Page 78 of The King has Fallen

He blinked, but still didn’t look away. “What is it?”

For a moment my mindspunwith images from that erotic vision I’d given him—a total indulgence. A horrific breach of my integrity… and I had yet to regret it. But even as images of those moments flickered in my head I couldn’t wrap my tongue around them. Couldn’t make them real. Because we walked a cliff-edge. I didn’t know how it had happened, but I knew it was real and I couldn’t—no,wouldn’t—be the one to step off the edge.

“Yilan?”

“Yes?” I breathed.

“What is your wish for the Days of peace?”

I swallowed to wet my throat, then croaked. “A bath.”

And then Melek fuckingsmiled.

26. Quiet Night

~ YILAN ~

“Quickly—hold my belt, step in my steps, and makenosound,” Melek breathed in my ear, then hitched up the strap on the long, soft bag that hung over his shoulder and slung across his chest, leaving his arms free.

We were crouched behind a rock nestled beneath a small tree, just at the edge of camp. The Nephilim around each of the fires that circled the camp and cast shifting shadows from the trees were supposed to be the only sober Nephilim left—except Melek himself.

And these two did appear to be sober—standing, leaning on their spears, bored and resentful, looking back over their shoulders towards the camp where the noise from the revelers was growing.

Melek froze when one of them looked towards our rock, but he was only scanning the dark. Then he sighed and told his companion he was going to take a piss.

When both the guards were distracted, Melek took off silently, bent in half yet running fast enough it was difficult for me to keep up—and still his steps weresilent—staying in the shadows of the forest, following the lines of the dark, but moving farther and farther from the camp proper, until we crouched under a copse of trees fifty feet away.

Melek waited only seconds, then grabbed my hand and dragged me deep into the forest, looking back over his shoulder now and again, but otherwise heading steadily east.

When we’d been walking for a minute, he cast one last look over his shoulder, grinned into the dark, then slowed his pace and let go of my hand, which suddenly felt very cold.

A few minutes later the trees opened up and Melek drew to a halt. I stepped up beside him and sucked in a sharp breath.

We stood at the tree line. From here the land dropped away to a soft, sandy shore on a lake large enough that I couldn’t see all of it, because it spread too far out to the right and left, the trees began to block it from sight.

In the dark, the water seemed like rich black metal, yet the moon was high and bright, and it glittered on the surface that was almost glassy flat. Only the tiniest ripples here and there to make the reflection of the moon’s light waver.

“Melek…” I breathed. “Thank you!”

He chuckled as I ran straight down the steep shore and into the water, shrieking when the cold hit my heated skin, then clapping my hands over my mouth and freezing where I stood, where the water was still only just past my knees.

Slowly, I turned back to look at Melek who still stood in the shadows of the trees, unmoving, looking over his shoulder, then around at the night.

“No one is coming,” he said in a low rumble a moment later, and I let myself hurry forward again, gasping when the freezing-cold water splashed up to drench me, but I couldn’t have cared less. It had beenweekssince I’d had more than a wet cloth to clean myself. Weeks since Melek dunked me in that trough—and that had come days after my last bath before it.

It was heaven to turn and let my body fall backwards into the water, submerging completely, blowing air bubbles from my nose as the ripple and hum of the water closed in around me, then breaking up and out of its cool surface, gasping at the air—and against the cold—but ecstatic.

“Thank you, Melek!” I whisper-shouted. “Thank you!”

He was walking down to the shore, but keeping watch for me as I wallowed and splashed and swam underwater.

Soon it didn’t feel so cold. And then Melek gave a low whistle, so I stood up—just in time to catch the small block of soap he’d thrown to me out of the air before it thunked into my chest.

The General had excellent aim.

But I was too happy to be grumpy. Walking deeper into the lake until I could half-sit and submerge myself underwater to the neck. Then I took off my sopping clothes and scrubbed first myself, then them.

Some time later, wrinkled and happily exhausted, I made Melek turn his back and watch for anyone approaching while I got out of the water and threw my clothes over a couple of bushes to dry and wrapped myself in a Nephilim-sized towel that was large enough to wrap me from my neck to my ankles.

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