Page 25 of The King has Fallen (The Kingdom of the Krow #1)

~ YILAN ~

I lay there on my cot, happily drowsing for the next hour as they continued to speak and reconnect. Although I was hungry, I didn’t want to interrupt this precious reunion.

I must have fallen asleep, because it was entirely dark outside and the lanterns had been lit when a clanging sound woke me with a jolt.

I sat bolt-upright—my shoulder giving a zing of pain and my heart racing… then galloping when I looked around to find Melek standing just outside the cage door, staring at me with a strange look on his face.

The open cage door.

When our eyes caught his forehead pinched. I blinked and breathed, heart racing, trying to figure out if I was dreaming or—

“I still don’t trust you,” he muttered.

I swallowed hard and nodded.

“And yet, I find myself in the mood to give a certain fuck you to… those around me.” He clawed his hands through his hair and raised his chin. “It is the Covenant Days. I seek God blessings at all sides. And He blesses those of us who seek peace and offer hands to enemies on these days.”

My breathing got shallow. I nodded again because I wasn’t sure what to say.

Melek took a deep breath then folded his arms. “Give me your word that you will not flee, or harm me or Gall, and you can join me at the table. Unbound,” he said.

I blinked and looked past him to see a new, fresh platter of steaming food sitting on the table.

“Your dinner,” he added.

“I—”

“Give me your word, Yilan. Before God.”

I stared at him, shocked. “I do. I mean, I will. I mean—”

“I know what you mean,” he muttered as he stepped back, opening an arm towards the table, leaving room for me to walk out of the cage.

I had never been more stunned. “But… Why?” Was it a trap?

He sighed. “Yilan, it is the Covenant Days of Peace. I am reunited with my son. You are safe. And there is nothing that can be done about the struggles in our lives for another five days. God will bless me for blessing my enemy—which definitely includes you,” he said with a wry look. “Even you aren’t heathen enough to break the Covenant, surely?”

“Is it after midnight?” I asked, pretending to consider his proposal. “After all, if it isn’t, I technically wouldn’t be breaking the Covenant—”

He growled, and it startled a laugh out of me.

Then we both went serious.

I stared at him and he stared back and neither of us spoke for a time, yet that hum was in the air.

“Where’s Gall?” I murmured.

“I gave him the Covenant Days off. He’s gone to be alone which is his favorite thing to do when he’s confused, or had a bad event.”

I was reminded again, then, of my own life. My own plans . I found myself washed in grief and tension, compassion… and relief.

The Covenant Days.

I had a life—had had a life—before I was taken here. My people celebrated the Covenant with great abandon. And I had had plans for a great celebration at this time.

My chest tightened and it must have shown on my face because Melek’s face went serious.

“What?” he asked.

Nothing I could speak to you about. I shrugged to hide my discomfort. “I suppose I just assumed the soulless wouldn’t honor such a life-giving covenant,” I said slyly, then grinned at him.

Melek rolled his eyes. “Perhaps just for these days we can stay away from references to the soulless?”

“I don’t know,” I said seriously. “I mean, peace? Certainly. But I’m not going to lie for you.”

He growled, and it made me giggle, and then I was cautiously walking out of that fucking cage—no hand clamped on my arm, or in my hair. No imminent threat. Nothing. Just a table and a meal and a huge General sitting across from me as I looked at him suspiciously.

“Did you poison this?” I asked, only half-joking.

He huffed. “Only one way to find out.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“I said I was going to bless my enemy, not indulge them,” he muttered, one brow arched high.

So, I took the seat and had dinner with General Melek Handras. Or rather, I had dinner, and he sat with me.

It was… a surreal experience.

Melek had a bowl of grapes in front of his seat and he ate them one by one as I dug into the meal and tried to tell myself this was actually real.

Our talk moved from Gall to the war. Then a jibe from me that I could confidently help Melek defeat our neighbors because the Nephilim would never survive the Shadows of Shade led our conversation to the differences between our people and how they would celebrate the Covenant Days.

That subject turned my mind back to the stark realities of how differently this night would have been spent if I hadn’t been here with Melek. And that was… uneasy.

Melek must have sensed that I was shying from something.

“You don’t speak of your own traditions much,” he said quietly, watching me closely as he popped another grape into his mouth.

I took another mouthful of the juicy beef dripping in gravy before I answered.

“There didn’t seem to be much point.”

He gave me a skeptical look, but didn’t press the point.

“Are you married?”

I shook my head, then watched him, alarms jangling in my head as I realized I didn’t know. “What about the great General Melek Handras? Has he a mate back home awaiting his return?”

He shook his head without hesitation. “No,” he said emphatically. “I wouldn’t wish a soldier’s life on a mate. Our only females are humans. They are… fragile.”

I raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t correct himself. But it did give me an opening to ask him about the women among them, which I’d been curious about from the beginning.

“How do they come to be here?” I asked carefully. “The women, I mean. Is there a human population among the Nephilim, or—”

“They are mostly slaves,” Melek said, his eyes dropping to the grapes. He took another and chewed it before continuing. “Generations of slaves. And more taken when they’re needed. We have males as well, though very few.”

My blood went cold. So, the rumors were true. “You really do steal human slaves from Meyrath?”

It was the nation on the western side of the Raven Peaks, a nearly impenetrable mountain range that acted as a natural fence along the Nephilim’s border, both a warning and a protection for the rest of the continent. The high, freezing summits were nearly sheer cliffs. Only the Nephilim could cross because they could fly. But they rarely did.

Or should I say, rarely had.

Legends were recounted by the parents of every culture of the Continent, terrorizing stories of the Nephilim flying over the Raven Peaks, then descending on disobedient children, stealing them and taking them back to Ebonreach—their nation—to be slaves.

“I don’t take slaves,” Melek said firmly. “And I don’t encourage it in others. But my people… yes. Women are enticed, seduced, even paid. But many are just… taken.”

I suddenly lost my appetite. “Breeders,” I said through my teeth.

Melek’s eyes snapped to mine, a warning there, but he nodded slowly.

“Fucking pigs,” I muttered under my breath, stabbing the beef again, just for something to do with my hands.

“They aren’t all taken against their will—"

“Even one is too many,” I hissed. “And you have generations? Could you imagine if you were taken by a—but no, wait, what am I thinking. There are no other peoples that out-weigh the Nephilim. No wonder your young think they can take a woman and ride her like a horse stolen from the neighbor’s barn.”

Melek’s jaw rolled. “I don’t condone it, Yilan.”

“You do—by sitting here, you do.”

“No, I—”

“Stop living in denial—”

“I cannot change the ways of my land—I can only show the right way!” Melek growled, leaning towards me, furious.

I met that fiery gaze and pointed my knife at him. “You faked it so they’d leave me alone. That is the example you set—”

A low puttering growl rippled through the room and my heart began to race.

“You would have preferred I take the risk that they frenzied and overpowered me to take you? Because that’s where that was heading, Yilan,” he said firmly, meeting my eyes unapologetically.

“Sick,” I hissed, shaking my head and trying to hide the way my hands were beginning to tremble. “This entire society is just… sick.”

“Not all of us.”

I huffed. “Don’t think I’m going to congratulate you on simply abstaining from something monstrous that shouldn’t happen anyway.”

Melek’s eyes went flat. “I work hard to teach my men to take only the willing—”

“And yet, over forty years old and never married because of the risk to a woman when you leave her home?”

He gave an impatient huff, but shifted in his seat, as if his thoughts made him uncomfortable.

“Our cities aren’t the same as a war camp. There is more… restraint. But from a weak woman’s perspective, it’s dangerous enough. Especially left unguarded. Unless I found the One God intended for me, a true mate, I wouldn’t bring a woman into all of this . For obvious reasons,” he muttered, his eyes flicking up to mine—an admission—then back down to his grapes.

I was still furious, but I knew I needed to keep him talking. He was growing tense and almost finished his grapes. I couldn’t let him decide he needed to lock me back up. So, I forced myself to let the subject go.

Sort of.

I huffed. “I suppose no decent human female would accept your brutish pawing unless she’d been forced into a marriage contract anyway.”

Melek snorted, but then shrugged. “We don’t use marriage contracts.”

“Oh? What do you do—swoop in from the sky and kidnap them, show them your snakes, and see if they don’t faint?”

He gave me a flat look. “In our tradition marriage is rare. But when a woman is found to be a twin soul we speak a vow, then join bodies to complete the bond. It’s far more binding than signing a piece of paper.”

I froze with my fork halfway to my mouth.

Melek frowned and looked quickly around the tent. “What? Is something wrong?”

“You believe in soulbonds?” I squeaked.

He frowned deeper. “Of course. Don’t you?”

“Yes, of course. But the Shadekin—the Fetch… we aren’t descended from the irredeemable.”

His eyes shuttered at that, so I rushed on.

“We also speak vows to acknowledge the bond,” I told him hurriedly. “But we wrap a cord around our wrists and make love while bound together to symbolize the bond of our souls. It’s said that the longer a Pair stays tied together after that first lovemaking, the stronger their bond will be.”

His brows rose. “You don’t use contracts either?”

“No. Anyone can write a word to paper. The soulbond is…”

“Eternal,” he ended for me.

My breath stopped.

I wasn’t sure whether to be offended that he seemed as shocked as I was that we were so closely aligned on this.

“Did you… are you… have you found your soulbond?” I blurted, then wanted to shovel the words back down my throat.

A moment later, he shook his head. “No.”

Why did I feel relief? This monster should not inspire relief in me!

But then his expression went blank. “You, Yilan? Are you bonded?”

I shook my head. “I have never found the male who tied my soul in knots. Not that it would matter… would it?” I swallowed hard. “Would you keep me here, Melek, if I had a soulbond out there waiting for me?”

He didn’t answer.

My mouth went dry.

Neither of us moved and I wasn’t quite sure how all the air seemed to have gone from the tent—nor how we’d gotten to this place. Or what it meant.

Why was he staring so intently?

Why was I?

Still nothing had passed between us when suddenly a high, pure chime resonated through the air and was met by a roar from the Nephilim ranks in every corner of this mile-wide camp.

Midnight. The Covenant Days begin in earnest.

And still we were staring. I couldn’t move. The hair on my arms rose. I couldn’t tear my eyes from his—and yet every instinct within me screamed that I must.

But it was Melek who spoke first.

“The chime… the Covenant Days have truly begun.” His eyes never left mine. I nodded, but didn’t speak. He cleared his throat. “We have a tradition in our people that when the Chime rings each night, we offer a wish to God. A prayer for… for a gift.”

We had a similar tradition, but I couldn’t find the words to tell him.

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Do you have a wish for the peace season, Yilan?”

I nodded.

He blinked, but still didn’t look away. “What is it?”

For a moment my mind spun with images from that erotic vision I’d given him—a total indulgence. A horrific breach of my integrity… and I had yet to regret it. But even as images of those moments flickered in my head I couldn’t wrap my tongue around them. Couldn’t make them real. Because we walked a cliff-edge. I didn’t know how it had happened, but I knew it was real and I couldn’t—no, wouldn’t —be the one to step off the edge.

“Yilan?”

“Yes?” I breathed.

“What is your wish for the Days of peace?”

I swallowed to wet my throat, then croaked. “A bath.”

And then Melek fucking smiled.