4. Déjà Vu
SOUNDTRACK: Shadows by KILLBOY
~ YILAN ~
After such a late breakfast, I wasn’t hungry for lunch. But the bond was aching in my chest and I needed a reason to be close to Melek, even if he wasn’t ready to make a decision yet. So, I ordered a plate and a platter from the kitchens and carried them up the tower stairs myself.
As I walked, I wondered whether he even wanted the food, and grieved that I couldn’t speak in his head, or he in mine.
Despite our carefully guarded boundaries, the mindlink was an ability Shadekin took for granted, especially in crisis.
But I’d never heard of bonding someone outside our people. That had to present some kind of block.
Unfortunately, either Turo was following me, or God was insistent that I confront my issues, because the General appeared at my side just as I stepped into the winding, spiral stairwell of the tower to begin the climb four floors to its top.
“You shouldn’t be carrying this yourself,” he muttered, trying to take the platter from me. I turned my shoulder into him, refusing his help.
“He fed me when I was imprisoned by them. I’ll return the favor and get him talking,” I said flatly. “I need to wake Gall this afternoon. And I need Melek’s input before I do that. ”
Turo’s face went tight when I refused to give him the platter, but he stepped aside and let me take the stairs first, falling in behind me, no doubt ready to catch me if I fell. Which, with two hands full of plates and those fucking skirts was a far likelier scenario than I wanted to admit.
I was starting to sweat when I reached the top landing, but I ignored that fact as I reached the doors, stepping aside when Turo darted forward to unlock them for me.
“Thank you,” I said gently.
“Of course. Now, let me lead this interrogation—”
“No, Turo. You stay here,” I said firmly. “There is history between Melek and me. I know how to play this.”
He stared at me, his hand on the door, ready to pull it all the way open, but his jaw was tight.
“Yilan—”
“Open the door, then close it behind me. Please.”
He looked down at me, his brows pinching over his nose, his lips pursed. But then he clicked his heels and dropped his chin in a quick bow.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” he said through his teeth.
I sighed, but when he’d yanked the door open and stood aside at attention like a common footman, he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Thank you,” I murmured as I passed him. “And the formalities aren’t necessary.”
He didn’t respond, which was childish, but I didn’t have the time or energy to soothe him. I had to go to Gall soon.
Melek was lying on the bed when I entered, his large body sprawled, one leg dangling off the side and swinging loose. I scanned him with my eyes, wishing it was my hands tracing those ripples of muscle along his ribs, touching that puckered scar on his side.
Melek looked as if he didn’t even know I was there, his body slack and eyes on the ceiling. But I could feel his tension in the bond. And it twisted tighter when he looked down and saw me.
There was a small, pocket-door in the bars, a way to pass things in and out of the cell without offering enough room for the massive man to get free. I opened it and placed the large platter of food on the box underneath it. “Lunch,” I said quietly.
He didn’t move immediately. I relocked the pocket-door and walked as calmly as I could back to a small table and chairs on the edge of the room, pulling them into the center, right next to the bars. Then I sat down to eat.
By that time, Melek was sitting up, watching me with dark eyes. He still hadn’t said anything.
“I told you Gall is here,” I said casually, as if this were nothing more than an easy meal between friends. Or perhaps colleagues.
Melek grunted. He got off the bed and started over to where the platter lay on that box. He lifted it and sniffed it like he thought it might be tainted.
I ignored that dig and spoke while he carried it back to a table not far from where I sat.
“I’ve kept him asleep until now because I needed to see you and talk to you first. But I don’t want to keep him under any longer.
I’m going to wake him after I leave you.
I have a friend here. A servant who has helped with Istral for years.
She’s amazing. But every person is different.
If you have any… advice about ways to handle Gall when he’s confused, or disoriented, or how you’d like me to answer the questions he’ll inevitably have, I’m here so you can tell me.
And if you have a message to pass along, I’ll do that. ”
I took two mouthfuls—he took four—before he answered.
“I should be there. He needs to see a friendly face.”
The relief that sang through my body at the sound of his voice almost brought tears to my eyes.
“Normally, I would agree with you. But he still more-than-half believes you raped me,” I said bluntly. Wearily.
Melek stopped eating for a moment. He didn’t respond. Then he went back to his chewing, but much more slowly.
“I’m planning to tell him the truth,” I said. “All of it… since he knows the most important part already. If he remembers.”
Melek startled and looked up at me quickly. I saw the moment it occurred to him that it didn’t matter if Gall knew the truth about the rape because we were no longer in Nephilim hands.
But the matebond?
“What if he says something?” he asked quietly, his voice a low gravel that made my heart sing.
I shrugged as if I’d thrown caution to the wind, but my adrenaline spiked.
“That’s the other reason I’m here. I wanted to warn you…
I do not plan to take this decision from your hands.
But it’s possible he will, by accident. Of course, others might write it off as his…
limitations. Still. The risk remains. I didn’t want you to think I was tryi ng to trap you.
I believe we made a mistake not being open with him earlier. It’s an error I don’t want to repeat.”
“But you said no one could know that we’re mates,” he growled, stabbing his fork at the meat on his plate.
“That is only true as long as you refuse me and the crown.”
He stayed silent, chewing. Thinking.
Brooding.
I cleared my throat. “Unless… have you made a decision?”
He huffed. “I’m still trying to figure out what your angle is.”
“My angle?”
“Bringing me here, knowing all of this… It’s a very precarious position for you. I’m trying to figure out what you gain in doing so.”
I frowned. “I believe you’re the closest thing to a perfect example for a King. And you’re my mate—which means even God agrees with that conclusion. You were about to get yourself killed. Why wouldn’t I bring you here?”
Melek’s upper lip curled back as he glared at his plate. “I don’t buy it.”
I stared at him. “I don’t give a shit if you buy anything. It’s true.”
Melek dropped his fork to the plate with a clatter, glaring at me. “Then why not tell them all. Why not make me King anyway? Why ask me to agree?!”
“Because I, too, am a ruler, Melek. And I don’t believe in throwing people to the wolves. Even those strong enough to fight them. We should be in this together. Leading together.”
“Ah, so you want me on your side.”
I frowned. “Of course I do. You’re my mate and we’re vowed—what other side would I want you on?”
He leans over the table, eyes piercing. “You want me blind, gelded, and doing your bidding, so that you actually rule through me.”
I slammed my fork down on the table. “No, Melek. I want a partner. I want my mate. My Pair . I want to thrive, and I want you to thrive. And Gall and Istral and—
“Turo?” Melek snapped. “That’s his name, right? The General? Your general?”
“You are my General, you fuckwit,” I growled.
“Say the word, Melek. Just one word and I will tell the entire continent. I will claim you so loudly, they’ll hear me all the way in Valgorath City.
But when I do, you better be ready. Because there will be no room for hesitation.
I will claim you. They will claim you. And together we will rule. ”
“Claim me?” he growled.
“Yes, Melek, claim you. You are my mate. That is what mates do!”
Somehow, we were both on our feet, both leaning on the tables in front of us, eyes ablaze. The bond sang in my chest and that crackling, sizzling sensation that I’d felt with him before returned. As if there was power in the air, snapping and popping. As if my hair would rise off my head.
My heart raced. Through the bond, I could feel him thrumming too.
“Melek,” I breathed, unable to look away as whatever this was between us sizzled and grew.
I saw his eyes glaze. Watched his fingers claw into the table, his nails tearing gouges in the soft wood. With that loose shirt on, I couldn’t see his arousal in the flesh, but I felt it. Felt him coming alive. Felt him responding.
Yilan…
I heard my name in his deep, husky growl—the one that wanted me. But I wasn’t sure if he said the word, or it sang through the bond.
Though his eyes were locked on mine, they were unfocused. As if he watched whatever was in his mind that I couldn’t see because he didn’t know how to share it.
I felt it, though. In the bond and… felt him. My skin prickled and my breath quickened. An ache began between my thighs remembering the way he’d taken me against a tree that time—
Melek exploded, throwing the table aside, so food, platter, cutlery, everything exploded. “Get out of my fucking head!”
I startled. Heart pumping, yet body needing. “I—I’m not. Melek, I told you, I can’t if you don’t want me—”
“It’s what you do. How you manipulate me—the visions… stop!”
“Melek, I am not—!”
“I said, get OUT!”
He kicked the flipped table aside as he leaped towards me, and for a blink I forgot there were bars between us.
It was instinct to turn, to walk the shadows into the anteroom. I made it into the stairwell just as the doors flew open behind me and Turo stormed in bellowing orders .
The guards rushed forward to find me gone and the anteroom empty.
Unable to face them, I fled silently. Sprinting down the stairs. Praying they were too focused on Melek to see the signs of my shadow walking. And cursing myself for weeping.