Page 1 of The King has Fallen

1. In My Shadow

~ YILAN (Yee-LAHN) ~

If there was one thing that could be said for the Nephilim it was that they cut disgustingly fine masculine figures. Shoulders broader than bhoars, thighs like tree trunks, biceps that could crush weynuts. And if the size of their armor sheaths weren’toptimistic, cocks that could compete with the trunk of a—

I sank deeper into the shadow between the extravagantly carved armoire and the canvas wall as two royal soldiers marched into the massive King’s tent, hurriedly kneeling and clasping fists over their chests and bowing their heads.

“Sire, the General has returned and pleads for an immediate audience.”

I inhaled sharply. Melek was here?Finally!

At the messenger’s words, the King grunted, looking up from where he’d been pinching the ass of a nervous slave. This disgusting pig of a sovereign appeared fit, strong, and relatively young, though I knew the angelic blood running in Nephilim veins kept their bodies from aging normally. Yet, despite his apparent vigor, he spent most of his days sprawled in the furs while his people fought and bled. Today alone I had already been forced to listen to his bestial howls as he inexpertly pumped his seed into one of his human vessels.

Twice.

Please, God, let the General distract the King. I cannot bear another round of hide-the-royal-scepter.

“Send him in,” the King muttered as he let go of the slave who scuttled away. In the moments that the guards leaned out of the tent to call the General, the King’s heavy brows pinched down over his nose in an expression that, admittedly, set off his rugged features beautifully, and made his golden eyes shine out from the gloom, as if tiny suns existed within the shadows there.

Then the tent flap twitched aside, and suddenlyhewas there.

General Melek Handras.

He must have come straight from the battlefield, half a day’s travel away. He was huge—forced to duck his head to enter the tent through the flap they called a door. When he straightened inside I instinctively drew back. The only male bigger was the King himself, and that pig didn’t cut nearly as impressive a figure.

The famed General Melek seemed to be carved from rippling steel that had been refined in the fiery furnace of war until every impurity had been burned away.

His hair was short on the sides with strange patterns shaved in, but the warrior’s length—a thick chunk of hair that a Neph soldier left uncut from the day of his first kill in battle—flowed from a leather tie at the back of his skull, rippling behind him ashe strode into the tent because he had made his first kill decades earlier.

Though he looked much younger thanks to that angelic blood, Melek Handras was at least forty in human years.

As he started towards the King, every male in the tent shrank a bit.

I drank in the sight and my heart beat faster.

I’d been waiting for this man. Targeting him forweeks.Wondering if somehow I had missed him in my constant traverse through the shadows of this camp. But no. There would be no mistaking anyone else for this creature. Melek Handras didn’t just walk into a space… hepossessedit.

As Melek debased himself, folded his massive body to take a knee before the King, my mouth went dry. He was stripped to the waist except for the empty weapon straps crossing his massive chest. He had removed his weapons to stand before his ruler and I grieved the loss. I’d longed to see the gleam of his famed twin spears rising behind him. The legends claimed he’d had those lances smithed entirely from metal, each of a single piece, in an effort to stop losing spear heads in the ribs of his enemies.

It was also claimed he notched the handles for every kill, and that his kills were so numerous those nicks offered the traction needed for his grip on such a slick surface.

Melek was the reason I was here. He was quite possibly the most daring and desirable man alive.

Pity I had to kill him.

The King, being the petty, juvenile creature that he was, didn’t immediately call the General to his feet. Every face in the room was bowed in obeisance to their idiotic King, so I could indulge myself by leaning slightly closer, drinking in the sight of the soldier who had single-handedly conquered every land between mine and the Eastern coast.

And drink him in, I did. Like a fine wine.

That wide, square jaw that twitched when he clenched his teeth. Full lips that would be stunning when pulled into a smile—provided he hadn’t lost teeth. High cheekbones emphasizing those stunning eyes, which were shadowed by brows that were rugged and heavy, but lacking the thickness of mental-density so apparent in the man he served.

“Rise,” the King muttered finally, sitting up to swing his legs off the lounge and facing the man who truly led his people.

Did the King know his own imposing form was little more than a statue to his own pride? Thateveryoneknew his accomplishments were attained by another man? Or was hesostupid that he believed his own bard-songs?

“Speak.”

The General’s lips tightened and he smacked his glistening, dirty chest with that fist in a warrior’s salute that made my eyes roll. If I could, I would have hissed in his ear that his King did not deserve the honor of those who lived to fall.

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