Page 61 of The King has Fallen

“Thank you, Melek,” I said as softly as I could.

He didn’t take his eyes off the book, but his lips twitched at the corners for a moment. “So, you can bend your neck when you need to,” he commented airily as he turned a page.

I snorted, but didn’t answer. Then realized the reason I’d been feeling like something was off in my cage was because there had been screens located and placed around my bucket—and all the things I’d asked that woman to bring were neatly stacked in a basket next to it.

It was such a simple thing, such a practical gift, and yet it touched me right at the center of my chest. A pang that made my throat close.

Fuck him and his insistence on not talking about it.

“Why did you do it, Melek?” I asked hoarsely.

He didn’t look up from his book. “Because… I fear I could not haveborneit,” he rasped.

My heart stopped beating, and my jaw dropped. A moment later his eyes rose from the book to meet mine, but his face wasblank. Expressionless. He didn’t move or speak again. But he didn’t look away either.

And before I could figure out how to respond tothat, Gall pulled back the tent flap and announced flatly that Jann was outside and said he needed to speak to Melek.

There was a beat. A bare moment. Heartbeats before he answered, and I saw the flash of a shadow in his eyes. My breath stopped.

But then he tore himself away from the gaze and swung his legs off the bed, getting to his feet, and muttering.

“Send him in.”

And the moment was lost.

21. Strange Peace

~ YILAN ~

The days that followed that moment were… strange.

Strangely peaceful.

Strangely tense.

Melek was busy. When he wasn’t already gone from the tent, Jannus came for him several times a day. Gall was posted as my guard with instructions to keep the tent entirely free ofvisitorsunless Melek ordered otherwise.

This new routine meant there had been very little activity in the tent, and even fewer dramas… unless you counted Gall growing more and more silent and sullen around Melek—which broke my heart.

Everyone believed the endless guarding was a punishment for Gall—including Gall himself. I hated it, but also found ita relief because it meant no more groups of young Nephilim showed up to manipulate him. And that meant, even if Gall was upset or angry, he was at least safe.

I knew that was why Melek had done it. And I wouldn’t breach his instructions. But it made me ache every day knowing this might have been the most peaceful and easytaskGall had ever been given if he wasn’t harboring anger and confusion towards his father… because of me.

I prayed for wisdom to see how to soothe him, and a way to smooth the path between the two so that Gall could forgive him. But no opportunities were presented in those days.

I slept a great deal.

Between my cycle starting, the fighting, the injury, and the general lack of sleep for the weeks prior, I found that whenever I wasn’t eating or speaking to someone my body constantly dragged towards sleep.

It was easy to give in to because Melek was quite clearly burdened with a great deal and avoiding any conversation with me beyond instructions. Even when he woke in the mornings, or returned to the tent at night, he kept to himself. He would call in Jannus or Gall to speak if he lingered over a meal. Or, if he did have a free hour, he brought out his book and ignored me.

I might have been offended. I might have feared he resented the situation he found himself in on my account and was scheming to get rid of me. But more than once, I caught him watching me.

Our eyes would snag, and he would turn away immediately, his face a blank mask, as if I were only an inanimate object his gaze had passed over.

But his body always stiffened at the brief connection.

After a few days of this, I began to mirror him, tensing when he was there, but afraid when he was not. The moment he walked into the tent my stomach would flutter, fizz witha bubbling kind of anticipation—though I could not have said what my body thought was to come.

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