15. Shifting Shadows
~ MELEK ~
The room was silent when I came out of sleep, and I wondered how late it was. But as I stretched and blinked at the dark, another shadow moved in my line of vision. I snapped my head around… to find Yilan swathed in dark leather and sitting in the windowsill inside my prison.
She sat curled into that deep sill, her back to the inside wall of it, hugging the one knee she’d drawn up to her chest, while the other dangled into the room towards the floor.
Her head was turned to look outside. She was bathed in moonlight, turning her skin silver and her hair, twisted into a topknot, into a gleam of white on inky black.
She didn’t look like she was aware I’d woken, but I felt the bond leap.
I rubbed my eyes to be certain she was really there.
The Queen of this place was gone—no diadem, no dress, no cloak—and replaced by the assassin.
Then she turned her head and locked those cat eyes on me.
I felt that surge in the bond again, but her expression remained blank, her wide lips unsmiling.
“What are you doing here?” I croaked, pushing up to sit without breaking eye-contact.
“Do you need anything?” she said abruptly. “Food? Drink? A bucket? ”
I frowned. “Yilan, what are you doing?”
“We need to talk. Uninterrupted. No one else. No thing else. Just us. If you have any needs, we should attend to them before we begin; I want to make sure you’re comfortable.”
“How would you—”
“I am Queen, Melek. I gave orders. Unless there is a significant change on the border, we won’t be interrupted until the morning after the one to come.”
She was here to talk… at length?
My heart spun a little, but my nerves spiked.
Jaw clenched because that cold, imperious tone of hers was back, I got to my feet and walked to the washbasin. I splashed water on my face, giving myself time to wake up. It was difficult to think with her here, looking like that… it seemed like a dream.
But after I’d breathed through the shock of the cold water and dried my face with the towel, she was still there. Sitting. Watching. Her expression blank.
I growled. “What are you doing?”
“No, Melek, what are you doing? A man of action? A man of honor? A soldier? A man who leads by example? What are you doing, sitting in here sulking and roaring like a stubborn child?”
“Child?” I hissed.
“Yes, mate, a child. At best, a moody adolescent.”
“I am imprisoned— please feel free to unmagik the windows, I’d be happy to show you how quickly a man can fly from here.”
It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but it seemed like she paled. Her throat bobbed and she looked out of the window to the land below as if she was considering what I’d said. But when she started speaking again it was through gritted teeth.
“You could be King,” she muttered. “You could bring peace—not just to your people and mine, but to the entire Continent. I am not aware of another single person capable of that, Melek. But you are. Under your banner, at your hand, every nation in the world has bowed or been conquered. You have the chance to stand tall and call every people of this land to peace. But instead, you sulk in here, glowering at me because I offer you a crown?!”
“The lies between you and I had nothing to do with the war—”
“Oh, bullshit. Seriously, Melek? You think I would have hidden anything if I wasn’t deep in the lair of my deadly enemy?
When we got here, I laid myself bare to you—I told you everything.
I gave myself—and my Kingdom—up for you.
I begged. And still you stomp around in here like a child sent to his room. ”
“I have been imprisoned! By the woman who claimed to love me. By the Queen who hid herself in my shadow. Do not speak to me of being childish—you knew exactly what we were walking into, and you told me nothing. You drugged me, kidnapped me, and removed all choice.”
Her jaw went tight. “Let’s fix that then, shall we?”
She slipped out of the window, her movements lithe like a cat, but there was barely a second to admire it because before my eyes she twisted into…
nothing. I heard a creak behind me and whirled to find her shoving the cell door open, swinging it wide, then she stood there, facing me, with her hands on her hips.
“I will have them unmagik the windows when we’re done—but no, actually.
There is no need. You won’t be here. You are free, Melek.
There is no lock on that door,” she said tipping her head towards the anteroom double-doors.
“If you want to go, go. I’ll tell the guards to leave you alone.
Or I’ll tell them you’re my mate. It’s your decision. ”
I stared at her for a long time, but she didn’t back down. I had no doubt she was telling the truth about the doors, and even the guards. I was certain she would let me walk.
The question was… why?
“What are you up to?” I growled.
She rolled her eyes and folded her arms. “I am fixing the problem and trying to get you to wake the fuck up.”
“The problem here,” I snapped, gesturing between us, “Is that you lied and kidnapped me. I am your mate!”
“My mate who had already made it abundantly clear that his choice was to plow off and get himself killed!”
“To save you—”
“I didn’t ask you to!”
“– and Gall!”
She jerked her head away, staring out the window behind me into the night sky.
“Gall is safe,” she said quietly. “If you’re worried about him, don’t be.
He’s… enthralled with my sister, and she’s equally besotted with him.
I don’t know what will become of it, but at least for now… they find comfort in each other.”
I blinked at the change of subject. And my heart rose a little. Gall was with her sister? “Is he imprisoned as well?” I growled .
She shook her head. “Istral’s companion and guard is staying with them.
I’ve kept a perimeter of guards around the property where they’re getting to know each other.
But at least for now, there hasn’t been need to restrain him.
Because of Istral, my people will be far more…
sympathetic to his limitations. But with his size and Nephilim-ness, they are wary, of course.
I’m keeping him mostly out of sight and doing my best to give him time to become accustomed to being here without frightening him—or them.
” Then she turned to meet my eyes again.
“I asked him to come speak with you, so you’d know he was safe, and he refused. ”
My stomach clenched. He’d said no? I had to turn away from the accusation in her eyes to take a breath and brace myself against the pain of my son’s rejection. I cleared my throat.
“He’ll come around,” I muttered. “He’s scared and confused, and I’m an easy target to blame. A safe target, because he knows he can come back to me.”
“That’s true,” she said. “But that’s not why he’s refusing. I told him the truth about us. Something I can now see that we should have done weeks ago because his reasoning for avoiding you now is that you lied to him… and you promised you never would.”
I whirled. “I didn’t lie! I just didn’t tell him everyth—” I cut off as she raised a single, pointed brow at me.
My skin felt too tight as the memory rushed back.
“I didn’t lie about anything,” she said hoarsely. “I just… didn’t tell you everything.”
“Well, you left out a whole fucking lot!”
I waited for her smug I told you so, but instead, her forehead crinkled. “I agreed with you back in the camp,” she said quietly. “I agreed that it was a risk to tell him. But we were wrong, Melek. We should have told him.”
I sighed and dropped my chin, clawing both hands through my hair.
Yilan swallowed. “And I should have told you,” she whispered.
My head snapped up and I locked eyes with her, wary.
Her eyes never left mine. “I do trust you, Melek. I do believe you’re mine, chosen for me, and…
and the right one to be King. But—” she said quickly when I opened my mouth, “I can see now, I should have told you the position I hold, and how that would affect you. I should have described the obstacles we faced and… and told you why I was so eager for you to take the crown. I should have trusted you with that, and I didn’t. And I’m sorry. ”
I was stunned. She hadn’t looked away. Wasn’t avoiding my gaze.
“Yet, I also know that I had no choice but to bring you here against your will because your people would have killed you.” Her chin was high, not with the disdain of a Queen but with the pride and honor of a soldier.
And the bond thrummed.
“You tell me I should have trusted you, and I agree. Once we were bound, I should have told you who I am. But you were blind, Melek. And somehow determined to die for your honor. If you would just consider declaring —”
“I am not a King, Yilan! I am a soldier—”
“Then fucking fight!” she snarled. Her eyes went wide, blazing with rage. “Fight the wrong in this world! Fight the wrong in this war! Fight for us! Fight for me!”
My head snapped back at her fire, but there were also tears in her eyes.
She took a step closer. “Melek, none of us has gotten all of this right. But, wake up! You are wasted here. You are wasting yourself, refusing to even consider what I’m offering you. What God Himself has placed in front of you. A divine purpose—does that mean nothing?”
“Of course not,” I growled.
She threw up her hands. “Then why do you resist?”
“Because I don’t trust that you’re being honest with me!
” I snarled, my heart pinching at the pain that flashed in her eyes.
But it was only truth. “You have turned my world upside down and expect me to thank you for it? I knew my place in this world. I knew the role I had been given to play. I have walked through decades on this earth as a soldier and leader—never as a ruler. The only rulers I’ve ever met are ambitious, selfish, self-centered cunts who have to be convinced not to use their own people as fodder for their whims. I had always vowed never to be that man. ”
“So, you resist because your pride is pricked?” she asked, incredulous.
I swelled. “No, Yilan. I resist becoming what Gault was—and what I now fear you are!”
“I am a Queen, willing to do anything to keep my people safe.”
“You are a mate willing to do anything to get your way,” I growled.
Her eyes narrowed. “That’s what you think I’ve been doing? That’s what you see in me? Petty pride?”
I walked right up to where she stood in the doorway of the cage, stopped at her toes and loomed over her.
“If you had asked me a week ago who you were, I would have sung your praises to the heavens—brave, strong, clever, cunning. But that was when I thought you would use your strengths for me, not against me.”
“I am!” she snapped.
I huffed. “And that is the royal way. To see the world only through your perspective—and the people around you as pieces in a game, to be moved as you see fit, with no thought for how it might affect them.”
Her jaw dropped. “You think I have no thought for the feelings of others?”
“You certainly haven’t thought about mine.”
Her mouth closed and her jaw went tight. “I was wrong,” she said through clenched teeth. Then she lifted one hand, jabbing a finger into my chest. “You are not a child. You’re a fucking infant.”