16. The Impossible
~ MELEK ~
“No thought for others?” she seethed. “So, you have conveniently forgotten that I asked for none of this, either? That I had not only my feelings to consider, but the health and well-being of an entire Kingdom to consider?”
“You should have told me.”
“Why? So, you could use me in service to your disgusting, petty King?”
“No, Yilan, so we could figure out the way forward together.”
“Events surpassed us. There was no time. And my mate insisted on getting himself killed.”
I glowered at her. “I can admit that I was stubborn—”
“Oh, so big of you.”
“—when I thought there was no one affected by my choices but me and Gall. You see, Yilan, that’s the danger of omission. You were moving pieces in a game I didn’t know we were playing. You trap me, shackle me, then wonder why I am defeated?”
She shook her head. “Is this truly all it takes to emasculate you?”
I growled, but she kept going.
“You were beaten. Defeated, yes. And kept safe. But your pride is so impenetrable you cannot see that we were given to each other by God? I didn’t steal you from that camp to beat the Nephilim.
I stole you to save your fucking life. I didn’t bring you here to be my King on a leash, Melek.
It is how our society has found their King for millennia.
I did not conjure shackles for you from thin air—”
“I understand that.”
“Then why do you resist?!”
It was the very question I’d been asking myself for an hour before I went to sleep. The very question I wanted to avoid. Because the truest answer was unflattering, a challenge to who I thought I was, and the consequence of accepting it was… overwhelming.
“Firstly, because you blindsided me,” I snarled, rage at the deception and manipulation she’d wrought rushed back, battering my chest until I had to brace or lash out.
I fought with myself for control. “Once the shock passed, I looked at this from every angle. But I cannot see a way through this without… rebellion,” I muttered, “without becoming the very thing I have despised in others. My only choices are to choose you, abandon my people and turn against them, or to grasp a crown I never wanted and attempt to turn the tide of my society from within—and be at war with you. There is nothing… There is no winning—”
“Be exactly what you are, but from the throne,” she insisted. “Not a rebel. Not a traitor. A leader who sees clearly and desires better and molds the minds and hearts around him towards peace. Be that, Melek. Be the man that I know you are.”
Brimming with frustration, I took a step forward. “It’s not that simple!”
“Yes, it is. Only, it will be a battle to convince my people that not all of yours are bad. A fight to convince your people that there is another way to live. A battle to bring them together. That is why God appointed it to a soldier. Because He knew it was a fight.”
I blinked. I’d never thought of it that way. I caught a glimpse then of how it could be, how I could lead.
An example. An immovable force. To shift culture and mindset and…
But then I tried to imagine the Nephilim doing anything but conquering these people and knew it for the fantasy that it was.
“Na?ve, and impossible,” I growled.
“Nothing is impossible with God.”
“Then God should have appointed you King! Because clearly you have all the answers!”
~ YILAN ~
I flinched. It was only reflex. An adrenaline rush, then gone. But he caught it.
He froze. Neither of us spoke. Then his eyes closed and he cursed and turned away, striding to the other side of the room, muttering under his breath as my heart struggled to find a normal rhythm again, and I was forced to admit that I’d done exactly what I’d told myself I wouldn’t do…
Dammit.
I cleared my throat. “I wasn’t going to bring up the crown again. That wasn’t why I came tonight. That’s not… I’ve avoided the true problem here.”
He went still again, then turned to face me, his expression confused and wary. His brows pinched down over his nose, making his rugged face even fiercer.
He was so handsome, even when he stared at me like I made no sense. “I have never denied that the question of the crown is real, Yilan,” he growled. “Only—”
“It’s not the most important question, though,” I said, finding myself a little breathless, my lungs unwilling to inflate completely.
His frown deepened. “It’s not?”
“No, because… at least in my nation, the only reason you hold any power is because of… of our bond. If you…” God, the words didn’t want to come.
I tore my gaze from his, fixed my eyes on the floor.
Made myself speak them. “If you truly do not want to be a… a rebel in the eyes of your people, you would only need to reject our bond. Without me, you have no standing here. Without the bond, you would be free to… to go.”
The word tasted so bitter on my tongue my entire body tensed.
“There is no freedom left to me, Yilan,” he said darkly. “No matter which way I turn, no matter which option I choose—I will never be free again.”
“I can make you free,” I said hoarsely, swallowing again and again to press away the lump building in my throat. “If you would reject me… if you would sever the bond… I can make you free. I have the power to do so. They would never know.”
But I would. I would feel it to my soul for the rest of my life. Even thinking about losing Melek made my heart pump wildly and the bond shriek with pain.
Did he feel that too? Or had he walled himself off from that, as well?
He grunted. “Is that what you want?”
I looked at him in shock. “Of course not!”
“Then why even—”
“Because I also do not want a mate who believes he was tricked into the bond and has been caged there. I know the feeling of being trapped, Melek. Doomed to a match you would not choose, forced to find the best way through it. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone—least of all you.
You are my soul. If you fought the bond, if you didn’t want it, it would kill me.
But at least I could grieve in peace. Not having to watch you despise me—”
“I do not despise you,” he growled.
“Don’t you?”
We stared at each other. He’d gone very still. I clenched my fists tighter and made myself give him the out. “The deepest question isn’t whether you would be King,” I breathed. “The point on which all of this hinges is… do you want me? Because if you don’t, the rest becomes… irrelevant.”
He still didn’t move, but I saw his breathing pick up. Then he rolled his jaw. He looked away, muttering—then his eyes came back to mine with a strange, feral light.
Fear was a block of ice in my chest, freezing my lungs.
I gripped at the bond, dug nails into it, internally shrieking that I was on the cusp of losing him, pleading with God to keep my heart beating when he tore half of it away.
Then he moved in that way he had—liquid quiksilver, one moment standing halfway across the room, the next looming over me, standing toe-to-toe, eyes afire and upper lip beginning to pull back from his teeth.
“You’re telling me,” he seethed, “that you wouldn’t fight? That you’d let me walk away—sever the bond, turn my back, and return to my people free? ”
I nodded quickly because saying yes would carve out my tongue. “If that was what you chose, I wouldn’t stop you. And I would… arrange it so you could flee safely. ”
He leaned down over me, fierce, his hands fisted at his sides. “You want me to believe you wouldn’t have me killed if I turned my back on you?”
I nodded again. “I don’t deny the bond, Melek. Killing you would… destroy me.”
“Then what,” he snarled, “on God’s green earth makes you think I would just walk away from you?!”
I blinked. Confused because his words didn’t match the rage burning in his eyes. But before I could ask, his hands snapped to my face, and he puttered a fierce growl as he pulled me up to my toes and kissed me.