Page 20 of The King has Fallen (The Kingdom of the Krow #1)

~ YILAN ~

I did pass out when Melek reset my shoulder.

But I came to while he was bandaging me and clothing me with gentle hands, muttering curses in the moments when he jostled my shoulder. At first I didn’t open my eyes because of the pain. But then I didn’t want to let him know I was aware because I was terrified and exhausted and so relieved he’d gotten me away. I just… needed a moment.

But then he growled at Gall, and then he left me on the bed and sat in the chair and was quiet. I didn’t want him to see me cry, so I didn’t move. I acted as if I was still unconscious.

I guess at some point I fell asleep.

My dreams were uneasy, broken visions of being in the hands of those monsters—but every time, Melek arrived just in time and relief coursed through me before I sank into darkness again.

I woke up with sunlight making the tent glow, my body warm and dry, and with a lovely, comforting scent filling my nose. But I was hurting too. For a moment I was disoriented. The cage bars were overhead, but closer. And I wasn’t laying on hard dirt, but something that creaked when I moved my leg. A cot?

I blinked and looked down at myself—I was in a long, white shirt. The cuffs rolled up many times to shorten the length. My legs were covered by dark leggings made from soft cotton.

Suddenly, a male throat cleared nearby, and I jerked to look. I tried to push up to sit, but my entire right side screamed in pain when I put pressure on that hand to lever myself up.

I ended up curling up slowly, awkwardly, gripping the edge of the cot in the other hand, breathing heavily against the pain and shaking my head when Gall stared at me, worriedly.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. I just forgot about my shoulder when I woke up,” I said, though the pit of my stomach now roiled with nausea against the pain.

“Are you okay, Yilan?” Gall whispered, his eyes wide, forehead lined with worry. “That was horrible. And you—”

“I’m fine, Gall. I promise.”

It took a minute, but I got myself up to a sitting position, my legs swung over the side of the shallow cot and feet on the ground, so at least I could brace to stand if I needed to.

Then I just relaxed and breathed for a moment, praying the pain would ease.

Gall looked at the tent flap like he was afraid someone was about to walk in.

He was armed again, I noticed. And staying a few feet back from the cage.

I smiled and nodded at the spear. “Thank you for helping me yesterday. You were very brave. And I see you’re armed again! That’s great, Gall—”

“You don’t have to pretend, Yilan. I know what he did. And it was… it was wrong.”

I thought he meant the young Nephilim who’d come in here, pretending to be his friend, and who’d prepared to rape me.

I shivered at a flash of memory of his brute strength, his calloused hands pawing my body—

I flinched but shook the memory off and cleared my throat. “It was scary, Gall. But I got away. I’m safe now. And I’m very grateful for—”

“No! Don’t try to honor him when he did not honor you!” Gall hissed vehemently. I stopped, blinking.

He thought I was honoring his friend?

But then Gall’s eyes shadowed, and he shook his head. “They all do these things. They are beasts. He always told me it was wrong. He taught me. Then he did it. And to you! ”

That was when I realized Gall believed Melek had raped me.

Oh shit.

I blinked and raised my good hand to soothe him because I needed to figure out what was going on here. “Gall… wait… how long have I been asleep?”

“All night and now it’s almost lunch. Yilan, I—”

“Gall, step outside. Do not allow anyone in without announcing them first,” Melek growled, striding into the tent, hands clenched to fists at his sides and his jaw tight. He didn’t look at me, but locked eyes with Gall who stood facing him, his hands fisted as well. And, alarmingly, he didn’t immediately move. It was the first time ever I saw Gall hesitate in taking an order from Melek.

He bristled and raised his chin, his eyes dark and accusing. “Don’t you hurt her.”

Melek just glared at him, his jaw jutting forward until Gall swallowed and gripped his spear tighter as he finally moved. He walked past Melek, letting his shoulder bump his father’s as he passed, and turned his head to look at me. “I will be right outside,” he said quietly, then stalked out of the tent.

I watched, stunned. But the tent flap drifted closed behind him and then there was nothing.

I turned to find Melek also watching it, a worried frown on his face.

“Melek, why didn’t you tell him?” I whispered.

His head snapped towards me and our eyes locked. My breath stopped.

He looked older, suddenly. His forehead creased and his eyes sunk deeper under his heavy brows. And there was a storm in his gaze.

“You fought for him,” he said hoarsely.

I blinked. “What—”

“Stop, Yilan. Just… please. Speak to me as if… as if we are not enemies.” Then he cleared his throat and leaned closer, pointing away, in the direction we’d been last night. “I saw you. You were about to be raped and killed. But instead of running away when you got loose, you ran to fight for Gall. Are you truly… truly that courageous, or simply stupid?”

I dropped my chin, but couldn’t break that gaze. “F-fear not the creature that can kill your body… fear the God who can condemn your soul.”

Melek’s frown got deeper. “That isn’t an answer.”

Because I wasn’t going to give him one. So, I turned the tables. “Anyway, you saved me—”

He tensed, raising his hands quickly to shush me and looking back towards the tent flap. “You cannot speak of—”

My heart was beating faster and faster. Using my good hand, I gripped the side of the cot and pushed to my feet, wavering a little, but I steadied when I widened my stance. “I remember, Melek. I was shocked, but not—”

“The shoulder will heal,” he said in a normal voice, louder. Easier to hear outside the tent. “But you need to rest it for a few days. No more picking fights with young bucks. Give yourself time to heal but move it gently every hour to keep the joint limber if you don’t want to have restricted movement later.”

I closed my mouth when he spoke over me, lips pursed. I knew what he was doing. But why?

“Melek, why did you—”

He dropped his voice to a hiss and took a step closer. “They were insolent bucks who should be neutered. They needed to be stopped.”

“But… you saved me from them. And Gall thinks—”

Another step and he could have touched the cage if he reached out, but instead he only leaned in glaring, and muttered through his teeth. “If you say that out loud one more time, I’m going to gag you. No one can know. No one. You understand?” Then he glanced at the tent flap and the shadow of Gall there.

I shook my head. “No, I don’t understand. He’s blaming you—”

“It cannot be avoided. Gall cannot act. He cannot lie. He cannot protect with his words. He must believe it—then there is no doubt others will believe it too.”

My jaw went slack as I stared at him.

He wanted everyone to believe he’d raped me? Why?

“But…”

“There is no but. Leave this alone!” he growled, then turned his back on me. I was about to argue when I remembered the King with his bayan girls, the haunted looks of the slaves here, and the way the woman slaves had watched Melek with eager, hopeful eyes.

And it all came home to me… of course…

For a Nephilim to rape a human woman was only natural. Normal. It was how the Nephilim had come into being—human women raped by angels—and so it was what they did.

But for a Nephilim to save a woman? And a sworn enemy, at that?

In this culture, that would be reason for suspicion.

I closed my mouth, swallowing hard as I put it together in my head.

I could understand him wanting the young Nephilim to believe that he’d taken me—that he possessed me. But Gall?

Then his words echoed in my head again.

“Gall cannot act. He cannot lie. He cannot protect with his words. He must believe it—then there is no doubt others will believe it too.”

Of course. Of course. I saw what he meant. My sister could be the same: Honest to a fault, and confused when others read more into her words than she’d meant. Or when they were offended by what was simple truth.

And now Gall… surrounded by brutal Nephilim who took what they wanted and protected no one unless it benefited them to do so… They would see Melek’s protection of me as some kind of weapon. Some kind of tool.

Or some kind of treason.

Melek sighed heavily and ran his hand through his hair as he stalked to the other side of the tent to remove his weapon straps and jacket.

“He will get over it. He always does,” he muttered quietly a moment later, while I stood there watching him. “He will forgive me.”

My stomach clenched at the force he put behind those words, as if he were arguing with himself, determined to convince his own heart that they were true.

Gall… good, simple, beautiful Gall, who would forgive an enemy for stealing his weapon because she was kind.

But would he forgive his Papa for violating the very same kind woman?

I wasn’t so sure. And clearly Melek wasn’t either. Which made my stomach ache.

I didn’t know what to say, so I just watched him half-strip, then throw himself down on the bed and pick up a book, ignoring me.

At least, that’s what he wanted me to believe. I had no doubt his skin was just as prickled as mine, his senses just as attuned to my movement as mine were to his when I pretended the same.

I waited until he’d been quiet for some time though, to make sure he wouldn’t offer more.

Then I sighed and walked back to my cot to sit.

“Thank you, Melek,” I said as softly as I could.

He didn’t take his eyes off the book, but his lips twitched at the corners for a moment. “So, you can bend your neck when you need to,” he commented airily as he turned a page.

I snorted, but didn’t answer. Then realized the reason I’d been feeling like something was off in my cage was because there had been screens located and placed around my bucket—and all the things I’d asked that woman to bring were neatly stacked in a basket next to it.

It was such a simple thing, such a practical gift, and yet it touched me right at the center of my chest. A pang that made my throat close.

Fuck him and his insistence on not talking about it.

“Why did you do it, Melek?” I asked hoarsely.

He didn’t look up from his book. “Because… I fear I could not have borne it,” he rasped.

My heart stopped beating, and my jaw dropped. A moment later his eyes rose from the book to meet mine, but his face was blank. Expressionless. He didn’t move or speak again. But he didn’t look away either.

And before I could figure out how to respond to that , Gall pulled back the tent flap and announced flatly that Jann was outside and said he needed to speak to Melek.

There was a beat. A bare moment. Heartbeats before he answered, and I saw the flash of a shadow in his eyes. My breath stopped.

But then he tore himself away from the gaze and swung his legs off the bed, getting to his feet, and muttering.

“Send him in.”

And the moment was lost.