Page 74 of The Red Woman and the White Bear

He looked down at her. There it was again: that hope. It flooded his veins with a comforting heat. “And, despite my earlier apprehension, I believe that it may not be such a bad solution after all.”

“Ah,” Rodney said sarcastically. “So there’s something in it for you, then. What’s your angle, Highness?”

Kael’s temper flared and his eyes snapped to Rodney’s, boring into them fiercely. “Mind your silver tongue, púca, or you’ll find it cut out of your head. Your cleverness will not be toleratedhere.”

“That’s enough, both of you. Rodney, take Briar outside for me then make sure he eats.” He opened his mouth to protest, but Aisling beat him to it: “Now. Go on.”

Kael held his aggressive posture until Rodney had left the room with the White Bear in tow and didn’t relax again until he felt Aisling’s hand squeeze his arm gently.

“I’m sorry about him.”

Kael offered her a tight smile. “Only one of them is your pet to control, and to your credit, he is much better behaved than the changeling.”

Aisling’s eyebrows shot up and she laughed loudly—a true, honest laugh. Kael would have done or said just about anything to have heard it again once she quieted.

He pulled out a chair for her and drew up one just beside. When he placed the book on the table between them, Aisling turned her body and their legs touched beneath the table. For a moment, Kael was afraid to move, afraid to breathe. If she’d done so on accident, the last thing he wanted to do was shift and alert her to their contact so she’d pull away. But when he finally did, she remained in place, her thigh pressing lightly against his own.

“This is the book you mentioned?” she asked.

“It is.” He smoothed his hand over the soft leather of the cover then lifted it. The binding was still stiff enough to crack in protest as he opened it to the first page.

Aisling clicked her tongue. “I don’t know why I expected I’d be able to read it.”

“I can read it to you,” he assured her.

For some time, the pair poured over the text. Every few pages he’d skim, Kael would translate aloud a passage he thought might interest Aisling. He’d have read her the entire thing, cover to cover, if she’d asked.

“The Silver Saints possess the ability of Far Sight, unique from other Tuatha Dé Danann, which permits them to briefly glimpse into the tapestry of fate, seeing each warp and weft, each thread and gap,” he recited. “As such, their kind guided the lesser Fae through periods of struggle and unrest and, in time, set them down the path to develop a system of two courts: the Seelie and the Unseelie, the light and the shadow.”

“We could use a bit of Far Sight. Does it say where to find them?” Aisling asked, dubiously eyeing the dwindling number of pages they had left.

“They cannot be found. They must be called, I believe.” Kael skimmed ahead several more sections.

“Called?”

He hummed. “With a ritual of some sort, I would imagine. They no longer reside in this realm.”

“Something like how you call to the Low One?” Aisling shifted, uncomfortable with even the mention of His name.

“Something like that.” When she shivered, he pressed his leg a bit tighter against hers, a gesture he hoped would comfort her against the memory of her experience in The Cut.

“But this book doesn’t say anything about it?” She watched him turn the next page, then two moreafter that.

“It may be too old; it could have been written when they were still here,” he surmised as he neared the end.

“Oh.” The disappointment was as clear in Aisling’s voice as it was written across her face.

Desperate to keep that spark of hope burning in her, Kael said quickly, “I still have several other volumes I can look in.”

“Wecan look in,” she corrected. “We’re on the same team now.”

No longer able to resist the urge, Kael reached out to tuck that stray hair back from her face, then let his hand drop to grasp hers where it rested on the table. “Indeed we are.”

He kept ahold of Aisling’s hand as he walked her back to her suite, after she insisted that she check in on Rodney to make sure he hadn’t gotten himself tossed in the dungeon.

“After all this is over, will you teach me your language?” she asked thoughtfully as they stood in the passageway in front of her door.

He raised her hand to his lips and brushed a gentle kiss over her knuckles. “I will teach you whatever you would like.”

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