14
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The Cluaineach court needed a few days to discuss the information that we provided them. During that time, Raegan and I were to remain in Cluaineach, even though there was a growing divide between the two of us.
The divide was there, and growing, because Killian should have been more specific about what he meant by ‘Raegan will protect you’.
Raegan’s idea of protecting me was leaving me in the guest-chambers every hour of every day and expecting me to remain there while he went off, doing whatever a two-timing Prince of kingdoms does.
On the first two days, he left the moment the sun rose from within the paned walls of our room and returned only when it started to dip again.
We shared very little words between us, though that was not my choice.
I had many things I wanted to say and ask of the heir, but whenever I opened my mouth he made a strange gesture with his hand and turned away from me.
Because of that, he was happy to let me have the monstrosity of a bed while he took to the floor, muttering wildly to himself until he fell asleep both nights.
So when we woke up on the third day, I was expecting more-or-less of the same. The questions were piling high in my head, but I had refrained from daring a conversation with Raegan and resorted to storing them all until I saw Killian again.
~
It was hard to say which one of us was more surprised when Raegan woke and didn’t immediately depart, but instead paused in the doorway and turned back to the room.
His early morning habits of brooding his way across the room several times before leaving had awoken me like usual, so while I assumed he planned otherwise, I saw him pause in the doorframe.
“Problem?” I groaned as I rubbed at both of my eyes with two balled fists.
Raegan’s mouth opened, slammed shut, and opened one more time.
“You look like a fish.”
Pinching and squinting his face, those fox-like eyes homed in on me. “Some would consider that a compliment.”
I snorted. “I wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, well, you look like a…” It was hard to tell if Raegan’s pause was because he couldn’t come up with a more petulant, childish insult than whatever came to mind, or because simply nothing came to mind. “I’m going out for the day.”
“Okay?” I pushed myself upright, leaning against the stone-headboard behind me. “And that’s new… how?”
Raegan growled something under his breath as he planted his forehead into the bicep braced against the doorway. His response was quiet and choppy, but I picked out enough of the words to drop my jaw upon hearing them. “You may come along, if you’d like.”
I was starting to see why Killian enjoyed prodding the Prince. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that? I didn’t quite hear you.”
He caught my wide grin and scowled. “You may come if you’d like.” He made a point of dragging each word out and slowing down his pronunciation.
“You know, I would like to.” I leapt from the bed, wondering how long it would take Raegan to reject and possibly rescind his offer. Judging by the look on his face, it was any second now.
He didn’t wait for me to be ready, instead turning on his heel and beginning his trek down the hallways of the castle.
Stumbling my way across the room with one shoe on and the other in the midst of being tied, I hopped along after him as I worked at lacing my leathers against my body and finishing the pull of my foot into my boot.
After two days of being confined to the semi-glass room of the Cluaineach castle, fresh air scattering over my body was a serenity like no other.
My feet stopped after taking a few steps out into the land beyond, my limbs frozen as they worked at soaking in the rising sun and the cool breeze that accompanied it.
“Hurry up, little human,” Raegan hollered from his position half a field away from me, yanking my attention back to the present and forcing me to shake my head free of my temporary lapse.
Sighing as I had to break into a jog to catch up to the blond-haired pixie, I noticed how easily Raegan found his stride, how confidently he moved in the direction that he desired.
It was then that I was reminded, yet again, that this was not Raegan’s first time in Cluaineach.
Not only did he know where he was going, but the way he strode across the lands he was born to was with such familiarity and comfort, it was hard to believe he had ever existed anywhere else.
“Can you slow your freakishly long strides just for a moment,” I huffed as I finally caught up to him, earning me a sidelong glance.
We walked through clipped meadows in silence, where the natural grass had been razed until it brushed against our knees, instead of towering over us like it should have.
“Why invite me today?”
I didn’t think Raegan would actually answer. I expected, like usual, for him to wave a hand in my direction or simply pretend like no one had spoken.
Instead, the corner of his lips twisted upwards. “Would you believe me if I said I was lonely?”
“No.”
“Then I shall say nothing.” As some of his hair tickled at the side of his face, he pushed it back and tucked the strays behind his ears. Learning from the dinner a few nights ago, I forced my eyes away from the mutilated ends and looked down at our moving feet, instead.
It was then that I realized just how truly alive I felt. Envy pushed its way into my being – was this how most people felt everyday? Did others wake up with this energy thrumming through their body without the assistance of medications or countless hours with professionals?
Silence warped those feelings. Took the pure innocence of happiness and twisted it into jealousy and spite. I couldn’t stand the silence any longer.
“Do the others know?”
Raegan hummed to himself, convincing me yet again that he wasn’t going to answer. But he did. “Know what?”
“About your secret life.” I accentuated the response with showy hands as I chuckled, finding a lightness in the conversation. Apparently, Raegan did not feel the same way. His face contorted until it was the stern, cold mask that I had seen back in Choilltean.
“That’s not fair, Raegan.”
He huffed as his legs resumed his normal pace, forcing me to skip along just to keep up.
“You can’t just say nothing about it. It’s not fair.”
Slamming to a stop, Raegan spun until he was an immovable mass in front of me. The last time he had stood so closely to me was when he had threatened my ears for eavesdropping, and I had forgotten just how large the Prince was.
“Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do?”
“No one, but–”
“That’s right,” he spat. “No one.”
Floating along most of my life, I hadn’t felt anger in quite some time. But at his abrupt tone and his attempt at physical intimidation, it surfaced on my tongue and lashed out at him. “I think what you are doing is cruel.”
He tipped his head, the slant to his neck more menacing as ever as his nose scrunched. “Do you honestly think I care what you think?”
“Yes,” I growled. “Yes, I do. I think you care what everyone thinks. Isn’t that why you prowl around your kingdom like you’re in desperate need of something being removed from your behind–”
“Watch it.” Raegan moved quickly, his moves as fluid as water as he pulled a blade from a hidden sheath within his chest-plate. He placed it out between us, laying it along the line of his arm where he peered down the shimmering metal at me. “You will watch how you speak to me.”
I folded my arms over my chest as I frowned at his weapon, the tip of it inches away from my bobbing throat. “You promised Killian you would protect me.”
“From others.” As if he meant to further prove his point, he placed the tip of that dagger at my chin and tilted my head up towards him. There was a wicked hunger in his eyes that I chose to ignore.
“Is this the type of prince you are, Raegan? One who refuses to be questioned, one who believes he is so right and the world is so wrong?”
Raegan’s jaw feathered, his grip firm on the dagger.
“I pity you. Being a coward is no easy thing.”
Conflict birthed a war behind his eyes, his face twisting as each of his muscles tensed against the insult.
But something won out beneath the sudden temper, something gentle and soft like the very meadow that we stood in.
He looked like he was born to it more than ever as the satin-appearance of his hair blended with the beams of sunlight behind him, his vibrant eyes melting into the grass surrounding us.
The darkness behind his face was Choilltean, but the brilliance of his body was Cluaineach.
His hold on his dagger slackened ever so slightly. “You think I am a coward?”
“Why else do you taunt the people of Cluaineach? Why else let them continue to believe you to be their heir, even though you and I both know that you have no plans to be? It’s cruel, what you are doing to them.”
With defeat etched into the creases of his face, he lowered his arm and let the dagger rest against his leg. “No one speaks to me this way.”
Bitter laughter snaked out before I could stop it. “Maybe because you threaten to silence them when they try.”
After sliding his blade back behind his chest-plate, he copied my crossed arms over his chest. “You speak cold, hard truths, human.”
I was a little too proud as I held my chin high, my eyes pointed upwards as I fought to hold steady beneath his intense glance.
“Let me offer you the same courtesy.”
I frowned at him as I watched that straight-lined mouth curve upwards.
“A coward knows a coward.”
“I’m not a coward,” I shot out before I could stop myself.
“No? Tell me then, why did you leap from your own life so quickly?”
I had no answer for him, at least none that I wanted him to hear. And he knew that, his grin growing wild and poisonous as he flicked a brow upwards. “Nothing?”
“You made your point.” Grumbling to myself, I started to walk on. Both of us knew I had no idea where we were going, so Raegan snickered to himself as he lingered in my shadow.
I shot a furious look over my shoulder at him. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“To seek the company of the only damn creatures in Saoghal who expect nothing of me.”