41. The Rug Under His Feet
~ YILAN ~
The room went so quiet I could have heard a pin drop. Which only made the word echo louder in my head.
Mate. Mate. Mate.
I wanted to gather it up and shovel it back down my throat.
Shit. Shit.
I’d been so frustrated with both of them, and shaken by how close that attack had come. I was sick of stepping between them, especially when the explanation was so clear. But I wasn’t thinking, because now the very thing I’d sworn I wouldn’t do to Turo was happening.
Public humiliation.
“Turo, I’m sorry,” I started, dropping my face into my hands. But then I forced myself to raise my chin and meet his eyes, because he deserved at least that much. “I know this is a shock—”
Turo was shaking his head, his eyes wide. “Impossible. We would know. We would have seen—”
“You have,” I said firmly. “You’ve seen my inability to stay away from him, and his from me. You’ve seen him loyal even when I took him away from his people.”
Diadre was the only one who wasn’t shocked by the news, but her eyes were wide at the astonishment on everyone else’s faces.
I wanted to kick her under the table when her lips twitched towards a smile. At least she was smart enough to stay silent .
Jhonas, her brother and my former Defender and trainer, blew out a breath, shaking his head. “That would explain a lot,” he said carefully.
But Turo just stared at me, horrified. “How? When?”
A piece of my heart shattered when his voice broke on that last word and even though I kept my voice calm and steady, I pleaded with my eyes for him to forgive me.
“We discovered the bond back at his camp. But he was unaware of our traditions, and I wasn’t sure he could be trusted.”
Melek grunted, but I kept going.
“I brought him here and waited to tell you all until I was certain he was ready to take his throne with loyalty to me and our people. I… I would have denied the bond if he was unwilling or disloyal. He didn’t know that I was Queen, or our traditions for selecting a King.
I didn’t tell him until he was already imprisoned. ”
I swallowed hard as every set of eyes in the room locked on me in shock.
Turo visibly shook, his face turning red and the vein in his forehead popping. “So now we are handed to a King who will overrun us with Nephilim?”
“No,” Melek growled, leaning over my shoulder towards Turo. “You are divinely appointed a King who is doing everything in his fucking power to keep peace between our people.”
Everyone’s gazes snapped to him at that, and I saw their minds ticking over, replaying his words from the meetings they’d attended, reconsidering every word Melek or I had said about his trustworthiness.
Only Turo remained locked on me. “Why didn’t you tell me—I mean, us?”
“Because he wanted you to know him before you were forced to bend a knee,” I said softly, begging him to hear the truth—the mercy!—in that sentiment.
Turo huffed and tore his gaze from me, turning away, his expression still stunned, but the shadows of grief flickered in his eyes.
“I’ll admit,” Melek rumbled. “I did not seek a crown and was… resistant to the idea at first. But your people are honorable, and Yilan is my mate. I cannot deny that it is a calling from God.”
Jhonas and Granbull both nodded. Hughes still looked stunned, but he clawed a hand through his thinning hair and said nothing.
Poor Shen looked like he wanted to sink into the floor and disappear.
I supposed that this would either make or break the poor man who thought he’d just come here to be mentored into an Advisor.
“So, I take it this means that you accept the crown?” Diadre asked carefully.
I nodded, as did Melek. He put his hand on my shoulder and even though I felt Turo flinch from the sight, it strengthened me to have him offer that gesture of togetherness.
Questions, low and slow, but pertinent started peppering the air as each of the Advisors queried me or Melek, trying to get their head around the things we’d been processing for a week now.
I tried to be patient. Tried to send reassurance to Melek through the bond. But I couldn’t stop looking at Turo who paced the floor at the other end of the table, shaking his head.
Suddenly, right between questions from Jhonas and Granbull, Turo whipped to face us and pointed an accusing finger at Melek.
“Is this a true bond? Or some kind of magik?”
“There is no magik,” Melek growled.
Turo’s lips peeled back from his teeth. “You frightened her, back at the Bonfire—I saw her eyes. She was terrified—”
I broke in, praying that these two wouldn’t come to blows. “It wasn’t him. Melek doesn’t frighten me. Not in the slightest.”
“Then what would send you fleeing?” Turo demanded.
I took a deep breath and looked up at Melek whose brow furrowed with worry. I swallowed, but made myself meet their eyes one by one as I spoke. “One of the Fallen has been… pursuing me,” I said as calmly as I could.
I felt the jolt of cold fear from Melek through the bond, but it was Turo who staggered like he’d been hit.
“You draw her into danger at every step!” he protested.
Melek turned on him, “I do nothing but protect her—from them, and from you.”
“That is such bullshit—”
Melek stepped away from me for the first time, stalking up the side of the table towards Turo. I leaped to my feet, calling him back, but Turo strode to meet him until they were toe to toe, Turo shorter and leaner, but no less determined.
“My motives for her are pure.”
“So you say. Can a black heart even know what purity is?”
Melek loomed over him, snarling. “Your claim to her is dead. Accept it. I would have sympathized with your plight, but you have done nothing except attempt to take what does not belong to you, and we are both done entertaining your delusion.”
“Melek, what the hell?!” I hissed, angry that he’d be so cruel.
The words struck Turo like a blow. He reeled away from Melek, shaking his head, raising his hands like he was held at swordpoint.
“Turo, I’m sorry,” I breathed. His eyes snapped to me as he turned and I saw such disgust there—at himself, or at me? I couldn’t be sure. But he tore his gaze from me and began pacing again, ignoring Melek.
Melek watched him for a long moment, as did all the others. I cleared my throat to bring their attention back to me, relieved when Melek muttered something under his breath, but turned back to come join me at the table again.
“I’m sorry that this has been so… dramatic. But we thought it was for the best. I will happily answer your questions. Just be certain, there is no deception, and no question left between us. Melek is my mate, and that makes him our King. Unequivocally.”
Turo made a strange noise, but didn’t look at me.
The others all scratched their beards or rubbed their temples, trying to take it in.
But then there was a knock at the door. Turo turned on his heel and clipped his way over to answer it. A moment after leaning into the hall, he opened the door wider and ushered in one of the trackers who walked quickly towards me, a couple arrows in his fist.
Melek gave a low growl, but I put my hand on his elbow and rose from the chair to stand and receive the man’s bow.
When he straightened, he looked back and forth between me and Turo.
“What have you found?” I asked him.
The man cleared his throat and addressed me directly.
“Your Majesty, there was a gap created at the top of the verandah—a place where the screen had been… peeled back leaving enough space for a large man to slip in. Or for an archer to shoot through—there was line of sight with your position at the desk. But… we don’t know how a man could have gotten up there without being seen.
The climb on the wall is impossible, and the balcony overhangs it with no places to grip.
He must have come from above, and yet how—”
“He was in flight,” Melek growled.
Everyone looked at him, including me.
“Those are Nephilim arrows,” he said, taking them from me and pointing to the feathers in the fletch, and the markings notched into the shafts. “Someone’s figured out I’m here and is coming for retribution,” he said reluctantly.
He stared at me as something inside me curled up and died.
“Are you certain?”
“I’m certain those arrows were made by a Nephilim fletcher,” he growled. “As for the balcony, I’m the one who created the gap—I was trying to reach you without causing alarm. It’s my fault that the vulnerability existed. I… I didn’t think they were here.”
I put a hand on his arm. “It changes nothing—”
But Melek shook his head. “It changes everything if they’re targeting you. I have to find them, tell them—”
“You tell them nothing, or they’ll turn that retribution on you,” I insisted.
In the quiet that followed I realized everyone was watching this exchange, listening to us, fascinated and horrified. Because they were seeing us relate as mates.
I could finally touch my mate, and hear my mate without the formalities and—
A new thought left me cold and terrified. I looked up at Melek and breathed, “Istral—”
“And Gall,” he muttered, turning with me to face Turo.
“Turo,” I said quickly, “You must find men to secure Istral. And Gall. If the Nephilim are here, they’ll know he’s never far from Melek. But now he never leaves Istral’s side. If they learn about her—”
Turo blinked once, then leaped into action, clearly relieved to have something to focus on other and me and Melek. He hurried for the door and threw it open, barking instructions.
Men. Cover. Security. Scouts.
“Tell them to let Gall move alone, to fly if he has to. Let him get himself to the Palace however it’s needed—warn him that there are watchers. If they’re looking for me, they’ll know I’ll come for him.”