Page 141 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
But he saw it then.
The same hunger.
The same aching need to feel something other than grief.
He could not be the one to shatter Bryn further.
If they were both already broken, then perhaps, just for this moment, they could pretend to be whole.
Kage’s hand slid to the back of Bryn’s neck, fingers threading into the cool strands of his silver hair, and he pulled him in again. This time the kiss was deeper, no longer tentative but urgent, as though the world itself might crumble if they did not hold on to one another.
The cave, the wolves, the mountain… all of it faded.
He did not think of the path ahead, nor of the abyss that waited for them both. He did not think of the Underworld, or of dawn, or of the cruel pull that would soon drag him away.
He thought only of this.
Of Bryn’s breath against his skin.
Of the steady press of a living body so close to his own.
Of the fragile illusion that his heart, long silent, might dare to beat again.
For once, Kage allowed himself to feel.
And for once, that was enough.
Kage helped Bryn shrug his shirt from his shoulders, fingers lingering for a moment against warm skin before letting the fabric fall away. In the dim hush of the mountain cave, Bryn reached for him in return, slower now, more careful. He undressed Kage piece by piece, movements unhurried, almost reverent. At times he paused, fingertips brushing over Kage’schilled skin, as though puzzled by the coldness there, but he did not ask. Neither of them dared to fracture the moment with questions.
The world seemed to tilt when Bryn’s mouth traced a path down Kage’s body, kisses pressed into skin that had forgotten what warmth felt like. Each touch unravelled him further, Bryn’s mouth growing closer and closer to where the ache resided. When his lips pressed against Kage’s cock, restraint became impossible and soon he fell apart beneath Bryn’s devotion, breath shuddering into the darkness.
For a fleeting second, something stirred within him; a faint, impossible flutter where his heart should have been.
Kage pulled Bryn close again, reclaiming him with desperate tenderness. He guided him down onto the thick fur, hands gliding over familiar scars, lips following in slow, deliberate worship. He kissed every mark left by betrayal, as though he could smooth the past away with nothing but his mouth.
In the dark of the mountain, with wolves breathing softly around them and the night pressing close, they held on to one another—not as kings or princes, nor as cursed souls—but simply as two broken men seeking warmth in a world that had given them none.
Kage felt that impossible stirring the moment he entered Bryn and moved with him, slow and deliberate, as though memorising the shape of him. Bryn’s breath caught, his voice breaking softly in the darkness as he whispered Kage’s name like a prayer offered to a forgotten god.
And when they reached that fragile, trembling edge together; bodies entwined, breath mingling, the world reduced to heat and heartbeat, Kage could have sworn he felt it. One single, defiant thud within his chest. A heartbeat where thereshould have been none. As though Bryn’s cry of his name when they both came together had coaxed life back into something long buried.
Sleep did not claim him. The dead did not sleep.
But he lay there through the long stretch of night, Bryn curled against his chest, their limbs tangled beneath the furs. Kage listened to the steady rhythm of Bryn’s breathing, to the soft shifting of wolves nearby, and for the first time in an age, he felt something dangerously close to peace.
When the first thin ribbons of dawn began to seep through the mouth of the cave, he sensed the inevitable pull, the tether tightening. Soon he would be dragged away again.
Yet the dread did not hollow him out as it once had.
He smiled when Bryn’s blue eyes fluttered open, still heavy with sleep. Bryn leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to the tip of Kage’s nose.
‘I don’t want to move,’ Kage said, tightening his hold, as though strength alone might anchor him to this world.
Bryn smiled a soft, unguarded smile. ‘I don’t want to either.’
They lingered like that, unwilling to surrender the moment. Fingers traced familiar paths across skin; lips met in slow, unhurried kisses, as if they had all the time in the world.
Until the wolves rose to their feet.
