Because I Love You✔️

Chapter 114: Confession

Chapter One Hundred and Fourteen: Confession

And the next morning: frenzy.

Xaphile awoke to the jarring sensation of being shaken, but all he could focus on was his body and the intense sensations coursing through it: for some reason, every nerve felt four times as sensitive than he was used to and he had a strange tightness in his belly.

It made him feel bizarrely stressed and grumpy. 

"Phil! Wake up! Hurry and get dressed!" Amelia said as his eyes creaked open. Her face came into focus with a painful snap. "You have to go tell everyone goodbye!"

A shiver coursed through him and he sat up, stretching his arms high above his head with a yawn.

"Goodbye?" he croaked, bleary; confusion made waking up even harder. "Who left?"

Amelia gave him a strange look.

"We're the ones who are going to be leaving," she said slowly, "but you have more than a few visitors waiting for you on the island right now! The faery women who ride on the giant squirrels have come with several men from the forest, including that Bonks boy and his brothers."

"What...?" he rasped, still half asleep. "What's going on?"

"You heard me!" Amelia sighed, exasperated. "That woman, Krishna, is already talking with Ella about the situation. You're needed!"

He crawled to his feet and crankily ran his fingers through his hair in an attempt to get it to calm down from its bedheaded state, but Amelia was having none of that; without warning, she grabbed him by the wrist and tugged him across the room. 

"Whoa, slow down," he complained, wings unfurling in protest. "Give me a minute to wake up!"

"No time for that," Amelia mumbled, letting go of him long enough to throw the door open, and then they burst outside like a pair of errant fireworks. The full regiment of their group were standing in a semi-circle before Bonks and his brothers and Krishna and many squirrel riders. 

Sarka's eyes flitted his way and a slow smile slid across her face. Karla, sitting behind her, didn't spare him so much as a glance. Xaphile tried not to look at her, nor even at Krishna as he stepped out of the lodge's gloom and into the glare of early morning sunlight. 

Gus eyed him for a moment before saying something to Sinmir in a low voice.

The prince snorted and elbowed him.

Hot irritation swept through him in an aggressive wave and the fur on his spine stood up. 

Krishna, finished speaking with Ella, dismounted and began to approach him while he stood there, tired, fuming, and strangely sensitive to every puff of air that swept across his body. His tail danced behind him with a series of agitated flicks when she stopped in front of him.

"We have heard from the high queen that you are going to be leaving us tomorrow," she said softly, amber eyes dancing in the early sunlight. "It is much sooner than we all anticipated, but upon her request, we are all to escort you and your companions to the border of the forests."

He nodded twice and opened his mouth to respond, but a breeze caught her hair and with the force of a semi-truck, her smell hit his nose.

For whatever reason, he momentarily blacked out: it was only the frantic thumping of his heartbeat that brought him out of the strange daze. Once he was conscious, his ears began to ring and he frantically lunged away from Krishna, putting a good distance between them.

She stared at him in concerned surprise.

"What is wrong?" she asked, tilting her head with a catlike blink. "Vadil, you... why do you distance yourself from me so suddenly?"