Page 92 of The King has Fallen
So, as I lay there, whispering her safety, my jaw got tighter and tighter, until I was resolved.
Enemy she might be, but she was also mate.
Ignorant of the bond, for certain. But that did not remove it from existence.
I’d always vowed to myself that if I ever found the twin to my soul, I would keep her from the worst of my people.
Now, here we were.
Which meant it was up to me to make her safe. Not just protect her from the harm that already existed… but make her safe.
She could not be safe here.
The thought was a cold, hollow echo in a cavernous space.
She could not be safe here…even with me.
The truth of that statement stabbed as surely as any weapon. But I was not a General for nothing.
As her sobs turned to hitching breaths, then to the slow, steady breath of sleep, I considered, and measured, and planned.
And determined that there was no choice but to find a way for her to get out of here.
Without me.
31. Morning General
~ MELEK ~
I woke with a start the next morning, my entire body jolting with alarm when the tent flap snapped back with no warning.
Yilan is in bed with me.
I sat bolt upright, throwing the furs aside to cover… nothing. I blinked, looking down at the empty space next to me to see that the hollow left in the mattress where she had been laying was empty. Jann was striding into the tent and—
“I see you rise as reliably as the sun, Captain…” Yilan’s tone was suggestive, and made even more provocative by being husky from sleep. And crying last night.
I blinked and looked at the cage, to find her sitting on the side of the cot, her feet on the floor and elbows on her knees, like she’d just woken and was taking a moment before she stood.
Her head was turned toward the sunlight that had followed Jann into the tent and she squinted against it, her hair sticking out in every direction as Jann chuckled and let the flap drop and returned her to shade.
“Good morning to you, too,” he said warmly.
An ugly burst of possessive jealousy detonated in my chest so my voice was harsher than I’d intended when I spoken.
“What the fuck are you doing here so early on a peace day?”
They both looked at me in surprise, Yilan’s eyes puffy, Jann’s a little wide.
“Early? The sun has been up for two hours, Mel,” Jann said with brows high.
Shit! I tossed back the rest of the furs and leaped out of the bed, then caught myself as I remembered it was a peace day and most of my duties would be set aside, at least in theory. Which was why no one had woken me. Even the servants were on minimal duties.
I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and took a deep breath. I needed tothink.
Yilan had been free, and hadn’t run. She had put herself back in the cage.
I turned to look at her and adrenaline coursed through me again when I caught sight of the unlocked door.
