18 #3
“I do apologize for interrupting your dance…” His voice was low, smooth, and penetrative. “I must admit that I have spent many years controlling my more… primitive nature. But that all came undone when I saw you out here. With him.”
I pulled away just far enough to look him in the eye. But what met me there, the darkness that wasn’t terrifying but heated made me swallow and collapse back against his chest.
Every inch of me craved every inch of him, so I didn’t mind when he tugged at me again and diminished the distance between us. My whole body was alight with awareness, my heart thundering and my lungs tightening.
“Breathe, Olivia,” he whispered, pushing me away to twirl us around yet another rising beat. As if my body had been waiting for the command from him, I took in a large breath of air and felt it fill every inch of my lungs.
On the next push and twirl that he performed, my heel hit a lump in the ground and dragged me down and away from him, where I managed to slam into another pixie.
A female, who growled at me and shoved my body in a new direction.
This time, I managed to stop my flailing limbs before I knocked into the next solid wall.
I was glad I did, because it was the King himself who stood before me.
His back was to me, his eyes focused on the fire that he was staking with a stick. Eager to get away from him without a word shared between us, I started to creep back in the direction of Killian. But it was another voice that halted me. Raegan’s voice.
“Please, Father,” he croaked, a voice cracking and failing like that of a young boy.
“Enough, Raegan. Just… Enough of this.”
“This is the perfect opportunity. Most of them are here, talk to them tonight–”
“Raegan!” the King roared, most of the volume swallowed by the music and the low laughter of pixies all around us.
“I said enough. We will speak of this no more tonight.” The King paused to place a hand on Raegan’s shoulder, who was facing the fire at his side.
“Try to enjoy yourself for once, won’t you? ”
Without awaiting an answer, King Ronan strode off, leaving Raegan to a sizzling rage that he satisfied by chucking a large log into the fire in front of him. Snarling at it, anger steamed off of the Prince as he watched the flames lick high into the air around him.
Feeling slightly guilty for eavesdropping, again, I made to start walking away. Yet again, it was Raegan’s voice that stilled my feet.
“You are so desperate to elude me.”
I nearly choked on air at his strange comment. It was enough to make me turn and face him.
“W-what?”
That wrath was still alive in his eyes, equally as starved as the fire behind him that haloed his body in a gingery glow.
“Your eyes find others’ with ease yet not mine.”
My mouth remained open as I simply stared at the Prince.
“I have spent much of this night eluding you, too,” he admitted. “I fear that I do not understand this sudden—” He cut himself off, shaking his head.
My gut twisted.
“It is strange, really,” he sighed, his face as neutral as ever as he refused to blink, “I finally wandered out here only to realize I have nothing to say to you.”
“Most people would say something normal like you look nice tonight, Olivia.”
There was a flash of humour in his darkened eyes, before the creases of his brows shadowed his face entirely. “Is that what you want me to say? That you look nice?”
“Well… Well no.”
“That’s what I thought.” He crossed his arms over his chest, looking more and more like a stubborn bull as the days passed. “People like you and I have no need for flaccid compliments.”
Bitter, choppy laughter took control of my throat. “Goodness, Raegan. How deep into the barrel have you dove tonight?”
He looked around at the sight before us, at the twirling and the sliding and twisting of bodies, at the laughter that filled the sky, at the smiles wide and true. “Not enough, it seems.”
Pursing my lips, I tried my best to look as sly as he did most hours. “Oh, poor Prince has to attend a glorious ball? The horror.”
Whatever shape he made with his mouth was terrifying and electrifying at the same time, a strange combination of a smirk and a frown.
“Or is it the females? I hear that they try to rip one another apart just to get one look from you.”
His eyes skimmed me, starting at my feet and slithering slowly and intentionally to my face, where he seemed to pause, his lips falling into a straight line. “Yes, they’re quite annoying.”
At that, we both laughed.
“You best be getting back,” Raegan nodded his chin in the direction I had stumbled from. “Killian looks panicked, as if he’s lost his lamb in a skulk of foxes.”
Whether or not he was aware that I heard the change of his voice, I wasn’t sure. But as his features pinched and that fox-like stare returned to his face, I felt it more than heard it.
“Have a good night, Raegan.” Just for shits and giggles, I bowed to him. When I rose again, he looked far too humoured by the attempt before turning and striding away from me.