Page 83 of The Red Woman and the White Bear

Kael began to speak, but Aisling cut him off. “I am safe.”

“Let’s all sit down and have a drink,” Rodney interjected, all forced friendliness. He brandished the bottle of honey wine. “It may be morning, Tadhg, but it’s technically time for a nightcap here.”

“They’re not staying,” Kael growled. Rodney backed down.

Aisling reached back and found Kael’s hand again. Her movement was deft and sure. She was sending a clear message. Kael’s heart stopped beating, just briefly. Raif tensed beside him, mirroring the Seelie soldier’s reaction.

Tadhg’s eyes dropped to their hands, growing wide enough to see the whites all the way around his bright green irises as the blood drained from his already pale complexion. “Niamh was right,” he breathed.

“Disgusting,” spat the soldier.

Kael’s temper flared; his breaths came short and fast as heat flooded his veins. His magic writhed beneath his skin, but he clenched his jaw, determined to keep his shadows at bay. He tried to pull Aisling behind him, but she stood her ground.

“Leave,” she commanded. If he hadn’t been so angry, Kael might have been impressed by her fearlessness. As it was, he would have done anything to keep her from speaking again.

“Come back with us,” Tadhg insisted, almost begging now. He held a hand out to Aisling.

She slapped it away. “I won’t.”

“Tadhg has been too kind; this is not a request.” The soldier seized Aisling roughly by the elbow and jerked her forward, forcing her hand from Kael’s. She fell to the ground at his side. Despite the fierceness that burned in her eyes, she seemed so much smaller, so much more fragile with the soldier’s gauntleted hand squeezing her arm.

The rage that overtook Kael was raw and primal, overriding all that remained of his rational thought. When Tadhg stepped forward, reaching out to help Aisling stand, Kael moved in. His shadows were on Tadhg as he helped Aisling to her feet, ripping him away from her. They encircled his slender body, squeezing and squeezing until his ribs collapsed inward with a crunch that was almost deafening.

Heavy silence followed that sound, just for the span of a breath.

The Seelie soldier was the first to recover, letting out a vicious roar and lunging for Kael. Aisling reacted blindly, stepping out to catch the soldier’s arm as it swung in a wide arc. His golden dagger, a gleaming extension of his arm, was aimed at Kael’s chest, but instead found purchase in Aisling’s shoulder. The curved blade bit into the flesh just below her collarbone and her sharp cry finally broke that dam that had been crackinginside of Kael.

He was fury personified, his body unable to fully contain the shadows within that now spilled into the space, devouring the light. Hatred poured out of him as water from the mouth of a river into a greater, deeper ocean of the same. As on the battlefield, Kael and his shadows shared a common goal. But this time, the shadows listened, converging entirely on the subject of his wrath and leaving the others untouched.

When Kael felt the soldier’s terror through those dark currents, he smiled.

Before the blood began to pool on Aisling’s skin, before the pain of the wound even registered, a thick rope of shadow wound around the Seelie soldier’s neck and pulled taut in one swift motion, severing his head cleanly. It rolled with dull, wet thuds across the ground and came to rest beside Tadhg’s lifeless body. Aisling looked up just in time to see a wicked smirk fading from Kael’s face.

She felt the warmth of her blood first. Once she looked down at the stain growing around the frayed edges of fabric where the blade had torn through her sweater, the searing burn brought her to her knees and drew tears to her eyes. Raif and Rodney both caught her on the way down and helped her to sit on the steps leading up to the dais. She pictured it as it was the first time she’d been there, when she’d been glamoured green with a dress of leaves and wingssprouting from her back. How simple she’d thought all of this would be.

“Kael!” Raif barked. Kael turned to them, slowly, like he was waking from a dream. “Find Elasha.”

Kael disappeared through the door at the back of the throne room—the very same door he’d pulled her through that night before she’d pressed him up against the wall and lured him in.

“Shit, Ash,” Rodney swore. His focus was locked on her wound as Raif tore away her sweater, unable to tear his gaze from it. The color had drained from his cheeks. “Fuck.”

“It isn’t deep.” Raif pressed a cloth over the gash, sending a fresh wave of pain sparking across Aisling’s nerve endings. It shot clear down her arm to the tips of her fingers. She bit down on the inside of her cheek hard to stifle a cry.

“Shit,”Rodney said again. His skin had turned from paper white to a sickly shade of yellow; his lips pursed in an effort to keep from vomiting.

“Stop looking at it,” Aisling scolded weakly once the pain had subsided enough for her to speak.

He swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut. “That’s a lot of blood.”

“It’s too bad we can’t use it for the ritual,” she joked dryly.

Still with his eyes closed, Rodney’s brows jumped up, then drew together. “What?”

Kael returned then with Elasha, who shooed Raif out of the way and peeled back the cloth he’d used to examine Aisling’s wound. Aisling sucked in a breath and gripped Rodney’s hand.

“It isn’t deep.” Elasha echoed Raif’s assessment, her even voice more comforting than his had been.

“She’s fine, Kael.” Raif had moved to stand beside Kael. He said it quietly, almost too low to make out. Aisling thought she may have been the only one to hear it; Kael didn’t acknowledge his friend’s words at all. She wanted desperately to reach out to him, to reassure him somehow that she was alright, but he maintained a careful distance and avoided her gaze.

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