dishonest peasant. Both he and his favorite, Golnar, are wicked. They would stop at nothing to gain Dariyabar. That is why you must act quickly. Will you trust me in this, Amir Khan?'
'In this matter I shall heed your advice, Zuleika of Dariyabar,' he told her. 'Meeting you tonight has been both a surprise and a delight.'
She gave him a final quick smile, and then disappeared through the entry of his tent into the moonlit night. Curious, he moved to watch her go. Her shadow passed swiftly through the maze of tents until he could see it no more. He stepped back into his pavilion and poured himself a goblet of wine. What had just happened here? Was it real, or had he imagined it all? No. His male member was still tingling from her bold attentions. Zuleika of Dariyabar had indeed been in his tent tonight.
He would take her to wife. Aye, he would! He had no wife. He had barely had time for any woman, particularly in the last three years. She was beautiful. She was clever. And she would give him Dariyabar! But she was right when she said her cousin, Haroun, would attempt to stop them. Haroun, who had encouraged his cousins to take up arms against Amir Khan, thereby insuring their demises while he remained within the safety of his city's walls to become his uncle's only male heir. The man was a coward, and he was a bully.
But Zuleika was also right when she said he had a peasant's cleverness. Choosing the vizier's daughter as his prospective wife was indeed a sly move. The khan chuckled to himself. General Sabola was his best friend. They had been raised together in the camp of his own father, The Great Khan. Sabola would be reluctant to have a bride foisted upon him, but by the Gods! If this maiden, Bahira, was as sensual as was the princess, Sabola would have no cause for complaint. Suddenly Amir Khan was overcome with a feeling of exhaustion. Was it natural, or was it the work of the genie, Kansbar? It mattered not. He lay down, and fell into a deep slumber.
When he awoke, strangely refreshed, he heard the sounds of activity in his encampment. His servants were immediately there bringing him his morning meal. He had barely begun it when Sabola arrived to share it with him. He was almost as big as Amir Khan, smooth-shaven, with the powerful frame of a bull. His dark hair was cropped very short. His brown eyes were intelligent. He sat down at his lord's table, and then his jaw dropped at the words issuing forth from the Khan's mouth.
'We are going to be married, old friend,' Amir Khan said with a chortle. 'Both of us! I shall have the princess of Dariyabar to wife, and you shall take the vizier's fair daughter as your mate.' Having said it, the khan began to eat heartily.
'I slept the sleep of the dead last night, Amir,' Sabola said.
'Of course you did,' the khan noted. 'A spell was placed upon the city and our camp by the genie whose task it is to watch over Dariyabar. All slept but for Zuleika, princess of Dariyabar, and me.' Then the khan told his best friend everything that had transpired between him and the princess.
'How can you be certain it is not a skillful trap hatched by this princess and her cousin, Haroun?' Sabola asked, suspicious.
'It isn't. The princess hates her cousin. She realizes that it is he who was responsible for her brothers' deaths. Having finally understood his true character, she is determined he not follow her father as sultan of Dariyabar. By marrying her I gain a legitimacy as the sultan's heir. Zuleika is the key to Dariyabar for us as long as she is my wife. The vizier's daughter binds us ever closer if you wed her.'
Sabola nodded. 'If she is as skilled as your princess, my friend, I shall not be unhappy. I don't suppose we might share our women now and again?'
'Of course we will share them,' the khan replied. 'After we have had their virginities of them, we shall spend a night of pleasure and passion together with our wives. Have we not always shared out women? Zuleika will obey, and her friend as well.'
'I suppose we must bathe if we are to marry today,' Sabola considered. 'We will wed them today, won't we?'
The khan nodded. 'I think it best we do, if we are to thwart Prince Haroun. I will send a messenger with a flag of truce and a message for the sultan that I wish to meet with him. I shall say nothing of what I want, lest Prince Haroun read the message first and realize what we are about.' He looked to a servant. 'Fetch my scribe,' he instructed him.
The scribe came. The message was dictated. The messenger was dispatched to the palace of Dariyabar beneath a flag of truce. He returned to say that the sultan would receive Amir Khan in the late afternoon.
Sabola nodded. 'The die is cast,' he said.
Amir Khan nodded. 'Soon, Dariyabar will be ours,' he said.
Chapter Two
Zuleika awoke after only three hours of sleep, but she felt as refreshed as if she had slumbered the entire night away. She listened to the birds singing out in her garden, a sense of great peace upon her. She had been kissed, but more important she had begun to put into practice all she had been taught about being a woman. She could not wait to share this with Bahira. She had found kneeling before Amir Khan, his wonderfully large manhood at her mercy, quite stimulating. The memory of it sent a flash of raw desire racing through her veins. His hands as he had lightly fondled her breasts had been exciting too. She realized that she could barely wait to have him atop her, his love lance eager to sheathe itself deep within her. She had been so tempted last night, but she had managed to push her own lustful thoughts from her mind for there was other business to conclude. 'Rafa,' she called to her servant.
'Yes, my princess?' the servant said, instantly appearing by her bedside.
'Fetch me my morning meal, and see what gossip you can gather while you go about your duties,' Zuleika instructed the woman.
Rafa smiled a sly smile. 'So, whatever you wanted to do you have now accomplished. Will you tell me?'
'Not yet,' Zuleika replied, 'but I believe I have saved us all. Send a slave girl for Bahira. She is to say the princess desires her companionship today.'
Rafa bowed, and then hurried off while Zuleika's mind wandered back to her barbarian lord. He was so very big. When she had laid her head upon his hairless chest, a clean male scent had assailed her nostrils. His skin was so beautiful, taut over his muscular arms and legs, but smooth and soft beneath her lips. Yet so very masculine. He reeked of brute strength, and power. It had frankly thrilled her. She could barely wait to find herself in his arms once again. Her longing was almost palpable, an suddenly restless, she arose from her bed. She shed the flimsy garment she had slept in, and walking through her bedchamber entered her private bathing room. Pouring a thin stream of a creamy liquid soap into a large sea sponge, she stepped into the shell-shaped indentation in the marble floor, and gave herself a quick wash. Her breasts tingled as she touched them, her nipples puckering. She laughed to herself, realizing that she had again been thinking of Amir Khan, and the big warm hand that had so gently cupped her breasts, each in its turn. Zuleika rinsed herself off beneath a stream of water pouring from the mouth of a goldfish spout. Then coming from the shell basin she stepped down into the warm, scented pool. She floated about, relaxed, her long black hair streaming behind her like dark seaweed.
Would he come today? she wondered. He was a barbarian, yet she believed he was intelligent enough to understand everything she had told him. Would he ask for the princess of Dariyabar for his wife, and not accept her as his concubine? She knew her visit to his encampment had surprised him, even as her direct speech had. He had been more than interested by the magic she possessed through the genie, Kansbar. Her upper teeth worried her lower lip. She wanted him to come today!
Zuleika heard Rafa returning from her errand with the meal, and, it was to be hoped, some useful gossip. She came forth from the perfumed pool, twisted the water from her heavy dark hair, and dried herself on a fine heavy drying cloth made of cotton imported from a land to the southwest. Wrapping the cloth about herself, and another about her head, she reentered her bedchamber saying as she came, 'What news?'
'It is said that the barbarian comes into the city this afternoon beneath a flag of truce, my princess,' Rafa replied, her eyes bright with her curiosity. 'Did you have something to do with this?'
Zuleika smiled, but said nothing on the subject. Instead, she sat down and began eating the melon Rafa had placed upon the table. It was pale green in color, and exceedingly sweet. It almost melted in her mouth, caressing her throat as it slid down. She remembered the head of his manhood pressing against the back of her throat before
