Page 11 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

Bitterness coated her voice as she glared at me. “You only feel what you want to feel. What will justify this reckless hunger for war. You only feel what will justify the cold, callous male you have become. Maybe both of my brothers died that day?—”

“ Jenavyr .” Her name was soft on my lips.

She locked up tight, regret flashing across her face, and opened her mouth, looking as if she might apologise.

Because she knew the things I had done for her sake and that of my people.

She knew the price I had paid to keep them safe.

Her shoulders sagged, and her features softened, that look cutting me deeper than her vicious words had because I could see the despair that lived in her heart in it, the hope she clung to and the pain that haunted her too. We had both paid too steep a price.

“Let the wolf go,” she whispered, gaze imploring me to listen this time.

“This is not like you. This is… this is too much, Kael. Believing in visions and buying innocent people. I do not like where this is heading. I do not like what is happening to you. I do not like that I am finding it harder to recognise the brother I once knew in you.”

“Enough!” I slammed my hand down on the desk, the force of the blow cracking it in half, and shadows erupted from me, filling the room and chilling the air, striking at everything and obliterating it.

Only a small space around her remained untouched.

Because no matter how hard she pushed me, how deeply she angered me, I would never— never —harm her.

“Do you remember what happened the last time a gentle king sat on the throne of the Shadow Court?” I straightened, shadows writhing around me as they slowly receded, forcing myself to look at my sister as she struggled to remain still and standing tall.

The tremble in her fingertips she could not quite control tore at me, had my rage turning inwards, towards myself for losing control, for frightening my beloved sister.

My blood.

She averted her gaze.

Afraid to look at me.

Shredding what little remained of my soul.

Regret swept through me, because it was not like Vyr to withdraw from me.

She had understood once, long ago, when the throne had become mine that bloody night and in the years that followed it.

She had understood that I could not be weak.

I could not be kind. A king did not remain in control of a court by being a friend to his people.

He needed to rule it. He needed to keep everyone in line.

He needed to be firm.

Unyielding.

Our father had tried to rule with gentleness, with kindness, and it had gotten him killed.

Yet apparently I had not quite destroyed all gentleness or kindness I had once possessed because I still lined up an apology.

But she turned on me, darkness branching outwards from her bright silver eyes.

“How can I forget when you drag it behind you, chained to it, as if your sole purpose is to carry the weight of it like a burden for all eternity… When you are obsessed with chasing ghosts. Our brother. The seelie who killed our parents. They are all dead, Kael.” Tears glistened in her eyes, born of pain that chilled one part of her even as rage made the other burn hotter than the fires of the Forge.

Her sharpened teeth flashed between her lips as she hurled the words at me.

“How can I ever forget what happened and move past it when you constantly punish yourself for what happened when it was not your fault?”

She disappeared in glittering black smoke.

I stood there, as still as the night sky, because every word had hit its mark far more accurately than mine ever could, lodging deep into my heart.

This burden was mine to carry.

She just did not know it.

I turned from the scattered remains of my furniture, towards the window and the world beyond, slowly clawing back control over my darker nature.

Shadows twined around my hands, threading through my fingers, and I focused on them, soothing them as I let them soothe me too, seeking comfort in the darkness.

One day I would tell her.

Once this was all done.

Then, we would have a reckoning.

I turned my mind to the wolf in the dungeon, to the things Neve had told me, using them as a distraction as I continued to toy with the shadows and struggled to let the rage and anger Vyr had provoked in me fall away.

Thoughts of my brother kept it strong, slipping in whenever my guard was down, flashing images that haunted my sleep.

My older brother, broken and bleeding, at the mercy of the seelie.

Jagged shadows clawed at the stone walls, hungry to sink into those responsible.

He was not dead. I knew it. But he would be better off that way.

The seelie were as cruel as my kind, and took pleasure from harming my breed. The things they might have done to him in the decades since they had snatched him from the castle in Belkarthen.

I did not want to contemplate them.

I pulled the silver-haired wolf into my mind instead, attempting to banish my dark thoughts, unsure whether it was her image or my vengeance I was using to distract me from them.

A growl curled from my lips. It was my vengeance.

She was the key to it, and that was all the delicate little wolf would ever be.

Neve had called her vital to the future I desired—and the only thing in this world I desired was Summer Court blood coating my claws.

The wolf was a tool to be used.

A weapon I would wield to carve out my vengeance.

Nothing more.