38. The Wanting
~ YILAN ~
As the drumbeats crescendoed, I felt drunk with wanting. Melek’s need poured through the bond. Nothing within me wanted to deny him. I ached. And I felt him yearning in return.
But I had been so focused on him—catching him with my eyes when I could, but turning my attention inwards to the bond and drawing him there when I couldn’t—that as the dance drew to a close I was trembling.
The drums slowed, and our swinging hips with them. We would turn two more circles on the spot, and then the women who’d been protecting us would turn outwards, choosing men to allow them to approach.
It was tradition that now the men would be allowed to step forward and make their cases, to describe the value they held for the dancer of their choice, and to offer themselves as mate and husband.
As the final drumbeats pounded the air, I lifted my head to find Melek staring at me over the crowd in front of him, his eyes dark with need, and his entire body tense. Poised. Aching.
My heart swelled. I smiled as the women at the front parted, because my soul knew he was coming for me.
I was disoriented when a smaller, leaner figure broke through the line and threw himself at my feet.
I blinked, staring, uncomprehending.
Turo, my mind said. It’s Turo .
I grieved as I was forced to watch Turo stumble to his knees, drop his head, and plead his case.
“…beauty and strength. I know I haven’t given you everything you’ve needed, and I am so deeply sorry. But I see it, Yilan. I know you are no na?ve girl. Please… let me prove myself to you once and for all.”
He lifted his head and his eyes were bloodshot. His hands clawed into the grass just a few steps from my toes. His rugged face was tight, tormented.
“I have the strength to bolster your strength, my love,” he rasped.
“I have the skill to protect you in yours. I have the desire to-to celebrate you. Do not deny me this opportunity. No matter what has passed before, I have remained. I love you, Yilan—do you hear me? I am the One. I will serve. Do not let anyone else erode what we have built—”
Sucking in a breath, I blinked and instinctively looked up—searching for Melek, a weak moment of needing his reassurance and support as I was about to break this man’s heart. But just as my head snapped up and I looked for my mate, there was a shadowy movement at the back of the crowd.
I thought the deep, dark silhouette of wings unfurling, framing dozens of men was Melek. But as my mouth dropped open our eyes locked, and it wasn’t the gleaming green of my lover’s joy, or even his warrior ferocity that met me.
It was the gleaming, glowing gold of a Fallen Angel looming over the men, a saucy half-smile on his stunningly handsome face.
Mine.
The word echoed in my head as his tongue darted out to lick his lips.
And I screamed bloody murder, scrambling back and away so fast I almost plowed right into the bonfire itself.
But as I drew up short, those same golden eyes appeared in the flames, and that laughing evil echoed in my head again.
Mine.
Despite shrieks of protest, and bellowed pleas, I fled like a cat with its tail on fire, the only sound was my heart pounding in my ears, my feet slapping the earth, and that sinister laughter bouncing in my skull.
Please, God. Save me. Don’t let him touch me. Don’t let him near. I can’t… I won’t!
As I sprinted back towards the Palace, a chorus of shouts and warnings bouncing off the air behind me, I continued to pray. To plead with God never to leave me in the hands of that monster.
Never.
~ MELEK ~
It was mayhem when she fled. There was no time to think.
Here and there around the circle, different men had been allowed entrance to the space nearest the flames and they were pleading their cases, begging the women to choose them over others.
I’d been about to roar forward and rip Turo away, force him to watch me throw myself at her feet and demand she choose me—but as I took the first, staggering step, her eyes came up and locked. Not on me, but on something over my shoulder.
And she screamed.
Adrenaline shot through me and I roared, shoving forward at the same time half the men in the crowd shouted and turned, those nearest deciding that the threat was me.
But there was enough confusion and enough bodies that I could hide in the chaos. Using my wings to obscure me in the darkness, I twisted and sank to a crouch so my form was below the level of the other men, then I got the hell out of there.
I was too big and going to attract too much attention if I took off after her through the crowd and that line of women. Instead, I was forced aside and away, wide of the gathering, to dart between trees and finally make my way back to the Palace.
I ran on pure instinct, knowing that something had frightened her, that she’d run to her safest space. I needed to be there to hold her and soothe her. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but I knew that.
Inspiration hit, and as I ran deep enough into the gardens to be hidden from view of the others racing back to the Palace, I turned mid-step and changed trajectory.
She’d be guarded and watched. Protected.
I couldn’t risk them holding me back from her. I’d end up tearing out a throat .
So I took the long route around the palace walls, through the gardens, to the other side of the royal wing and launched myself straight into the air, flapping a dozen times to get myself high enough, aiming for that gilded cage of a balcony she had outside her rooms, landing on top of it like a bird of prey, and wrenching one of the iron and bronze screens back, grunting as I exerted enough effort to bend it wide enough away from the top wall to allow me entry, then dropped onto the stone balcony with a thud, panting.
“What the fuck?!”
Yilan rushed out, eyes wide and shining with unshed tears. She was still wearing that stunning cloth and here in the half-light from the lamps in her room, I could see every inch of her form.
“God, Yilan,” I rasped, descending on her as she gasped my name and threw herself across the balcony and into my chest.
She grunted with the impact as I swept her up, taking her mouth in a teeth-clashing kiss as my soul shoved me to her.
There was no time, no words. I could sense her. Feel her. Terror shook her heart and made her blink away tears, but her need was greater.
She felt it, just like me. The draw. The magnetism.
She was mine.
“Melek! Thank God!”
Her fingers clawed into my hair, taking a grip on my warrior’s length and holding me into the kiss as I dove for her mouth.
I held her to my chest, turning, then striding towards the door, but before I reached it her tongue twirled around mine, and her knees drew up, around my waist.
“Mine,” I growled. “You cannot even consider them, Yilan. You’re mine!”
She locked her ankles behind my back and gasped, “It’s you. It’s only you!”
With a tormented howl, I turned her, slamming us up against the external wall, just feet from her door.
The soft fabric of her dress caught on the rough stone, snagging and tearing—which suited me.
I was clawing at her clothes, ripping the neckline down and away as Yilan’s head dropped back.
She dragged clawed nails down my back and urged me on as I tore through the leather strapping covering her breasts with my teeth.
When those black lengths fell away, baring her to me. Desire jangled, an electric crackle in my blood as I stared down at her .
“So fucking beautiful. I couldn’t look away. Yilan, my mate—dear God!”
I sucked in a breath to roar, but she grabbed the back of my head and pulled me down, swallowing my grunts and cries.
We struggled and writhed, unable to get close enough because the contraption around her was frustratingly tight and kept her from truly embracing me with her legs.
Finally, with a curse, I grabbed the lowest layer of it around her thighs—currently bent over my hip—and yanked up, sliding four layers of leather up until it slackened around her narrower waist, leaving raked lines on her skin, but both of us groaning with relief when she could finally relax against me.
“Yilan, I—”
“Don’t wait!” she gasped, already seeking me with her hips and pulling my head down.
Wrestling with my leathers, it took me a few seconds to free myself, during which Yilan was frantic, clawing at my back and gasping my name. But then finally I was free, and she was right there.
Slapping a hand to the wall behind her, I pulled her thigh tighter around my waist and thrust into her in a single, forceful taking that was almost violent in its need. But Yilan’s head tipped back against the wall, her lips stretched into a smile as she gasped.
“Yes… yes!”
I was frantic, unable to control the rabid growls and animalistic grunts breaking in my throat as I took her again and again, gripping her shoulder and pulling her down to meet my driving thrusts.
She gasped and whimpered, her eyes rolling back in her head, her lips moving with broken, harsh cries as she pleaded for me, over and over.
I didn’t know what the fuck had happened back there, but I had to own her. To brand her with me. Like that dark force was trying to tear us apart again, but this time there was no sensation, no pulling. Only the deep, abiding sense that if I did not have her right then, she would be taken from me.
“Yilan… Oh God—”
“Don’t stop, Melek!”
I dropped my chin to bite down on her shoulder, growling, fighting the urge to throw her to the floor. But she only dug her nails into my back and urged me on, both of us climbing, tensing, peaking, until —
The creak of her bedroom door was the only warning. The frantic, masculine call of her name that wasn’t from my throat froze us both on the spot.
“Yilan?! Yilan!”
I shuddered, holding my breath, buried deep inside my mate as her eyes flew open and we both listened to her former betrothed run into her suite on the other side of this wall.
Just three or four feet to my left, the door lay open from her chamber.