Page 98 of The King has Fallen
33.Bound to You
~ MELEK ~
I sent the messenger back to Gault with assurances that I would have her there as soon as I could do so safely.
The moment he took off, I started pacing, raking a hand through my hair, my head spinning.
Why? Why now? Whyher?
I’d almost believed Gault had forgotten she was here. He hadn’t mentioned her during our entire trip. And the few times her presence had been raised, it was only to debate whether the information she’d supplied could be trusted.
So why now?
I feared I knew the answer, but would not allow it to be so.
He would have heard the rumor. His Advisor, Hever, ran an entire network of eyes and ears that started in the ranksthemselves, and extended out across the land. Ineverlied to Gault, rarely omitted anything I knew, because there was never any telling when he was asking a question not to gather information, but rather to test whether I would be honest with him.
“Melek—”
“You should have run when I gave you the chance,” I growled. “If you disappear now, he’ll know I let you loose and we’ll both be dead.”
“I wouldn’t—”
“Be quiet, I need to think.”
She sighed and for a flash I wanted nothing more than tothrottleher. She was my mate, my soul, and she wasblind.Now the greatest threat to her wellbeing that existed had called for us and there was no avoiding it.
Whether Gault had designs to remove me or not, he did not entertain delay, or games.
I needed to have her there within the hour. Sooner.
Shit.
I turned and paced the tent, cursing as I considered plan after plan, and discarded them all, because there was no way around this. Now that his attention was on her, the only choice was to bring her.
But I was bringing her as an enemy. As an asset. Asleverageto him.
Fuck!
There was no choice. I was caged just as surely as she was, and just as helpless. Probably more so.
Yilan might believe that the men in this camp would follow me, but she was a spy, and a manipulator. She functioned in a place of deception. I knew a soldier’s mind. The discussions between those in the ranks were often nothing more than bluster. Ideas. Wishes. There was amassivedifference betweendreaming of a different King, and putting their bodies and futures on the line to crown one.
And besides… I’d never sought a throne. Always been grateful I wasn’t burdened with one. I was a male of action. To be constantly in company, to be forced to stand as figurehead in pomp and formality… God, if the boredom didn’t kill me, the machinations would.
Part of the reason for my success had come in my early decision to speak the truth. I was surrounded by deceptive males who always assumed my forthright words and acknowledgement of my struggles was a strategy. When I had been young and working my way up the ranks, my rivals assumed I knew far more than I let on, and was confident of victories I hadn’t even aimed for yet.
They stepped carefully because they saw my forthright nature as an indication that I had resources or knowledge they didn’t. They read my confidence as arrogance, and my questions as manipulations designed to lull them into false security.
They defeated themselves. Handed me victories.
And yet…
Gault was a different creature.
“Melek…”
I shook my head and kept pacing, thinking, planning. If Gault only wanted to interrogate her himself, to check on me, he wouldn’t have me present. If he was calling for me to bring her, he wanted me to see or hear whatever it was that he planned to do or say. It had to involve me somehow.
