25 #2
I hopped up onto the ledge of the half-wall, giggling to myself as I lowered down and allowed my feet to dangle off of the edge. Killian followed me with that I’m-a-warrior ease that meant it was one swift movement that brought him to my side.
I passed him his Maple Sugar Candies, and I dug into my Cinnamon Danish.
“Look,” I said, pointing out to St. Michael’s Mount. “Choilltean.”
Killian narrowed his eyes as he looked past Mount’s Bay and to St. Michael’s Mount, to the pile of greenery smack in the center of the bay and the buzzing docks at the base of it. “It looks so… Small.”
I couldn’t help but to laugh as I nodded along. “Right there was where you found me.”
His smile softened from the normal overly-joyful state it was in and to something far more sincere that made my throat tighten. “I have lived through a great many things, but that day will forever be the best of them.”
The way I choked on my pastry was monstrous and unladylike in every way possible.
Once I managed to lodge the tiny flake that was making me gag, I cleared my throat and dared to look at him.
He met my gaze with one of his own, one that tunnelled deep into me and caused me to almost miss as he lifted his hand to my cheek and ran his thumb over the peak of it.
“I am not experienced in such things, so do tell me if I say or do something wrong, but…” Killian coughed, shaking his head slightly as he bore into me with an unfamiliar gaze. “I believe, Olivia Loughty, that I love you.”
The drop from the edge of the brick-wall was at least twenty feet and sure to break every bone in my body, so I was glad Killian grabbed my shoulder before I suddenly found myself falling off of the edge.
Killian loved me?
Our short time with one another was not meek in its feelings or the heavy emotions that came with it, but he loved me? Was that what this feeling was in my chest when he was around? This warmth and this comfort?
I wasn’t sure that I had ever been in love, but I had to admit – I thought it would feel…
Different. Powerful and intense, heart-shattering and head-pounding.
The poets spoke of a painful type of happiness, one that doused out a fair share of both joy and heartbreak.
The artists drew and danced and sang pieces that suggested it was all-consuming and axis-rotating.
I thought that being around the person one loved was more than just comfort and warmth but like a flame, unruly and unpredictable, heating your very bones and burning a path straight to your soul.
I liked Killian. He was like a large hug, encasing me in a certain type of familiarity that I enjoyed. I wanted to nuzzle into him, most days, to sit in that ring of safety not just from the world but from myself, because being with him took away the loneliness and replaced it with companionship.
Perhaps that was love. Maybe I had spent so many years misunderstanding poems and songs, dances and drawings.
I hadn’t said anything in a while, simply resorted to staring at Killian, so he decided to keep speaking. And I truly wished he hadn’t.
“I think…” he trailed off, contemplating whether or not to admit that was already overly apparent on his face. “I spoke to a lot of pixies, when you left. About Cernunnos and bonds. And… well, I think…”
Don’t say it, Killian.
“I think we could be mates.”
Everything that had built up in me, all of the warmth and comfort and safety in Killian, plummeted down my throat and settled heavy in my stomach. My mouth fell open, of its own accord, and I stared at him.
I now understood why Raegan had reacted the way he did when I claimed the same between the two of us.
Except whereas Raegan didn’t care about me or my feelings, I did care about Killian and his, and I had no idea how to react to that information without shattering the very important love I had for him.
“What makes you think that?” Oh, my voice was so small and frail he had to know what I was thinking.
In reality, I wasn’t sure what I was thinking.
Yes, I felt a certain way about Raegan that had made me consider him paired to me in some way, but that was different.
Being around Raegan felt chaotic and cataclysmic, an all-consuming sort of burning within me that threw me in his direction even when I wanted nothing more than to run in the opposite direction.
But I looked at Killian and considered that previous possibility, that perhaps this was love and therefore it could be something more.
“I just… Well, I suppose…” Killian shook his head several times. “Being around you just feels right.”
“Is there no way? To know for sure, I mean?”
Killian shrugged. “They say Cernunnos is ever-watching. For some, he places the bond within them the moment they look upon one another. For others, they must face the tribulations of life before he will grant them such a thing. So, no. Not until he wishes to show it to us.”
He was so sure. Just as I had been the moment I looked at Raegan when I returned to Saoghal.
How was that possible? How was it possible that it was a bone-ringing sort of agony when I looked at Raegan, and yet he denied it, and now Killian stood in front of me and announced the same, and I denied it?
Whatever Cernunnos was doing, he was being cruel with it.
“But I’m human.”
Killian bobbed his head side to side. “I haven’t quite figured that part out. Truthfully, I didn’t think I would ever have to figure that out. Because you were gone and I didn’t think it would matter. But you’re back, now, and I can’t help but think it’s more than a coincidence.”
I was glad I was so comfortable around Killian, because it made asking the awkward questions so much easier. “You think the mating bond brought me back to you?”
“And perhaps it was what drew us together, right over there,” Killian said as he pointed to St. Michael’s Mount.
“I thought the maple-syrup porridge brought you to me.”
He laughed. “Sure. No, you are right. You are right, Olivia. I am being absurd.”
I placed a hand on his arm and smiled when he turned to me. “Do not love me, Killian.”
There was no hiding the flash of agony behind his eyes as he blinked down at me.
“I am destined to leave. Always. Forever. And even if we somehow got past that, I am a human and I am not immortal. Loving me will only end in pain for you.”
He wrapped his large arm around my shoulder and pulled me into him. “You are too kind for this world or any other. Unfortunately, it makes me love you all the more.”
We both laughed at that, at the awkwardness but the tenderness of whatever was between us. Sighing, I set myself into the curve of his side and rested my head on his rounded shoulder.