The Desert Lord’s Bride

mean tearing Judar apart. Then Judar’s neighbor, Zohayd, was dragged into the crisis, for another branch of the Aal Shalaans form the ruling house there.”

“So King Atef is an Aal Shalaan?”

“As you are. You didn’t even know his full name?”

“I-I didn’t want to know anything more. I didn’t know-I didn’t think-I…” Her defense stifled under the mercilessness of his gaze, which before had been sympathetic, empathic. But he was done acting. She choked out, “So what happened after that?”

It was a long moment before he continued his account, his voice grating her raw. “The Zohaydan Aal Shalaans pressured King Atef to support their tribesmen’s rise to Judar’s throne. But he wouldn’t support such madness. The Aal Masoods are his biggest allies and the reason behind Zohayd’s prosperity, not to mention that losing our throne would destabilize the whole region. He was willing to side with us in a war against anyone, kinsmen or not. But that would have plunged Zohayd into civil war, too.

“After intensive negotiations, the Aal Shalaans in both kingdoms decreed that the only peaceful solution was for the Aal Masoods’ future king to marry the daughter of their most pureblooded patriarch so that their blood may enter our royal house. Things calmed down as disputes lengthened over which patriarch in their extensive tribe had the purest Aal Shalaan blood, with Farooq, my older brother, then Judar’s crown prince, poised to marry his daughter. But that patriarch was determined to be King Atef himself, who didn’t have a daughter.

“It was then we all realized we’d fallen into a trap, realized who’d been behind the conspiracy. It was my cousin Tareq, the outcast would-be crown prince. He stirred old hatreds, cornered us until we had no way out but to fight for the throne. Or to let it go. Either way, Judar and Zohayd would be destroyed in civil wars that would drag the whole region into chaos. He plotted a perfect revenge on the royal house that had cast him out, and the kingdom that was its biggest ally. Then a miracle happened. King Atef discovered he had a daughter from an American lover. You.” His eyes blazed down her face and body, razed her. “And a pact was struck between the two kingdoms, thwarting the conspiracy, appeasing all involved. But my brother Farooq loved his wife so much he couldn’t contemplate taking another wife, no matter the cause. So he stepped down. Now it’s my responsibility to save the throne of Judar.”

And there was silence. For what had to be hours.

So he had a legitimate cause for destroying her. She was what the military liked to call collateral damage. But then, what did she matter in something of this scope? The fate of a whole region hung in the balance. And he’d been forced to do whatever was necessary to bring the stupid goose who’d unwittingly been about to tip everything into hell in line, to fit into the critical slot haphazard fate had placed her in.

“King Atef…m-my father should have insisted on explaining…”

His teeth clapped together before scraping a sound that made her nausea surge. “He must have conveyed the exigency of the crisis. But as you confess, you didn’t listen. Why would the fate of two kingdoms you can’t find on a map matter to you?”

She raised those eyes that belonged to someone else, beyond hurt or pain now, praying she’d remain in that dead zone forever. “I’ll marry you.”

Something terrible flared in his eyes. She would have cringed if she’d had a life to fear for.

He finally grated, “And of course that noble decision has nothing to do with knowing that it’s your only option now that you’ve lost every bet you made.”

She shrugged. “You won. What else do you want?”

He lowered his eyes, his spectacular eyebrows drawing together as if on a spasm of pain. Then his gaze shot up, slammed into her, hostile and enraged. “I want you.”

“No, you don’t.”

Shehab heard Farah’s deadened dismissal and wondered if this was how men broke, under the weight of agony and disillusion so vast, they just buckled.

He’d already known they’d come to the point when he had to force her to marry him, by any means necessary. There was no other option left. This was far bigger than either of them.

But she’d consented, without further pressure. As if she were consenting to an amputation.

Memories of her first consent, the ecstasy of it, gored his mind. To know she would marry him now as a capitulation, a compromise, was crippling.

But what made this beyond his ability to withstand was what he’d confessed. To her. To himself.

He damned himself for feeling anything-everything-for her after she’d smashed his heart, his faith, but there was no escape for him. There never would be.

But if she’d made him her prisoner, he’d make her his.

“Yes, Farah. I want you.”

Some life entered her gaze, agitation, alarm. “But you said…”

He exploded to his feet, stormed to her, plucked her out of her seat and into his arms. “I don’t care what I said. It doesn’t matter what either of us intended or planned. The one reality here remains this…” His mouth crashed down on hers and she convulsed in his arms, cried out. He took advantage, thrust inside her, his tongue driving with unchecked emotions.

He strode to the bedroom in which they’d lost themselves in each other’s arms only hours ago. A lifetime ago. When they’d been different people. He placed her on the bed and came down on top of her. She cried out again, pushed at him.

He stilled at her struggle, slid off her. He’d never force her, not even the woman she’d revealed herself to be. But he’d force her to acknowledge one thing. “You want me, too. I know when a woman feels pleasure at my touch, but you-in my arms, you disintegrated in ecstasy. You’re shaking with needing me inside you, assuaging the ache, giving you the release only I can bring you. Don’t even try to deny it, because I know. And if this is all we can have, then we’ll have it. All of it.”

He held her eyes, demanding her concession, her confession.

And she gave it. With her lashes hiding her expression she dragged his mouth back to hers, scorched him in a blast of hunger as her hands trembled at his belt. He growled in relief, in agony, tore at her clothes. He had her naked, only shredded his shirt open, freed himself, settled his chest over her breasts, rubbed her to a frenzy as she clamped her thighs around him in silent supplication for him to invade her, to merge them.

Unable to stand one more heartbeat outside her heat, her hunger, he rammed inside her.

And right there, buried inside her, knowing that the next thrust would hurtle them both over the edge, he stilled. Reared up. Looked down into her eyes, saw it. The soul that was right, that was perfect, for him, come to complete him, discovered to show him what life held of possibility, to fulfill the promise that had remained unrealized until she was there.

Then she moved, taking him as he took her, her eyes never leaving his. And the dam of pain and anger and disillusion shattered, and every beautiful, overpowering thing he felt for her flooded him. Images of a child with emerald eyes and hundred-color hair deluged him as he jetted inside her, feeling he’d poured his lifeforce into her, causing her paroxysm to spike. Ecstasy rocked them, locked them in a closed circuit until it seemed they might not survive the heights of pleasure, the depths of agony.

When he felt as if his heart would never restart, the excruciating release finally relinquished its merciless grip, let it beat again. Then she let go of his eyes, the deadness back. And the madness lifted, left him groping for breath.

“All those things you said were fabrications.” His choking words were not a question. They were him, realizing the enormity of the mistake he’d made. “Ya Ullah, why did you say them?”

She moved, making it clear she wanted to end their merging. He groaned at the pain of separation, had no choice but to watch her get out of bed like a malfunctioning automaton, go to the wardrobe he’d filled with clothes tailor-made for her, pulled on an emerald summer dress that had made her eyes iridescent when she’d first tried it on. Her eyes were muddy now, vacant.

“I’m just beginning to realize the full implications of you being the crown prince of one of the most powerful oil states in the world. You probably hold the power of life and death over your people. You want it over me.”

He rose from the bed, shuddered at the lifelessness of her voice as he did up his pants, approached her. “I don’t…”

She cut across his protest, her voice becoming an almost inaudible rasp. “You don’t think it enough to have me where you want me, a pawn in your political game and an eager body in your bed, proving your irresistibility. You