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She lay down on the blanket and curled her knees into her chest, her back to Zafar. She heard the blanket shift, felt it pull beneath her as he lay down, too.
“The wilderness is endless, and it makes you realize that you are small,” he said, his voice deep, accented, melting over her like butter. She felt like the ground was sinking beneath her, like she was falling. “But it also makes you realize how powerful you are. Because if you respect it, if you learn your limitations and work with them, rather than against them, you can live here. You will never master the desert...no man or woman can. But if you learn to respect her, she will allow you to live. And living here, surviving, thriving, that is true power.”
Her eyes fluttered closed, and the world upended. “I’m cold,” she said, a shiver racking her.
A strong arm came around her waist, and she was pulled into heat, warmth that pushed through to her soul. It was a strange comfort. It shouldn’t even be a comfort, and yet it was. Being held by him felt good. Human touch, his touch, soothed parts of her she hadn’t known had been burned raw by her nights in the desert.
His fingertip drifted briefly along the line of her bare arm. A soothing gesture. One that stopped the chill. One that made her feel like a small flame had been ignited beneath her skin.
Her last thought before losing consciousness was that she’d never slept with a man’s arm around her like this. And the vague sense that she should be saving this for the man she was marrying.
Except that didn’t make sense. This was just sleeping.
And she badly needed sleep.
So she moved more tightly into his body and gave in to the need she’d been fighting against ever since she’d been kidnapped.
And slept.
CHAPTER THREE
“YOU NEED TO wake up now.”
Zafar looked down at the sleeping woman, curled up on the floor of the tent like an infant.
The sun was starting to rise over the mountains, and in a moment, the air became heated. Enough that if you breathed too deeply it would scorch your lungs. And he didn’t relish riding through the heat of the day. He wanted to get to the oasis, wait it out, then continue on to the city.
He didn’t want to spend another night out here with this fragile, shivering creature. He needed to be able to sleep, and he could not sleep beside anyone.
Plus, she was far too delicate. Far too pale. Her skin an impractical shade of pink, her hair so blond it was nearly white, her eyes the same blue as the bleached sky.
She would burn out here in the desert.
She stirred and blinked, looking up at him. “I...” She pushed into a sitting position. “Oh, no. It wasn’t a dream.”
“No. Sorry. And are you referring to me or the kidnapping? Because I should think I am preferable to a band of thieves.”
“The kidnapping in general. This entire experience. Ugh. My whole body hurts. This ground is hard.”
“I’m sorry. Perhaps you should talk to the Creator about softening it for you.”
“Oh, I see, you think I’m silly. And wimpy and whatever.” She pushed a hand through her hair, and he noticed her fingers got hung up in it. He wondered how long it had been since she’d been able to brush her hair. He imagined she hadn’t been given the opportunity to bathe or take care of any necessities really.
And he wondered if they had gone with her when she’d had to take care of certain biological needs. If they had stood guard. If they had made her feel humiliated. It heated the blood in his veins. Made him feel hungry for revenge. But he couldn’t follow the feeling. Emotion didn’t reign in his life. Not now. Emotion lied. Purpose did not.
And it was purpose he had to follow now, no matter the cost.
“I think very little about you, actually. At least, about you as a person. Right now, you are an obstacle. And one that is making me late.” He’d been contacted by one of his men. There was an ambassador Rycroft, a crony of his uncle’s who was anxious for a meeting. Zafar was about as anxious for it as he was for a snakebite, but he supposed that was his life now.
Meetings. Politics.
“Excuse me?” She stood now, her legs shaky, awkward like a newborn fawn’s. “I’m making you late? I didn’t ask to be kidnapped. I didn’t ask for you to buy me.”
“Ransomed. I ransomed you.”
“Whatever, I didn’t ask you to.”
“Be that as it may, here we are. Now get out, I need to take the tent down.”
She shot him a deadly glare and walked out of the tent, her chin held high, her expression haughty. She looked like a little sheikha. A pale little sheikha who would likely wither out here in the heat.
“I have jerky in my saddlebags,” he said.
“Mmm. Yay for dry salted meat in the heat,” she said, clearly not satisfied to look at him with venom in her eyes. She had to spit it, too.
For all her attitude, she went digging through the bags, and as soon as she found the jerky she was eating it with enthusiasm. “More water?” she asked.
“In the skin.”
He continued deconstructing the tent while she drank more water and ate more food. For a woman who was so tiny, she didn’t eat delicately.
“Did they feed you?”
“Some,” she said, between gulps of water. “Not enough, and I was skeptical of it. So I only ate when I couldn’t stop myself.”
“Poisoning you, or drugging you would have served no purpose.”
“Probably not, but I was feeling paranoid.”
“Fair enough.”
“But you won’t hurt me, will you?” she asked, almost more a statement than a question, pale eyes trained on him.
“You have my word on that.”
He would not harm a woman. No matter her sins. Even he had his limits. Though he might see a woman thrown in jail for the rest of her life, but that was an entirely different woman. A different matter.
“I didn’t think you would. That’s why I slept.”
“How many days?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I was afraid to close my eyes because who knew what might happen. But it only makes things worse. It makes you...think things that aren’t real, makes it all blur together and then...it’s all scary enough without the added paranoia. I thought I was going crazy.”
“Understand this,” he said. “I’m not holding you for fun. I am not holding you to harm you in any way. I need to get a better read on the situation. I know this isn’t ideal for you, but war during your courtship would be even worse.”
“War would be worse in general,” she said. “But maybe I can talk to Tariq....”
“Maybe. And maybe it would matter. But there are times when a man must show his strength to protect what is his. There is a time for peace, but when your fiancée has been kidnapped, I am not sure that’s the time.” He paused. “And then there’s how my people will react. It is the sort of thing they expect of me. I will be implicated, make no mistake. Jamal will ensure it. And you know, for many leaders, it wouldn’t matter. They could crush the rumors, destroy the rebellion. Me? There is no loyalty to me here. It is not the love of my people chaining me to the throne, but law. If they could see me relieved of the position, many of them would, do not doubt it.”
“But you need to rule?”
“I was born to rule. It is my rightful place, stolen from me. I was exiled, banished, and I will not live the rest of my days that way. The throne of Al Sabah is mine now, and I mean to take it.”
“Even if you have to hold me to do it?”
“You will be kept in a palace, surrounded by luxury that rivals anything your darling fiancé could produce for you, so I doubt you’ll feel to put upon. Consider it a spa retreat.”
She looked around them. “Shall I start with sand treatment? Good for the pores, or what?”
“All right, the retreat portion of the vacation starts tonight. For now, consider yourself still on the desert tour. Only this is one-on-one. And you’re now with a man who knows the desert better than most people know the layout of the city they grew up in.”
“I don’t know whether to ask questions about the rocks or the dirt. The beauty is so diverse out here.”
“The landscape in Shakar is similar. Perhaps you should rethink your upcoming marriage if the best you can muster for your surroundings is a bit of bored disdain.”
“I’m sorry to have insulted your precious desert. I’m in a bad mood.”
“Your mood is the least of my worries, habibti. Now—” he put the bundle of tent back onto the horse, took the skin from her hand and refixed it to the saddlebags “—get on the horse, or I shall have to assist you again.”
She looked up at the horse and then back at him, genuine distress in her blue eyes. “I can’t. I wish I could. But my legs feel like strained spaghetti. It’s not happening.”
“It’s no matter to me. I held you all night. Putting my arms around you again isn’t exactly a hardship.” Her cheeks turned a brilliant shade of red and it had nothing to do with the sun. He didn’t know why he’d felt compelled to tease her that way. He didn’t know why he’d felt compelled to tease her at all. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever felt the least desire to engage in humor or lightness of any kind.
But beneath that was something darker. Something he had to ignore. A pull that he couldn’t acknowledge.
“Do what you must,” she said, defeated.
He locked his fingers together and lowered his hands, creating a step for her. “Come on,” he said.
She looked down and squinted. “Oh, fine.” She put one hand on the horse’s back and one on his shoulder, placing her foot into his hands and pushing up. He lifted her as she swung her leg over the horse and took her position.
“Front or back, habibti, it’s no matter to me.”
She looked genuinely troubled by the question. And then as though she was calculating which method would bring her into the least contact with his body.
“I...front.”
He found the position a bit more taxing, but the alternative was to have her clinging to his back, thighs shaped around his, her breasts pressed to his back. The thought sent a strange tightening through his whole body. His throat down to his stomach, the muscles in his arms, his groin.
No. He had no time for such distraction. She would remain untouched. Protected. He swore it then and there. A vow made before the desert that he would not break.
Fiancée or not, a man who would take advantage of a woman in her position was the basest of creatures.
And are you not more animal than man after your time out here?
No. He knew what was right. And he would see it done.
Right was why he was returning now. Back to a palace that was, in his mind, little more than a gilded tomb. A place that held ghosts. Secrets. Pain so deep he did not like to remember it.
But this had nothing to do with want. Nothing in his life had to do with want; it was simply duty. If doing right meant riding into hell, he would. While the palace wasn’t hell, it was close. But there could be no hesitation. No turning back.
And no distractions.
He got on behind her, gripping the reins tightly. “Hold on.” He wrapped an arm around her waist. “If we’re going to make it back to the palace today, we have to go fast.”
* * *
Fast was an understatement. They made a brief stop at the oasis, a pocket in a mountain that seemed to rise from the earth, shielding greenery and water from the sun, providing shade and relief from the immeasurable heat.
Sadly, they didn’t linger for very long and they were back in the sun, the horse’s hoofbeats a repetitive, pounding rhythm that was starting to drive her crazy.
By the time the vague impression of the city, hazy in the distance, came into view, Ana was afraid she was going to fall off the horse. Fatigue had set in, bone deep. She felt coated in a fine layer of dust, her fingers dry and stiff with it.
She needed a bath. And a soft bed. She could worry about everything else later, as long as she had those two things as soon as humanly possible.
This was not her life. Her life was cosseted in terms of physical comforts. A plush mansion, a private all-girls school with antique, spotless furniture and women’s college dorms that rivaled any five-star hotel.
Hot baths and soft beds had been taken for granted all of her life. Never again. Never, ever again. She was wretched. She felt more rodent than human at the moment. Like some ground-dwelling creature rooted out of her hole, left to dry out beneath the heat.
As they drew closer she could see skyscrapers. Gray glass and steel, just like any city in the United States. But beyond that was the wall. Tall, made of yellow brick, a testament to the city that once had been—a thousand years ago.
“Welcome to Bihar,” he said, his tone grim.
“Are you just going to ride in?”
He tightened his hold on her. “Why the hell not?”
He was a funny contradiction. A man who was able to spout poetry about the desert, soliloquies of great elegance. And yet, when he had to engage in conversation, the elegance was gone. On his own, he was all raw power and certainty, but when he had to interact...well, that was a weakness for sure.
“Seems to me a horse might be out of place.”
“In the inner city, yes, but not here on the outskirts. Not on the road to the palace. At least not the road I intend to take.”
They forged on, through the walls that kept Bihar separate from the desert. They went past homes, pressed together, stacked four floors high, made from sun-bleached brick. Then on past an open-air market with rows of baskets filled to the brim with flour, nuts and dried fruit. People were milling about everywhere, making way for Zafar without sparing a lingering glance.
She turned and looked up at him. Only his eyes were visible. Dark and fathomless. His face was covered by his headdress. No one would recognize him. It struck her then, how funny it was.
The sheikh riding through on his black war horse, a captive in the saddle with him. And no one would ever know.
They continued on, moving up a narrow cobbled street, past the dense crowds, and through more neighborhoods, the houses starting to spread out then getting sparser. The cobbles turned to dirt, a path that followed the wall of the city, in an olive grove that seemed the stretch on for miles. Then she saw it, a glimmer on the hilltop, stretching across the entire ridge: the palace. Imposing. Massive. Beautiful.
White stone walls and a sapphire roof made it a beacon that she was sure could be seen from most points in the city. Bihar might have thoroughly modern buildings that nearly touched the sky, but the palace seemed to be a part of it. Something ethereal or supernatural. Unreal.
Zafar urged the horse into a canter and the palace rapidly drew closer. When they arrived at the gate, Zafar dismounted, tugging at the fabric that covered his face, revealing strong, handsome features. Unmistakable. No wonder he traveled the way that he did. There was no way he would go unrecognized if he didn’t keep his face covered. No way in the world.
He reached into the folds of his robes and pulled out...a cell phone. Ana felt like she’d just been given whiplash. Everything about Zafar seemed part of another era. The man had ridden a freaking black stallion through the city streets, and now he was making a call on a cell phone.
It was incongruous. Her brain rejected it wholly, but it couldn’t argue with what she was seeing. Her poor brain. It had tried rejecting this entire experience, but unfortunately, the past week was reality. This was reality.
