Page 79 of Why Broken Wings Fray

“I am not a fool.” His voice was so low and frail, it brought a tear to my eye. “Actually, I am a fool, but only when it comes to you. So I knew what I was watching unfold before me, I knew that what was building between the two of you was not something that I could compete with–”

“Killian,” I whimpered, my heart shattering as the realization of how he did not deserve this broke me.

He smiled, a small and shallow thing that was supposed to make me feel better but made me feel worse. “I was selfish. I have never been selfish yet you made me want to be selfish. I wanted to hold on to you for as long as I could. Because I love you, and I believe I will love you until the stars no longer exist in the sky. But I would be lying if I ever thought that you could love me, too. Not when you have given your heart to another, long before you realized it.”

“I am so sorry,” I whispered, surprised that the words formed at all. He shook his head several times before grabbing on to me and pulling me against his body, allowing me to bury my tear-soaked face against his broad chest.

“Do not be sorry. I have wished for nothing but your happiness since I saw you on that hillside. And although you are not mine, and although I can never be the source of your happiness, I will continue to wish it for you.”

I nodded, pushing more tears into his chest. With a deep breath he pulled away from me, tilting his chin upwards where he caught my eyes with his own. “I love Raegan. He is my brother in every way but by blood. And he has endured so much, Olivia… He has survived so much that I do not know how he stands the way he does. I only ask…” His eyes pinched as he fought with whether to say what he wanted to say, or not. “Do you know what you are getting into?”

Something defensive in me roared out, making me step backwards and away from him.

“I do not mean it as an insult to either of you. I only mean that I know Raegan, just as I know that you know him, and he is… complicated. But above all else, Raegan is a king. A king of Saoghal. So you know that–”

“I know.”

A sad smile climbed over both of our faces as we let that sit between us.

“I do love you, Killian,” I admitted, unable to let the moment pass. “I do.”

His smile shifted into something pained, nearing a grimace. “In a way.”

“In a way,” I said, reaching for his hand and squeezing it. “And it is you that I will forever be grateful to.”

“You don’t owe me kindness. You have gifted me the ability to love, and it is I that is grateful for what we shared. Even if it was not a mutual love but a kinship, a friendship that I will forever hold dear.”

My smile was full of endearment for Killian as I stepped towards him and hugged him. He gripped me like we could remain in that moment, like the hug could be something it wasn’t. And it was him who buried his face in my neck this time.

“Thank you for saving me,” I whispered.

“Thank you for showing me that there is more to this life than the sword and the shield I wear,” he whispered back.

Pulling away from him at last, I wished to remain in that moment of tender friendship for the rest of eternity, cocooned into this safe space where none could hurt us.

Except that could never be our reality, and I had a chamber to search. A King’s chamber.

36

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Every day that I spent in Saoghal had me feeling more and more like a pixie, because my first idea as I stopped outside of Raegan’s bedroom door was to scent the air. The last time I stormed down this hallway, I could smell him the same way I could smell fresh gravy being cooked over a stove. Now, though, as I hesitated at that solid threshold, it was different. There were traces of Raegan, the faintest, trace smell of him that I recalled from my year away from him. But nothing so strong and overpowering that it caused my knees to wobble like he normally did.

Which, my very-human-brain told me that my smelling of the air was successful and I could deduce that he was not in his room. I needed to do whatever the opposite of touching-grass was, and soon, because as I crossed over into Raegan’s room at last and drowned in the fact I was in his room, something possessive and not-human roared to life in me.

Shaking that feeling off, I quietly shut his door behind me and silently thanked greater forces that I didn’t have a sudden urge to start doing some weird shit like marking his room. Instead, I had a job to do, and very little idea as to where to start.

There was a desk in the corner. That was the most logical of places to find an ancient scroll with a summoning ritual for a god, right?

Shrugging to myself, I crept, keeping to the overwhelming amount of shadows that seemed to be dominating Raegan’s room. By the time I reached the desk and turned round, I was left staring at that odd phenomenon. He had the same floor-to-ceiling window panes that the rest of the Cluaineach castle had, the window that looked over the entrance to the palace that I had seen him leaning against not so long ago. So I could not figure out why Raegan’s furniture – short at his bed and his desk – seemed to be intentionally placed in the shadows.

But I didn’t have time to worry about that, so I shook my head and crouched down, starting to leaf my way through the odd-shaped units that I supposed were supposed to be drawers. One by one I pulled them out, using my shaking hands to lift at a variety of parchments, all varying stages of decaying and shifting colours of brown and orange.

I was so busy desperately trying to find something, that I didn’t hear the footsteps. Nor did I smell his approach. It was only when the door creaked open, a body heaved against the doorframe, and a king let out a disappointed sigh that I realized.

“What are you doing?” Raegan asked, his voice unreasonably level considering I had broken into his room and was scouring his documents.

“Uhh–”