Page 42 of The King has Fallen (The Kingdom of the Krow #1)

~ YILAN ~

It was easier for us to sneak out this time. The guards we passed were drinking and trying to hide it from anyone who might see, so they were more concerned with watching the camp than the nearby trees and shadows.

Melek took me to the lake again, but farther away from the camp this time, so we were less likely to be interrupted by rebellious young Neph.

When we finally broke through the trees, the sight took my breath away. We stood on a small spit of land that extended over that lake. A large, flat boulder at its tip leaned into the shimmering water, but provided a dry platform on which to sit and view the surroundings.

There was a light breeze tonight so the water's surface shimmered and rippled, the moonlight frosting those tiny waves in white. On the other side of the lake, the forest stood guard, black peaks rising before a clear, indigo sky, freckled with stars and the glow of the waning moon.

It was exactly the kind of spot I sought out in the few hours per week I could relax back home.

When Melek had mentioned Gall liked to Be Still, my heart had swelled with understanding.

Yet, I was here not alone. And never happier to be in that state.

Melek stood behind me for a moment when I stopped to take it in, his broad torso brushing my back, warming me. It was awkward for him, though, with our opposing hands still bound. He looped his arm over my chest, holding me to him. Then he gently placed the other hand on my shoulder.

“I find I wish for no space between us. Let's sit,” he murmured.

I nodded, swallowing hard because I felt the same but hadn't dared to speak it.

When I stepped forward he stayed close, nudging me out to the flat of the rock, then tugging me down to sit between his thighs, his arm around me, our bound hands resting together.

Once we were settled and I was caged in his embrace, I felt his breath on the back of my neck and it made my skin pebble and my heart skip. And the rest of me ache with desire.

“You are braver than me,” I said quietly.

He leaned down, nuzzling my hair. “How so?”

“You say what you feel. I feel it too,” I said, squeezing his hand. “But... there is always a part of me that shies away. Not brave enough to say it when it’s for myself. You're stronger in that way.”

He exhaled. “Or less wounded. Have you learned that speaking your feelings invites hurt? Or that they are ignored?”

I went still. Stunned. “Both. How did you know?”

He tightened his arm around me. “I watched it happen with Gall. His feelings are as blunt as his words. I watch the way people react to him. And since he can’t lie, as he's grown, his only recourse has been to remain quiet when he feels what he fears others will judge. I always know who he feels safe with because he speaks freely of how he feels with them present.”

I had a flash of a memory—Gall sitting in front of my cage, weeping. My throat pinched. “Well, then, I am touched. He trusted me with some of his feelings.”

“I know.” Melek’s voice was deep and husky. “It was part of what opened my eyes to what my heart was saying about you.”

We were both quiet for a time. I hugged his arm that was around me.

Then Melek sighed.

“Two days, Yilan—”

“Don’t.”

“Two days,” he pressed. “Then I have to leave. That circumstance will not change. We must discuss what happens next.”

“I told you—”

His hand pressed against my stomach and his fingers clawed into me. He dropped his voice to an urgent murmur. “I need you to give me your word that you'll leave when I do, and not follow me. And I need you to put that clever mind of yours to a solution for how we will find each other when its safe...how to make it safe.”

I leaned back against him, warmed by his strength, shivering at the thought of losing it.

“Melek... you make it safe by winning. Then ruling what is left so they cannot defy you.”

A low, frustrated growl puttered in his chest, vibrating against my back. But he didn’t respond.

I wasn’t sure if that should give me hope, or even deeper fear.

Then he swallowed. “Yilan, I do not know if an alliance is possible, but when the time comes, I will work for it. I will tell Gault that crossing the Shadows of Shade is a death sentence and will undo all that we’ve gained. If I can convince him to negotiate, do you have the ear of your King—or anyone who ranks high enough to reach him?”

I swallowed. “I do.”

“Then the moment I go, hurry home and get word to him. Prepare. Place markers at the edge of the Shadows of Shade...” He lifted our bound hands. “Strips of cotton on tree branches. I’ll know if they’re torn cotton that they’re from you. Leave them places where your people can be reached. We will open lines of communication—”

I closed my eyes. “Melek, you have to—”

“The only thing I have to do is keep us both safe,” he growled.

I hugged his arm, trying to soothe him, because I could feel the tension in his body, the way he curled around me, subconsciously shielding me from threat.

I leaned into him. “God gave us to each other. We must trust there is a plan—”

“He gave you to me, made you my responsibility. You have to listen and follow my instructions so that I can sleep at night once you have gone. Please. Yilan… give me your word.”

I was breathless. “My word for what?”

“Your word that you will leave and not follow me. That you will go home—take what we’ve said to your ruler and not try to conquer Gault, or those here. That you will stay safe. That we will work together to solve whatever needs solving after this.”

I sighed heavily, but pressed back into his chest, hugging his arm to me. “You have my word, Melek.”

“For what? Be specific,” he muttered.

I leaned my head back on his shoulder. “I will not stay here when you leave,” I said reluctantly. “I will not go to the battlefront unless you ask me to. And I will undertake no plan without you,” I said, my chest growing tight.

He exhaled, then kissed my neck. “Thank you,” he murmured against my ear. His relief was so palpable and his care so obvious, it moved me. My throat grew tight and I squeezed his arm tighter.

For a long time, we just held each other, me in the circle of his arms, under the cover of his body, and his big, beautiful heart. Him, shielding me even from the dark. It was exactly the kind of simple togetherness I had yearned for my entire life and come to assume would never be… it washed me in waves of emotion.

When I brushed away a tear, Melek murmured my name, then kissed my cheek when I blinked to dispel the rest.

“Don’t cry, Love,” he whispered. “No matter what comes, you have my heart. No. Matter. What.”

I prayed it was so, prayed God intended it so. I held him so tightly I feared I would cut off the circulation in his arm.

After a few more moments, he cleared his throat. “Would you sing for me?” he murmured.

I was humbled again by the request, and my heart lightened to know that he truly liked my singing.

“Do you like music?” I asked.

“A great deal,” he rumbled. “I pray the day comes when we might dance together in Valgorath,” he added, giving the word the strange, guttural roll that the Nephilim used when pronouncing their capital city and other ancient words.

I blinked. “The Nephilim dance?”

He huffed, shaking his head. “You think we’re nothing but brutes and mindless grunts. Our city is full of… so much humanity, Yilan. A war camp… it is its own world. When you return home, ask your soldiers. They’ll tell you: Men at war are… different.”

I already knew it to be true, but realized I hadn’t applied that to the Nephilim. With their King here in the thick of it, I had assumed this was how they always functioned.

“So this… brutality? This disregard for women that you’ve described—”

“Oh, that is rooted in who we are, it’s true,” he said with a dark growl. “But it is not all that we are. Our city is beautiful, and ancient. We have scholars and artists and women who are there by choice. It is not all so dark. You would be surprised.”

I would be, but I didn’t tell him so. He had already proven that he thought deeper and conducted himself with honor. I supposed it made sense that he wasn’t the only one.

“Sing for me, Yilan. Please?”

I cleared my throat and nodded, casting my mind back for a song that was right for him, and praying no one else who would understand was near enough to hear it.

Hold my heart.

Hold it true.

Leave me not in a world without you.

Hold my hand,

Hold it safe.

Don’t let me go without you apace.

For the world is dark.

But your eyes light my path.

For the world is dark.

But your hand is my staff.

So, hold my heart.

Hold it true.

Hold my hand,

Hold it fast.

Hold me now, and tomorrow.

Hold me. Don’t let me go.

Hold me, my heart.

Don’t let me go.

My voice was growing husky by the last line. I let the final note fade slowly, then sighed.

“Beautiful,” he murmured. “Did you sing those words for me, or—”

“Of course.”

He gave that warm rumble that vibrated in his chest and made me smile. “I will hold your heart, and your hand, and any other part of your body that—”

I sucked in a breath and tried to whip around to face him, but with our hands bound together and his arm across my chest, the best I could do was to twist and look at him over my shoulder.

“You understood the words?” I gasped.

Melek frowned. “Did you think singing hid them?”

“No! I—Melek… I was singing in the ancient tongue. The tongue of angels. Not fallen ones—you could understand those words? How? Who taught you?”

His frown deepened as he stared down at me. “I wasn’t aware of another tongue. You were just singing. You’ve always just sung—was this song different?”

I almost swallowed my tongue. “You understood all the songs I sang?”

It was a stunning revelation. The ancient tongue of angels was known and spoken by so few. A supernatural gift to those of pure heart. If Melek could understand it…

“Yilan, is your brain addled? You weren’t singing anything different than we speak.”

“Yes, Melek I was! And that can only mean… Melek, you don’t just have a soul. If you can understand the tongue of angels, you are called by God.”

“Why do you say that as if it is a surprise?” he muttered. “I’ve told you from the beginning I walk in God’s blessing.”

“Yes, but—argh!” I lifted his arm back over my head and turned around to face him, pushing to my feet. Thankfully he followed and stood also, which let me grip his shirt. I had to make him understand how important this was.

His brows rose when I took hold of him, but he didn’t fight me, even with the bound hand.

“This only proves my point,” I insisted, craning my neck to look him right in the eye and leaning in, shaking him. Or trying to. Moving the bulk of him felt akin to trying to shake a stone wall.

“Melek, don’t you see? You aren’t just my hope. You are the hope of every person in this world. Their only hope to be ruled in redemption, not rebellion.”

“Not this again,” he growled.

“You hear the tongue of angels!”

“If that is true, it is only because I listen to the God who created them.”

“And you want me to believe He hasn’t opened His hand for you to rule?!”

“Yes, I do,” he said, his eyes flat.

“Have you asked the question?”

“No.”

“But then how can you—”

“Because I do not want it, Yilan. And surely if it was in His plan I would at least desire it?”

I leaned back a hair. “Did you desire me on our first meeting?”

His lips pursed and a warning flashed in his eyes.

“You see! We don’t always—”

“Yilan, please. I am begging you,” he growled, pulling my hands from his shirt, holding them in his, staring at me intently. “You have to let this go.”

“But if Gall’s safety is your only concern, I know we can arrange—”

“Of course that’s not the only thing!” he snapped, then caught himself and looked over my shoulder, scowling at the lake and the trees and the distant moon. He breathed deeply, and was clearly working to control himself while I stood between his feet, heart pounding, my chest tight with the frustration of how blind he was to his own strength. He refused to see what he was. What he could be!

Then he took a deep breath and brought his gaze back to meet mine. “Listen to me,” he said gruffly. “Listen to me carefully: You have to stop talking about this. The risk is too great. You cannot hold on to this notion, because it will. Not. Be, ” he said through his teeth. “When I am gone, you need to leave. Otherwise, Gault will brutalize you, and I could not survive that, Yilan. Do you understand?”

“But if he wasn’t—”

“STOP!” he roared in my face, so loudly and fiercely that I flinched.

He bit the word off and dropped his head, cursing himself, and probably me, though he didn’t say the words.

“Melek, I only want to see you be everything you can be,” I breathed. “And I want that in a world where we can walk hand in hand without pretense.”

“So do I.” His head snapped up and there was a fire in his eyes that made my breath stop. He raised his hands to my face, holding my jaw, stopping me from turning away from the intensity burning in his eyes. “So do I, Yilan. As allies. Not revolutionaries.”

My shoulders slumped. “I want that too.” But his King would never allow it. The words bubbled on my tongue, but his heavy brows pinched together and his eyes begged me.

“Then please… stop. We have so few hours left—please, Yilan, I do not want to spend them fighting with you.”

I sighed and leaned into his chest, holding his waist with my free hand and letting my bound hand drop. He did as well, but wrapped the other arm around me.

“God, I love you. How did this happen?” he muttered as he lifted my chin. When I raised it, meeting his eyes again, it was only for a moment before he was kissing me with such intensity, such passion, that he stole my breath. “Precious. You are precious to me, Yilan,” he breathed against my lips. And when I whimpered and clung to him, when another tear slipped from the corner of my eye, he kissed that from my cheek as well.

Then he took my face and held it as he tipped his head back to stare at me down his nose. “Give me your word.”

“I already did!”

“I need to hear it again. I need to be certain.”

I sighed, but put my hand to his chest and repeated my promise.

“I will not stay here when you leave,” I stroked his chest with a trembling hand. “I will not go to the battlefront unless you ask me to. And I will undertake no plan without you at my side,” I said with a heavy sigh to fight the way my chest constricted.

“Promise me that you won’t risk yourself,” he growled.

I blinked. “I won’t. I never intended—”

“Tell me! If something happens to me, or if the opportunity presents itself to get out safely, you will take it. You will not do as you did before and lock yourself back in to stay near me.”

I wanted to cry at the anguish in his eyes, the stress he was feeling.

“You have my word, Melek: I will not lock myself back in. If the opportunity presents, I will not stay here when I could get out. Now you promise me something.”

He stared deep into my eyes. “Anything that doesn’t involve taking a crown,” he said simply.

“Promise me that no matter where the future takes us, how we might be forced apart by this war, you will not give up on me or forget… this…” I whispered. Then I reached up for his hair, grabbing him, pulling him down into a kiss that spoke everything my heart was too fragile to say. All the need. All the admiration. All the ways I ached for him.

And with a groan, he wrapped his free arm around my back and pulled me up onto my toes and into his body, kissing me as if the world would end without it.

Which was exactly how I felt.