Page 105 of The Savage Queen

Too stunned to move, Aisling held her breath, the sensation of his arms burning through her garments and knotting her stomach.

Aisling glanced up and into his eyes. Flecked with a sorrow of their own, they softened, exploring the red sheen of her eyes still glazed with the memory of her nightmares. Aisling had never seen him like this. Looking as sad as she felt, his embrace warm and…almost kind. And then it occurred to Aisling that Lir had never seen her so unguarded either. That Aisling had never wept in sorrow before him, only in anger. That Aisling had never cried out in fear in his presence. That Aisling had never let Lir witness when she felt fully vulnerable. Fully as fragile as she did in the night, when she was powerless against the guilt that racked her.

Upon the realization, Aisling thrust her walls up once more and, afraid he might pity her, she placed a hand against his chest to push him away. He caught her wrist.

“It was a nightmare and nothing more,” she said.

“You’re afraid,” he conjectured, his voice deep and vibrating through her core. Aisling said nothing but her silence was answer enough. “So long as I’m near, neither Danu nor the Ladynor Fionn will ever harm you.” At last, his voice was laced with familiar bloodthirst.

Aisling shook her head. “That’s not what frightens me.”

Lir searched her expression for the answers he sought.

“Then what? Tell me and I’ll take it all away.”

Aisling fixed her eyes on his own. Unsure what to think of his words. Afraid to let herself believe he, the dark barbarian lord of the greenwood, might care for her. MightwantAisling independently of the power she promised.

“I’m afraid of myself,” she said, surprising herself the moment the words fell from her lips. “I’m afraid of what I’m becoming.”

Lir’s eyes narrowed, shaking his head as though in disbelief.

“You’re becoming who you were always born to be.”

“And who is that?” Aisling asked, both to herself and Lir. “I still hear their voices, their screams. Whether it be on theStarlingor Danu’s legions. My hands are stained with their blood. Irredeemably burdened by the lives I’ve reaped.” The words forced out more tears, reddening the apples of Aisling’s cheeks and the tip of her nose.

Without hesitation, Lir’s grip tightened. And the comfort, therightnessof his embrace, shook Aisling with her cries. She wet his leathers with her sobs, allowing herself this weakness. This vulnerability against the beat of his wicked heart. Because such a heart understood her own. Understood the evils she’d now committed in a way few others ever could. For who understood and accepted the curve of one’s shadow better than the darkness himself?

“Change is painful,ellwyn; the oaks mourn their leaves come autumn, the night bleeds into sunset, and the wolf cries at the blood moon. But there is meaning in the suffering.”

The wind wove through both their hair, whispering in a language Aisling couldn’t understand. Bracing itself againstthe groans of thunder up above and the approaching storm. Droplets, slipping through the canopies and sliding down Aisling’s face alongside her tears.

She only needed a breath. A few minutes to sort through her thoughts before she pulled away, cooled by the rain. Yet his touch muddled her mind, an intense intimacy blooming between them as his words, his hands, his heart pounding against her ear became all consuming.

Aisling moved to pull away but met his eyes instead. A mistake for, this time, they captured her, bespelled her with their sage magic. Nuanced and pining as he leaned closer the same moment Aisling did. His expression shadowed, eyes drifting to her lips. Both of them, closing their eyes as they defeated the last remaining distance.

Yet their lips never met, the movement interrupted by Aisling’s arm knocking into Lir’s axes, strapped against his back.

Immediately, Lir pulled away, jerking free of their embrace. Expression shuttering with a flash of betrayal.

They both unfurled from their position on the ground. Their pocket of peace, destroyed. A thin veil of rain, separating one from the other.

“Never,” he said, “touch my axe again. Are we clear?”

Aisling had wielded Lir’s axes once before. At theSnaidhmwhere she’d beheaded the trow at his command. Hardly able to lift it, much less slay the beast that’d hunted her. Now, its blades twinkled as though glazed with tears themselves.

Aisling frowned, still orienting herself from the sudden shift in his temper. Wiping away the last of her tears with the sleeve of her leathers.

“Afraid I’ll wield them against you?”

“Would you?” he asked.

“If necessary.”

“You almost wound me,ellwyn.”

“Perhaps I should try harder then.”

Lir’s expression brightened, flashing with amusement. The first time since Danu’s encounter his eyes flickered with light.

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