Page 26 of The King has Fallen (The Kingdom of the Krow #1)

~ YILAN ~

“Quickly—hold my belt, step in my steps, and make no sound,” Melek breathed in my ear, then hitched up the strap on the long, soft bag that hung over his shoulder and slung across his chest, leaving his arms free.

We were crouched behind a rock nestled beneath a small tree, just at the edge of camp. The Nephilim around each of the fires that circled the camp and cast shifting shadows from the trees were supposed to be the only sober Nephilim left—except Melek himself.

And these two did appear to be sober—standing, leaning on their spears, bored and resentful, looking back over their shoulders towards the camp where the noise from the revelers was growing.

Melek froze when one of them looked towards our rock, but he was only scanning the dark. Then he sighed and told his companion he was going to take a piss.

When both the guards were distracted, Melek took off silently, bent in half yet running fast enough it was difficult for me to keep up—and still his steps were silent— staying in the shadows of the forest, following the lines of the dark, but moving farther and farther from the camp proper, until we crouched under a copse of trees fifty feet away.

Melek waited only seconds, then grabbed my hand and dragged me deep into the forest, looking back over his shoulder now and again, but otherwise heading steadily east.

When we’d been walking for a minute, he cast one last look over his shoulder, grinned into the dark, then slowed his pace and let go of my hand, which suddenly felt very cold.

A few minutes later the trees opened up and Melek drew to a halt. I stepped up beside him and sucked in a sharp breath.

We stood at the tree line. From here the land dropped away to a soft, sandy shore on a lake large enough that I couldn’t see all of it, because it spread too far out to the right and left, the trees began to block it from sight.

In the dark, the water seemed like rich black metal, yet the moon was high and bright, and it glittered on the surface that was almost glassy flat. Only the tiniest ripples here and there to make the reflection of the moon’s light waver.

“Melek…” I breathed. “Thank you!”

He chuckled as I ran straight down the steep shore and into the water, shrieking when the cold hit my heated skin, then clapping my hands over my mouth and freezing where I stood, where the water was still only just past my knees.

Slowly, I turned back to look at Melek who still stood in the shadows of the trees, unmoving, looking over his shoulder, then around at the night.

“No one is coming,” he said in a low rumble a moment later, and I let myself hurry forward again, gasping when the freezing-cold water splashed up to drench me, but I couldn’t have cared less. It had been weeks since I’d had more than a wet cloth to clean myself. Weeks since Melek dunked me in that trough—and that had come days after my last bath before it.

It was heaven to turn and let my body fall backwards into the water, submerging completely, blowing air bubbles from my nose as the ripple and hum of the water closed in around me, then breaking up and out of its cool surface, gasping at the air—and against the cold—but ecstatic.

“Thank you, Melek!” I whisper-shouted. “Thank you!”

He was walking down to the shore, but keeping watch for me as I wallowed and splashed and swam underwater.

Soon it didn’t feel so cold. And then Melek gave a low whistle, so I stood up—just in time to catch the small block of soap he’d thrown to me out of the air before it thunked into my chest.

The General had excellent aim.

But I was too happy to be grumpy. Walking deeper into the lake until I could half-sit and submerge myself underwater to the neck. Then I took off my sopping clothes and scrubbed first myself, then them.

Some time later, wrinkled and happily exhausted, I made Melek turn his back and watch for anyone approaching while I got out of the water and threw my clothes over a couple of bushes to dry and wrapped myself in a Nephilim-sized towel that was large enough to wrap me from my neck to my ankles.

Then, when I was dry, I sat down on the lakeshore where the sand gave way to grass and listened to the tiny lapping of the water on the pebbles and stared up at the stars and felt like I could breathe for the first time in weeks.

Melek came down to the shore and sat just a few feet to my left, staring out over the water… and he looked relaxed as well. The set of his shoulders not quite so tight. His jaw not flexing.

Neither of us spoke for some time, and with the sound of the celebrating Nephilim distant enough to be ignored, the silent night and quiet ripple of the water was quite soothing. I found myself growing drowsy, eventually laying back on the grass and lacing my fingers under my wet hair.

“This is how life should be,” I said quietly. “Just… quiet. Easy. No pressures. All noise in the distance. Don’t you think, Melek? Or does your soldier’s heart need the fight to feel alive?” I asked, considering some of the comments I’d heard from Turo, the General of the Shadekin, my people.

“I would give anything to never fight again… to have every day like this,” Melek answered a moment later.

I sighed happily. “Me too.”

My eyelids began to droop, but I was still awake when he spoke again.

“Enjoy your freedom, Yilan. May God bless you this night,” he murmured the benediction. Not a whisper, but keeping his voice quiet.

“And you,” I responded by rote, then blinked, realizing what I’d said.

Melek grinned, but didn’t tease me, just continued staring into the beautiful dark.

~ MELEK ~

It was the strangest night I had ever lived.

It had been an indulgence to take her out. If I was honest, the idea had been one big fuck you to Gault for interfering in this war. At least, that’s what I’d told myself.

But here I sat, not simmering in bitterness or resentment, but… resting.

I sat in the middle of a warzone, yet at peace. My body relaxed in a way I hadn’t felt for years.

My comrades celebrated the peace, feasting and drinking just a mile away, and yet there was no part of me that wanted to join them.

Instead, I sat on a peaceful lakeshore, in the dark, with my enemy. And I couldn’t remember a moment I’d felt more at ease.

It should not be. And yet, it was.

As Yilan slipped into a soft, easy sleep, I stared out over the water and let myself just breathe. The noise of the camp grew dim and distant as I sank deeper into my thoughts.

Watching her joy at being in the water had done something to my insides. But seeing those clothes come off had taken my mind back to that vision. Even though any hint of her skin was hidden from me by the moonlight on the water so I couldn’t possibly tell if what I had seen was how she truly looked, my body tightened just knowing she was huddled there in the lake without a stitch.

I’d had to take my guarding duties very seriously to keep my eyes averted.

Then, when she was pruned and shivering, she’d finally admitted defeat and told me to turn my back so she could get out.

I heard her watery steps, heard the splashes, heard the tinkle of water dropping from her skin to the shallowing lake as she walked out—and my cursed mind conjured images of water flowing from that shiny, jet-black hair, down her shoulders, to her chest… the droplets trickling off her collarbones and down, diverted by the plump of her breasts so it trailed between them and—

I cursed under my breath and pushed the intrusive images away, growling and shifting my seat because the tightness in my body was becoming an ache.

But then a Nightcaw screamed and flew across the moon, and my eyes followed it until its silhouette disappeared against the surrounding forest above. And when I looked away, it was to her.

She’d fallen asleep, curled into that towel as if it were a blanket, her wet hair dark and shiny in the night, fanned out over the grass. The towel as almost as tall as her. She gripped the edge in her fists and tucked it under her chin—between that and her tiny stature, she should have looked like a child. And yet…

She lay on her side, her knees drawn up so her feet were covered by the towel too, making her even smaller. And yet…

And yet, her shoulder rose in a point that sloped down to the curve of her waist, then rose again sharply to the round of her hip in a deeply feminine shape that had never failed to draw my eye since the very first time I’d been blessed to see it as a young man.

Even with the meals she’d missed, even with the weight she’d lost, there was no mistaking her for a child.

And there was no pretending that her form did not affect me.

Yet, though undoubtedly a woman, she was still young. Twenty-five? Twenty-seven? Perhaps. It was harder to tell with humans. They aged differently.

I wanted to turn from her, to ignore the discomfort in my chest and other areas that seemed a constant companion now, but I also recognized the urge for the fear that it was and made myself see her. Made myself ask the question.

Why would God bring her here? Why bring her to me? Was she simply a temptation? A test? Or…

I wanted to shy away from any other explanation. But I had learned the hard way that avoiding thoughts because their conclusions might be difficult was the fastest track to regret and self-destruction.

So, I made myself ask.

Consider.

Confront.

Why would God bring her here? And to me, personally?

She was so young. We saw the world so differently. We understood life differently. We aimed for different goals. Opposing goals.

She was my enemy.

Why would God bring me a woman who sought to destroy me and my people?

Everything in me went still and cold as I caught the thought that had been whispering to me for days and that I had so tirelessly ignored.

No.

It could not be.

Surely?

She could not be intended for me.

She must be the vengeance on my people! Or… or the siren, lulling me into a false sense of security in order to lower my guard and—

Yilan shifted in her sleep, squirming and resettling, murmuring to herself as I stared at her like an asp crawling across the grass towards me, reminding myself she was a Fetch. A spy. An assassin.

She was the enemy. Not the rising sun of my heart. Not!

And then she sighed.

And then, as her body settled more deeply into sleep, she smiled.

I remembered her fierce protection of Gall, and that vision, and…

Something in my chest broke open, staring at her there in the dark. As I scanned her from head to toe with terrified eyes, my heart ripped in two—half of me driven to lift her, shake her, demand that she release me from this… this death sentence , to kill her and remove the threat… and the other half roaring at the world that she was mine, to place my body between her and this war that would destroy her, to cover her, to possess her and the world be damned if they thought my strength would be anything but a weapon to her protection, because she was precious, she was needed, she was mate.

A low, strange rumble began to curl in my chest. My chest that was pumping, squeezing, shuddering. My breath coming fast and too thin.

I was trembling.

Stunned.

Mate.

Soulmate.

Soulbond.

The other half of my soul… if I possessed one.

Whatever lived deep in my chest had come alive, even as I sat there, shaking my head, denying it.

I couldn’t breathe.

It couldn’t be.

She couldn’t be.

Yet, everything in me sang that she was.

God help me.