Page 106 of The King has Fallen
“You draw so much from half a word and a second look, and you stay blind to this? I tried to let you see it, tried to make it clear: Icannotdefy the King. He is Gall’s true father and he knows how much I care about the boy. He knows I would never leave him to… tothis,”I spat. “The moment he gets so much as a hint that I am working against him, he will take Gall and hold him. He will not kill him. Only torment him—just to get to me.”
She blinked and took a deep breath. “I did… I did gather that.”
“Then why do you—?”
“It just means we need to take Gall with us.”
I jerked. She couldn’t mean…? “We?”
She nodded quickly. “We.Us.”
I could barely breathe. “So… you sense it? You admit—”
“I sense the most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced, Melek,” she whispered. “And instead of sending me into a panic, it… it lights up my heart.”
God, the joy that coursed through me then was—
“And… it cannot be,” she breathed.
37.Vowed to You
~ MELEK ~
I staggered, my blood running cold just as I was about to grab her up. Just as I was about to take her mouth again.
“Yilan… it alreadyis.”
She shook her head and her eyes began to well, simultaneously breaking my heart and making me want to roar with rage.
“We have not… nothing has cemented between us. We are not truly tied—”
“Yilan—”
She started to back away, a single tear tipping over her lashes and trickling down her cheek. But I wouldn’t let her flee. I followed her as she backed across the tent.
“Melek, it couldn’t be. God is testing us. We both know—”
“I know that this is nothing to bedenied.It exists whether it is convenient or not!”
“But our lives… our roles… this war—”
“If God put us together, then he must have a plan for our future!”
“He does!” she whispered. “And you refuse it.”
I froze, but caught her wrist as she was about to step away from me again. Both of us stared in horror and pleading and… pain.
Doubt. Fear. Indignation. It all coiled through my thoughts, tightened my chest.
She stared at me with grief in her eyes and I braced, shaking my head.
This was not just lust. Not simple need.
This was two souls that sang the same song. Andshewas the one denying it!
“Tell me,” I growled, pulling her into the circle of my arms and not letting her go. Then I caught her hand with mine and put it flat on my chest, let her feel how she made my heart pound. “Tell me this is not real. Tell me that you will not accept me—tell me.”
She stared, shaking her head, her mouth opening and closing, her body tense… but she made no sound.
