The King is Dead (The Kingdom of the Krow #2)

1. The King is Dead

Map of the Continent

~ YILAN ~

I stood in the small anteroom of the lavish tower cell we’d given Melek, barely able to breathe.

Before me, the bars rose, dark steel rods only inches apart, buried by magic in the stone floor and ceiling.

The room was bright, light pouring in from the wide windows at each of the six walls that made up three quarters of the tower’s round sides—light that silhouetted my mate and only emphasized his angry posture.

His broad, muscled shoulders rose and fell with his breath, his eyes narrowed and piercing, locked on mine.

Melek was the embodiment of a warrior. Of death. And he was furious. I didn’t miss that he hadn’t manifested his wings, though. Thank God. Even without them, he dwarfed the tower room behind him, though it was one of the largest we had.

The massive four-poster bed had been taken out and dusted off from a former King’s storage because it was the only one long enough to allow him to lay down without his feet hanging off the end.

The carvings on it had been fashionable over a century ago.

But all that dark wood, normally so heavy and depressing, barely registered behind the black fury in his gaze.

My heart raced in my chest.

Everything else we’d placed in this room was the largest we had on hand.

The drawers were almost tall enough to suit him.

But the side tables and washstand seemed frail next to his might, like they might topple in fear when he passed.

The shelving reached the ceiling, so appeared in proportion, yet I knew most of our books would seem like a child’s in his hands.

All of it felt… inadequate to him as he stood, looming over me on the other side of those bars that I cursed for keeping us apart. We’d already spent far too much time apart.

For months he’d held me imprisoned among his people.

But after he’d sensed our matebond everything shifted.

His cruelty became devotion and covert protection.

When he claimed me like a possession before his men, but as a precious lover in private, my mission to kill him had become a mission to convince him to take the crown and lead his people to peace.

And we would have gotten there if it weren’t for his stupid, alpha male pride.

He’d left me no choice but to remove him by force!

I would remind him of that. But first we had to convince my people that he wasn’t a threat.

After my lengthy, unplanned absence, followed by my unannounced reappearance…

well, the Shadekin were understandably nervous.

Especially since I hadn’t warned them I would arrive burdened with two massive, unconscious Nephilim.

I had convinced my General, Turo, that there was a risk of being betrayed and ambushed if anyone knew we were returning. Which was true. But it had also given me the few days travel between Melek’s camp and the Palace to think.

I’d had no choice but to imprison both Melek and his son, Gall.

At this moment, Gall remained asleep in an unused barracks, watched over by Wielders who would keep him in that state. I planned to wake him tomorrow after I’d had it out with Melek and knew whether my mate would reject our bond or not.

My hope was that Melek would accept the bond and the crown, and by the time we woke Gall, there would no longer be need for Melek to be restrained.

God, even thinking those words made my chest tight.

I took a deep breath and made myself hold Melek’s gaze despite the rage and accusation in his eyes which slid between my ribs and into my heart.

It was true this room was every bit a prison. I hoped he recognized it was also much nicer and more comfortable than the cage I’d been given by him when our roles were reversed. I took no pleasure in curbing his freedom. Unlike the delight he’d taken in capturing me months ago .

On the other side of the bars, amid the lavish tower room with magiked windows so he couldn’t conjure those wings and fly out, stood my male.

Imposingly tall, broad, and fierce, even weakened as he was now after being drugged for days.

He wore nothing but a sleepshirt. It was the only piece of clothing we had on hand big enough for him and it still didn’t even reach his knees.

I had kept his weapon straps and spears, and we were laundering the clothes he’d been wearing.

More would be made of appropriate size. But it would take a few days. Until then…

I drank him in. Ached to get closer. I pressed myself against the bars, pleading with eyes and tone as I explained what had happened, and confronted him with the full truth of my standing.

Do you have the ear of the King? he’d once asked me, not knowing that he was my King.

God, this was ugly.

He stood there in his fancy prison, face cold, hands clenched, staring at me like I was a piece of shit on his shoe.

But I was not inconvenient manure. I was a Queen, dammit!

I had no choice but to gather my dignity and face him down with the truth.

“…I am Queen. That makes my mate, my pair , our King.” I raised my chin and pinned him with my eyes.

“Do you hear me, Melek? You said God chooses rulers. Well, He chose you as my mate. And in my culture, the King always outranks the Queen. It is the Queen’s most important responsibility to choose the right man for the crown.

And I did.” I swallowed hard. “So, if you’re really my mate, that makes you King of the Shadekin.

Chosen by God. If you believe I can’t lead them into truth, well…

can you? Because you’re about to get your chance.

That is… if you are willing to claim me as mate and will allow me to do the same. ”

His jaw dropped and he gaped, but I held my ground.

“I didn’t wait to tell my people because I was faking the bond,” I muttered. “I waited because it’s real. And because the moment I acknowledge you, you become our King. And hear me, Melek, mate or not… I will not hand my Kingdom to a coward.”

His eyes widened, then he blinked as his head snapped back.

“You would give me your Kingdom?” He sounded scandalized.

I bristled. “By our customs, God already gave it to you. That is, if you accept me as your mate? If you trust our bond is real?”

Our eyes locked then and his heavy, dark brows drew down. “Is it?” he growled .

“Yes! Unless you have somehow possessed me?” I tried to joke, but it fell flat.

One of those glorious growls rolled in his throat. “Of course not!”

Thank God he wasn’t denying it. “Then once again, you have a choice to make. Because if I claim you, if I tell them you’re my mate, you are our King. There is no other option.”

Melek’s breath rushed out of him. He shook his head slowly, eyes still locked on me. Yet he was trembling.

My heart went out to him. I leaned into the bars, would have walked the shadows and passed through them if only he’d softened. If only he’d let himself want me close.

But the longer he stared, the longer he shook his head, the higher the flames of anger blazed in his eyes.

“You knew,” he seethed. “All that talk of crowns and purposes—”

“Yes, I did. And I could have forced you. I could have brought you here and proclaimed you while you slept. You would have woken with a crown on your head and your people already gathered.”

“Instead, you trap me so you can tell yourself I chose it?”

“I saved you! From yourself!” I hissed.

“You drugged me, abducted me, and now you’ve put me in a cage—” He cut off when I arched a brow, his lips thinning as he clawed a hand through his hair. “Our circumstances are not the same. I didn’t know you were my mate when I—”

“You’re right. Neither of us knew then. But now? Here? I do.”

He glared, but I met his gaze evenly.

“Melek, I will not apologize for taking you away from that shitshow—a King who was trying to take you down and rivals who’d turn on you the moment they saw a weakness.

You know they’d have executed you for Gault’s murder!

If you expected me to let you walk to your death for the sake of some ridiculous sense of honor—”

“I was trying to save your life and Gall’s!”

“Well, you didn’t need to, as you can see,” I said.

“Gall,” Melek breathed, his eyes widening. “Where is he? Did you leave him?!”

Of all the things he’d thrown at me tonight, that was the most offensive. “Of course I didn’t!” I hissed. “He’s perfectly safe! I would never have left him. I can’t believe you’d even think—”

“You don’t want to know half of what I think of you right now, Yilan,” Melek said darkly.

My breath left me in a rush, and I felt cold. I licked my lips which suddenly felt very dry. “Melek, I know this has been a shock—”

He hacked a sharp, humorless laugh. “This isn’t a shock, Yilan. A bird startling from a bush is a shock. An unexpected visitor is a shock. This is… This is unforgivable.”

“Truly, Melek? You want me to believe that if I’d been the one running away to get myself killed, you would have just sat back and waved goodbye? Taken Gall, and gone on your merry way? You want me to believe that if the roles were reversed you would have left me in Nephilim hands?” I hissed.

He glowered, but didn’t reply.

“That’s what I thought. At least you have the decency not to lie to my face,” I muttered.

“I’m trying to set an example,” he shot back.

I was about to snap at him again—remind him that he’d been the stubborn martyr unwilling to listen to any plan beyond his own—when I saw his fingers tremble. He quickly closed his hands to fists to hide it, but he was a blink too slow.

My heart ached. Worse, my soul was throbbing with pain. I had to tell him. Had to remind him. But he was so angry!

Then I remembered those shaking hands and that initial threat he’d leveled at my maid when he thought she was the Queen, and she was holding me from him.

I took a deep breath, braced, and laid myself bare.

“Melek… I didn’t lie to you. None of what I told you was untrue.

I would swear to that on my grave. I love you.

I accept that you can hate my methods, disagree with my conclusions, even despise me for the choices I’ve made…

but do not believe that I am anything but your mate, and I did all this because I was desperate not to lose you.

” Tears pinched my eyes, but I blinked them back.

“I know I have forced your hand. And I know that this is… difficult. Say the word, I will free you. I will put my entire nation in your very capable hands. The moment I spoke vows to you, I knew what I was offering you—even if you didn’t.

That’s how deeply I trust your judgment. ”

He blinked, but his expression didn’t change.

I was growing frantic. “I have spent the days of travel pleading with God to show you how to forgive me. That he’d show you why I did this.

That you’d remember, in my place you would have made the same choice.

But even if you can’t. Even if you reject the bond and leave me, I will not regret this.

Because it means you’re still alive and…

and I couldn’t live in a world in which you didn’t exist.”

I swallowed hard. This was the most vulnerable I’d ever allowed myself to be with a man. When he didn’t answer immediately, I felt as if I’d been stripped naked and displayed on the stage for the Court.

“Melek… please.”

He stared, his eyes shadowed, dark circles under them despite the fact that he’d been asleep for the better part of a week . Those little muscles at the back of his jaw flexed.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He tore his eyes from mine and turned his head away, then snapped it back to look at me when I shifted on my feet. My heart rose when he opened his mouth.

“I need time to think.”

My rising heart plummeted to my toes. But at least he wasn’t cursing me anymore.

I nodded slowly and took a step away from the bars, clasping my hands at my waist.

“Of course,” I murmured. “Yes, of course. You need time. I… I will bring you reports and answer any questions you have. I’ll let you know when Gall’s awake and…

and anything else you need. But please, Melek, think quickly.

The situation at the front grows chaotic.

I am already holding Turo back. And he isn’t wrong: The time to attack is now.

But I haven’t, Melek. I haven’t. Because… because it needs to be your choice.”

He huffed. “You’ll forgive me if I’m not inclined to believe you put a great deal of stock in my choices.”

I pursed my lips. “And you’ll forgive me if I think you’re being deliberately stubborn, because we both know you would have tied me up and run me out of there faster than Gault came in a bayan girl.”

He sneered. “Is that language becoming a Queen?”

“I’m not a Queen here, Melek. Not with you,” I breathed. “With you I’m just a woman. Just your mate.”

His forehead creased and he took a step closer, then another one, right up to the bars, where he stood staring down at me with a strange expression. “You’re wrong,” he said in a low, husky voice. “That’s where you’re very wrong. You were always a Queen.”

“Melek—”

“You should have told me, Yilan. You should have trusted my judgment then as you claim to now.” While I was still gaping at him, he turned his back and walked away, towards the tray on the bedside table. “Leave me. I need to think.”

I stood there, conflicting emotions at war in my chest. He’d made me feel small and scared. And yet, he was no longer snarling curses.

Elation, fear, anger, humility, indignation, insecurity, hope …

they were all there, and all fighting to be felt .

But he just stood on the other side of the room, picking at the fruit and cheese, ignoring me.

And after staring at his shoulders, his hair messy, his warrior’s length tumbling down his back, tangled and dull, and the quick, efficient movements of those hands that were sources of such pleasure and strength, it came home to me that I had laid my heart bare, and he’d offered nothing in return.

I couldn’t get away fast enough. I bolted.

I turned on my heel and fled into the shadows and through the anteroom doors without touching them. Like a child running from a hurtful friend. Only worse.

Because I was very much a woman.

And he was the twin of my soul.

I’d told him I loved him and meant it.

And he hadn’t even smiled.