9
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Raegan halted us in the hallway.
“There will be dinner in the dining hall in a few hours or so,” he said, turning to face me.
“You can use the time to reacquaint yourself with the guest chambers you stayed in when we were here. No one has touched it since you left. A certain male has been overly possessive and wanted the room to hold your scent for as long as possible.”
Raegan didn’t give me a second to think about that, simply offering me a respectful nod of his head before he departed and left me lingering in that strange revelation.
Chewing on the inside of my cheek, forever a terrible habit of mine, I moved through the overly bright hallways of the Cluaineach castle.
The winding stairs of cracking stone and twisted ivy led me up three flights, where I finally veered off to the right and adapted to an increasing heat brought forth by the numerous windowed-walls on either end of the stretch. After walking past three doors on my left, I stopped at the fourth.
The last time I was here was with Raegan, when I was convinced that he was going to lock me in this room for the entirety of our short stay. Instead, he had taken me to meet Gliocas and Urram. And, well, the rest was history.
With a smile born of nostalgic melancholy, I pushed open that door and released a deep sigh as I planned to move straight for that bed and collapse for an hour.
While that had been my plan, I was harshly interrupted by Urram. An African-Grey parrot with a body full of silver feathers and a few notoriously cherry-red ones cocked his head at me. Even though he was a bird, I was sure I could see a scowl on his face even from this distance.
Grumbling under my breath, I shut the door behind me.
“I hope you don’t mind–” Killian’s sudden appearance pulled a shriek from my mouth that forced my feet to stumble backwards, my back soon shattering against the door just as my heartbeat accelerated.
“Killian! For f–” I shook my head a few times, my hand over my heart. “What are you doing here?”
There was no need for words. The moment his eyes found mine, he stormed through that room and had me wrapped up in his arms within seconds. One hand around my waist, one hand on the back of my head and pushing it farther into the curve of his neck.
I wasn’t sure if I was laughing or crying as he twirled us around, an equally breathy-laugh coming from his mouth. Once he finally stopped spinning us, the world continuing on without us, he set me down and placed both hands on either of my cheeks.
“Oh, Olivia,” he breathed, his forehead finding mine and his breath skimming my lips.
Everything halted in me then – this plan with Rory, the odd interactions with Raegan – none of it mattered.
I was back in Killian’s arms with his face as close to mine as ever, and I wanted nothing more. I needed nothing more.
His grip, having moved to the back of my neck, tightened just as he pulled his face away from mine. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
“So I heard,” I chuckled, taking a step away from him and assessing whether or not I had been crying. “I guess I should have expected to see you in this room.”
His own face twisted into a matching frown as he cocked a brow. “What?”
“Why else would you not let anyone into this room? How long does a scent linger, anyway?”
Killian let out a rough laugh. “What, in the name of the gods, are you talking about?”
A certain male.
The realization hit me like a sledgehammer as I palmed my forehead and ushered a silence curse in Raegan’s direction.
“Can you two discuss this another time?” Urram cawed. Startling me for the second time in such a short period, I pivoted the full extent of my exhaustion in his direction.
“It took you a day to find me?”
Urram spread his wings to either side, freeing a loose feather that fluttered down to the ground as he let out a demanding scream. “You say that as if it is not impressive.”
“It’s not,” I huffed. “A day Urram. I could have died.”
“You shouldn’t have snuck off, then.” Urram blinked his creepy little eyes a few times. “And in my defence, there have been many nights that you did not return home until the following morning. How was I supposed to know–”
A few coughs shuttled up my throat as I tried to look at Killian over my shoulder. Not surprisingly, he had very little showing on his face other than a brow that seemed incapable of dropping. I had forgotten that Killian was incapable of hearing my dragon-parrot.
Nothing was capable of stopping Urram. “It wouldn’t have been the first Wednesday that you either returned at an unreasonable hour, albeit utterly out of it, or returned the following morning.”
Shut up Urram. Instead of saying that, I spat out, “Thanks, Urram. Glad to know you think so highly of me.”
The parrot simply clicked his beak and let out a shrill caw.
“We must talk,” Killian said, the sudden gloom to his voice enough to cause me to refocus on him. He motioned to the bed, where we both perched on the edge of it and tried not to focus on how close our legs were to one another.
It was there that he took my hand and interlocked his fingers with mine. I didn’t pull away.
“You have no idea how happy I am to see you. But… But you should not have come back.”
“Why?”
“The threat that the two kingdoms face is still present. Which, if you recall, was one reason we sent you away in the first place.” He chuckled as he playfully elbowed my ribs. “But now… Well, now there’s more to it than that.”
Frowning, I pulled one leg up to cross over the other and turned to face him. I already knew what his answer would be, yet I asked anyway. “What’s going on?”
Killian stared at the ground for a few seconds longer, some of that dark, tangled hair obstructing his eyes. I grabbed on to a piece, tucking it behind his slightly curved ears and earning me his full attention.
“It’s Raegan. He’s…” Killian suddenly shot upright, his palm finding his forehead. “He’s changed.”
“Well I’m sure his new title–”
Killian shook his head several times. “No. It’s more than that. He’s not himself. The downfall of his kingdoms… Well, it’s killing him.”
“It’s not exactly like he’s–”
“You’re not listening,” he groaned as he moved towards me again, except this time I realized I didn’t want to be near him. I slid a few feet across the bed, snatching the hand that he was moving towards away.
“He’s changed.” Killian’s eyes narrowed as my joy slipped away, leaving only the truest and most revealed version of myself for him to assess. My year away from the pixies had been trying, apparently, as Killian said, “Just as you have changed.”
There was a sizzle in my veins. An emotion that I hadn’t been capable of feeling in a very long time, not since I was atop a dragon in the midst of a war.
“Yeah?” I snorted. “Great. Thanks for letting me know.”
His face shifted, a pinch of hurt and a dash of shock that made him resort back to looking at me a certain way. The way everyone looked at me in my darkest hours – pity.
I hated pity.
“You’re shocked that I changed?” I spat, using a voice that had never been mine. “You shouldn’t be.”
“Why–”
“I honestly thought…” I had to trail off, if only to stop the crack and whine to my voice. “I wasn’t allowed to seek you out. But what stopped you?”
Every emotion slipped off of his face, his eyes now wide and dumbstruck. “Olivia, you know I couldn’t–”
“Yeah,” I barked. “Yeah, I know. But you’re not allowed to stand there and judge what I became in the absence of you all.”
“Olivia–”
“Leave, please.”
His mouth opened once more and I resorted to pointing at the door, evading his eyes all together. “Please, just leave.”
Swallowing, he nodded at me several times before turning on his heel and obeying my command.
It was possible I was being a little hard on him. But I was so angry, confused, and tired, that I couldn’t think straight. All of that, combined with the fact that I needed to go and meet with Rory, brought forth a concoction capable of throwing Killian Fiodh’Rugadh from my room.
“Olivia–”
“Look, I know what you’re going to say. I know you’re angry or disappointed or whatever it is that drives you to look down your nose at me, Urram–” I paused only to take a deep breath, to look out the window that gave me the perfect view of a fading sun on Cluaineach.
“But I needed to come back. I had to. So think what you want of me, but think it elsewhere.”
“Well–”
“Go and make up with Gliocas. Go and sit in your den and strop. I don’t care, just please leave me alone for a while.”
The cool things about dragons? They don’t argue. With another caw, Urram leapt from the bedsheets, waited for me to open the door for him, and left me in the wake of his disappearance.
Yes, I had kicked Killian and Urram out of my room because I needed to go and see Rory.
But there was another reason, one that was sitting beneath every thought and was darkening every attempt I made to feel at home in Saoghal once more.
It was like rot in a piece of fruit, small at first but quickly growing and devouring with every second that I let myself sit in that heavy blackness.
I had not realized how bad I was truly doing until I was back here.
Until Urram threw the drinking – and socializing – habits in my face and forced a mirror to my soul.
Until I saw Killian look at me and it melted the frigid confines of my heart.
Until I had stood next to Raegan and realized that the sun would never compare to the warmth that spread over my body.
Increasingly aware that I didn’t have long before I needed to leave to get to Rory, I crashed down on the bed and let my mind be swallowed by that dread.
I wanted to cry – I could feel the build-up along my throat and the tightening of my eyes in preparation, but no salty tears came.
Instead, I just stared at the ceiling and let sorrow ride waves within my blood.
Saoghal was supposed to be my ultimate sanctuary. It was home in a way I had never known a home to be. Yet, though I was back, I had never felt as far away from it as I did now.
Which was worsened because now I didn’t have ghostly hands grazing mine or the haunting image of green eyes behind my eyelids.
I was alone in my darkness, yet again.