Page 78 of The Red Woman and the White Bear

Kael was still on edge that morning as Aisling settled against him in his bed, tucked amongst sheets of dark silk and warm, heavy furs and a mountain of pillows. He’d spent the better part of the evening shut away in his study with the Lesser Prelates and when he’d finally emerged, the tightness of his jaw told Aisling everything she needed to know. So she’d handed him a book—one of his favorites, she remembered from their first visit to the library—and asked him to tell her about it.

Now, as the fire had diminished to embers and several candles around the chamber had burned themselves out, Kael was relaxed beside her, his heartbeat slower where her head lay against his chest. Engrossed in the history of a treatise between distant dominions,he alternated between reading passages out loud and falling silent, immersed in the words he likely knew by heart.

Mid-sentence, Aisling sat up with a start and he looked at her, alarmed.

“Laure knows your full name,” she said. Amidst everything that had happened since her return, between Kael’s affliction and their search for information about the Silver Saints, she’d forgotten entirely what Laure had so pointedly shared with her that first day.

Kael set the book aside and his expression of concern shifted to one closer to amusement. “Does she?”

“She said it to me when I arrived, she wanted me to know it. I’m sorry, I meant to tell you sooner. I would never use it, I swear.” Her words came out in a rush, strung together almost incoherently in a bid to get them out before he could draw any of his own conclusions.

“And what did she tell you it is?” Kael raised an eyebrow, lips twitching up into a smile. When Aisling refused, he found her hand atop the blankets and squeezed. “You can say it.”

Aisling looked down, then away. She couldn’t look at him when she said it. “Kael Ardhen.”

Kael shook his head. “That is not my whole name, though there are several whom I have allowed to believe otherwise.”

“Really?” Aisling met his eyes again, relief washing over her. Laure, arrogant as she was, would have no control over him. He was still free.

Kael shook his head again, then leaned in. He brought his face so close to Aisling’s own that his lips lightly brushed against hers when he said, “Kael Elethyr Ardhen.”

Aisling’s lungs seized and she pulled away sharply, eyes wide, shocked by the gift he’d just willingly given her. It didn’t feel right; she hadn’t earned it. She didn’t deserve it. “I didn’t mean for you to tell me; I wasn’t trying to get it out of you.”

“I know.” Kael smiled and pulled her back in. This time, his lips captured hers in a gentle kiss. “Say it.”

She hesitated. Inside, the wild thrumming of her heart matched exactly the fluttering pace of the butterflies’ wings as they made frantic laps around her stomach. He waited patiently, eyes closed, lips again just a hair’s breadth from hers.

“Kael Elethyr Ardhen,” she repeated.

Smoothly, he lifted her to straddle his hips and leaned back into the pillows, pulling her down with him. Where their bodies connected, a mellow warmth spread through Aisling in waves. “Again.”

“Kael Elethyr Ardhen.” She whispered it this time, punctuating each word with another kiss. His body shuddered beneath hers.

Aisling dropped her head and murmured his name a third time into the crook of his neck, then captured the sensitive skin there between her teeth. Gently at first, then harder. Kael’s mouth fell open and the low growl that escaped from deep in his throat drew a rush of desire, hot as a flame, to Aisling’s core. She could have devoured that sound. She bit down once more, just to feel his grip on her waist tighten again before she relented. She sucked lightly on the spot she’d bitten, soothing the marks she left with the tip of her tongue.

Everything outside of the two of them faded and blurred until there was only the softness of Kael’s skin under her lips,the taste of it on her tongue, the hard press of his body, the hold he had on her. She ventured further up his neck, exploring still with her tongue and lips and teeth, eliciting another deep growl.

“Stop teasing,” he admonished. His words came out as a strangled gasp, but there was no real force behind them. He wanted this, too. He wanted her, too.

“Make me.” She whispered the command against the shell of his pointed ear, then nipped softly at his lobe.

Roughly, urgently, Kael ripped open the thin shift Aisling had changed into, shredding the fabric easily between his hands until it fell from her shoulders, then tossed it to the floor. When he flipped her onto her back he was far from gentle, and her mind went blank with surprise at the quick movement, at the sensation that trailed over her skin behind his hand that caressed her breasts, her curves. He pushed himself up off of her then, straightening to kneel between her legs, and tore at his own clothing. Aisling couldn’t keep her eyes from roving over his body, studying his form. A predator, a warrior, and now: hers. She wanted to memorize every inch of him.

Kael pinned Aisling beneath him. She was caged in by his muscular arms as he lowered himself down until the arcs of their hips just barely, barely touched. His silver eyes never left hers, that searing gaze raising goosebumps across her skin. She splayed her fingers over his back to explore the ridges of muscle there that flexed and rippled as he moved against her.

He paused for a beat, just long enough to allow them both to savor that delicious tension building between their bodies. The intensity of the anticipation brought the blood roaring to life in Aisling’sveins. When he finally dropped his hips the rest of the way and slid into her, filling her, she couldn’t stifle the sharp cry that had been waiting in her chest.

She drove her hips up against his hard, channeling all of the frustration and anger and longing and regret she could dig up from within herself that had been growing there for weeks. Kael took all of her emotion and matched it effortlessly with his own.

His kisses were consuming, claiming her, but even in those punishing thrusts she found the same gentleness that he’d shown her in their quiet, solitary moments by brushing back her hair or sweeping a thumb across her cheek. His pleasure and hers wove together in a single tapestry, stunningly vibrant and so delicate that it seemed one wrong move could have torn it to shreds. They were consumed by that brutal pleasure, and for a brief moment the world was still on its axis.

Aisling’s body wound tighter and tighter, the flame that Kael ignited burning hotter and hotter still until she came undone and pulled him straight over that edge with her. Her climax tore the air from her lungs, while Kael’s pleasured cries grew louder as he rode her through those rolling waves of ecstasy until they were both quaking.

Sweat-soaked and spent, they melted into each other. Kael remained on top of her, pressing her into the mattress, and she languidly threaded her fingers through his moonspun hair in long, smooth strokes. Aisling was afraid to speak and break that spell that they’d both fallen under, so she closed her eyes andcommitted the moment to memory with every ounce of energy she had left, cataloging every bit of feeling until she drifted into a dreamless sleep.

“Can you ride?” Kael stood beside his great skeletal mare as the sun set that night, turning the fresh snow on the ground a soft shade of lavender to match the darkening sky. Aisling tugged her cloak tighter around her shoulders, the same one she’d shed when she ran from the Undercastle before. Its thick wool was a welcome barrier against the evening breeze.

“Sort of. But not well, and not fast,” Aisling answered honestly. Rodney snorted; he’d been plenty amused by her attempts to ride back and forth from Solanthis.

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