46. Use It
~ YILAN ~
I woke in a fog. My head ached and it was very dark.
I blinked and saw a stone wall in front of my face. I searched back through my mind, trying to remember where I was. Something about the armory—the equipment base for our missions.
Oh. Right. I was being guarded and—
But then I smelled fire and unwashed bodies, and mildew. Nothing like the Palace.
I gasped and rolled over quickly to find Melek standing over me, his forehead pressed into deep lines, his eyes searching my face.
“Yilan, love, are you well? How is your head?”
I blinked and sank back onto the cot… except it wasn’t a cot. It was scratchy straw that poked my scalp through my hair and…
“Melek, where are we?” I breathed, closing my eyes and massaging my temples.
“We aren’t far from the Palace. But I need you to concentrate, Yilan, and tell me if your head is clear? And your body? Do you have pain? Anything that could be—”
I was wincing at first, rubbing my temples, irritated that he was speaking to me like I was an invalid, trying to remember how we’d come to be here, searching back through my mind, but my thoughts moved like molasses in cold weather.
Until suddenly, I remembered.
Outside in the forest, looking up at my balcony .
Moving. I forgot to walk the shadows. A stupid mistake.
Everything went black, then—
I sat bolt upright, despite the screaming in my skull, grabbing Melek’s arms, who was startled and reached for me, a warning on his lips, but now I could see past his bulk. See the rest of this room that wasn’t a room but… a stable?
Brick and stone. Straw. Mold. Mangers. A roof with holes that let me see the stars.
And four fucking Nephilim standing behind Melek, watching me warily.
“They came to save me,” Melek said dryly. “And thought you were our ticket out of here.”
I blinked and sat back, trying to hide the fact that my stomach churned with nausea and my eyes didn’t want to focus properly. My head ached like I’d been drinking for days.
I looked up at my mate. His eyes were glowing. I blinked and touched his face. The warm glow of the fire behind him flickered on his stubbled cheek as he crouched in front of me, his expression grim.
“Melek, what’s going on?” I asked in a voice much smaller than it should have been.
“What’s going on is that our friends—you remember Jannus, and probably Hever as well, he was one of Gault’s Advisors?—they came through the Shadows of Shade to get me, because they thought I was your prisoner,” he said, arching one brow.
“How the hell did they get through?” I turned to face the four Neph, all standing watching us, their bodies poised like this might come to battle. “How did you get through?”
All three of them looked at Hever, whose expression never changed. “It was not easy,” he said quietly.
“That’s not—”
“Yilan, focus,” Melek muttered. When I turned to look at him, to protest, his eyes glittered a warning and I made myself swallow it back.
But I would find out. Melek cleared his throat.
“Apparently my little talk with Jannus didn’t convince him of our true bond, because he was ready to kidnap you and use you to get us all back through the Shadows.
But instead… instead we’re all here together, and Hever is going to give you some herbs to help that headache,” he said through his teeth, then turned his head to glare at the older man standing behind him in a long robe, with his arms folded .
I did remember that man—and the sickening way he moved. The chill I’d felt in his presence when he entered the tent that night Gault’s advisors gathered with Melek.
He made me feel… sick.
“Melek,” I whispered.
He turned from Hever to look at me sharply.
“I’m not going to eat anything that man gives me,” I said quietly.
Melek’s lips thinned, but when Hever came to his side and passed him a little packet of herbs, Melek just held it in his hand and didn’t try to push it on me.
I looked down at myself, relieved to see I was still fully dressed in fighting leathers.
“So… we’re near the Palace?” I said, looking around the old, rundown stable.
“Just a few miles,” Melek said, touching my head in a spot that made me wince, which made his eyes flare with angry light. “Our friends are now under clear instructions not to attack or attempt any further… interventions. All we have to do is decide how we’re going to manage this.”
I gaped at him. “How we manage it is getting back to the Palace and taking them with us, and putting them under guard until Izzy and Gall are safe and—”
“Istral is utterly safe,” Melek said blandly.
“As is Gall, though by now they’ll be at the Palace, and I suspect he will have refused to leave her side, which will be causing Turo and the others some stress.
I had planned to go talk to him, but I was…
distracted,” he said with a dark glance over his shoulder.
Which was when I saw Jann.
Seeing the sunny, flirtatious Neph standing there like a thug, his arms folded, and no smile on his face made my blood run cold for a second time.
Our eyes caught and his expression didn’t soften. I frowned.
“Jann distracted you?” I asked Melek without looking away from the Halfling.
“I came to save him,” Jann muttered. “From you.”
“From me?! I’m his mate—”
“You removed him from our camp—I thought you’d killed him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous—”
“We aren’t going to argue this over and over,” Melek growled, straightening from his crouch and turning to face Jannus and the others.
“You came for me, to claim me as King. And I’ll take your loyalty gratefully.
But now, listen: Yilan is my mate. My soulbond.
Divinely chosen for me. I will not abandon her people because they are my people—and I will not abandon you or our brothers, either.
Yilan and I will rule together, and together we will change the face of the Continent. ”
Jannus stared at Melek like he wasn’t quite sure whether or not to believe him, but it was Hever who huffed and spoke.
“How can we even know if you are the man we thought you were? You’re now mated to an enemy, apparently happy to be carted away from your own people to embrace hers… perhaps your loyalties have changed?” the man said in his serpentine slither of a voice.
I wanted to shudder.
“I am exactly who I have always been,” Melek growled. “If you can’t see that—”
I shook my head. “Unless you all can stop infighting, the Nephilim are going to die, because you aren’t a people, you’re just a cluster of constantly shifting factions who choose to walk the same path at times. That’s not a nation—and definitely not a brotherhood.”
Hever sneered and the other three all went flat-faced, but Melek growled and took one step forward to assert his dominance. The others’ eyes all snapped to him.
“She is not an enemy. She offers insight.”
“Insight to keep you close and loyal to her cause,” Jann said pointedly.
“Bullshit—she says nothing that you and I haven’t discussed in the past,” Melek snapped back.
Jann blinked like he was shocked that Melek would admit it, but Melek wasn’t letting anyone get any momentum.
“She is not a threat, she is an ally. She wants to see the Neph and Shadekin in peace as much as I do.”
“Well, that’s just pure bullshit,” Jann commented.
One of the other two younger men snorted and Melek shot him a glare. He swallowed it back quickly, but it was obvious that these men didn’t trust me in the slightest.
The others I understood, but I was surprised at the pinch of pain when I realized Jann viewed me as an adversary.
“I want nothing more than peace for all of us,” I said slowly. “If you question my motives, consider that my mate is precious to me, and without peace, we cannot rest. ”
“Peace?” Jann said darkly. “You can’t seriously believe—”
“It’s our goal,” Melek said firmly. “And one I will die striving for rather than abandon. But you have complicated everything, taking her like this. If her people haven’t already discovered her absence, they will within the hour.
So now we have to figure out how to stop the Shadekin walking into war for her—because they will.
Whether it’s a battle they can win, or not. ”
“That won’t be necessary,” I interjected before Jannus could make the joke he was about to throw out about letting my people die on their own. “I’ll admit that this isn’t ideal—but… I think I know how we can use it.”
All five men turned to look at me skeptically. Even Melek.
I folded my arms and tipped my head at him.
“Your confidence in me is so encouraging, mate,” I said dryly.
But Melek didn’t even look sheepish.
Fucking men!
I sighed and closed my eyes, rubbing my temples subtly as I pushed my hair back from my face.
“Sit down and listen, all of you. Because I think you’ve opened a door that I wouldn’t have chosen, but may very well work for the ultimate good of both our peoples… if you can push your egos aside long enough to let me spell it out for you.”