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Be obedient, he has been told. Play the role you have been given. Make nice with the wolves, or they will devour you whole and spit out the excess before you can even think to scream for salvation to turn its gaze upon you.
A truly comforting choice of parting words, Felix thinks sourly. At least allow him the luxury of believing that he’ll be treated with some sort of dignity once he’s sold off.
“I’ll write,” he tells his family, though it’s more for his sisters and father than anyone else. His mother, the High Queen, has already decided Felix’s fate as nothing more than a pawn in this game she’s playing with the wolf kingdom and its liege lord—the man whom Felix is to be betrothed to within the fortnight.
“Write often,” his oldest sister, firstborn alpha and heir to their mother’s throne, insists one last time, the fourth or fifth last time since the morning began. “Otherwise I’ll be forced to come and rescue you from the beasts myself.”
Their mother opens her mouth, obviously incensed by the thought, but Felix hurriedly says, “I will, I will,” in order to stave off another lecture.
She’ll let Felix be trotted into the wolflands with nothing but the clothes on his back, but gods forbid his heir even steps foot within an inch of the eastern forest border that separates the two kingdoms.
It matters not. Not anymore.
Felix has always wanted an adventure ever since he was little. He’ll make this his adventure despite the reasons for his going.
Their kingdom has wanted to enter an alliance with the wolf kingdom for years, now, wanting to avoid being caught up in a war the same way other kingdoms have. They’ve seen the way the wolves have ferociously guarded their territory, expanding quick with each success in battle, and their lands are quickly encroaching upon their own.
Felix hadn’t even known their kingdoms had been making correspondence until the wolflands sent an unexpected raven over with a proposal to be read out before the entire court.
A marriage, it had read, between our kingdoms. To seal the peace.
Peace they wanted, peace they would get.
His mother and her little legion of advisors had been absolutely confident that the wolf king would choose Felix’s second sister, her daughter, her only omega child—but it had been a blow to her pride when the wolf king’s envoy, a man by the name of Seungmin, had come to announce that the wolf king had decided on the prince.
Prince Felix, who hadn’t only been second in line for the throne after his sister—but also an alpha.
An alpha to marry an alpha. It seems almost like a sick, twisted plot. At least, his parents believe so—that the wolf king plans to take one of their only alpha children out of the picture, that it’ll be easier to control them with Felix’s life on the line.
Still. They did not say no.
And now, Felix will go—with fear, with trepidation, but with excitement as well. He’s never been allowed to go past the borders of their kingdom before, not once. For all that he’s an alpha, he’s never been able to do the same that his eldest sister has as the heir.
He’s always known he’d never lead. What other chance would he have to go?
Seungmin, the wolflands envoy, stands close to the gates, watching the procession with little interest. “If we may proceed, your Grace.”
“The wheelhouse is drawn and ready, my lady,” the Queen’s guard informs her.
“We shall ride,” the envoy says, ignoring the scandalised looks on every single advisor’s face. “Wheelhouses are a waste of the scant hour that we possess in order to arrive before sundown.”
Felix blinks. No one has ever dared speak back to his mother that way.
She seems to realise it’s a lost cause. The minute upturn of her chin suggests that she’d much prefer to have them leave sooner than later, already tiring of the argument. “Fine,” she says. “The prince will try to keep up with your contingent, will he not?”
“He will,” Felix says, barely keeping himself from scraping the words out with gritted teeth. “Your Grace.”
“Excellent,” Seungmin says airily, flicking his wrist in the direction of Felix’s men, “let us be on our way, then.”
Felix takes one last look at the place he used to call home, and turns away.
The ride is initially silent. The envoy speaks little, and Felix the same. The guards and servants following Felix keep pace with them but not too close, giving them some illusion of privacy.
It’s after half a day when Felix finally dares to speak up. “What is he like?”
Seungmin glances over at him. “So you do have a voice.”
Felix stares at him. “Are you sure you’re an envoy? You seem to enjoy provoking those above your standing.”
“I find it counter-productive to grovel.” Seungmin raises an eyebrow. “From the looks of it, you share a similar sentiment.”
He can’t have noticed that from just their first meeting. “Observant,” Felix says. “Answer my question, then.”
There’s a short moment where they fall back into silence as they come across a patch of the forest floor that requires a bit more care in traversing.
Then—“The wolf king is a good man,” Seungmin says. “You’ll probably like him.”
Felix raises an eyebrow, carefully leading his mare over an overgrown, wizened root. “You say this on whose authority, exactly?”
“Mine own.” The envoy’s own steed side-sidesteps a fallen oak, letting out a soft snuffle. “I do happen to be the king’s cousin, after all.”
“His cousin?”
“His first and dearest,” Seungmin adds, with all the geniality of a man who’s just discovered a particularly fascinating insect in his morning tea. “Oh, he’ll deny otherwise to his dying breath, but it’s the truth.”
“Absolutely not,” comes a new voice, and Felix stiffens, drawing his horse to a hasty stop. There’s a man on horseback waiting by the brook that’s just ahead of them—and where had he come from? He hadn’t made a single sound. “I’m his favourite.”
“I hope you get eaten by a mountain lion,” Seungmin says pleasantly. “Prince Felix. This is Changbin, one of the king’s other advisors.”
“His favourite advisor.”
“Again—Changbin, mountain lion.”
“This is so strange,” Felix says. Understatement of the century. “You don’t behave like any advisors I’ve ever met.”
“Well,” Seungmin says, motioning him along, “we hope that you won’t behave like any other consort that we’ve had to escort to our lands.”
Felix’s eyebrows shoot up. “There have been others?”
“You’re not that special,” Changbin says dismissively. He leads the way as their little riding party now grows from two to three. “Our king regularly receives proposals from the governing rulers of other lands. You’re just the first he’s chosen himself.” He guffaws at nothing in particular, making Felix’s stomach churn unpleasantly. “Let’s hope you last longer than the rest of them.”
“Stop talking,” Seungmin says. “Or I’ll set Minho on you when we get back.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“I absolutely would.”
Felix watches the exchange—more familiar, teasing bickering than any true argument—between the two of them with increasing wariness. The initial excitement he’d felt upon beginning the journey has faded into caution, but there’s still something incredibly strange about the whole thing. Neither of these advisors have acted the way he’d expected representatives of the wolflands to act.
And Changbin—the moment he’d stepped into the clearing, Felix had known. He’d felt it. An alpha. A strong one, too—but Felix hadn’t felt his hackles go up in the slightest. For some reason, his alpha had decided that Changbin wasn’t a threat.
He isn’t sure whether this bodes well for when he finally meets the wolf king himself.
“Don’t worry about Changbin,” Seungmin says, drawing up close as they make their way down a winding path down several acres of farmland. A few farmers wave as they pass despite Felix’s obvious unbelonging. “He thinks you’re alright. He’s just very protective of the king.”
“He seems to inspire much loyalty,” Felix says diplomatically.
“He does.” Seungmin’s voice takes on a note of soberness. “More than you know.”
Seungmin doesn’t elaborate, and Felix doesn’t ask.
It’s not his place. Not yet.
They ride for four days with little rest until they reach the capital. Both Seungmin and Changbin are too wary to allow themselves the luxury of stopping for too long beyond the perimeters of their homeland, and Felix too unwilling to wait long to meet whatever peril will be greeting him at the end of their journey.
It is discomfiting, then, when Felix realises this—that the wolf kingdom’s people look just like his own. Sprawling roads take them down rice fields and small villages where the curious look on with regard, something less like suspicion and more like interest in what he brings with him. What kind of change will follow in his wake, perhaps.
They don’t seem quite like the bloodthirsty wolves from the stories his family and the council and his maesters had filled his head with since he was but a child.
“You’re thinking very deeply about something,” Seungmin says, coming up alongside him as he directs them towards the main gates of the Fanged Keep. Thick iron-wrought rods are raised with an echoing groan, allowing them passage without much fuss. “Care to divulge?”
“They are no thoughts for an advisor to know,” Felix murmurs.
Changbin, on Felix’s other side, lets out a sharp laugh. “Keeping secrets already,” he says. “A promising start to an alliance.”
“You have yours and I have mine,” Felix shoots back. “I trust you of all people should probably be able to understand that, being a king’s confidant.”
“Well,” Changbin says to Seungmin, “he’s got more mettle than the last few, I’ll say that.”
“You prefer it,” Seungmin says. There’s something pleased in his features that seems to have settled in after Felix’s remark. “Come. He’s waiting.”
The wolf king.
Nerves erupt in Felix’s stomach all over again. The reality of the situation finally hits him—he’s here, he’s in the wolf kingdom surrounded by strangers, with only a handful of his guards and companions by his side, about to meet a king who’s only ever been more myth than man.
The wolf king isn’t seated on his throne when they arrive within the courtyard. Instead, he’s waiting at the top of a set of steps that wind far up into the side of the mountain that the keep has been carved into. Felix doesn’t realise that the man he sees is the wolf king at first, not until Seungmin says, “Looks like our king is very excited to meet you.”
The man beams when he sees them, running down the stairs without any compunction for his behaviour. “Seungmin!” he calls, “Changbin!”
Astonishment fills Felix when Seungmin, instead of bowing, opens his arms for a hug. There is no formal greeting, no swearing of fealty, nothing. Instead, he allows the fur-laden man to tug him in close. Changbin gets a hug and a hearty thump on the back as well. “Thank you for returning so swiftly with the prince.”
And finally, the wolf king looks at him.
He’s a handsome man. There’s a faint scar across one of his eyes, but the rest of him is unmarred and pale, hair pushed back against the bite of the wind. He isn’t as old as Felix would have believed him to be, what with the tales of his wartime experience.
Felix immediately drops to one knee, suddenly flushed by the realisation that he’s been staring. “My king,” he murmurs, remembering what he’d been told. Be obedient, make nice—but then, there’s a strong hand in his traveling robe, and he’s pulled back up to standing height before he can react any further.
The wolf king is staring at him with wide golden eyes. “Prince Felix,” he says, sinking down on one knee himself, reaching for Felix’s hand. “I should be the one submitting to you.”
He’d been too far before. The wind had carried his scent the opposite direction—but like this, with this kind of proximity, Felix can focus on nothing else but the scent under all those furs. The thick, unexpected sweetness hitting the back of his throat, the untainted taste of submission.
The wolf king is an omega.
Felix feels dizzy. He steps back, and the wolf king drops his hand without question. “Is this a trick?” he demands. “I thought—have we not all believed, since the beginning, that the wolf king is an alpha?”
“That is merely what others believe,” the wolf king says, standing once again. The way he holds himself is strong. He’s broad-shouldered, thick in the arms, confident in his place. He looks nothing like the omegas of the summer court back in Felix’s own kingdom. “And I have never seen fit to correct their mistaken beliefs.”
“They’re not worth it,” Changbin adds. “They simper much more when they believe our liege lord is an alpha. People like those of your kingdom only ever believe that alphas may rule. Never weak little omegas. Wouldn’t you say so?”
His last words are very, very chosen carefully.
Felix glances at Seungmin, who levels him with a neutral glance, and then back at the wolf king, who just regards him with wary anticipation. A test of his worth, to see what his reaction will be. To see whether he’s made a mistake choosing Felix, this prince from an unknown kingdom, this man he’s never met before.
This alpha.
“I apologise,” Felix starts, and the wolf king’s brow furrows, not expecting those to be his very first words. “I’ve just realised that the High Queen has obviously been remiss in ensuring that I received a proper education, and should have let my maester go a long time ago, if they allowed me to believe such lies for so long.” He meets the wolf king’s eyes, standing his ground against the unnatural gleam of them in the stark evening light. “I only need to know one thing. Do your people respect you?”
Changbin and Seungmin both bristle in defense, but the wolf king holds up a hand with ease and they back down. His head cocks like he’s a real wolf, gaze sharp like a predator assessing potential prey from a mile away. It’s an abrupt reminder of his heritage, of the wolf shifters the king is said to descend from.
Then, finally, the wolf king says, “Yes. Yes—I would like to think they do.”
Felix makes a decision.
“Alright,” Felix says, allowing the tension to run from his shoulders. “Your lot already sounds far better than mine. Shall we get all other introductions done with? My hiking boots split as we made our journey to the capital, and I’d far appreciate having warm feet more than posturing any longer.”
There’s a stunned silence.
A smile splits across the wolf king’s face. “You’re perfect,” he whispers.
He’s—what?
The wolf king bounds over before Felix can consider the thought. “My name is Chris,” he says, holding his wrist up the way an omega would to allow an alpha to scent-mark them. An omega—his omega.
Felix takes his arm and lets their wrists press firmly together. Something like excitement has begun to curl in his chest once again at the thought that this meeting will leave the wolf king smelling like Felix, as faint as the scent-mark is. People will know—people will smell it. This is a fact.
He is to be Felix’s omega.
“Well met, King Chris,” Felix says, voice barely a whisper, flush high on his cheeks.
Changbin laughs, an affectionate, friendly thing. It seems that Felix has finally passed muster in his eyes, and the barbs will no longer be slung his way. “Just Chris,” he says to Felix, bumping him in the side of the arm as he makes his way past them and up the stairs. “He despises it when people call him king.”
“Even though he is one,” Seungmin adds, coming up to them with his hands in the pockets of his garb. The wolf king—Chris, bares his teeth and snaps playfully at him.
Seungmin snaps right back, grinning.
Felix watches the exchange with fascination. From above them, Changbin calls, “They’re descended from brother lines of the same pack.” He pauses. “Seungmin’s more like a dog than a wolf, though.”
Seungmin goes striding up the steps without missing a beat. “Heard that.”
“It’s true!” Changbin scurries after Seungmin.
Chris smiles indulgently after them. It is a far cry from the way the advisors in the summer court are treated by his mother, or even his father—even his sisters, the kindest members of his family, have never shown such an ease around any of their advisors or maesters.
Play your part, they had said to him. Make nice with the wolves.
Felix decides he’ll do just that, then.
Chris holds an arm out for Felix. “Shall we?”
Felix takes it without hesitation. “Let’s,” he says, and Chris’s fangs gleam under the light of the setting sun.