The Raven and the Dove (The Raven and the Dove #1) - Kaitlyn Davis Page 0,118

yank open the curtains to his balcony. Before he even grasped the heavy fabric, the door behind him burst open.

“Going somewhere?” Xander asked, tone balanced between accusatory and amused.

Rafe jerked his hand away from the curtain and spun, hearing a gasp on the other side. His pulse pounded, quickened by a different emotion than a moment before—by terror and bitter, bitter guilt at his own treachery. “No.”

“Calm down,” Xander said, striding across the room to plop on his usual stool. “You’re allowed to go outside. Just no flying, and no letting anyone see you, at least not for another week or two. But it’s late enough now. I’d imagine the city has mostly fallen asleep, a feat that completely escaped me tonight. And you too, I see.”

“Yeah,” Rafe muttered and cleared his throat, trying to bring a smile to his lips. “I, uh, couldn’t sleep. I’m going a little stir-crazy in here, I guess.”

Xander nodded absently. His eyes moved around the room as he swiveled slightly on the stool, pushing with his legs as his wings flexed and relaxed.

Rafe's voice was soft. “Xander?”

The prince half turned toward him, but seemed to be in another place entirely.

“Is there something you wanted to talk about?” Rafe coaxed. He couldn’t hear Lyana on the other side of the curtain anymore, but he supposed she was there, too curious by half to ever turn and fly away, and not nearly nervous enough to worry about being caught.

Xander sighed. “I just…”

He paused and turned to look out the window. If the princess was out there somewhere, she was in the shadows where neither of them could see.

“I was thinking tonight, while I couldn’t sleep,” Xander said. “I was wondering… What do you… Well, what do you suppose love feels like?”

Rafe froze.

But Xander kept rambling, unaware of how still his brother had become. “I mean, I know you’ve never felt that way yourself—me neither, of course—but I thought, maybe you might remember what it was between your parents? What it felt like to be around them?”

“I don’t—” Rafe fell quiet when a knot in his throat cut off the words. “I don’t know, Xander. I don’t remember.”

“You do,” Xander countered, not accusingly. His tone was honest, maybe edged with the slightest bit of sadness. “It’s fine, I understand. We don’t talk about them, not really. I just thought this one time we could. Because I know what love looks like. I’ve seen it in the streets as I walk through them, between mated pairs, but never from so close a distance that I could recognize that light in someone’s eye, that sparkle. My mother’s faded long before I was old enough to notice it, and her parents were lost before I was born. But yours…”

He trailed off with a shrug.

Rafe found himself avoiding Xander's probing eyes. “Why? Why do you want to know?”

Xander scoffed, catching Rafe’s attention as he gave half a smile. “I would think that’s obvious, Rafe. I am to be mated in a week.”

“That was true two weeks ago, too, and you didn’t ask me then,” Rafe argued, stubborn as always. But this was something more, a knife slowly digging into his gut, burning and painful. All he could think to do was grab the hilt and plunge it in more deeply, so at least the agonizing anticipation would end. Because he had to hear it—whatever it was, he had to.

“Something’s changed,” Xander said, almost mystified. He shook his head as the tips of his wings lifted. “I can’t explain it, really, but Lyana’s changed. The past few days she’s seemed, I don’t know, at peace in a way she hasn’t been before, at least with me. There’s something, a glow of some sort in her eyes, a smile always on her lips as though she just can’t keep the corners down. And I’m, well, I’m trying to understand why.”

The invisible blade twisted.

Rafe swayed on his feet before holding on to the wall to steady himself. He wondered if, outside, Lyana had done the same.

Xander didn’t notice. He just kept talking as one of his legs bounced against the stool in a frantic sort of way. “And I’m different too, Rafe, when I’m around her, I think. Lighter somehow. She’s, well, she’s nothing like anyone I ever imagined being mated to—as you well know. We’re different in so many ways, but I’m starting to think that doesn’t matter. And I’d like to tell her all of this, instead of you—no offense, brother—but I