Page 88 of The Red Woman and the White Bear

“And Werryn?” Lyre asked, one brow raised.

“Werryn will not protest,” Kael shot back without hesitation. The aging male’s time had come and gone. Werryn had long overstepped his role, committing acts that would have been grounds for execution if they’d been done by any other courtier. His absolute superiority over the Lesser Prelates had been all that protected him. Now knowing that another could step into his place so easily, Kael would no longer be so tolerant of his insolence.

Kael and Lyre departed the trailer first, cutting across the wide grass field behind it toward the tree line beyond. They moved quickly into the cover of the forest and continued on in the direction of the Thin Place. Though Kael had been reluctant to leave Aisling, he was all too happy to avoid returning in Rodney’s vehicle. Rodney and Aisling split off in his car to drive Briar into town, where Aisling had arranged for a friend to watch over him. When Kael left, she’d been on her knees, her arms wrapped around the creature’s neck in a fierce hug and her face buried into his voluminous fur.

Silently, he’d sworn to the White Bear that his Red Woman would return, safe and unharmed. Then he’d sworn to himself he’d do everything in his power to see that promise fulfilled.

“May I ask,” Lyre began as the pair waited just beyond the Veil for Aisling and Rodney, “why?”

On their walk, Kael had explained to Lyre what he’d learned from Sítheach—what he had told Rodney and hidden from Aisling. Now, as he sat on a fallen log, he looked at the forest around him. It was quiet. Peaceful. Almost as though it was resting before the coming battle.

“Because it is the right thing to do,” he said simply.

“Perhaps. But right for whom? And when did you begin concerning yourself with what is right?” Lyre mused. Kael ignored the Prelate’s questions then and closed his eyes, listening to the wind rustle through the snow-dusted pines and the deep groans that emanated from their aged trunks as they shifted.Now,he thought. He was concerned with it now.

The rush of battle preparations invigorated Kael: the hum of energy that buzzed through the Undercastle, that electric undercurrent of bloodlust, was one that spoke to his basest desires. His mind felt sharper, his orders more certain. This was the role he’d been raised for—not just king, but commander. But Aisling’s hand in his as they traversed the bustling passageways towards his study kept him grounded in the knowledge that he had other, greater purposes now. It was a new feeling expanding in his chest, and for once it was not one he feared. Aisling had once promised him he could be better. Now, it was time to be the king she imagined him to be.

“Where will you create the ritual space? Werryn keeps a chamber in the rear caverns for such things, does he not?” Raif asked Lyre. He had met the party at the bottom of the spiral staircase and had received their summary of the plan with grim determination. He, too, was sharpened by the promise of the coming battle.

“No,” Kael said before the Prelate could answer. “Angry as she may be, Laure would not be so foolish as to follow me into these halls.”

“Perhaps The Cut?” Lyre’s mirrored eyes glowed in the firelight of the torch he pulled from the wall to carry outstretched. The shadows of the flames dancing across his face only made him appear more devious and cunning. “I believe I can repurpose many of the runes already carved there to adapt the circle for our purposes.”

“There is a great deal of magic there,” Kael agreed.

“And it may be strengthened further if you can call to the Low One,” Lyre added thoughtfully. Kael nodded. He would not say out loud that the Low One had been silent the last time he’d sought the god’s support. Alongside his shadows, blood—fresh and hot and seeping into the earth before the altar—would draw Him out this time, almost certainly.

“Highness?” Eamon and the other company commanders had gathered in Kael’s study, awaiting an audience and a chance to strategize over the maps he kept there. Each would undoubtedly have their own idea of how the battle should be executed, of where their company would be best placed in the fray. The males he’d chosen to lead were wise and battle-hardened, but anyone of them would cut the others down without hesitation for the chance to claim that victory had hinged on their company alone.

Raif joined the other commanders around the map table, but Kael hesitated on the threshold.

“We three will go to work in The Cut,” Lyre said. “The space will be completed by sunup.” He turned back the way they’d come and Rodney followed after, allowing Kael a moment alone with Aisling.

“Go on,” she said, nodding towards the study. “I’ll be fine with them. I don’t want to keep you.”

Kael raised her hand and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. Her skin was warm beneath his lips and he could feel her heartbeat steady there when he whispered against it, “I would very much like you to keep me.”

“Well then hurry back,” she said with a smile.

Kael ignored the incredulous stares of his commanders when he entered the study and took his place at the head of the war table.

“You would consort with the Red Woman so freely?” Kharis, Commander of the Sixth Company, challenged dubiously. “As war marches on your court?”

“I am your King. I will consort with whomever I please.” The harsh glare Kael gave him would have withered even the strongest trees in the realm, and as he cast it around the table, each commander lowered their eyes in concession.

Raif cleared his throat and leaned over the table to arrange the figurines there. He counted out five opponent pieces and placed them between the Undercastle and the border of the nearest Seelie dominion. He added another three behind those, a rough estimationof the forces following to conduct a second wave of attacks once the primary army had weakened the Unseelie defenses.

On his end, Kael set out the figurines representing each of his companies. He’d already envisioned it all: this strategy was one he’d gamed out time and again with Raif, altering and improving it little by little each year as numbers and strength shifted on both sides. It had only ever been a matter of time before the Undercastle came under siege. What he hadn’t ever anticipated, though, was that he would not be leading his army from the center of the frontline. His figurine, a black horse, he removed from the board. The commanders noticed.

“You will look to Raif for your orders,” Kael said, preempting their questions. “We developed this strategy jointly, and he has my support in altering it as he sees fit should the need arise.”

“And you, my king?” Eamon asked.

“My focus will be on the queen. To that end, even should you have her at the tip of your sword, she is to remain unharmed. Ensure your soldiers are aware of this.” When the commanders murmured their assent, Kael added sharply, “She is mine.”

The gentle waves of Aisling’s hair felt like silk between Kael’s fingers as he toyed with the end of a strand that had fallen forward over her bare shoulder. She looked breathtaking where she lay beneath him atop blankets of fur. She’d wanted to be close to the fire he built for her on the hearth, chilled from working in The Cut,and so he’d layered the blankets into a makeshift bed there on the floor of his chamber.

Her cheeks were flushed now from the fire’s warmth, and her lips were pink and swollen from the kisses he’d peppered them with ravenously from the moment his chamber doors closed and they found themselves alone. Kael knelt between her spread thighs, moving his hands to explore her form from the crests of her ribs down over the curves of her waist. She felt so delicate in his grasp.

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