to stop from making fists of my hands.”

“So primitive,” I mocked, grinning even wider when he rolled his eyes at me. “You’re not going to go around pissing up the walls, are you?”

“Do you think that would make the scents go away?”

I was horrified that he was considering the suggestion, until he pushed at my shoulder and laughed.

“I jest. I’m not a complete animal.”

“Just somewhat.”

His eyes twinkled. “Just somewhat.”

~

There was something soothing, safe, and relieving to the way that we fell asleep. It was with a wordless comfort that we migrated closer and closer together, until Killian had his unnecessarily large body spread out across the mattress, leaving me the curve of his side to curl into. And I did.

The heat of him transferred in to me, leaving my body warm in the most cozy of ways as the two of us sank farther into the foam beneath us, allowing a day of water-travelling to heave heavier on our bodies until we were at last snoring next to one another, unsure of what was ahead but prepared for it nonetheless.

24

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I was born and raised in England, which meant that the familiar stretch of grey-and-brown bricks was nothing more than home. There was stone in every direction for as far as the eye could see when we stepped out of the inn, the textured and aged structures that spoke of times long before me and likely long before Killian himself. And though I had seen similar sights nearly everyday from the moment I could walk, to now, there would always be something magical about looking at those buildings and the tales that every laid brick could tell. Perhaps not magical in the way Saoghal was magical with its greenery, its golden wood-dust, and its winged inhabitants. But magical in the way of the rise and fall of greatness and the generations of lives lived in a world designed to remake itself.

It was with a groan and a new sort of exhaustion that I stretched my hands up and over my head, twisting as I went just to free the knot that was determined to contort my spine into a pretzel.

Nothing would have prepared me for Killian’s sudden presence at my back, his solid mass warming me as his chest pushed against me and he set his chin into the curve of my neck, his hands finding my waist. Shock pulsed through me first, driving me to consider shivering and shooting out of his hold. But then came comfort, louder and more demanding than shock, and I instead sighed and rolled my body into a safe curve that fit perfectly against him.

“It’s very brown,” he murmured against my ear, his breath heated with nothing but familiarity that made me only crave his closeness even more.

“This is coming from the pixie that lives within the trees?” I offered only after I completed my fifth yawn.

“A different type of brown.” Killian finally let me go and I wanted to cry for him to come back and never release me from the cocoon of his being. The only reason I refrained from doing that was because as he moved to my side, I looked to him and saw a whole new sort of bewilderment in his eyes. Excitement brought a gleam to his darkened eyes and a thrilling sort of confusion drove them wide as he blinked around at everything around us.

Now I understood why he had thought bringing me to Saoghal was fun. I could get used to seeing the way his eyes flicked around and the muscles on his taut face twitched with every new piece of information.

I also understood Raegan’s half-dig at me last year, when he had claimed he offered me new information just to see my eyes widen. For once, it was nice to not be the one not shocked.

Killian went to step out onto the street and I managed to grab him by the back of his not-of-this-age attire, yanking his body back up to the sidewalk.

“What was that for–”