Page 17 of The King’s Man (The Kingdom of the Krow #3)

~ DIADRE ~

Progress on the first day traveling back was slower than I thought.

After that awkward drink the night before, I worried things might be tense between us.

But Jann was not only not awkward, he was clearly tired and uninterested in talking.

Not at all hesitant to let me see that. So I let him be silent.

When we reached camp the first night, I was surprised. After a night in the Palace and in my own bed, the furs around the fire shouldn’t have seemed welcoming, yet I found myself far more eager for them than not.

It was on the second day of travel that we made up the time.

Without having to ride or walk and follow the pass through the Shadows, we cut miles off the journey.

And after all the climbing the day before to make certain we bedded high on the mountain to give us the best chance of catching the angle of the sun and setting our course correctly, the majority of his flight was gliding, wheeling circles, catching wind flows and riding them down, down, down.

We were back to the Nephilim camp by early afternoon. A stunning feat.

Yet, after two near-silent days, when we landed on the rise where we’d so fatefully left Gall and Istral days before, the dread I’d been feeling could no longer be avoided.

As our feet hit the ground, Jann held me tightly to his chest to keep me upright until I found my balance after all that wheeling. For a moment, I didn’t want him to let go. I didn’t want to be released to find my best friend—and Queen—and deliver the horrific news that would break her heart.

I didn’t want to hear her despair, or watch Melek grieve.

I didn’t want to see them face this together. The thought was intrusive. Shocking. Petty. Where had it come from?

“They’ll have seen our approach,” Jann breathed in my ear, his weary voice little more than rough gravel tumbling down a hill. “I can do it,” he said grimly. “I can tell Melek, and he’ll tell Yilan.”

I shook my head. “No. She’s my friend. I have to… I have to do it. She deserves that. If the roles were reversed, I’d want to hear it from her.”

That thought resolved me. I shrugged off Jann’s arms and stepped out, handing him his bag and bedroll, and pulling mine around and over my shoulder so that it hung down my back.

“Jann, thank you for carrying me when you’re so tired. I know that was hard. I’m—”

“Dee!”

Yilan’s high cry pierced my heart as swiftly as an arrow.

Jann and I both turned to find her sprinting from the forest that surrounded the path below that led to the Nephilim camp.

Jann had been right. They’d seen us coming.

Dear God.

“Dee!” Yilan called, pushing for more speed as she scaled the hill towards us. “What news? Where are—”

She blinked and cut off, her steps slowing from a sprint to a run, then a jog. Then a walk.

She was still fifty feet away when her hands rose to her mouth and I saw her eyes well.

I shook my head, unable to fight back fresh tears for poor Istral and sweet Gall and what must have happened to them. Sickened by it, and brokenhearted. I’d been pushing the feelings aside, focused only on the mission. But now.

“Yilan,” I croaked and started towards her. “I’m so sorry.”

“No.” She sobbed and backed away one step, shaking her head. “No.”

“I’m sorry, Yilan. She’s not… we didn’t find her. We didn’t find either of them.”

“NO!” Yilan cried, but instead of running as I thought she would, she dropped to her knees, right there on the trail. “No!”

I was rushing to her when Melek’s roar shook the trees.

It seemed to rush up the land like the wind, rustling leaves.

I’d reached Yilan, was dropping to the earth, one hand on her shoulder, pleading with her to forgive me for not bringing better news, rushing to reassure her that we would find her— when a shadow passed over us and I flinched.

A moment later, with a strangled cry of Yilan’s name, Melek landed to my right, thudding to the ground and catching his weight like he’d dropped straight out of the air.

Yilan’s head snapped up and she launched herself at him, crying, throwing herself into his chest. He snarled and swept her up, snapped those wings once, and they both shot into the sky.

“Stop! Melek! She needs to cry—”

A thick, warm hand caught my arm as I ran, tugging me to a stop.

I whirled to find Jann at my side, his eyes on the black shadow shooting higher into the sky. “Leave them. They need time. They both know what this means. It means the Fallen are involved and they’re blaming themselves. And Yilan needs him as much as he needs her right now—”

“Let me go!” I snapped, yanking my arm from his grip and shoving him away. “I don’t need you to explain my own best friend to me!”

Jann barely swayed back at my push, but his expression grew tight. “You aren’t the only one concerned for them. But this isn’t the time to give in to emotion—”

“Not the time?” I gasped.

Jann’s eyes were dark. “The King and Queen have lost their son and sister. They need to grieve. So we, who’ve had time to process, we have to be strong. This isn’t the time for weeping and wailing. This is the time to be measured and logical—”

“Not the fucking time? Tell me, Jann, when is the time to grieve poor Istral? When is the time to be sad for Gall?”

His lips twisted. “Fucking women, always twisting words and their meanings. That’s not what I meant. If you could stop being deafened by your feelings for one moment—”

Rage roared through my bones as surely as Melek’s had shaken the trees.

“Don’t give me your Alpha male bullshit about not the time when I’m the only one in this Godforsaken camp who cares.

The only one who has fucking feelings instead of roaring around, taking control, because you’re all so idiotically sure that the world and truth will bow to your superior fucking strength —”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not! It’s what you do! Growl and snap and intimidate with your looming and your threats and whatever the fuck other sick things you and your brothers think about—and that disgusting, abhorrent cesspit you call a culture , that’s what Istral’s dealing with.

Right now! Right now, we’re here safe and fed and…

and unharmed and she’s out there somewhere getting raped and destroyed and that’s fucking horrific, so don’t tell me not to fucking feel it! ”

“I didn’t,” he growled, baring his teeth, and then—without any fucking irony!

—stepped right up to loom over me. “I didn’t tell you not to feel, Diadre.

I told you not to give in. Their grief is more important than ours, and that means that we carry the responsibility—the privilege!

—of standing, clear-headed, and handling shit while they grieve.

You can weep all you please when the job is done, but if this is how you handle crisis when it comes, stop whining to me about men not respecting you because you’re a woman.

It’s not your cunt they refuse to follow—it’s this mindless hysteria that—”

I slapped him so hard the crack echoed up the mountainside.

And the fucker closed his eyes, but didn’t even flinch.

“How’s that for hysteria?” I hissed. “And by the way—there’s nothing mindless about deciding to tell you to fuck all the way off.”

Then I turned on my heel and stormed back towards the camp. But the tears… the tears blurred my vision and made my chest hitch.

“Diadre—”

He sounded so weary. And so sad. And that made me more angry because how the fuck did he switch gears so fucking fast?

The ground grew steeper, and soon I was running.

Running. And weeping. And not fucking hysterical. I was thinking. Because this was so much bullshit, and I would find a way to locate Istral and get her away from these monsters forever.

After I killed any of them who touched her.

*****

~ JANN ~

It wasn’t until I stood over her and her eyes went wide that I realized I was doing exactly what she accused me of, and it pissed me off.

I wasn’t going to hurt her! I was trying to help her see sense!

But I’d always been too honest. Too blunt. I was quivering with the grief of this too—did she really believe I was untouched by Gall’s death? By the thought of Istral being pawed and violated by the Fallen? Did she really think I wasn’t sickened by that mental picture?

But I wouldn’t give in to despair. I was going to fight.

Unfortunately, she was the only opponent in sight at that moment. It wasn’t until she’d slapped me that I clicked.

“How’s that for hysteria?” she hissed, nothing short of pure hate in her eyes. “And by the way—there’s nothing mindless about deciding to tell you to fuck all the way off.”

It was a mistake. All of it. Every word.

I should have just held her back and waited until she’d calmed down.

I should have kept my mouth shut. I should have kept her out here for a time while we swallowed back the grief and got our feet under us again.

Then we could work together to prepare for what must happen next.

“Diadre—”

But she ran. She didn’t even look back, just took off down the path back to the camp.

I waited, gathering myself, trying to do exactly as I’d told her was needed: Think. Assess. Choose wisely.

Wearily, muttering at myself for being an ass, I followed after her—slower so she wouldn’t think I was chasing. But knowing this conversation wasn’t over.

It had only taken seconds for her to disappear under the trees. I’d follow slowly. Give her time to calm. Approach softly instead of growling and looming like she’d said.

Fuck.

But suddenly my heart went cold.

Diadre was emotional, grieving, running, and Melek was gone who-knows-where with Yilan.

She would tear into that camp and find herself surrounded by Nephilim warriors.

And even though I knew Melek was enforcing this new peace, this new philosophy, I also knew it had been less than a week.

Even with Melek dominant, in the wake of that battle we were down so many men, the hierarchy was still bearing out.

I hadn’t had to a chance to talk to Melek and see what had transpired while we were gone.

Were the men settled or tense? With Gall’s disappearance, did they see a battle to be fought?

Or an opportunity for their own increase since Melek would need an heir?

Were they now more committed to following? Or was he facing greater challenge?

Too many things had changed for the men to have given more than a passing thought to Melek’s new direction when it came to women and reproduction.

And Diadre had just walked into that camp?

Alone?

I had already picked up my pace when I heard a distant shriek and my bloodstream went up in flames.

Launching into the sky, heedless of tired wings, I clawed through the air, over the trees and a minute later dropped like a stone to the path where it bisected the swarm of tents—half of them empty now because of the carnage my brothers had wreaked on each other.

A few nearby heads turned when I landed hard, shaking the earth, but as I straightened, none of them seemed concerned.

“Where is she?” I snarled. Let them think I was angry and would discipline her for fleeing. I didn’t care. But those closest just looked at each other. “Where the fuck is she?!” I roared.

When one of them pointed, I tore in the direction he’d indicated, but my head and heart both shrieked, grabbing my ribs and shaking them like bars on a cage.

Where was she? Who the fuck put their hands on my mate?!