Page 3 of The King has Fallen

There was no time to question. No room for doubt. I sent a silent prayer to the God against whom these creatures had rebelled before letting go of my tunic hem and slowly slipping my hand into the hidden sheath of my favorite blade strapped against my ribs.

The King began to speak at the same moment Melek’s eyes cut to the shadow in which I’d secreted myself for the past five hours, his attention caught by the flutter of my hem. The warrior reacted with the speed of a lion, and the precision of a bird of prey.

“THE ENEMY IS HERE! GUARDS TO THE KING!”he roared as he launched himself past the King’s lounge… and straight for me.

2. In Your Hands

SOUNDTRACK:Crucify Meby Rosey Reign

~ YILAN ~

With a hiss, I threw myself to the floor as his clawed hand swiped to grasp me, his nail scraping my cheekbone so I flinched as I tucked and rolled, aiming for that thin slice I’d left in the back of the King’s tent.

I had a tiny frame compared to these creatures, which helped me hide in their shadows, but even I couldn’t fit broadside through the slit I’d used to enter.

The side of the tent caught me like a lover’s embrace, the slit widening against my spine, but not tearing, so the surrounding canvas hugged my body.

Still rolling, the dagger’s hilt gripped in my fist, I threw the hand wide to swing the blade through the canvas and spit me out on the other side—which would mean running in daylight through an army camp of Nephilim. But I’d take my chances among those ranks over facing the famed General hand-to-hand any day.

Unfortunately, the blade caught his forearm as he grabbed for me a second time.

He roared but, unlike me, didn’t flinch.

There was a thunder in my ear, a nervy jolt in my hand as my blade clinked to the dirt, and then the spinning stopped.

I was on the ground, still hugged on one side by the tent, but pinned under the weight of a Nephilim warrior.

TheNephilim warrior.

I couldn’t breathe. And not just because he was slowly crushing me.

He muttered one curse, then planted his hand on my throat and used that arm to brace his weight and push himself up, looming over me, golden-green gaze murderous and piercing. Blood spatter from the wound on his arm dripped slowly down his cheek as he bared his very white, very unmarred teeth.

“The King’s wish is my honor,” he snarled, and his grip tightened on my throat so I could not breathe. “I caught the Fetch, Sire.”

As the King grunted in approval and his guards hurried to take positions between us, Melek slid my dagger out from under my shoulder where it had fallen and I’d rolled onto it, then he lifted it, examining the blade that was smeared withhisblood, and dirt.

I watched, awed, as Melek licked his own blood off the blade with the flat of his long, thick tongue and my belly quivered. Then he cut that stunning, golden-green gaze down to meet my eyes and he smiled maliciously.

My vision was already beginning to tunnel from lack of oxygen when he laid the razor-edge of that dagger against my skin just above where he gripped my neck.

“You have two choices,Fetch. I can bleed you dead right now, or you can bow before my King and offer your dubioushonorto the anointing on him. Tell him every secret you ever stole. Which will it be?”

He arched one brow, his eyes promising violence, no matter what I chose.

I was gripping his wrist in both my hands, though I knew it was pointless. But his sheer strength rendered all my other options moot: A knifehand blow applied to his ribs would only aggravate him. He’d moved so fast, I had no doubt he’d have me bleeding—at the edge of my own blade—before I could reach to grab the dagger strapped at my ankle. And he was just too damn heavy for me to flip him, especially shoved up against the side of the tent as I was.

No. I was utterly at his mercy.

Given that he’d pinned my lower body to the dirt with his hips, and he was braced over me with his back arched and that sizablemanhoodpressed against my flesh… there were ways and means I could have wished he’d taken me instead. But wishes were butterfly farts in the wind. Right now, I needed tolive.

I opened my mouth, but his grip was so strong, I couldn’t speak. And my eyes were beginning to blur.

“It wants to speak,” someone said from behind him. Someone with psychic gifts, clearly.

Father’slight.How had thesecreatures bested most of the continent?

But Melek’s grip eased on my throat, so I wheezed, sucking in a lungful of blessed, pure air, ignoring the stench of sweaty, bloody male, and thanking God for the gift of life.

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