Page 89 of Why Broken Wings Fray

“Every few years it fades. But yes, I would like to remain with him forever. I understand you are human, Olivia, and this might all seem very…”

“Primitive?”

“Sure. I was going to say new, but primitive works. But we do things differently and we bond differently. I chose him and I will stick with that choice.”

Shea gagged, her body pressing against the wall for strength and stability.

“Are you drunk?” I finally tore away from the conversation to check on her as she retched once more.

“No,” she groaned, sliding her forearm across her lips. “Aisling, why him?”

“Shut up, Shea,” Aisling growled.

I wanted to know who it was. But Aisling would tell me when she was ready, even if everyone around me had the advantage of knowing because for the next few years, she would smell like him.

Primitive, indeed.

But why did my body thrum with need at the sound of it?

I cast my gaze around the room until I at last found Raegan. Whether he had been there the whole time or not, I wasn’t sure, but when I finally found him, he was watching me from behind his drink. And he made no apology for it, nor did he divert his stare when I matched it.

The vein along my neck throbbed at the thought of being marked his.

~

Shea and Aisling were back to gossiping, addressing the many stories of the pixies around us, leaving me staring across the space in search of the one face that was missing.

Where are you, Killian?

It was not usual for him to miss a time such as this, filled with drink and laughter and food. Killian was often the loudest of the bunch, dancing the hardest, drinking the most. And yes, I had finally freed him from the need to trail after me like a puppy, but did that truly mean he would simply abandon me?

No. Killian was my friend before he was anything else and his absence was strange, even if Raegan refused to comment on it.

~

One day, maybe, I would understand how this happened.

Or, maybe not how it happened, but how of all of the pixies around me in the throne room, I was the only one to see it. Well, to hear it.

As Shea and Aisling laughed beside me and the rest of the room exploded into more and more excitement for the growing party, I heard only a scuffle. It was the vague noise of boots being dragged against stone. Such an odd noise, one that is immediately identifiable and drags you out of every thought and directs your attention right towards where it came from.

Cocking my head to the side, I set my glass down and turned towards the doors of the throne room. And that was where I saw it.

A blur of brown.

A blur of blue.

The first I knew, almost immediately, and my hopes picked up as I identified the sloppy bun of Killian’s hair. Excusing myself quickly from Aisling and Shea, I turned on my heel and started to jog towards the exit.

I heard Raegan, above all of the noise, calling my name. Once, then twice. Then a beg for me to stay. A beg for me to not go out there.

But I did not listen because the closer I drew to the exit, and the louder the commotion became outside of those doors, the faster my heart beat. It transitioned from a rush of excitement at seeing Killian to a rush of adrenaline, a gearing-up for a fight as if I knew what was going to await me when I turned the corner.

In a way, I wasn’t surprised.

In a way, I was surprised.

My body halted in one abrupt motion as I arrived in the hallway – the hallway that was noticeably absent of all other pixies. That should have been the first oddity, in that somehow that long stretch had divided the pixies that partied outside to the pixies that partied in the throne room.