Bringer of Winter- a M/M/M Epic Fantasy Romance

24- Hatred and Love

HEATH—

I hadn't seen Khif in nearly three months, and I was more than ready to come home. To return to him and finally, finally make him mine.

Over two years he had remained just out of my reach— too pure to sully, too gorgeous, seductive, sensual, beautiful, stubborn, feral, and viscous to leave alone. No longer. No longer would I be held back by him, by my guilt, by my dirty hands and twisted soul. No more. He would be mine, he would finally choose me, because I would leave him no other choice.

Like I had so many times over the years, I would buy Khif's time from Master Dreu. Khif calmed me as no other did. He treated him as an equal, despite being a slave and yet a king. He laughed so easily when we were alone in my rooms, spoke of everything that came to his mind, and listened to everything that came to mine. He was the perfect companion for someone who sometimes couldn't control their emotions or reactions like me. If I grew angry at him, he would simply ignore me. If I was somber, he would seek to cheer me up. In those few hours of darkness I had seen the man he was supposed to be, the man he truly was, beneath the callused warrior, the wise Cailleach, and the dejected slave. He was Khifin, and I loved him for that.

I had visited this way half a dozen times or more. Each night, he reluctantly allowed himself to be dressed by my slaves— he seemed to simply accept it as a term of our friendship. And each evening I fought everything in me not to press him to the bed and make love to him. He pretended indifference, but especially as his body grew and matured, I could see his longing looks at me and very occasionally, the desire in his eyes. And I knew that he could read the fire in my own eyes. He knew when my thoughts turned dark. And he always steered the conversation away from whatever had triggered the emotions.

But not tonight. Tonight, I would make him mine. Tonight, with the attention of the entire country on the southern border, the Gal Medhse, and the prince, I would steal my Nibean King from his cage and take him far away. We would not go back to Nibea. No, I could never go back to that accursed place. We would run east. Or west. We would run and we would never look back. He would always be only mine, and he would come with me whether I took him willingly or threw him into a sack and dragged him the entire way.

War was coming to Pryn on swift wings. Wings crafted by a jilted prince, a country that had overthrown its royals in favor of a government run by its people, and a pact set in stone and in blood. They would come, with their soldiers and their vengeance, and a prince would be made Gal Medhse instead of another.

One prince was just as good as any other, I figured, so I was worried only for Khif and his war'rog's safety. Not that I actually cared for Ryker, but Khif loved him like a father and like a brother, so I knew I couldn't take the one with me without the other. To that end, I had been saving my gold for over a year. Now, though, I knew the time had come for me to take them, whether Master Dreu gave his leave or not.

It was the Kaala's birthday on this night, so I knew that Khif at least would be in the palace, forced to attend the festivities by a master who enjoyed the parties like no other that I knew. Master Dreu liked four things in his life— money, drink, sycophants, and sex, and he could find all four at the palace gatherings.

I made my way through the disgusting capital streets and through the back ways, the servants' entrances, until I was able to duck into the large entrance hall where the nobles and other notables were gathered. The younger Pryn prince, born of the Gal Medhse's formal wife rather than a concubine or mistress, had only returned from Nibea, triumphant it was said, a week before. It had reached even me, sequestered as I was from my own men in an attempt to reach the capital before they did. In an attempt to get to Khif and Ryker and get them out safely before the news, and the bloodshed, reached the place they had been held captive for over two years. Two years of murder, slavery, drudgery, and humiliation for my Cailleach.