Page 56 of The King has Fallen
My rank wouldn’t protect me from a well-placed spear, and even I couldn’t fight this many at once if the bloodlust hit and they worked together.
I couldn’t let the blood frenzy grip them, so I pretended indifference to the danger, yanking Yilan to follow me as I began to walk straight back through the crowd, using the spear as a warning against any attempt to hinder me.
As I passed where they still held Gall, I paused and glowered at him. “It was your job to keep her for me. Yet I find her pawed and dirtied? You will come with me to account for your failure!” I snarled, my heart weeping for the fear shadowing my son’s eyes.
The males cheered and taunted Gall as his head dropped and he slunk up behind us. I used the moment when their attention went to him to pretend to lift her and sniff her as if for the scent of other males and murmured in her ear.
“Grip my hand with your good hand as if you’re trying to stop me hurting you. Make it look like a struggle. I’ll follow your steps.”
She whimpered, and for a moment I thought she hadn’t heard me, but sure enough her good arm came up and she grasped my wrist, writhing as though I were shaking her head and pulling at her, when in truth it was her movement that I just allowed my arm to follow.
Perfect.
As I stormed away, hauling her with me and Gall following us, that little prick spoke up again, lifting his voice.
“But what will you do with her, General? Will you kill her, or breed with her?”
They all turned to me, going quiet, waiting.
I cut one look over my shoulder and flashed them a dark grin.
“I won’t kill her…”
They groaned, but I only smiled wider.
“…I’llownher.”
A ripple of cheers and laughter, some ugly taunts, and a few questions rose in the air behind me, but I kept walking a steady pace. Unconcerned.
Just the General who’d interrupted some young Nephilim getting above themselves.
Nothing to be worried about.
Nothing important.
And definitelynothingto see here now that I was pulling her away.
They didn’t follow immediately, so I picked up the pace as soon as we were out of their sight—and then, when I was certain we were alone in the forest, I swung her up into my arms and began to jog, whispering instructions to Gall to run ahead and find very specific supplies then bring them to the tent.
“You do not come to my tent until you’ve foundeverything,do you hear me, Gall?”
“Yes, yes, of course, Papa,” he said in a small voice that made my chest pinch. But I shook it off. I needed him to feel defeated. I needed himscared. He couldn’t act. He definitely couldn’t lie. So, he needed to believe he was in desperate trouble. Then, if anyone asked him what he was doing he would tell them I was in a rage and he was serving me as punishment.
When we got closer to camp, he peeled off, murmuring that he’d be back as soon as he could. Then I started to run in earnest.
I had a soldier’s medical pack in my tent, but he wouldn’t remember that. And I needed him gone for a time.
“Almost done, don’t worry,” I muttered, but I wasn’t even sure she heard me.
Yilan held her useless arm against her body. Her face pale and her eyes squeezed shut against the pain.
Then I was darting along in the shadow of that rocky lee behind my tent, then flipping the tent flap aside to hurry inside—no lanterns. No warning to anyone that I had returned.
I hurried across the tent and lay her on the bed, checking her eyes, her pulse, and made a hurried examination of her body.
I was sickened to discover that her shirt was ripped down the front, and the buttons of her leathers torn loose. That little fucker had pawed her far more than I realized.
She lay on the bed, shivering, eyes glazed and face pinched against the pain, her lips moving so quickly on breathy, whispered words, it took me a moment to make out what she was saying.
