Page 3 of The King is Dead
Then I remembered those shaking hands and that initial threat he’d leveled at my maid when he thought she was the Queen, and she was holding me from him.
I took a deep breath, braced, and laid myself bare.
“Melek… I didn’t lie to you. None of what I told you was untrue. I would swear to that on my grave.I love you.I accept that you can hate my methods, disagree with my conclusions, even despise me for the choices I’ve made… but do not believe that I am anythingbut your mate, and I did all this because I wasdesperatenot to lose you.” Tears pinched my eyes, but I blinked them back. “I know I have forced your hand. And I know that this is… difficult. Say the word, I will free you. I will put my entire nation in your very capable hands. The moment I spoke vows to you, I knew what I was offering you—even if you didn’t. That’s how deeply I trust your judgment.”
He blinked, but his expression didn’t change.
I was growing frantic. “I have spent the days of travel pleading with God to show you how to forgive me. That he’d show youwhyI did this. That you’d remember, in my place you would have made the same choice. But even if you can’t. Even if you reject the bondand leave me, I will not regret this. Because it means you’re still alive and… and I couldn’t live in a world in which you didn’t exist.”
I swallowed hard. This was the most vulnerable I’d ever allowed myself to be with a man. When he didn’t answer immediately, I felt as if I’d been stripped naked and displayed on the stage for the Court.
“Melek…please.”
He stared, his eyes shadowed, dark circles under them despite the fact that he’d been asleep for the better part of a week.Those little muscles at the back of his jaw flexed.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He tore his eyes from mine and turned his head away, then snapped it back to look at me when I shifted on my feet. My heart rose when he opened his mouth.
“I need time to think.”
My rising heart plummeted to my toes. But at least he wasn’t cursing me anymore.
I nodded slowly and took a step away from the bars, clasping my hands at my waist.
“Of course,” I murmured. “Yes, of course. You need time. I… I will bring you reports and answer any questions you have. I’ll let you know when Gall’s awake and… and anything else you need. But please, Melek, think quickly. The situation at the front grows chaotic. I am already holding Turo back. And he isn’t wrong: The time to attackisnow. But I haven’t, Melek. I haven’t. Because… because it needs to be your choice.”
He huffed. “You’ll forgive me if I’m not inclined to believe you put a great deal of stock in mychoices.”
I pursed my lips. “And you’ll forgive me if I think you’re being deliberately stubborn, because we both know you would have tied me up and run me out of there faster than Gault came in a bayan girl.”
He sneered. “Is that language becoming a Queen?”
“I’m not a Queen here, Melek. Not with you,” I breathed. “With you I’m just a woman. Just your mate.”
His forehead creased and he took a step closer, then another one, right up to the bars, where he stood staring down at me with a strange expression. “You’re wrong,” he said in a low, husky voice. “That’s where you’re very wrong. You werealwaysa Queen.”
“Melek—”
“You should have told me, Yilan. You should have trusted my judgment then as you claim to now.” While I was still gaping athim, he turned his back and walked away, towards the tray on the bedside table. “Leave me. I need to think.”
I stood there, conflicting emotions at war in my chest. He’d made me feel small and scared. And yet, he was no longer snarling curses.
Elation, fear, anger, humility, indignation, insecurity,hope… they were all there, and all fighting to be felt.But he just stood on the other side of the room, picking at the fruit and cheese, ignoring me. And after staring at his shoulders, his hair messy, his warrior’s length tumbling down his back, tangled and dull, and the quick, efficient movements of those hands that were sources of such pleasure and strength, it came home to me that I had laid my heart bare, and he’d offerednothingin return.
I couldn’t get away fast enough. I bolted.
I turned on my heel and fled into the shadows and through the anteroom doors without touching them. Like a child running from a hurtful friend. Only worse.
Because I was very much a woman.
And he was the twin of my soul.
I’d told him I loved him and meant it.
And he hadn’t even smiled.
2. Not Now
~ MELEK ~
