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Kardal moved around the fire to stand next to her. He wore his robe open over his shirt and trousers. The long covering flowed behind him with each step.
“I’m surprised you like it,” he said. “Most westerners and many women find it too strong.”
“Too strong isn’t possible,” she said after sipping again. “I like coffee I can stand a spoon in.”
“No lattes or mocha cappuccinos?”
What? Humor from the great and mysterious Kardal? She smiled slightly. “Not even on a bet.”
He motioned for her to follow him to the edge of their camp. Once there he put his hands on his hips and stared down at her as if she were a particularly unappealing bug. So much for the moment of bonding over coffee.
“Something must be done with you,” he announced.
“What? You don’t want to spend the rest of your days traveling with me throughout the desert? And here I thought you enjoyed tying me up and making me sleep on the hard ground.”
He raised his dark eyebrows. “You have more spirit than you did last night.”
“Not surprising. I’m rested, I have coffee. Despite rumors to the contrary, I’m a creature of simple wants.”
The curl of his mouth indicated that he didn’t believe her.
“We have three choices,” he told her. “We can kill you and leave your body here in the desert. We can sell you as a slave or we can ransom you to your family.”
She nearly choked on her coffee, barely able to believe he meant what he said. Although the edge of determination in his voice told her that he did.
“Can I see what’s behind curtain number four?” she asked when she could finally speak. Here she’d been thinking ol’ Kardal wasn’t so bad and he was talking about killing her and leaving her remains for whatever animals lived out here.
Of course if they were going to kill her wouldn’t they have already done it? Sleeping with her tied up next to him had to have been just as uncomfortable for Kardal as it had been for her.
“Eliminating death as an option,” she said cautiously, “I don’t think I’d make an especially good slave.”
“I had considered that. Of course a good beating would change that.”
“And what would a bad beating do?” she murmured.
“Which would you prefer?”
She stared at him. “A good or a bad beating? Neither, thank you.” She couldn’t believe they were discussing this. She couldn’t believe this was actually happening. That she was standing in the middle of the Bahanian desert discussing the physical abuse of her person.
“I meant,” he said slowly, as if she weren’t very bright, “which of the three do you prefer?”
“It’s my choice? How democratic.”
“I am trying to be fair.”
She grimaced. Obviously he’d missed the sarcasm she’d attempted to interject into her words. “Fair would be giving me a horse and some supplies, then pointing me in the right direction.”
“You’ve already lost your own horse and camel. Why would I trust you with stock of mine?”
She didn’t like the question so she ignored it. There was no point in protesting that the loss of her horse and camel had been more because of the storm than because she’d done something wrong.
“I do not want to be killed,” she said at last when it became apparent he really was waiting for her to choose her fate. “And I have no desire to be any man’s slave.” Nor did she want to return to the palace and marry the troll prince. Unfortunately there wasn’t much choice.
She wondered if her father would bother to pay a ransom for her. He might if for no other reason than it would look bad for him if he didn’t. Now if one of his precious cats had been kidnapped, the entire kingdom would be in an uproar until it was returned.
It was very sad, she thought to herself, that her place in her father’s affection was far below her brothers and well under the cats. Unfortunately it was true. However, Kardal didn’t know that. There was no other choice. She was going to have to tell him who she was and hope that he was a man of honor, loyal to the king. If so, he would happily return her to her father. Once there, she would deal with her betrothal to the troll prince.
She drew herself up to her full height—all of five feet four inches and tried to look important. “I am Princess Sabra of Bahania. You have no right to keep me as your prisoner, nor may you determine my fate. I demand that you return me to the palace at once. If you do not, I will be forced to tell my father what you have done. He will hunt you and your men like the dogs that you are.”
Kardal looked faintly bored.
“You don’t believe me?” she asked. “I assure you, it’s the truth.”
He studied her face. “You don’t appear very royal. If you’re really the princess, what are you doing out here in the desert by yourself?”
“I told you yesterday. Searching for the City of Thieves. I wanted to find it and surprise my father with treasures I discovered there.”
That much was true, she thought. Not only had she wanted to study the fabled city, but she’d figured finding it was a surefire way to get the king’s attention. Once he realized she was a real person, she might be able to talk him out of her engagement.
He considered her words. “Even if you are the princess, which I doubt, I don’t see why you would have been out alone. It is forbidden.” His gaze narrowed. “Although they say the princess is willful and difficult. Perhaps you are her after all.”
Talk about a no-win situation, Sabrina thought glumly. She could accept the character assassination or not be believed. Once again she was left grasping for an alternative. Why was it people always assumed the worst about her? Didn’t anyone understand that she hadn’t had a normal life? Splitting time between two parents who didn’t really want her around hadn’t given her anything close to a happy childhood. People who thought she was fortunate saw only the physical trappings of her station. No one saw the endless hours she’d spent alone as a child.
But there was no point in explaining all that to Kardal. He wouldn’t believe her and even if he did, he wouldn’t care.
“I will consider what you have told me,” he said at last.
“What does that mean? You believe that I’m really the princess? Are you going to take me back to the palace in Bahania?” Compared to her recent desert experience, the troll prince might not be such a bad choice after all.
“No,” Kardal told her. “I think I will keep you for now. It would be most entertaining to have a princess as a slave.”
She tried to speak but could only splutter. He couldn’t mean it, she told herself, hoping she wasn’t lying.
“No,” she finally said. “You couldn’t do that.”
“It appears that I could.” Kardal chuckled to himself as he walked away, leaving her openmouthed and frothing.
“You’ll regret this,” she yelled after him, fighting the fury growing within her. If she hadn’t treasured her coffee so much, she would have tossed the steaming liquid at his retreating back. “I’ll make you sorry.”
He turned and looked at her. “I know, Sabrina. Most likely all the days of my life.”
Forty minutes later, she knew a flogging was too good for him. She was back to wanting him both hanged and shot. Maybe even beheaded. It wasn’t enough that he threatened her and insulted her. No. Not only had he tied her up, but he’d blindfolded her as well.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” she announced, practically vibrating with rage. The sensation of being blind while on a moving horse was completely disconcerting. With each step, she expected to tumble under the horse’s hooves.
“First,” Kardal said, his voice barely a whisper in her ear. “You don’t have to shout. I’m right behind you.”
“Like I don’t know that.”
She sat in front of him, on his saddle. As much as she tried to keep from touching him, there wasn’t enough room. Holding herself stiffly away from him only made her muscles ache. Despite her best effort to prevent contact, her back kept brushing against his front.
“What’s the second thing?” she asked grudgingly.
“You’re about to get your wish. Our destination is the City of Thieves.”
Sabrina didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Her mind filled with a thousand questions, not to mention disbelief, hope and excitement.
“It’s real?”
Behind her, Kardal chuckled. “Very real. I’ve lived there all my life.”
“But you can’t—It isn’t—” What he was saying didn’t make sense. “If it truly exists, how come I’ve never heard about it except in old books or diaries?”
“It’s how we prefer it. We are not interested in the outside world. We live in the old tradition.”
Which meant life for women was less than agreeable.
“I don’t believe you,” she told him. “You’re just saying this to get my hopes up.”
“Why else would I blindfold you? It is important that you not be able to find your way back to our city.”
Sabrina bit her lower lip. Could Kardal be telling the truth? Could the city exist and did people really live there? It would almost be worth being captured just to see inside the ancient walls. And his statement about finding her way back implied that he would—despite his posturing to the contrary—eventually let her go.
“Are there treasures?” she asked.
“You seek material wealth?”
There was something in his tone. Contempt, maybe? What was it about this man and his assumptions?
“Stop talking to me like I’m some gold digger,” she said heatedly. “I have a bachelor’s degree in archeology and a master’s in Bahanian history. My interest in the contents of the city are intellectual and scientific, not personal.”
She adjusted her weight, trying to escape the feeling that she was going to fall from the horse at any moment. “I don’t know why I’m bothering,” she grumbled into the darkness. “You’re hardly a sympathetic audience. Just believe what you want. I don’t care.”
But she did care, Kardal thought with some surprise when she was finally quiet. He had heard about her going to school in America. It had never occurred to him that she would actually complete her studies, nor had he thought she would study something relevant to her heritage. He wasn’t sure she didn’t want the treasures of his homeland for herself, but he was willing to wait and let her show her true self on that matter.
She leaned forward, as if holding herself away from him. He felt the tremor in her muscles, the result of her tension.
“Relax,” he told her, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her against him. “We have a long day’s ride. If you continue to sit so stiffly, you’ll spend much of the time in pain. I promise not to ravish you while we’re upon my horse.”
“Remind me to never dismount then,” she muttered, half under her breath, but she did let herself sag against him.
Sabrina was more trouble than any other three women Kardal had ever known, but he found he didn’t dislike her as much as he would have thought. Unfortunately he also found her body appealing as it pressed against his own. During the night he’d managed to ignore the sweet scent of her, but not while they rode pressed so closely together. When he’d first placed her in the saddle, he’d only thought to keep her from running off. By tying her hands, he’d attempted to both restrain and punish her willfulness. Now he was the one being punished.
With each step of the horse, her body swayed against his. Her rear nestled against his groin, arousing him so that he could think of little else. It was a kind of trouble he did not need.
She was not the traditional desert woman he would have chosen. She was neither deferential nor accommodating. Her quick mind allowed her to use wit and words as a weapon and there was no telling how her time in the west had corrupted her. She was disrespectful, opinionated and spoiled. And even if he found her slightly intriguing, she was not whom he would have chosen. But then the choice hadn’t been his at all. It had all been proclaimed at the time of his birth.
He wondered why she didn’t know who he was. Had her father not told her the specifics or had she simply not listened? He would guess the latter. Kardal smiled. He doubted Sabrina listened to anything she didn’t want to hear. It was a habit he would break her of.
He could almost anticipate the challenge she would be to him. In the end he would be the victor, of course. He was the man—strength to her yielding softness. Eventually she would learn to appreciate that. In the meantime, what would the ill-tempered beauty say if she knew he was the man to whom she had been betrothed?
Chapter Three
E ventually Sabrina found the rhythm of the horse hypnotic, even with the chronic sensation of falling. Despite her desire to, if not prove herself then at least be somewhat independent, she found herself relaxing into Kardal’s arms. He was strong enough to support her and if she continued to hold herself stiffly, she would be aching by the end of the day.
So instead she allowed herself to lean into him, feeling the muscled hardness of his chest pressing against her. He shifted his arms so that he held the reins in front of her instead of behind her. Her forearms rested on his.
The sensation of touching him was oddly intimate. Perhaps it was their close proximity, or perhaps it was the darkness caused by her blindfold. She’d never been in a situation like this, but that shouldn’t be a surprise. Not much of her life had been spent with her being kidnapped.
“Do you do this often?” she asked. “Kidnap innocent women?”
Instead of being insulted by the question, he chuckled. “You are many things, princess, but you are not innocent.”
Actually he was wrong about that, but this was hardly the time or the place to have that conversation. She could—
The horse stumbled on a loose rock. There was no warning. For Sabrina, the blackness of her world shifted and the sensation of falling nearly became a reality. She gasped and tried to grab on to something, but there was only openness in front of her.
“It’s all right,” Kardal soothed from behind her. He moved his arm so that it clasped her around the waist, pulling her more tightly against him. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She wanted to take comfort in his words, but she knew the real purpose behind them. “Your concern isn’t about me,” she grumbled. “You don’t want anything to happen to your prize.”
He laughed softly. “Exactly, my desert bird. I refuse to let you fly away, nor will I allow you to be injured. You are to stay just as you are until I can claim my rightful reward.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. No doubt he believed everything he read in the papers about her, so he thought he knew her.
“You’re wrong about me,” she said a few minutes later, when the horse was once again steady and her heartbeat had returned to normal.
“I am rarely wrong.”
That comment made her roll her eyes, although with her wearing a blindfold he couldn’t tell.
“I know you are not a dutiful daughter,” he murmured in her ear. “You live a wild life in the west. But that is no surprise. You are your mother’s daughter, not a woman of Bahania.”
She told herself that he was a barbarian and his opinion didn’t matter. Unfortunately those words didn’t stop the sting of tears or the lump in her throat. She hated that people judged her based on a few reports in newspapers or magazines. It had happened to her all her life. Very few people took the time to find out the truth.
“Did it ever occur to you that sometimes the media gets it wrong?” she asked.
“Sometimes, but not in your case. You have lived most of your years in Los Angeles. Picking up that lifestyle was inevitable. Had your father kept you here, you might have learned our ways, but that was not to be.”
She didn’t know which charge to answer first. “You’re making it sound as if my father letting me go was my fault,” she told him. “I was four years old. I didn’t have any say in the decision. And just in case you forgot, Bahanian law forbids a royal child being raised in another country, yet my father let my mother take me away. He didn’t even try to stop her.”
She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. All her life she’d had to live with the knowledge that her father hadn’t cared enough about her to keep her around. She didn’t doubt that if she’d been a son, he would have refused to let her go. But she was merely a daughter. His only daughter, but that was obviously not significant to him.
She felt her frustration growing. It wasn’t fair. It had never been fair and it was never going to be fair in the future. One day she would figure that out. Maybe on the same day she would cease caring what people thought about her. Maybe then she would be mature enough not to worry when they formed opinions and judged her before even meeting her. Unfortunately that day wasn’t today and she hated that Kardal’s low opinion stung more so than usual.
“You can say what you want,” she told Kardal. “You can have your opinions and your theories, but no one knows the truth except me.”
“I will admit that much is true,” he said, his deep voice drifting around her and making her wonder what he was thinking.
