Page 5 of The King has Fallen (The Kingdom of the Krow #1)
~ YILAN ~
As if he’d made a decision suddenly, Melek tossed the last of his straps onto the bed, then strode back towards the cage, towards me. When he reached the bars, he hesitated, then clamped a hand on the top of the cage and leaned down so our eyes were at the same level.
He spoke quietly. Menacingly. “Speak truth: What game are you playing?”
I met his gaze flatly. “This is no game. Though your King does appear to think your army is a toy, and the Continent a child’s playground.”
“You disrespect my King, you disrespect me. Keep your thoughts on him to yourself, Fetch.”
I scoffed. “We are alone, you don’t have to maintain the facade with me. The man is an imbecile—”
“One more word against the crown and—”
“You told me to speak the truth! It would be a lie to say otherwise—surely an honorable man like you is not blind to his disgusting, selfish nature?”
He straightened, snarling, ready to launch into me—but then the tent flap twitched and three soldiers appeared, the front one clasping a hand to his chest and bowing his head.
“General, Sir.”
Melek shot me a warning glare, then turned to them. “What is it?”
“A message from the front, Sir.”
Every part of him snapped to focus like a bird of prey. I was forgotten as he trotted towards them, meeting the first soldier at the center of the tent and snatching the parchment the man held out, ripping it open and reading quickly.
“You two, guard the cage, please,” he muttered without looking up while his eyes scanned the paper. “Do not get close enough that she can touch you.” The two behind the first man came to stand near my cage, both leering, but not speaking.
I watched them warily, but kept my attention on Melek.
He seemed to see nothing but the paper. Frowned, then read it again.
Then he glanced at me and I saw a flash in his eyes that made the pit of my stomach drop. Clearly my comrades on the battlefield had done their jobs.
I smiled as sweetly as he had done when he suggested I unclothe in the middle of the camp.
His eyes narrowed, but he turned his back, beckoning the soldier who’d brought the message to come closer so he could speak below my hearing.
I rolled my eyes, but my sight of him was blocked by one of the others shifting into my field of view, his yellow-green eyes sharp as he leered at me.
He and his brother-at-arms, like all the Nephilim warriors, had the sides of their heads cut short over their ears. But instead of the intricate patterns shaved into Melek’s hair, theirs only had stripes that descended to their napes. These two were much younger than Melek. Their fighter’s length—the bunch of hair left uncut at the top and back of their scalps—were thin, loose, and still short enough for the strands to dangle around their ears.
They were inexperienced, then. Probably twenty or so, in human terms. Both were bulls—thick and muscular, tall, though not as tall as Melek. Brutes. Their eyes were sharp, but lacked the keen intelligence of his.
They did not lack the edge of lust so common in the Nephilim.
I shuddered, but didn’t move away, tensing in ways they would not see, preparing to move quickly if either tried to reach me.
I desperately wanted to know what was in that message, but Melek was keeping his voice too low for me to hear, and the second of the two who’d come to stand near me was leaning closer now. When I looked at him, he licked his upper lip.
“I hear she was caught in the King’s tent,” he said to his brother at arms. “And she took him. All of him. That’s why Melek had to bathe her. She was drenched in him.”
The first of the two gave a low growl that raised the hair on the back of my neck. “You’d think he’d split her like a cord of wood.”
“Apparently not. She must be built for it.”
Both of them edged closer as my heart began to beat faster. Surely Melek wouldn’t allow them to actually enter my cage?
My heart lurched as I conjured a vision of being trapped in here by these two who would have to hunch to be inside, but who could overpower me physically without even sweating.
There was no room to throw them, and they were each two or three times my weight. I was good at grappling, but not that good.
When the first one’s upper lip curled up in a sneer and he began hissing about wondering how a Fetch tasted, I threw a hasty prayer to God, but didn’t move back.
Come closer, idiot.
Don’t come in… but come closer.
I cursed my lack of weapons, my hands clenching around air instead of the hilt of a blade.
“Did you enjoy the King?” the first of them rumbled, giving a menacing half-smile. “You satisfied yet?”
“No,” I said bluntly. “Turns out the old adage is true.”
“What adage?” the second one snapped.
I tipped my head. “It’s not the size of the horn, but how the bull uses it—”
They both sneered and crowded in, muttering promises for how they’d use their horns, when Melek’s voice cut across their mumbling, sharp with disapproval.
“I said, don’t get close enough to be touched!” he snapped.
They both turned, snapping to attention, and presumably about to step away. But as they saluted, I saw my opportunity.
Both had longspears strapped to their backs, blade down and just inches from the dirt.
Because neither of them had stepped forward when they jumped to attention, I snapped one hand between the bars to grasp the spear of the one just an inch above the blade and shoved it into the back of the other’s leg.
The first, feeling his weapon jerk, leaped forward—but that only drew the spear blade against his brother’s Achilles, snapping it cleanly so that when the first tried to run from the sudden slice of pain, he went down with a shriek.
I wasn’t quick enough drawing my hand back, and the jerk of the spear slammed my wrist against the steel bar hard enough to make me hiss, and narrowly missing having the blade slice my palm, as well. But I rolled backwards, deeper into the cage, gripping my wrist and grinning, because the first soldier was screaming like a child, while his brother panicked, whirling between apologizing to Melek who was storming towards them both with a furious snarl on his face, and trying to reach down to help his brother who was rolling on the ground, gripping his leg—the foot flopping sickeningly—and bleeding everywhere.
The chaos was short-lived. In moments, Melek had the injured soldier dragged away from the cage so there was no risk of me getting close enough to touch him again, he’d sent the other out of the tent to find a healer, and he was glaring at me over the writhing body of the male on the ground as he issued orders to the soldier who’d brought him the message.
The man wouldn’t stop screaming, his eyes wide and his hands and arms covered in blood as he desperately tried to pull his leg back together, but after a few moments of the noise, Melek cursed and pinned the male to the dirt.
“I told you not to get close enough to her to be touched. Let this be your warning to listen to your elders and betters. The enemy does not always look threatening, and you have learned that the hard way,” he snarled.
“But—my leg! She’s—”
“And you will serve out your days as an example to your brothers, with the knowledge that a tiny, irritating woman bested you because you did not listen to those in authority.”
Within minutes, the healers arrived, the guards were gone, and the messenger too. I cursed under my breath because I’d missed what Melek said in reply to the message. But suddenly the tent was empty except for me and the General.
He stood near the tent-flap, staring at me, expressionless.
I swallowed.
“Either all your fine warriors are on the battlefield, or somehow your presence there has changed the face of this war, because your soldiers are for shit.”
He didn’t respond immediately, but stalked across the tent to stand right at the side of the cage, looming, staring down at me with narrowed eyes, his entire massive body poised for violence, his expression daring me to try a similar move on him. Which I wouldn’t. The sheer, animalistic power wafted off of him like a scent. It took every ounce of discipline within me not to back away.
“Do not make the mistake that idiot made,” he muttered as he unlocked the door and my pulse began to race as he swung it wide and beckoned me out. “Come. I have something to show you.”
Wary, every sense heightened, braced for pain, I crept out of the cage.
The moment I crossed the threshold of that door, he grabbed my wrist and yanked me out, turning me and pinioning both my wrists at the hollow of my back again as he leaned down, covering me with that massive, brutish body, and growled in my ear.
“This is your one and only warning.”
Skin prickling where his breath rushed against my ear, I didn’t respond as he reached for a small handle on the cage’s side.
With a simple tug, the massive cage jumped like a startled animal .
The hammered steel bars that made up the sides flashed. Wide, sharpened blades flipped out from each surface, poised and gleaming for the length of the bars from the floor to the top.
“Are you watching, Fetch? It’s a very important lesson.”
He didn’t wait for me to reply, but yanked down on that lever, and those blades—each longer and taller than me, creaked into gleaming arcs of death, slamming like a snapped jaw full of opposing fangs down to the bottom of the cage, slicing the blanket, pillow, and bucket to shreds, wood and girding alike, as easily as if it were butter—then sprang back up to catch those flying pieces mid-air and carve through them a second time.
My pulse slammed painfully inside my skull, thrumming in my ears so loudly I almost couldn’t hear Melek’s low chuckle. “You would be dead before you saw the hinges engage,” he whispered in my ear, his voice a dark rasp of promise. “If you don’t want to learn how it feels to be impaled by steel—or by Nephilim prick—you will be silent when you are not asked to speak. Do you understand?”
I swallowed hard and nodded, his stubbled jaw scraping against my ear because he hadn’t moved away.
For a moment I was frozen, sensing the shift in him as he became aware, just as I had, how closely we stood.
I was chilled in my wet clothes and hair, but his body was so large, the heat seemed to radiate from him, through my clothing, as his quickening breath rushed against my cheek.
Jangling, shrieking fear coursed through me as he rumbled deep in his chest and I felt it at the backs of my shoulders.
Then his thick, calloused fingers gripped my chin and he turned my head, forcing me to meet his eyes over my shoulder.
“I am a man of honor, Fetch. I do not make empty threats. One wrong move—one wrong word —and I will have you sliced to ribbons and my brothers will feast on your guts. Keep your mouth shut. Keep your hands in the cage. And do not toy with me or you will learn to your detriment that I say what I mean, and mean what I say.”
I blinked, but there was a creak and the world flipped, then I was being dragged backwards, away from the cage… and towards the bed.