17
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I was thoroughly relying on Killian to direct us towards the bay that Uisge primarily sat within.
I could smell the water, the salty aroma of it swarming my nose at all times, but I was beyond confused as to which direction it was coming from.
Killian wasn’t, though. Or at least that was what I was set on believing, considering his pace was strong and incapable of being deterred.
We walked for a few hours before he finally stopped and allowed me to catch my breath. Except I didn’t, because he pressed close to me and his whisper slid across my skin.
“There’s something I need to say. Something I’ve wanted to say since I saw you in the dungeons. But there have been too many eyes on us, too many ears overly accustomed to listening.”
I glanced up at him, needing to take a small step backwards just so that he could not hear how loud my breathing was as I fought to satisfy my lungs. He waited for me to say something, so I just rolled my wrist at him to continue while my cheeks flooded with heat.
“You can trust me.”
The desire to breathe normally again was lost as the weight of his words found me, forcing me to straighten my spine and steel the gaze I shot at him.
“I do trust you.”
I did. I wasn’t lying about that, not that I felt the need to lie to Killian.
“Do you?” His body pivoted towards me, and for the first time since meeting him, Killian intimidated me. I wasn’t sure if he meant to, but he did. It was just his aura, his sternness and the power that I knew he contained within his muscles, all placed in front of me as he tried to… accuse me?
“Of course I do,” I breathed, letting one of my hands rest on his chest to somehow humanize him again. Or soften him, considering he was a pixie and couldn’t be humanized.
“If you don’t, it’s okay. I am just telling you that you can, you know. So if one day you want to tell me, perhaps, just maybe how you shrunk yourself down and entered Saoghal again, you can.”
My hand fell from his chest and I stumbled backwards. I quickly took back my previous declaration, I did feel the need to lie to Killian at that moment. Not that any lie would be capable of concealing the shock that took my facial features by storm.
I trusted Killian. I trusted him with my life. But not with this. Not when I knew how he felt about the Rachainn, how loyal he felt to the ancient and sacred ways of his world. Not when he would see it as nothing but a betrayal.
My mouth opened to spew some sort of lie, but he shook his head. “Don’t. You don’t need to tell me. Because whether or not you trust me, one thing I am sure about is that I trust you. Tell me when you are ready.”
I was glad that he smiled and turned, beginning to walk away once more. Because hearing that, seeing the devotion and truth of it in his eyes, I nearly crumbled. I nearly admitted.
But regardless of what I wanted to say or do, nothing would change the fact that Killian was of Raegan’s ceadan.
He was bound to Raegan not just by magic but by love and friendship for his friend.
Regardless of what Killian would have wanted to say or do in response, he would be compelled by duty, by honour, and by loyalty. I would not put him in that position.
So I nodded to myself, confident with my decision, and trotted to keep up with him.
“So…” I mumbled, not sure whether I wanted to truly ask him what was lingering on my mind. His eyes, dark and somewhat hooded, met mine as we walked hand-in-hand. “Ciara? There’s a… history there?”
“A tale as old as time,” he sighed.
“What do you mean?” I asked through a nervous giggle.
He regarded me with a somewhat sly grin. “The two of us have found a mutual companionship with one another on occasion. Over the years.”
My brows shot high before I could stop them. “You two are involved with one another?”
Killian bobbed his head side-to-side. “We hate one another. But sometimes that can be the ultimate flame. And in the past, the occasional time that our hatred was too strong but our desire still present, we simply found another.”
My eyes pinched as I watched him discuss such private matters with ease. “Another?”
He shrugged. “Another male. Another female. Someone to be a fleshy divide between the two of us before we killed one another.”
My stomach stirred. “You… you shared?”
Killian caught my tone immediately and his smile grew in its mischievousness. “The more the merrier, I say.”
My throat started to swell as I refused to swallow the question that sat heavy within. “With… With who?”
Killian’s eyes flashed a twinkle of knowing. “You want to know if I have shared with Raegan, don’t you?”
I couldn’t hold the heated gaze that remained on me for a moment longer. Refusing to make a noise, I turned away from him and sighed, instead.
Killian prowled closer, his body brushed against mine as we walked, his lips pressing hot air to my ear as he whispered, “Do you wish to be shared, Olivia?”
The answer did not come to my mouth but it came to my mind.
Flashes of the scene that the three of us could create.
The heavy, laboured breathing matched between the two males I cared for and the heat of their bodies on either side of me.
A somewhat dance of challenge; Raegan with his possessive, demanding movements and Killian with his eagerness to bring pleasure to those around him.
So quickly my cheeks flushed red and I could not shake the thought of being placed intentionally between them, feeling the way that they differed and revelling in the ways that they were similar.
Killian had stopped walking and was now staring down at me, something dark and almost haunted in his gaze as he peered along his nose at me. Seeing him like that, in front of me, only made the images come faster and with more clarity, my mind filling the blanks and placing Raegan behind me.
My mouth went to open, to answer him and stop the churning of my stomach and the aching that spread at my want, but Killian beat me to it.
“I’d be happy to oblige you. Though I cannot say the same about my King.”
Everything washed away like a violent wave, allowing me to take a steady, even breath again. “Why?”
“Don’t look so disappointed,” he murmured, his own face reflecting a similar want. “Yes, he has shared in the past. But you…” Killian trailed off as the look of indescribable want shifted, quickly becoming a ghostly type of jealousy. “You are something else entirely.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He pursed his lips and frowned at me, a knowing disappointment creasing his face. “Yes, you do. And we both know that Raegan would sooner tear the head of his best friend clean from my body before he even entertained the thought of seeing me touch you.”
“Well I guess it’s a good thing that I don’t want that, then,” I hummed, side-stepping Killian entirely only to duck my head and cool the heat of my cheeks.
He let out a small, revealing chuckle as he met my stride.
~
“Olivia?” Killian asked after another hour of trudging through thick grasslands, seeing nothing but the towering mass of green in every direction.
To his credit, though, the smell of the sea was growing stronger, the salt powerful as it cleansed my sinuses and threatened to give me the headache to end all headaches.
“Olivia?” he asked again when I had yet to respond, too focused on keeping my path even as my ankles threatened to betray me.
“Yeah?”
He was wide-eyed and full of excitement as he looked down his side at me. “After we visit Uisge… Would you take me through one of the human towns?”
My ankles weren’t the reason I collapsed then, it was the wave of excitement mixed with endearment that I had for this powerful pixie at my side. He laughed as he watched me drop, only to extend a monstrous arm that I gripped to and allowed him to fling me back to my feet.
“Is that a no?” he chuckled, as if nothing would ever be capable of dulling the childish radiance that was Killian.
“N-no. No, it wasn’t a no, I mean!” I stammered out, unable to slow my thoughts for a moment. “Of course I’ll take you through the streets, if that’s what you really want?”
I didn’t want to comment on the fact that we were both wearing shirts and trousers of cotton-like leaves and leather attire to further the look. Then again, it wouldn’t have been a stretch to claim we were coming from some sort of renaissance fair.
Sucking my lip between my teeth, I battled with the surge of thrill that rushed through me at the thought.
Killian, in the human world? So far, the heavy truth of him being a pixie and me being a human had always felt like a wedge.
But now, the thought of leading him down cobbled-stone roads and watching his confusion at all things electricity?
For once it would be him in a state of bewilderment and me chuckling at him from afar.
“Yeah,” he continued, looking away from me to keep himself from tripping.
“I’d like to experience your world, just as you have experienced mine.
” Then, as if he couldn’t get more adorable, Killian bobbed the end of my nose and grinned.
“I’d like to see the magnificent place that reared one Olivia Loughty. ”
“You remember my last name?”
“Of course,” he said through one of his genuine, sweet smiles. “I shall never forget a thing about you. Not a second that we have spent together.”
My stomach buzzed, violently and somewhat excitedly. It felt as if a thousand fireflies were contained within, bashing against the lining in a threat to erupt at any moment. Perhaps I had swallowed a few.
Before I could make a grave mistake like responding to that, the grass at last parted from our pathway and left the terribly long stretch of sand that sat between us and the water. Between us, and Uisge.
The blue was just as I remembered it – somehow so vastly different to how it looked as a human at human height.
There was something about being this small, this insignificant against a big and wild world, that made the water appear near ethereal.
The angle that we stood at made the reflection of the sunlight stronger, made the twinkling effect against the surface brighter, and the smell itself – that natural salty, fresh smell – was threatening to take me right back down to my knees.
So for a moment neither one of us said anything, we simply stood and stared at the vast stretch of Uisge, at the beauty and the wonder that continuously shook me within Saoghal.
“Ready?” he asked, though I had to wonder if he was asking me or himself.
“Not at all,” I said.
“Good. Then we feel the same.”
He shot me a grin that was supposed to be wild but only looked uncertain. I grimaced.
Then we walked.