Page 79 of The King has Fallen
Then, when I was dry, I sat down on the lakeshore where the sand gave way to grass and listened to the tiny lapping of the water on the pebbles and stared up at the stars and felt like I could breathe for the first time in weeks.
Melek came down to the shore and sat just a few feet to my left, staring out over the water… and he looked relaxed as well. The set of his shoulders not quite so tight. His jaw not flexing.
Neither of us spoke for some time, and with the sound of the celebrating Nephilim distant enough to be ignored, the silent night and quiet ripple of the water was quite soothing. I found myself growing drowsy, eventually laying back on the grass and lacing my fingers under my wet hair.
“This is how life should be,” I said quietly. “Just… quiet. Easy. No pressures. All noise in the distance. Don’t you think, Melek? Or does your soldier’s heart need the fight to feel alive?” I asked, considering some of the comments I’d heard from Turo, the General of the Shadekin, my people.
“I would give anything to never fight again… to have every day like this,” Melek answered a moment later.
I sighed happily. “Me too.”
My eyelids began to droop, but I was still awake when he spoke again.
“Enjoy your freedom, Yilan. May God bless you this night,” he murmured the benediction. Not a whisper, but keeping his voice quiet.
“And you,” I responded by rote, then blinked, realizing what I’d said.
Melek grinned, but didn’t tease me, just continued staring into the beautiful dark.
~ MELEK ~
It was the strangest night I had ever lived.
It had been an indulgence to take her out. If I was honest, the idea had been one bigfuck youto Gault for interfering in this war. At least, that’s what I’d told myself.
But here I sat, not simmering in bitterness or resentment, but… resting.
I sat in the middle of a warzone, yet at peace. My body relaxed in a way I hadn’t felt foryears.
My comrades celebrated the peace, feasting and drinking just a mile away, and yet there was no part of me that wanted to join them.
Instead, I sat on a peaceful lakeshore, in the dark, with myenemy.And I couldn’t remember a moment I’d felt more at ease.
It should not be. And yet, it was.
As Yilan slipped into a soft, easy sleep, I stared out over the water and let myself just breathe. The noise of the camp grew dim and distant as I sank deeper into my thoughts.
Watching her joy at being in the water had done something to my insides. But seeing those clothes come off had taken my mind back to that vision. Even though any hint of her skin was hidden from me by the moonlight on the water so I couldn’t possibly tell if what I had seen was how she truly looked, my body tightened just knowing she was huddled there in the lake without a stitch.
I’d had to take my guarding duties very seriously to keep my eyes averted.
Then, when she was pruned and shivering, she’d finally admitted defeat and told me to turn my back so she could get out.
I heard her watery steps, heard the splashes, heard the tinkle of water dropping from her skin to the shallowing lake as she walked out—and my cursed mind conjured images of water flowing from that shiny, jet-black hair, down her shoulders, to her chest… the droplets trickling off her collarbones and down,diverted by the plump of her breasts so it trailed between them and—
I cursed under my breath and pushed the intrusive images away, growling and shifting my seat because the tightness in my body was becoming an ache.
But then a Nightcaw screamed and flew across the moon, and my eyes followed it until its silhouette disappeared against the surrounding forest above. And when I looked away, it was to her.
She’d fallen asleep, curled into that towel as if it were a blanket, her wet hair dark and shiny in the night, fanned out over the grass. The towel as almost as tall as her. She gripped the edge in her fists and tucked it under her chin—between that and her tiny stature, she should have looked like a child. And yet…
She lay on her side, her knees drawn up so her feet were covered by the towel too, making her even smaller. And yet…
And yet, her shoulder rose in a point that sloped down to the curve of her waist, then rose again sharply to the round of her hip in a deeply feminine shape that had never failed to draw my eye since the very first time I’d been blessed to see it as a young man.
Even with the meals she’d missed, even with the weight she’d lost, there was no mistaking her for a child.
And there was no pretending that her form did not affect me.
