Page 86 of The Red Woman and the White Bear

“Can you get him a message without going back in?” Determined to forge ahead with or without Kael’s help, Aisling turned to Rodney.

“Sure, but maybe we should think about this a little more first.” He rubbed the back of his neck and eyed Kael uneasily, attempting to interpret his silence.

Of course she wanted to think it through. If she had the time, Aisling would have spent days drafting up a roster of advantages and disadvantages to their plan. She’d have spent longer still searching for another avenue to avoid bloodshed and sacrifice altogether. But the luxury of time had faded; now, they had to act.

“Talk to Lyre, Rodney,” she directed firmly.

A short while later, as the rest of the trailer park began to wake, Aisling retreated quietly back into Rodney’s dark room and curled up in his bed. Her mind was hazy now and her eyelids had grown so, so heavy. At last, sleep was catching up with her. She hoped it would be deep and dreamless.

She didn’t hear Kael enter, but shifted over to make space when she felt his weight depress the far side of the mattress. “You’re tired,” she said, running a hand across the hard muscles of his chest. He leaned into her touch.

“I am.” The exhaustion was plain in his voice.

“Have you come to nap with me?” A lazy smile played on her face, eyes half-closed.

Kael pulled a blanket up over their shoulders and wrapped one arm around Aisling’s waist. “The púca left. He said he would return later.”

“Did he say where he was going?” Aisling lifted her head slightly from the pillow to look up at Kael. She could only just make out his outline; his face was hidden by shadow.

“No,” he said. His fingers in her hair eased her head back down and then ran, from root to tip, in smooth, steady strokes.

“Okay.”

“You do not trust him,” Kael assumed.

“He did leave me in your prison.” She was only half-joking.

Kael hummed, moving closer and resting his chin on the crown of her head. “It seems we’re both rather accustomed to being used.”

Aisling curled into his chest and relaxed as he tightened his arm around her. “I wouldn’t use you,” she sighed.

Iwouldn’t use you.

Aisling’s words echoed in Kael’s mind, their soft earnestness prying at his hardened heart and making it ache fiercely. She wouldn’t willingly, but the knowledge of what she must do—how he would make her use him—might have been enough to break him right there if he wasn’t so skilled at pressing down those sorts of thoughts until they were nearly nothing inside of him. He had this, now: Aisling sleeping soundly beside him, her warm breath gentle as it breezed across his chest. All signs of worry and stress absent from her face. If he could have held her there forever, he would have made any single sacrifice to do so. But that was not the fate written foreither of them.

She stirred then and pulled back to look at him with bleary eyes. Even in the dark, the collage of blues and hazels held him captive. “You’re still awake.”

“Not for much longer.” Kael worked his hand underneath her shirt and traced circles on the curve of her lower back with his thumb.

She bumped his thighs gently with one of her knees. When he lifted a leg, she slid hers between them to rest there, pulling herself even nearer, then sighed contentedly.

He smiled. “If you were any closer, you would be under my skin.”

“I wouldn’t mind.” She reached up to smooth her thumb over the crease between his brows. “What are you thinking about?”

A pulse of disquiet surged through Kael, like icy water through his veins, but it took him only a moment to recover. “Only how lovely you look when you sleep,” he said.

“Your walls are up.” She hadn’t believed him; she’d heard that split-second of hesitation before he answered. Her hand moved down to cup his cheek and he leaned into it gratefully. The grounding force of her touch worked its alchemy on his frayed nerves.

“I mislike that you were injured in my defense,” Kael tried again. Not a lie this time, but certainly only a fraction of the truth that weighed on his mind. On his heart.

“I’d do it again,” Aisling promised solemnly.

“That will not be necessary,” Kael assured her.

Her presence beside him an anchor, Kael allowed himself to sleep, too, though it was restless and hard-won. He felt himself constantlydipping in and out of it, never as fully submerged as he wished to be.

He awoke when Rodney cracked open the door, letting in a slant of light. The púca gestured to him. Kael gently extricated himself from Aisling’s grip. She groaned, reaching out for him, but he tucked her arm back beneath the blanket.

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