Royal Families Vs. Historicals

“Olivia…” His voice was rough.

“There’s more. They got home late. And I…I yelled at them. Why couldn’t they spare a couple of hours for me? All I wanted was for them to spend more time at home with me. And my father just looked at me. My mother cried. Then he said…he said it wasn’t like they wanted to be away. They didn’t want to be in the hospital with a dying child. And how dare I want to take any time from Emily when she might die and…I was living. I shouldn’t complain. Everything with them changed after that. It was never the same. Never.”

“And so you left,” he said. “Changed countries.”

“Met a man I didn’t want anything from. That helped. He didn’t hurt me because…because I knew then never to demand anything. Never to make waves.”

“Your parents were fools,” he said.

“No. They were just in an impossible situation. They are.”

“Perhaps you feel the need to be fair. I do not. They hurt you. That, in my mind, is all that matters. I judge them by that sin.”

She took in a sharp, jagged breath, her fingertips trailing over his scarred flesh. “And I will judge Malik by his sins against you.”

“He had me starved.” Tarek rolled onto his back, his eyes focused on the ceiling. “He withheld water from me. To make me stronger,” he said, his voice rough. “Because I would need to spend much time out in the desert, and there I would not always have food or drink. I had to be prepared. He had me beaten. Because I needed to learn strength. He whipped me. And he…” Tarek touched a patch on his arm that was smooth, shinier than the rest of his skin. “He liked fruit. I remember watching him peel the skin from a pear. He was perfectly capable of peeling off a layer of human skin with as much efficiency. I wear the evidence of that.”

“Tarek. No,” she said, her stomach twisting painfully.

“When I returned to the palace it all came back to me. That is why I woke from my sleep. That’s why I walked the halls with a sword. To kill his ghost if he lingered. I could feel everything he’d done to me again. As though he was wounding me afresh. I found his journals. He admitted to having my parents assassinated. He…detailed the work he did on me to make me a loyal soldier. He liked the whips, as you saw. Liked to isolate me, as well. Deprive me of all sensory input, then…flay my skin with something sharp. My brother. My own brother. My parents were dead, and then…and then he betrayed me, and I have truly…truly never felt so alone as I did in that first moment when he tied me down and traced shapes in my back with the blade of his knife. That was when I started thinking of myself as a rock. Because a rock is unmoved. It might be reshaped, but it doesn’t bleed. It will not die. It is simply reformed. And it remains strong. A rock is never weakened.”

Olivia closed her eyes, stifling the sob that was climbing her throat. “How could he have done that to you? How?” They were empty words. Meaningless. And yet they were all she had.

“This is why I turn away from indulgences. From lusts of all kinds because…look at where it brought him.”

“You aren’t Malik.”

“No,” Tarek said, his voice blazing. “I know he did not intend it, but he gave me purpose. He ensured with all he did that I would guard myself against the weakness that infected his blood.”

“Why? Why did he do it?”

“To break me, though he didn’t say it. Strength, he said. It was always strength. Truly, I think he wanted me to rejoice in being banished to the desert. To make me hate the palace so much that I would never want to return. He wanted me too broken to rule. Too broken to realize his true character. Brainwashed. He did a magnificent job. Out there, I felt nothing. I had but one purpose—to fulfill the bargain I had made with my brother. The one that meant he would leave me be. There was clarity there. A beauty in the simplicity. I cherished it. In that way, I suppose he did his job. He made me strong. He made me the rock. He made that existence feel easy.”

“It was a mind game. He didn’t care for you. He didn’t make you strong. You were strong. Any other man would have been broken.”

He looked up at her, his eyes so black, so empty, they wounded her. “Was I not broken, Olivia?”

“No, Tarek. No. You are not broken.” Her throat tightened, tears rolling down her cheeks. She put her hand on his chest, felt his heartbeat rage beneath her fingertips.

“Do not cry for me, Olivia. Not for me.”

“Who else will?”

“No one needs to.”

“That isn’t true. It isn’t.”

“Whatever I was before Malik… Whatever happened before… I am different now. I’m another man. Whether or not I’m broken is immaterial. I am not what I should be. I can never be.”

“You are everything you choose to be, Tarek,” she said, the words ringing with conviction. “He cannot command control over you, not anymore.”

“You don’t understand. You don’t understand the years I spent there. That they were my refuge. You cannot possibly understand what they meant to me, what they did to me.”

“Make me understand. I’m tired of being alone, Tarek. I’m so tired of being alone. Let me see. Let me see you.”

He rolled out of the bed, standing upright, naked, beautiful and unashamed. “Tomorrow,” he said, his voice strained. “Tomorrow I will show you. I will make you understand. I am not the man you wish I could be. I am not the man you should have.”

“But you have me,” she said, as close to an admission as she could muster right now.

Pain flashed through his eyes, but almost as quickly as it appeared, it was replaced by the flatness again. “Tomorrow, I will show you.”

“Tarek…” She blinked rapidly, looking down at her left hand, at the blue stone there. “Just…before you go… Why did you choose this ring for me?”

He looked at her, a subtle shift in his face softening his features. “Your eyes,” he said. “The stone was blue. Like your eyes. And I very much liked the look of it. Since it made me think of you.”

Her breath caught in her throat. A simple answer. But from Tarek…it may as well have been poetry. It was the truth. So simple. So perfect. It came from his soul, and touched her all the way down to hers.

Then he turned and walked out of the room, leaving her alone once again.

But this time, she didn’t feel devastated by the loneliness. Because she wasn’t simply going to lie back and allow it to be her fate. He had chosen this ring. Because of her eyes. That mattered. Because of that, she would fight.

It didn’t matter what had happened before. Her fear had no place. Tarek was brave. A warrior to his soul. She would be nothing less for him. For herself.

With him, she would fight for more. With him, she would fight for everything.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TAREK COULDN’T QUITE describe the feeling that took hold of him as they drove farther away from the city and deeper into the desert. It had surprised Olivia to know that he could drive a car. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. There were a great many gaps in his education when it came to modern civilization. And while it was a skill he had not often used, it was one he possessed.

Thankfully all of his duties today had been office work, and he had managed to reschedule to make this time for Olivia.

He had demanded they go alone. He was more dangerous than any of the men on his security detail and had likely insulted them by saying so.

But this had been a necessity.

A dark, gnawing sense of panic had been chewing at him since yesterday. Possibly since their wedding night. Or perhaps even before that. Whenever it had appeared, it was only growing worse as they drove into the bleached, bone-dry wilderness.

It was as though the air in his lungs had been replaced with dust. Like drowning on land. He wondered why he was doing this. What he hoped to find out here. What he hoped to show her.

Last night she had looked at him with need and expectation. No one had ever looked at him like that before. Much less such a soft, vulnerable creature. And he had realized in that moment that being prepared to ride out into battle for her was not enough.

He knew nothing else. He knew nothing beyond living by the sword. He had heard somewhere that meant he would surely die by it, and if that was the case, he was prepared. He would die for her. He had no question on that score. But he had no idea what stood in between indifference and a willingness to sacrifice himself. It was those feelings, those things that frightened him.

Because they weren’t a goal. They weren’t an end point. It wasn’t something clean and easy he could focus on.

The very idea splintered in his mind, confused him. Frightened him.

He could’ve laughed. Death didn’t frighten him, but whatever the small, pale woman made him feel was the closest thing to terror he had experienced in his memory.

“How much farther?” she asked when they had been driving for well over two hours.

“Close now,” he said. “There will be no one for miles. This time of year.”

“What about other times of year?”

“There is a Bedouin tribe who pass this way routinely twice yearly. Often they would come to my settlement, for lack of a better word, and stay with me for a few days. I have also at times traveled with them. Though not often.”

The shimmering horizon parted, and suddenly he could see the outlines of the skeletal buildings he had called home for fifteen years. He realized now why he had brought her here. To show her who he was. She had said she was tired of being alone, that she wanted to be with someone. Sadly for her, he was all she had. And this was all he was. She needed to see that; she needed to know.

He said nothing as his encampment drew nearer, and neither did she. It was as though a sandstorm had descended over them both, blanketing them completely, separating them sharply.

When he stopped the car, she remained silent. He killed the engine, opening the driver’s-side door slowly, cautiously. He hadn’t told her, but he was carrying a gun. He trusted nothing and no one. Anyone could have moved into this place in his absence.

“What exactly is this? Besides where you used to live,” she said finally, coming to join him out there in the sand.

“It was a village. Much like the hotel, a part of Tahar’s brush with colonialism. Two hundred years ago European settlers lived here. They didn’t last.” He looked around at the hollow stone buildings. “The houses did.”

“Which one was yours?”

“They were all mine,” he said.

“No. They weren’t. Which one did you stay in?” she said, her persistence, and her insight, more disturbing than he would like to admit.

He took her hand in his and walked her through the settlement. He was prepared to reach for his weapon if need be, but he had no sense that anyone else was in residence.

He hadn’t been back here since he had gotten word of his brother’s death. It had been only a few months, and yet it felt like another lifetime.

They walked through the doorway, the two of them leaving footprints in the smooth sand. He looked down, at the smaller set next to his own. It was strange, to have her here with him. To see evidence that he wasn’t alone.

Sand had washed through here like a flood, creeping up the sweeping staircase that was in the entryway of the two-story building. It was barren, empty, marred by years of wind, sun streaking through the unprotected windows and sandstorms.

It was bare, basic, and it was what he had known as home for half his life. He felt no relief, as he had imagined he might in his early days back at the palace. At first, he had imagined that going back to the simpler existence would be easier. But now he worried for his country. For the new position he had assumed. Now he realized he couldn’t come out and get lost in the desert. Because there were those at the heart of the country who were now depending on him.

“This is where you lived?” Olivia asked, a note of horror winding through her voice.

“Yes,” he said. “This is…this is my home.”

“How did you survive this? How did you ever survive this?”

He didn’t know how to answer that question. Because it hadn’t been difficult. Surviving what had come before it…that had been the hard part. To live in this, he had become this. Barren. Empty. Void of anything but the basics. But the need to survive.

“This…this is a part of me. This is what I am.” He indicated the empty, dry room. “This is all I am. I have purpose. But I am not…I am not more. Not more than this. I am not the beautiful, lavish halls of the palace. This is my soul. This is what’s left.”

“I don’t believe that. I don’t believe it, Tarek. You are more than this. You are more than what you were made.”

“I am exactly what I was made,” he said, his voice rough. “Nothing more.”

“That can’t be true,” she said, reaching up to touch his face. “I have seen inside of you. There is more than this. He didn’t destroy you. He didn’t hollow you out. He only wins if you let him.”

“You think it is so simple?” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled her hand away. “You think you can simply speak it and it will be true?”

“Why not? You think you can show me this, make analogies out of stone and sand and convince me that you were broken. That you are empty. That you are not the man who made vows to me. The man who read a book so he would know how to please me.”

“No. It is impossible. Stop.”

“What is impossible? What?”

“I cannot be more. I cannot give you more. I will leave you nothing but alone, and you don’t want that. I will be everything you were hoping to avoid.”

“You’re wrong. You’re wrong, because I wasn’t looking to avoid anything when I came here. I was looking for anything, and it was all about me. It had nothing to do with you. I didn’t think of who you might be at all. What you might come to mean to me.”

“I am a killer. A machine. That is all. All I create is pain.”

She grabbed hold of his hands, brought them to her cheeks and held them close to her skin. “With these hands? These hands that have brought me so much pleasure. And have been so tender with me.” She smoothed her palms over his knuckles. “I know you have dealt out pain. I know you have been responsible for unimaginable destruction. In the pursuit of protecting your people. But when you touch me… I have never felt the way that I do when I’m with you. You are more. I’ve witnessed it. I’ve felt it.”

He reached around, grabbing hold of her hair, holding her still, tethering them together. “I can’t. I can’t give more. I must keep focused. I must keep my eyes on my goal.”

“Do you have to deny yourself forever?”

“Yes,” he said.

“No.” She leaned forward, battling against his grip, kissing him on the lips.

And he couldn’t fight against this. Against the need that rose up inside him. The desire to be with her. He knew he was all wrong for her, knew that he could never give her what she wanted. Knew that he didn’t possess the answers to the questions that were in her luminous blue eyes. But he wasn’t strong enough to tell her no. Wasn’t strong enough to turn away from this. Here, out in the desert where he had been the most isolated, he could not say no to this. To this chance to water the dry spaces inside him.

She had already compromised his control. And right now, facing down the desperation in her eyes, he didn’t have it in him to try to reclaim it. He couldn’t give her anything deeper than this. But if she wanted his body, he would gladly share it. And if she would share hers with him… He was not worthy. But he wasn’t strong enough to say no. He had survived torture. Had been beaten, broken, had withstood terrible pain. But he could not withstand this desire. This desire that roared through him like a feral beast, tearing at everything in its path.

After this. After this he would rebuild himself. Would find himself again out in the desert as he had done once before. But not now. Now he would lose himself. In her. In this one way he had given himself permission to find release.

“There is a bed. Upstairs. It is not fine. It is likely full of sand.”

She shook her head. “I don’t care.”

He lifted her up into his arms, held her close to his chest. Felt her heartbeat. She was so beautiful, so breakable. How was he entrusted to hold her in his arms? He was nothing. Nothing but a blunt instrument. Nothing but a weapon. What business did he have putting his hands on her body?

None. None at all. But he didn’t possess enough honor to turn away from her, to turn away from this. He felt things breaking between them, splintering. Mirroring the broken pieces of humanity that were left inside him, buried deep. Shattered beyond repair. When she looked at him, it was easy to believe they might be fixed. Easy to believe that he could be whole. Because when she looked at him, she saw a man. But even if the pieces could be repaired, he knew for a fact there weren’t enough left to ever create a whole man. Not in the way she deserved.

She saw more than he was. And he wasn’t strong enough to end that illusion. Not now. After this it would have to end.

With each step he took, the sand depressed beneath his feet, another reminder of where they were. Of the fact that he was ready to strip this beautiful woman naked in the middle of the desert, in a house that was barely fit for a scorpion, much less a queen.

But even with guilt lashing at him, he couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop.

When they made it to the room he’d called his own for all those years, he set her down gently, her feet almost buried in sand. He went over to the crude metal bed frame and grabbed hold of the blankets, shaking them out fiercely. Now that he’d thought of scorpions, he had to be sure.

Her skin should never touch fabric this rough. Her body was worthy of only silk. And worthy of a man who knew better how to treat her. Better how to touch her.

Still, he walked toward her. Still, he wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her against his body, kissing her deeply. Still, he brought her over to the bed and laid her down on the mattress. He was shaking as he let his hands drift over her curves, as he kissed her as if she was the oasis he’d been searching for.

Later. He would hate himself for this later.

He stripped her clothes from her, as quickly as possible, ruthlessly. No thought given to delicacy, to the expensive nature of her clothing. He heard fabric tear, and he didn’t care. If he was more beast than man, he would prove it now. He had no idea if wanting a woman made every man behave this way, made even the most controlled, careful of men act without thought to consequence.

But he didn’t care. It didn’t matter what other men did. It didn’t matter how sex usually felt. Because for him, this was unique. For him, this was the only experience. For him, there would be only her.

When she was bare before him, he bent his head and kissed the soft curve of her breast, drew her nipple deep into his mouth. Then he moved down lower, his tongue tracing a line down the center of her stomach. Her breath pitched, the sharp, sudden action an indicator of her pleasure. He knew. He was learning. She had been right. It didn’t matter how much you knew about sex. You had to know about your partner. Had to care about them.

His hands followed the same journey his tongue had, sliding down her waist, gripping hold of her hips and around behind her, cupping her buttocks, lifting her gently from the bed as he buried his face between her thighs and tasted her in a way he’d become obsessed with in fantasy over the past week.

She cried out as he dragged his tongue over her slick flesh, focusing his attention on the bundle of nerves that was the source of her pleasure. He would happily die like this. With her flavor on his tongue, her soft sounds of pleasure filling the air.

She placed her fingers through his hair, tugging hard, and he took it as a sign to go harder, to go deeper. He had no refined skill; he had only desire. Intensity. A need for her that burned in his gut, that was physical pain.

He would never get enough of her. He could lose himself in her, in this. Could return back to this desert place as long as he had her with him. And it was no longer the kingdom he saw swimming before his vision when he thought of his purpose. It was glittering blue eyes, soft pink lips, blond hair his hands could get lost in. It was Olivia.

The realization hit him with the force of a thunderclap. Everything in him screamed its denial, but he pushed it aside. Because he didn’t care for the future, not now, not with her slickness on his tongue, her desire coating his lips. He held more tightly to her, taking her against his mouth, lavishing attentions on her until she screamed, her voice echoing off the walls where there had before only been silence. This dry, barren place would never be the same again. Because it was filled with her.

And neither would he. Because he was filled with her, too.

He wanted her to be filled with him.

He shifted their positions, rising up to kiss her mouth, testing the entrance to her body with the head of his arousal. There were no preliminaries. He was not tentative as he’d been the first time. Rather, he thrust in deep on a growl, blinding white light flashing behind his eyelids.

He buried his face in her neck, relishing her scent, relishing her. Here he was, at the site of his desolation, in the place where he had been most isolated, most alone, as close to another person as one could possibly be.

He had no restraint now, no ability to hold himself back, and he gave thanks when she arched beneath him, crying out her release because it left him free to chase his own.

And when he did, he was consumed by it. Overcome as a lone traveler in a sandstorm, utterly devastated. Destroyed.

When it was finished, he had no strength left inside him. He could do nothing but pull her body against his and hold her as sleep took hold of him. There was no thought to anything else, no thought at all. Just the desire to rest.

That realization sent a jolt through him. Where had his focus gone? Was this moment of bliss the beginning of a road to ruin? Because it was difficult now to want anything but his own satisfaction. To lose himself in these sorts of moments. To weave a life together made of them. Of happiness and pleasure and comfort. Instead of purpose and loneliness.

But what will your people do if you lose your purpose? If you slide into corruption?

Just for a moment, he let himself imagine falling asleep with her. Making her his world. And a bright, intense burst of joy pierced the darkness inside him. A pure shaft of happiness like he’d never known before.

A happiness that scared him more than any pain he had yet endured.

It brought back memories. Memories long ago blocked out. His mother smiling. His father placing a heavy hand on his shoulder. Those words he could never hear.

Right then, he wanted to run. Right then, he wanted to get away. She made him remember. And that was even deadlier than forgetting.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“I LOVE YOU.”

Olivia didn’t mean to speak the words, but the moment they left her mouth she surrendered. Not just to the feeling, which she had come to terms with yesterday, but to the fact that she had just confessed it. She had said them many times over the course of her life. Her parents, to her sister. To her first husband. But never in all of her life had the response mattered so much. Never in her life had the words cost so much to speak.

Always, they had been the right things to say. A gift with nothing behind them.

But these three words spoken to him were like three strips taken from her hide. Essential parts of herself given to him because they were necessary. Because he was necessary. It made her vulnerable, she knew. It exposed every bit of the neediness she had been afraid of exposing all of her life. But she didn’t care, not now. Because finally, finally she wanted something that was worth the cost. She wanted someone who was worth the cost.