Page 121 of The King is Dead
My dearest friend rushed forward, grasping my hand and pulling me into an embrace, our hands clasped at our chests as he softly clapped my back, then stood back, still grinning.
“How the hell did you get loose?” he whispered, glancing over his shoulder towards the door. “These fuckers crawl over this place like ants on sugar.”
“What the hell are you doing in here?” I hissed, ignoring his question. “If they catch you they’re going to kill you before you can blink!”
Jannus gave a little huff and a one-shouldered shrug. “They’ve barricaded this room so no one can get in. They don’t understandhow our wings work. As long as we stay out of eyeline, they’re ignorant that we’re even near.”
But that vein on his temple was pulsing, which meant that he wasn’t quite as relaxed as he was trying to pretend.
I let go of his hand and looked over his shoulder. A thin thread of light shone below the door into the corridor, and shadows shifted over it. The guards were there making sure no one entered without permission.
My chambers adjoined this one. I should have been stalking through, going to meetmyguards and reassuring them that I’d returned. Butfuck!
“Jann—”
“There’s no time, Mel. We haven’t found Gall yet, but we’re working on it. You need to come with me. If we don’t get you back to the Neph soon, the whole hierarchy’s going to crumble,” Jannus said grimly.
I growled. “I was already working on it—you should have known that. What the fuck were you thinking coming here in the first place?! How did you get through the Shadows of Shade?”
“Ask Hever. He got us through. Barely. Look, Melek, I’ll explain everything. But this isurgent.We need you back. I’m glad you’re alive. I know you were imprisoned. We were working to get you out of there. I don’t know how you convinced them to give you this freedom, but the time for subtle strategy is done. You are needed at home.”
He grasped my upper arm and started pulling me back towards that verandah and the breach there, but I yanked out of his grip.
“Wait…wait.”
I felt my entire body tense as everything that had happened in the past few days—few hours—came home to me.
When Jann turned on me, eyes flashing because he wanted to argue with me, he found me already glaring and pointing at his chest.
“You?” I hissed.“Youtried to kill her?!”
Jann’s lips thinned. “Of course not,” he said sullenly. “Denk was excited when he found her alone. I warned him that would piss you off—”
“Piss me off?! Jann, she’s my mate!”
His jaw went tight and he glanced over his shoulder towards that breach, then turned back to me. “Are you sure?”
I gaped. “Am I sure?For fuck’s sake—”
“Don’t look at me like I’m the fool here—there’s been a whole fucking lot of things that don’t add up, Melek. Including the way she dragged you out of our camp. We thought you were dead! Imagine my surprise when we find out you’re not only still alive, but here, fucking the woman who abducted you!”
I didn’t even think. My hand snaked out of its own accord, clamping on his throat as I marched him backwards into the wall and pinned him there.
Jannus gripped my wrist, clawing at my fingers to keep them from cutting off his air entirely, but he didn’t struggle, just met me, glare for glare, teeth bared as I hissed in his face.
“There is nofucking,you bastard. She’s my mate.”
“Then God’s laughing,because that witch has dug her claws into you and you’re calling it a stroke—do you know she can make herself invisible?”
“Of course I do, you think mates don’t…”
I blinked.
“How the fuck doyouknow that, Jann?” I growled, tightening my grip on his neck until his breath started to wheeze.
But for the first time, my friend didn’t have a lot of words. He continued to struggle against my grip, but he was locking eyes and baring his teeth.
“Jann? You better speakright now,or so help me God, I’m going to start making some assumptions that end with you dead, and me on a fucking rampage to avenge my mate,” I snarled.
