Deleted Scene from The Last Swiftwind
For those of you who have read it already, this is part of the dinner scene in Eirmere where Raoul tells a story about his and Bronwyn’s past.

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Bronwyn | Eirmere
“So, I was at a bar one night,” Raoul began, ignoring my plea to drop it.

“This isn’t necessary,” I interjected quickly, but Raoul was already on a roll.

Raoul shot a glance at Cillian. “What was it, seven years ago?”

“Before we got Ada, yeah,” Cillian confirmed with a nod.

“There was this really cute bartender batting his eyes at me, so I winked at him—” Raoul said, drawing my attention back to the moment. My grip tightened on my fork because I remembered that night all too well.

“Well, this group of assholes decided I was making a pass at one of them, and they jumped me,” Raoul continued, his voice taking on a darker tone. The fork in my hand began to bend.

“Oh, shit,” Tibor muttered under his breath.

“They dragged me into the alley and tossed me around a bit,” Raoul went on. The metal of my fork snapped. Talos placed his hand over mine on the table to calm me down.

“What the fuck!” Oaklen’s voice was low, his anger palpable. He was disgusted that something like this had happened to Raoul.

“Then the ringleader of the group decided that wasn’t enough and started carving a hateful slur into my face while his buddies held me down,” Raoul continued, tracing his fingers along where the letters F and A had been etched.

The fork in my hand broke completely. Talos squeezed my hand gently.

“That’s when this tiny whip of a girl comes skipping into the alley,” Raoul said, grinning at the memory. “I tried to tell her to run, but she didn’t listen.” He looked at me with a glint in his eye, but I could still see the lingering fear.

I sighed. “It didn’t seem fair that there were five of them and only one of you,” I said, trying to downplay the gravity of the situation. Raoul gave a rueful laugh.

“You weren’t the only one to walk by that alley that night,” he replied with a shrug.

“People suck,” I muttered, nonchalantly.

“Well…” Raoul cleared his throat. “The ringleader asked if you were lost, and you smiled that evil little grin of yours and said, ‘Never lost.’”

“Always found,” I said with a genuine nod.

“Godsdamn, sixteen years old, staring down this big hulking fucker with those eerie green eyes,” Raoul said, shaking his head. “And you crooked your finger at him.”

Cillian, ever the mimic, shifted into my form, exaggerating the gesture and speaking in my voice, “Do you want to play a game?” He shifted back into himself, and the table erupted in laughter, Raoul included.

“Did he ever,” Raoul added, amused by this, though there was nothing amusing about what happened that night at all. “He swaggered over to you and leaned against the wall all seductively, tipped your chin up with his fingers, and dropped his voice to ask you what you had in mind.”

I recoiled at the memory of his finger on my face, the unsettling touch still haunting me.

“And this crazy little girl,” Raoul continued, “starts walking her fingers up his arm and toward his chest. At this point, I’m thinking like, girl, no. Go home. This isn’t going to end well for you.”

“It was sweet of you to think I had loving parents sitting up worried about me,” I said, the heaviness of seeing him broken on the ground flooding back to me. I quickly took a sip of wine to quell the tears threatening to fall. Finnegan chuckled in the background because trauma’s funny around here—it’s the only way we cope unless we want to be sobbing wrecks all the time.

“Anyway,” Raoul pressed on, “as she’s walking her fingers up his arm, she says, ‘I... want...’”

“It worries me how vividly you remember this,” I interrupted, hoping that he will stop get to the point faster and skip this part.

“Hard to forget that night, Ryn. Best night of my life,” Raoul said earnestly. I raised my glass to him, feeling a strange mix of gratitude and unease.

“This doesn’t sound like a good time,” Tibor said, frowning.

Raoul laughed again. “Anyway, she gets her hand over his heart and says, ‘To feel you throbbing in my hand.’”

Talos and Kieran both choked on their drinks.

“The buddy hastily agrees—idiot,” Raoul continued. “And she snaps her fingers. Her whole hand is engulfed in hellfire. She slowly pushed her hand into his chest,” Raoul demonstrated the motion, his voice lowering dramatically, “he screamed like nothing I’ve ever heard before as she pulled his still-beating heart. It burned away to nothing. Two of his buddies were inching up on her with knives drawn. She flicked two throwing stars at them. Three of them were dead before the first guy even hit the ground. Then she twisted her wrist and threw the last two into the air like, ‘Taa-daaa!’”

Raoul snorted at whatever version of this he was recalling. “At this point, I’m like, this is it. This is how I die. This demon girl has come for me,” he added.

I laughed picturing the look of panic on his face in that moment. I made a mental note to sketch it later.

“Instead,” Raoul went on, “she hovered over me and asked if I was okay. She asked if it was okay to get me out of the alley to clean up. Well… I had just watched her plow through three big fuckers and throw two more into the sky—what was I going to do, say no? So, she helped me up, slamed her hands down, and splat—those two fuckers come crashing to the ground and explode like heavy water balloons. Then she vanished us back here, healed me, and that’s when I met Cillian.” Raoul shrugged, a grin still playing at his lips as he finished the tale.

Tibor looked at me, his eyes narrowing. “You healed him?” he asked, his tone a mix of awe and disbelief.

“Be pointless to go to all that trouble just for him to die,” I said with a shrug, focusing on my wine.

“What I want to know is what you were doing on the strip alone that night anyway,” Talos said, leaning forward.

Sloane and I went rigid, like a pair of deer caught in headlights. I exchanged a quick look with Finnegan and Sloane before focusing on my wine.

“Who said I was alone?” I challenged, raising a brow.

Everyone, save Sloane, Raoul, and Finnegan, pointed at Raoul and said in unison, “He did!”

“That’s a good point, actually,” Aiden said, gesturing to Talos. “You and Sloane were supposed to be sleeping at ours that night.”

“That doesn’t sound right...” I said, trying to deflect.

“No, no,” Kieran chimed in, snapping his fingers. “I distinctly remember it because you NEVER asked to stay over with Sloane before.”

“What were you doing on the strip, Phoebe?” Aiden asked again, his tone suddenly mischievous.

“Obviously being Raoul’s knight in leather armor,” I retorted, deadpan.

“Where was Sloane, Phoebe?” Aiden pressed, his voice dropping into something almost haunting.

I felt the weight of his gaze and the curiosity in the room sharpen. My fingers gripped my glass. “She was here,” I said smoothly.

Cillian frowned. “I did see her close your door that night...”

“Is it so out of character that she changed her mind, we came back, but she told me to go ahead when she saw Rao?” Sloane said, her voice calm but pointed.

“Is that what happened?” Aiden asked, his eyes locked onto mine.

I held his stare, lifting my glass. “If she was here and I came back with Raoul, would you not then assume that, in fact, is exactly what happened?”

Aiden narrowed his eyes, his lips twitching in reluctant amusement. “You’re lucky you’re good at this.”

“Why don’t we leave the past where it belongs?” Sloane interjected, her voice as smooth as silk. “Phoebe can tell us about the biological weapon blocking Griff’s landing strip.”

I shot her a glare.

“Or maybe Finn can tell us where the fuck you’ve been the last six months,” Ada cut in, staring daggers at Finnegan.

“I’m still waiting to learn why Sloane was covered in your blood, and your ribs look like they were smashed against a wall,” Talos added, his tone sharp.

“Or what Tibor’s doing here,” Kieran said, crossing his arms.

I opened my mouth, ready to deflect again, but Kieran held up a finger.

“And before you get smart, he used to date your mother, so I dare you to throw the word ‘orgy’ around again,” he said with a smirk.

I grimaced, throwing a helpless look at Tibor.

“Alright, T. That’s a hard line for me. You’re out,” I said definitively.

Tibor snickered. “Oh darn,” he said dryly.

I waggled my brows at Uncle Kieran. “Is it still an orgy if there are only three of us?”

Kieran groaned, running a hand down his face.

“You practically dared her, Key,” Talos said, laughing. “I don’t know what you thought would happen.”