Page 33 of The King has Fallen (The Kingdom of the Krow #1)

~ MELEK ~

I sent the messenger back to Gault with assurances that I would have her there as soon as I could do so safely.

The moment he took off, I started pacing, raking a hand through my hair, my head spinning.

Why? Why now? Why her?

I’d almost believed Gault had forgotten she was here. He hadn’t mentioned her during our entire trip. And the few times her presence had been raised, it was only to debate whether the information she’d supplied could be trusted.

So why now?

I feared I knew the answer, but would not allow it to be so.

He would have heard the rumor. His Advisor, Hever, ran an entire network of eyes and ears that started in the ranks themselves, and extended out across the land. I never lied to Gault, rarely omitted anything I knew, because there was never any telling when he was asking a question not to gather information, but rather to test whether I would be honest with him.

“Melek—”

“You should have run when I gave you the chance,” I growled. “If you disappear now, he’ll know I let you loose and we’ll both be dead.”

“I wouldn’t—”

“Be quiet, I need to think.”

She sighed and for a flash I wanted nothing more than to throttle her. She was my mate, my soul, and she was blind. Now the greatest threat to her wellbeing that existed had called for us and there was no avoiding it.

Whether Gault had designs to remove me or not, he did not entertain delay, or games.

I needed to have her there within the hour. Sooner.

Shit.

I turned and paced the tent, cursing as I considered plan after plan, and discarded them all, because there was no way around this. Now that his attention was on her, the only choice was to bring her.

But I was bringing her as an enemy. As an asset. As leverage to him.

Fuck!

There was no choice. I was caged just as surely as she was, and just as helpless. Probably more so.

Yilan might believe that the men in this camp would follow me, but she was a spy, and a manipulator. She functioned in a place of deception. I knew a soldier’s mind. The discussions between those in the ranks were often nothing more than bluster. Ideas. Wishes. There was a massive difference between dreaming of a different King, and putting their bodies and futures on the line to crown one.

And besides… I’d never sought a throne. Always been grateful I wasn’t burdened with one. I was a male of action. To be constantly in company, to be forced to stand as figurehead in pomp and formality… God, if the boredom didn’t kill me, the machinations would.

Part of the reason for my success had come in my early decision to speak the truth. I was surrounded by deceptive males who always assumed my forthright words and acknowledgement of my struggles was a strategy. When I had been young and working my way up the ranks, my rivals assumed I knew far more than I let on, and was confident of victories I hadn’t even aimed for yet.

They stepped carefully because they saw my forthright nature as an indication that I had resources or knowledge they didn’t. They read my confidence as arrogance, and my questions as manipulations designed to lull them into false security.

They defeated themselves. Handed me victories.

And yet…

Gault was a different creature.

“Melek…”

I shook my head and kept pacing, thinking, planning. If Gault only wanted to interrogate her himself, to check on me, he wouldn’t have me present. If he was calling for me to bring her, he wanted me to see or hear whatever it was that he planned to do or say. It had to involve me somehow.

That left only one possible conclusion: He knew we were connected and was going to use her against me.

Either I had somehow, unwittingly, given away the bond. Or he’d heard the rumors that I claimed her and wanted to take her from me.

Nothing else made sense.

Shit… Shit.

“Melek!”

I turned on her, scowling and her head snapped back when she saw my eyes.

“You should have gone when I gave you the chance.”

“There is no point discussing what should have been. We are here now. You have to—”

“I have to take you to him, is what I have to do. The question is, how to do so with even a chance for both of us to live through it.”

She blinked and her eyes went wide. Then I turned away, looking at my trunks, mentally cataloging the resources I had, considering what this could be. How Gault might approach it. And what options were open to me.

I would not surrender her.

I could not challenge my King.

Which meant there was only one option left.

I started towards the trunk in the corner, flipping the lid and digging through it until I found the scarves I’d been searching for. Then I stalked over to my weapons and flipped through my blades until I found the smallest, thinnest of them.

When I returned to the cage she was watching me warily. And when I flipped the short dagger, catching it carefully by its blade to offer the hilt to her, her eyes widened.

“Take it. Hide it,” I growled. “If you need a belt, I can offer you one, but it would likely be too bulky—”

“I don’t need a belt,” she said faintly. “But do you have a sheath?”

I nodded and trotted back to find the smallest sheath I owned, then gave that to her as well.

She slipped the blade into the sheath, then reached around her own back, pulling up the back of her shirt—my shirt. She was still wearing my old sleep shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Thank God it was thicker cotton and long. Then she tucked the sheath into the hollow of her back and pulled the back of the shirt down over it.

I growled. It wasn’t a fantastic placement—the shirt was long and would take precious seconds to raise if she had to go for it.

“Which is your dominant weapon arm?” I asked her quickly.

“I don’t have one.”

I raised one brow skeptically.

She raised one back. “I’m not lying.”

I tilted my head and pressed my lips thin so she’d know I was suspicious. “Which hand do you prefer to use?”

“My right.”

I nodded once, then opened the cage, ignoring the surprise in her eyes. “Then give me your left,” I muttered. “You’re coming with me, bound to me.”

Her head jerked back. “Bound? Why? You could hold me—”

“Because I have to stop you escaping, obviously, ” I said dryly. “Next time I tell you to run, Yilan, you do it. If you’d listened earlier, I’d be the only one in danger right now.”

She didn’t respond, but she did take a deep breath, then stepped forward and offered me her left wrist.

I looped the silk scarf around it once, then tied that end off with a non-slip knot, before twisting it, then binding the other end to my wrist, so our hands rested back-to-back. Our knuckles brushing.

The twist between us would offer rotation—she could turn her hand without mine changing position, and visa-versa. But she was bound to my side as surely as any cuff or chain.

Unless she got that blade loose and cut through it.

“But… that’s your right hand,” she said as she watched me tie us together.

I smiled grimly. “I don’t have a dominant hand, either,” I said.

Her eyes cut up from our hands to meet mine and she arched a brow just as I had a moment earlier.

But neither of us spoke. And a few moments later I was pushing the tent flap aside to lead her out into the sunlight… and into the den of the lion that might very well devour both of us.