Page 86 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
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Kage had never planned to kiss Bryn Wynter. Though, in truth, he had imagined it from the very first moment he had set eyes on the wolverian prince.
King,he reminded himself bitterly.He is king now.
The instant his lips had met Bryn’s, the weight of existence had lifted. For one treacherous heartbeat, the Underworld, the curse, the cold threaded through his veins—all of it had vanished. Hope had flared in his chest, fragile and incandescent: a quiet life carved out at the edge of the world, where two princes could simply be. Kage with his books and ink-stained fingers; Bryn with snow in his hair and wolves at his heels. A life unobserved. Unjudged.
A fantasy.
Nothing more.
So he had pulled away. Too quickly. Too sharply. He had turned his back before he could see that hope reflected in Bryn’s eyes, hope Kage knew he could never honour, never return. He walked away as if distance alone could undo what had already beendone.
He should have known better.
Bryn Wynter did not retreat from what he wanted.
The wolverian king followed him into the small hut, the low ceiling trapping the tension between them. He said nothing at first, only watched as Kage busied himself with meaningless tasks—shifting furs, straightening items that needed no straightening, hands betraying the nerves his face refused to show.
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating.
At last, Kage exhaled, the sound weary, and turned to face him.
‘Where is me wolf?’ Bryn asked.
The question struck Kage like ice to the spine. He hadn’t been expecting it, hadn’t known what he had been expecting, only that it wasn’t this.
‘I… I misplaced him,’ Kage said, the words faltering as they left his mouth. He almost flinched at the sound of his own uncertainty; it was not something he was accustomed to. The truth sat heavier on his tongue. Freya had cut him down and dragged him into death, and Bryn’s wolf… Bryn’s wolf had vanished into the chaos. Kage could only hope foolishly and desperately that the creature had survived, that fate had been kinder to him than it had been to so many others.
‘Like yer crow?’
Kage opened his mouth, then closed it again. The ache was immediate, sharp. Spirox had been his shadow-crow, his constant since birth. A shadow bound to wyverian royalty, gifted at the moment of their first breath. A guide. A companion. One day, shadows returned to death, escorting the very souls they had once guarded.
‘I was attacked,’ Kage said quietly. ‘When I woke, your wolfwas gone.’ It was close enough to the truth to pass. ‘I’m sorry.’
Bryn studied him for a moment, then nodded.
‘It is okay, Kage. He’ll find his way back to me.’
Kage frowned. ‘How can you be so sure?’
Bryn shrugged, the movement small, careless and painful. He hissed softly as his healing wounds protested, though even that pain seemed reluctant to linger. ‘I can’t,’ he admitted. ‘But hope is da last thing I can afford to lose now.’
Kage looked at him then, really looked at him, and felt something twist painfully in his chest.
Kage wanted to tell him not to hope. Hope, he knew, was a treacherous thing, sharp-edged and cruel. It was hope that drove men to madness, that hollowed them out when reality finally came calling. It shattered far more than it ever saved.
But standing there, with the wolverian king before him—lost, grieving, stripped bare in ways far deeper than flesh—Kage found that he wanted to hope too.
‘Then let us hope together,’ he said softly, stepping closer until no space remained between them.
The furs slipped away, and Kage’s long, pale fingers traced Bryn’s arms, reverent and slow, as though memorising him. He let his gaze linger, taking in the lean strength of Bryn’s body, the quiet power etched into muscle and bone. Want stirred, fierce and aching. He wanted to touch every inch of him, to map him with his hands and his mouth, to carve this moment into memory.
He should not hope. He knew that.
And yet, when everything else had already been taken, when the world had left them both with nothing but ruin and ash, hope felt like the only rebellion left.
Or perhaps he was simply being a fool.
