Page 124 of The King has Fallen
Then he took a deep breath and brought his gaze back to meet mine. “Listen to me,” he said gruffly. “Listen to me carefully: You have to stop talking about this. The risk is too great. You cannot hold on to this notion, because itwill. Not. Be,” he said through his teeth. “When I am gone, you need toleave.Otherwise, Gault will brutalize you, and I could not survive that, Yilan. Do you understand?”
“But if he wasn’t—”
“STOP!” he roared in my face, so loudly and fiercely that I flinched.
He bit the word off and dropped his head, cursing himself, and probably me, though he didn’t say the words.
“Melek, I only want to see you be everything you can be,” I breathed. “And I want that in a world where we can walk hand in hand without pretense.”
“So do I.” His head snapped up and there was a fire in his eyes that made my breath stop. He raised his hands to my face, holding my jaw, stopping me from turning away from the intensity burning in his eyes. “So do I, Yilan. Asallies.Not revolutionaries.”
My shoulders slumped. “I want that too.”But his King would never allow it.The words bubbled on my tongue, but his heavy brows pinched together and his eyes begged me.
“Then please…stop.We have so few hours left—please, Yilan, I do not want to spend them fighting with you.”
I sighed and leaned into his chest, holding his waist with my free hand and letting my bound hand drop. He did as well, but wrapped the other arm around me.
“God, I love you. How did this happen?” he muttered as he lifted my chin. When I raised it, meeting his eyes again, it was only for a moment before he was kissing me with such intensity, such passion, that he stole my breath. “Precious. You arepreciousto me, Yilan,” he breathed against my lips. And when I whimpered and clung to him, when another tear slipped from the corner of my eye, he kissed that from my cheek as well.
Then he took my face and held it as he tipped his head back to stare at me down his nose. “Give me your word.”
“I already did!”
“I need to hear it again. I need to becertain.”
I sighed, but put my hand to his chest and repeated my promise.
“I will not stay here when you leave,” I stroked his chest with a trembling hand. “I will not go to the battlefront unless you ask me to. And I will undertake no plan without you at my side,” I said with a heavy sigh to fight the way my chest constricted.
“Promise me that you won’t risk yourself,” he growled.
I blinked. “I won’t. I never intended—”
“Tell me! If something happens to me, or if the opportunity presents itself to get out safely, youwilltake it. You will not do as you did before and lock yourself back in to stay near me.”
I wanted to cry at the anguish in his eyes, the stress he was feeling.
“You have my word, Melek: I will not lock myself back in. If the opportunity presents, I will not stay here when I could get out. Now you promise me something.”
He stared deep into my eyes. “Anything that doesn’t involve taking acrown,”he said simply.
“Promise me that no matter where the future takes us, how we might be forced apart by this war, you will not give up on me or forget… this…” I whispered. Then I reached up for his hair, grabbing him, pulling him down into a kiss that spoke everything my heart was too fragile to say. All the need. All the admiration. All the ways I ached for him.
And with a groan, he wrapped his free arm around my back and pulled me up onto my toes and into his body, kissing me as if the world would end without it.
Which was exactly how I felt.
43.Need You
SOUNDTRACK:Devil in Her Eyesby Bryce Savage
~ MELEK ~
The need for her hit me like I had been tackled. All this talk of separation and planning for being apart from her… I only just found her, yet the time left to us was so short, it felt like a sword pressed to my throat.
Unable to resist, I lifted her up and carried her back into the trees, still delving her mouth. My first thought was to return her quickly to the tent where I could lay her down and love her properly. But when she held me so tightly, wrapping her legs around my waist and plastering herself to my chest, I couldn’t wait.
Tearing myself out of the kiss, I rasped. “Yilan, I—”
