42
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The only reason we made it out of the castle within Cluaineach alive was because Gliocas and Urram, waiting for us at the front doors, had shifted into their true forms and were releasing damning chuffs throughout the whole kingdom.
The outrage from the throne room had carried through every street, tucked into every crack and crevice of Cluaineach.
By the time we made it to the two dragons, every pixie in the severed kingdom knew of what Raegan had done.
Urram and Gliocas tried their hardest to keep their daunting roars and spits of fire to a minimum where they stood in a wide stance and awaited us. Everyone who dared an attempt of storming the castle were met with the promised threat behind their eyes.
They all wanted Raegan dead.
That much was obvious as the four of us nearly slammed into the two dragons, a horde of pixies at our backs who were slinging all sorts of insults and vulgar terms at their new king.
But Raegan didn’t care, he simply launched himself up onto Gliocas’ back and spared an extra second to drag Shea up along with him.
Killian helped to launch me up onto Urram, where I offered him a hand and pulled him up alongside me.
The earth cried out as the two dragons pushed off of the ground, leaving permanent evidence of the day for all of eternity in the two craters they left behind.
~
No one spoke for the few hours it took to make it back to Choilltean.
Urram and Gliocas were nothing more than parrots by the time we all wrapped our heads around what had just happened.
Surprisingly, it was Raegan who spoke first.
“It won’t be long before word has spread.”
Shea’s eyes were wide as she stared at her new King, but Killian simply nodded along.
He knew, and he hadn’t said a single thing.
“A day, I’d guess,” Killian added and Raegan bobbed his head side to side.
“What were you thinking, Raegan?” Shea asked with a lethal calm, enough to make me gulp and take a step away from her. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
The darkness was back across his face, which meant that he knew exactly what he had done.
“It’s not just Choilltean and Cluaineach, Raegan,” she continued to spit, her voice climbing in volume and terror. “All four kingdoms will be outraged. You’ve just spurred a war like the one of our founding kin.”
Killian winced as he swallowed behind Raegan, his eyes refusing to meet either of ours.
“This will… This…” Shea shook her head, disbelief clogging her throat as she began to pace. “This will be the end of Saoghal,” she finally gasped, speaking to herself instead of us.
Raegan was staring at me.
“Killian, go to the healers. Get the powder ready. Olivia goes home tomorrow.”
My mouth fell open, an objection ready at the tip of my tongue, but it was Urram who interjected. “Absolutely not,” he croaked.
Everyone turned to him, perched on a nearby branch. Raegan motioned for Killian to get going.
“No,” Urram squawked again, finally earning the King’s attention.
“She goes home tomorrow, Urram. I will not have her put in harm’s way, not with what is likely to fall upon us in the coming days.”
I frowned at Raegan. It wasn’t like him to care, certainly not about me.
“Agreed, young King—” Urram nodded his grey head— “but no powder.”
“Urram–”
“Please, Raegan,” I finally broke, placing myself between the two of them. “Do not take this from me. I beg of you.”
He looked prepared to argue, so I continued.
“Take this from me and you may as well kill me and let me die here. I cannot fathom returning to my world without knowledge of this place. Without the knowledge of the pixies. Without… Without the knowledge of you.”
His brows finally relaxed as his gaze softened. No longer the fox-King of sly plans and mischief, but the young pixie of Cluaineach with golden, feathered wings once more.
“I… I promise I’ll stay away… I won’t seek Saoghal out, I won’t come back. But please… Leave me this one thing. Leave me you.”
A thousand gears turned behind Raegan’s eyes before he finally nodded. I could breathe once more.
“And me,” Urram said.
It took me much longer than I’d care to admit to understand what Urram was saying. “What?”
“Me, too,” he said again.
“You…” I cocked my head at him, “You wish to come with me?”
“You are my caraid,” he huffed, hopping down to the next branch that brought him closer to us all. “I will not be separated from you, Little.”
My heart was trying to swell as I fought back tears at his strange revelation.
Killian clapped his hands together, forcing all of our attention back to him and shattering the tension that had been building. “Now that that’s all settled… Let’s all go get a drink.”
~
It was the last day of peace in Saoghal.
Even I could feel that. No matter how much nectar we drank, no matter how much food we stuffed into our mouths, no matter how hard we tried to dance the feeling away. It lingered, like a dusky cloud above us all.
Laughter was shared between the four of us, sorrow was spoken towards the empty place amongst us where Niamh should have been. But nothing, nothing was capable of allowing us to forget that my last night with my pixies was perhaps the last night of joy they were to see again.
It was spite, in the end, that made us push one another to enjoy the night all the more.
As a group we swung around one another, kicking our feet and twirling our bodies to the melodious jigs that echoed through the dark streets of Choilltean.
Drinks were passed back and forth as we floated around the large fires outside the strange little cafe, every pixie in the vicinity soon joining us in a raucous display of friendship and denial.
Time was the enemy of us all, even those of immortal lifespan. Because as exhaustion started to tear at each of our bodies, it was time for us all to call it a night. Shea departed first, utterly drunk as she tried to tear herself away from us and towards wherever it was that she lived.
Raegan was next. He didn’t say goodbye, instead snuck away when no one noticed. I had suspected it on him for the hour preceding his departure — the shadow that was growing larger and more demanding with every forced laughter and every false smile.
Which made me angry with him. Of our short time together, I at least expected some sort of goodbye. Ignorance allowed me to move past that, to believe that we would have our goodbye in the morning before I was sent away from Saoghal.
That only left Killian and I, dancing until our feet ached and until the muscles around our mouths couldn’t take the laughter any longer.
We resorted to swaying as pixies spun around us, our arms wrapped around one another and our heads pressed together.
“I wish that you could stay here,” he murmured, back to gripping my body as if it was his lifeline.
There was no point in saying that I wished that, too. “You gave me the greatest gift, Killian. I will cherish this time for the rest of my life.”
He pulled away and smiled at me, the first genuine smile upon his face that evening.
“And I know what I said before…” I didn’t know how to finish my sentence, so I resorted to simply pushing up on my toes and letting my lips graze against his.
He met my gentle request with earnestness, pushing me against him where he let the harboured emotions in his chest come forth through his lips.
I did the same, changing the angle of my head as his hands moved into my hair.
Finally, we departed from one another with heavy breaths and dishevelled hair.
Like the first day that I met him, Killian looked down at me with that familiar excitement etched into his face. “Perhaps there’s one last thing I can show you, Olivia.”
My eyes brightened with want as I let them scan his face. “And what is that?”
His lips curled upwards with his infamous mischief as his pupils widened.
His hand slid along my side, finding curves and divots through my body that he brushed a gentle finger over.
Only once he was satisfied with the slow mapping of my skin did he place his fingers against my spine, pushing me softly against him.
“Let me have you,” he pleaded, his voice soft yet still entirely Killian. “Just this once. Let me give you myself, just this once. And let us remember one another like that — raw and revealed, bound by the memory of how we felt against one another.”
I smiled up at him, thankful that he had finally asked, that he had finally given in to that ‘primal urge’ he kept talking about. I was bursting at the seams with curiosity.
“You can have me,” I murmured.
And shit, if the look on his face wasn’t the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.