40
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I managed to get back down to the throne room in time for no one to notice I was missing. It was Shea and Aisling that I saw first, the two of them huddled at the long table that contained a thousand different fruits and meats, all of which were calling to my very empty stomach.
I drew near just as their conversation elevated into shouting.
“No way!” Shea howled, her face twisted into her own form of humour as she glanced at Aisling. “You didn’t, did you?”
“Didn’t what?” I laughed along as if I had any right to.
“Look,” Shea burst out as she pointed at Aisling’s neck. I didn’t see it at first, not until Shea shoved some of Aisling’s vibrantly fuchsia hair from her shoulder. Aisling’s cheeks bloomed with colour as we both assessed the deep, already-scarring, dual fang-marks there.
“What is it?” I gasped. I immediately regretted asking, because it was obviously a bite mark. “I mean… and?”
“A claiming mark – Aisling!” Shea roared again, the skin beside her eyes wrinkling as she let out another laugh. “Who? Why? When!”
It was strange to see Shea like this. Gossiping and happy. It wasn’t such a stretch to imagine she had once been capable of befriending Niamh, who was tenfold in her joy and excitement.
“Shush,” Aisling hissed. “An hour ago, and none of your business!”
Shea curled over as she slapped her knees and barked out another laugh that vibrated my bones.
“Will anyone explain?” I groaned.
“It’s a strange thing,” Aisling began, her face revealing how embarrassed she was. “Not all pixies do it, but some–”
“What is it, Aisling!” I laughed nervously as my mind rushed for an answer, just as my fingers grabbed for some blueberries.
“Thousands of years ago, our fangs used to have venom in them,” Shea cut in, allowing Aisling to sigh out in relief and curtain her face with her hair. “Over the generations, we lost a need for them. The venom remains in them, but it no longer has any power to it.”
“So a pixie bit you? And… poisoned you?”
“No!” Aisling shot way too quickly. “It’s not like that. Well, it is. But no. We can release the venom from our fangs at will and when we do… It enters the bloodstream and sort of.. Stays there?”
Shea was still laughing, having resorted to leaning against the closest wall for support.
“So you have venom in you? Right now? It doesn’t hurt? And… why?” I knew I was shooting out questions far quicker than either of them wanted to answer.
“Because the venom smells,” Shea interjected again, a shit-eating-grin on her face. “And no it doesn’t hurt. But the quickest way to let every pixie in the vicinity know that you belong to another?”
My mouth fell open as I stared at her scar.
“So she… smells?”
Aisling was horrified. Shea looked humoured.
“She does. I just don’t recognize the scent – who is it, Aisling?”
Aisling said nothing. Luckily for her, I wasn’t done with the questions.
“So you’re saying a pixie bit you and now you’ll carry around a reminder to everyone that you slept with him?”
Aisling shifted from looking horrified to looking insulted. “It’s not a sexual thing. I want everyone to know that I am his and he is mine.”
Shea’s nostrils widened as she dragged in several large breaths. “Oh my gods – I do recognize the scent.”
Aisling warned her with her glare.
I still wasn’t done, and Aisling was still thankful for my interruptions. “For… ever?”
“Every few years it fades. But yes, I would like to remain with him forever. I understand you are human, Olivia, and this might all seem very…”
“Primitive?”
“Sure. I was going to say new, but primitive works. But we do things differently and we bond differently. I chose him and I will stick with that choice.”
Shea gagged, her body pressing against the wall for strength and stability.
“Are you drunk?” I finally tore away from the conversation to check on her as she retched once more.
“No,” she groaned, sliding her forearm across her lips. “Aisling, why him?”
“Shut up, Shea,” Aisling growled.
I wanted to know who it was. But Aisling would tell me when she was ready, even if everyone around me had the advantage of knowing because for the next few years, she would smell like him.
Primitive, indeed.
But why did my body thrum with need at the sound of it?
I cast my gaze around the room until I at last found Raegan. Whether he had been there the whole time or not, I wasn’t sure, but when I finally found him, he was watching me from behind his drink. And he made no apology for it, nor did he divert his stare when I matched it.
The vein along my neck throbbed at the thought of being marked his.
~
Shea and Aisling were back to gossiping, addressing the many stories of the pixies around us, leaving me staring across the space in search of the one face that was missing.
Where are you, Killian?
It was not usual for him to miss a time such as this, filled with drink and laughter and food.
Killian was often the loudest of the bunch, dancing the hardest, drinking the most. And yes, I had finally freed him from the need to trail after me like a puppy, but did that truly mean he would simply abandon me?
No. Killian was my friend before he was anything else and his absence was strange, even if Raegan refused to comment on it.
~
One day, maybe, I would understand how this happened.
Or, maybe not how it happened, but how of all of the pixies around me in the throne room, I was the only one to see it. Well, to hear it.
As Shea and Aisling laughed beside me and the rest of the room exploded into more and more excitement for the growing party, I heard only a scuffle.
It was the vague noise of boots being dragged against stone.
Such an odd noise, one that is immediately identifiable and drags you out of every thought and directs your attention right towards where it came from.
Cocking my head to the side, I set my glass down and turned towards the doors of the throne room. And that was where I saw it.
A blur of brown.
A blur of blue.
The first I knew, almost immediately, and my hopes picked up as I identified the sloppy bun of Killian’s hair. Excusing myself quickly from Aisling and Shea, I turned on my heel and started to jog towards the exit.
I heard Raegan, above all of the noise, calling my name. Once, then twice. Then a beg for me to stay. A beg for me to not go out there.
But I did not listen because the closer I drew to the exit, and the louder the commotion became outside of those doors, the faster my heart beat.
It transitioned from a rush of excitement at seeing Killian to a rush of adrenaline, a gearing-up for a fight as if I knew what was going to await me when I turned the corner.
In a way, I wasn’t surprised.
In a way, I was surprised.
My body halted in one abrupt motion as I arrived in the hallway – the hallway that was noticeably absent of all other pixies. That should have been the first oddity, in that somehow that long stretch had divided the pixies that partied outside to the pixies that partied in the throne room.
There was Killian, grunting as his face shifted into extreme concentration. In that slow sliding of my eyes across the scene before me, I couldn’t figure out why he looked like he was battling an ox. Until I saw what was in his hands. Or, really, who.
Prince Tadgh, bound at his wrists and his ankles, his mouth gagged, was flopping against Killian with all of his might. He threw his weight left and right, gurgled and growled, howled and yelped beneath his gag, but Killian held fast and affirmed his grip on the Prince of Uisge.
They weren’t the only two people in that hallway, battling it out. No – at Killian’s side was another of Raegan’s ceadan, dark haired and hollow-eyed, one that I recognized from our dinners but had yet to meet. What he held in his hands – who – was even more horrifying.
Queen Tonn of Uisge, writhing against his hold, crying beneath the mask that had spread over her face. Except it wasn’t a mask like anything I had ever seen, but something that had sprung out and wrapped itself around her face, over and over.
And what it had sprung out of? The necklace. The necklace that Raegan had asked me to deliver to her. The peace offering.
My jaw fell open right around the time that Tadgh’s eyes met mine, wild and panicked.
“Let them go!” I screamed.
Another came flying out of the throne room only seconds later, who I knew to be Raegan without even looking. And behind him, the doors slammed shut and others of his guard took to standing at them, refusing any of the pixies within to exit.
“Let them go!” I roared again, ignoring as Raegan strode towards me. I was a wild animal as I moved towards Killian, my hands going to claw at his forearms for him to release the Prince. He looked to me, an apology between his brows, and shook his head.
They couldn’t do this.
It was an act of war.
So I launched myself at Killian, prepared to tackle him to the ground if it meant freeing Tadgh, and therefore Queen Tonn, but I didn’t get the chance. A pair of wide, strong arms banded around me, and I was left kicking and screaming against Raegan’s hold as he tried to keep me steady.
“Let them go!” I hollered for the third time, my voice hoarse and pained as I refused to blink off of Tadgh and Tonn.
“Olivia, please be quiet,” Killian begged as he continued to try and haul Tadgh. But seeing me, seeing an ally that he believed would somehow be able to help him, renewed the fight in the Prince of Uisge.
He managed to slip out of Killian’s arms, somehow.
Which made things worse.
Much, much worse.
I turned into Raegan’s chest, trying my luck at swaying his decision, when the chaos took to new heights.