Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  He exploded to his feet. “Discomfort? Discomfort?”

  His storming footsteps came to an abrupt end. He had to end this. He was damaging her further. He had to deliver the words that had been gathering like a storm inside him ever since he’d known he loved her and would have to give her up.

  “Ya habibati—yahayati, ana—ana …” He stopped, struggled to bring his voice, his emotions under control. “I may not be able to give you all of me, but you have all my love. All of it. And you will have all my support, all through your life.”

  She gaped up at him. “Support? You mean …”

  He nodded. “Everything you need to be in absolute comfort and security, you and anyone you want, will be yours.”

  “Are you talking about money?”

  “Anything—and everything you’ll ever need or want.”

  She lowered her eyes for a long moment, until he thought she wouldn’t comment, had accepted. Then she raised her eyes to him, hard eyes, and, ya Ullah, so hurt.

  “I’m going to say this once. Once, Malek. I don’t want, and I will never take, anything from you. Never. So don’t ever, ever say this again, and never, ever try to—to …”

  She fell silent, breathing hard, her fists clamped at her sides. And he lost what remained of his mind.

  He put his insanity into words. “Don’t go, Janaan.”

  Her eyes flared, hesitant, raw.

  “I can’t take … what you offered.” Her eyes dimmed again. He gritted his teeth. “But you came here to explore your heritage, and you’ve barely begun. I can’t let this experience be a total loss for you just because you had the gross misfortune to meet me. Stay and continue doing the job you so love, that you do so magnificently well. Stay and let me show you your land.”

  She bowed her head, tore at his heart with her anguish, with everything that made her herself. Then she nodded. His heart almost blasted through his ribcage, to throw itself at her feet.

  Her smile trembled up at him. “You know what? It may be a good plan. On longer exposure you may find out I’m a boring, aggravating pain, and I may find out you’re an overbearing, overgrown brat, and when it’s over we’ll be glad that it is …”

  And she was in his arms again, his lips devouring her flippant words.

  It was when they were both writhing in agony that he drew back, his every nerve cursing him for the deprivation.

  “This is the last kiss, Janaan,” he panted. “I’ll keep my promise from now on.”

  She clung to him. “Even if I don’t want you to? I don’t want you to! Malek, please!”

  He took himself out of reach at the cost of yet another portion of his soul, groaned, “Especially as you don’t want me to. I have to protect you as you don’t know the first thing about protecting yourself.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IT HAD BEEN A crazy plan.

  One hatched by a clearly unbalanced mind and agreed upon by another mind in an equal state of disrepair.

  To have more time together, in the same proximity and interaction of their first week together wasn’t only crazy, it was heart-shredding, sanity-compromising, self-destructive.

  It was also glorious. As they carried on their mission, traveled into the mountainous parts of Ashgoon, their rapport deepened, their appreciation of everything about each other soared. Malek was astounded by how right everything was. Their ideologies meshed, their wits, their senses of humor, their work ethic. Even the friction was magnificent.

  She objected fiercely to his protective ways, called it his sheikh shtick, his terminally chauvinistic streak, and he was driven to distraction by her overly independent, if very effective, ways. They clashed, collaborated, melded, and it was beyond anything he’d ever dreamed of.

  Beyond love and need, the concept of soulmates, one he’d only ever scoffed at, floated constantly in his mind, descending into his heart to become a fact. It explained how fast they’d both recognized and surrendered to their unprecedented connection.

  But what wrecked him was her acceptance. That he’d never be hers, that she’d disappear from his life at the end of this mission. She had this serenity about her of someone who’d accepted her fate.

  And as he counted down to the unthinkable day when he would have to let her go, knowing he’d hurt her as much as he’d hurt himself, knowing she’d go on hurting as much as he would, he couldn’t stop marveling at how she seemed to have stopped thinking about what would happen next and threw herself into the here and now of this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

  “So what do you intend to do from now on?”

  It was only when she spoke that he realized he’d been staring at her.

  “Hel-lo? Earth to deep-space Sheikh. Any hope you’ll get the future king back on line?”

  She was making fun of him. He loved it, as always. Also he loved how she didn’t avoid talking about his status, had turned it into a subject for light-heartedness, sometimes even gentle ridicule, so it wouldn’t overwhelm him, and her, with its inescapability.

  But she’d asked him something. About the future, his plans for it.

  Ya Ullah, she wanted projections of his life in the luxurious prison of duties he’d been sentenced to? Of his life with the faceless woman he’d take for a wife, force himself to touch, to copulate with.?

  He stomach churned. He barely suppressed a shudder of revulsion and said abruptly, “What exactly do you want to know?”

  She winced. “Whoa! You mentioned you have ongoing relief plans for the communities we visit, and I’m only curious to know what they are.”

  That was what she’d meant?

  Of course. She hadn’t intruded by question or comment into anything remotely personal.

  No. No, that wasn’t accurate. She did delve into his innermost recesses, his views, reactions, instincts, preferences, seemed to know them any way down to the last detail. She was avid to know everything that made him himself. But nothing about what made him a sheikh, or Damhoor’s future king.

  “OK, your chance to answer my most relevant question is over,” she quipped. “Here comes the next wave of patients.”

  He blinked, turned his head to see children coming in.

  Janaan rose from his side to organize them for examination by a quick triage. He’d barely shaken himself from his daze when she turned to him.

  “These eight kids.” She pointed to the ones she was leading to the examination stations as the others walked the rest out. “I suspect congenital heart conditions. Serious ones.”

  A quick look told him she was right. The children, between four and eight, looked nothing like their healthier counterparts. Emaciated, underdeveloped, subdued. Their labored breathing at rest and their blue-tinged lips and nails told the rest of the story. And to think those were the ones who’d survived. Others with more serious conditions had long since died when they could have been saved if only the necessary medical services had reached them.

  But those children’s families weren’t living in the hostile mountains of Ashgoon out of choice. They were escapees from the civil wars, subsisting in inhuman conditions. What he and GAO were doing here was a drop in the ocean. He hoped enough drops would become a healing shower, prayed he’d have the wisdom to deal with this country’s rulers, to one day solve these people’s ongoing problems.

  Jay joined their two internists in their exam. He joined her in examining the youngest two children.

  He prepared the ECG machine while she did her exams. She lowered her stethoscope and beckoned to him as she cooed to the two little girls with a smile. He wheeled the machine forward, started joking with the little ones, who Jay informed him were Zahrah and Azzah, making a game of applying the gel to their emaciated chests. Jay joined in, turned placing the ECG electrodes and leads into more fun.

  When they had the tracings they dressed the girls and he rushed to his bag, came back with huge chocolate bars to the delightful sound of the little girls’ giggling. Jay was performing magic tricks for them!
>
  With his heart booming at yet another of her surprises, being the Arabic speaker, it fell to him to be the one to disappoint the little girls by telling them they’d have to eat the chocolate after they got better, but that it would be soon, and there’d be way more then. They agreed to stay in bed until their friends were examined, then they’d take care of them all.

  As they waited for the others to finish, he took Janaan aside. “How did you do that trick with the tongue depressor?”

  Jay gave him a look of exaggerated self-importance and mystery. “You expect a magician to reveal her secrets? Tsk.”

  “I know you’re a sorceress.” He believed it. Look how she’d enchanted him, enslaved him. “But that was a trick—for a change. I’ll trade you its secret for a rundown of my plans.”

  “No deal. I can find out your plans on my own.”

  He sighed. “Tormentor. Zain, I concede I’m no position to bargain.” He soaked up her triumphant smile, smiled back. “So—my plans. I have definite ones for the communities under Damhoorian sovereignty. I’ll provide them with comprehensive medical insurance and set up centers close enough to be within reach but far enough away so as not to encroach on their way of life, to serve as permanent medical and community services facilities. GAO will handle the logistics. I’ll provide what they recommend.”

  She gave him one of those glances that made him feel he could spread his arms and fly.

  “What about the communities outside Damhoor?” she asked.

  That brought him crashing back to earth. “Those are another matter,” he growled. “For instance, the Ashgoonian government welcomes my efforts as long as they’re in a crisis or when they think it’s those of a pampered royal playing at philanthropy. Once I put forward plans for the widespread reforms I have in mind, I doubt they’ll be as grateful. Beyond medical services, these people need aggressive development programs to make their neighborhoods habitable, livestock, farming and small projects to help them become self-supporting, vocational training to provide them with desperately needed job skills and educational projects to break the cycle of ignorance and poverty.”

  Her eyes now made him feel as if he could single-handedly do all that. If he had her at his side, he knew he would.

  “Skeikh Malek, we’re ready to review our findings.”

  Malek shook himself from another attack of searing longing, turned to Mel Kawolski, their sole GAO cardiologist. “Go ahead.”

  “All six children are suffering from serious congenital heart defects and congestive heart failure,” Mel said.

  Malek nodded. “So are Zahrah and Azzah over there. Both are suffering from severe Fallot’s tetralogy.”

  The other internist, Hal Zuckerman said, “We diagnosed two cases of severe coarctation of the aorta, three quite large ventricular septal defects, and one total mitral valve prolapse. They’re all conditions necessitating surgical treatment.”

  Malek took one more look at the children who lay on their beds, fragile, helpless, looking at him as if they understood he was the one who had their fates in his hands.

  He gritted his teeth. “Get me films, prepare the children and transfer them in order of severity to surgery.” Mel nodded, got busy at once. Malek looked down at Jay. “Coming?”

  She tore her gaze from the children, turned glittering eyes up at him. “Try to stop me.”

  She fell into brisk step with him as they exited the tent, traversed the clearance they’d made for their camp in the crowded, squalid mountain community. It was a fifteen-minute hike down to the valley where they’d left their convoy. Only the Jeeps had made it up the narrow, unpaved mountain roads.

  As they reached the surgery trailer she paused at its steps. “I’ve been thinking, Malek. Maybe the Ashgoonian government will resist you now, but once you’re king you will have far more power, and even if you can’t influence them to put an end to these people’s ordeals, you will be able to pressure them to let you intervene yourself. God—what a blessing that kind of power will be in your hands.”

  The permanent spasm behind his ribs sank talons into his heart, almost drove him to his knees.

  “Janaan, this was a horrible idea …”

  He bit his lip, barely stopped himself from ramming his head against the trailer’s steel side.

  Of all the stupid, insensitive things to say.

  “Not letting me go when I asked to?” she completed for him. “Probably. But I stand by my words weeks ago. Coming here, getting to know you, is my life’s most incredible experience, and I wouldn’t wish it away for the world. I only hope you don’t regret it too much.” She suddenly poked him in the arm, grinned. “Now, lighten up, and power up on that healing magic of yours.”

  He swallowed the burning coal that had replaced his larynx as he followed her inside the trailer.

  She hadn’t fooled him with her levity. Every second she was beside him kept breaking her heart into smaller pieces. By the time she left it would be pulverized. As would his be.

  It was five days later when their last batch of post-operative patients was airlifted to Halwan. Malek believed all the kids would make full recoveries. Now, with the rest of their medical and community services targets reached, it was time to move on to their next destination.

  As they waited for the Jeeps to come down from the mountain, Jay watched everyone gearing up for the move.

  She’d loved every heart-wrenching, fascinating, exhausting second of the past three weeks, had come to know so much about the region and the people, had made friends and gained invaluable experience and knowledge. Then had come being with Malek. It had made everything that had happened between them before pale by comparison. She hadn’t lied when she’d said the whole experience was and would remain her life’s high point.

  The bottom line was she’d been crazy to prolong her torment.

  She’d long acknowledged she’d fallen in love with Malek during those first few hours, but extending her knowledge of him, prolonging the exposure, the glorious interaction, deepening the soul-deep bond had been an act of sheer lunacy.

  She’d had a chance of surviving without him before those weeks. She’d thrown it away.

  She stood staring sightlessly as the Jeeps made their way down the mountain, numb, burning despair seeping into her as she made the decision to walk away, today.

  Suddenly she was distracted as if from the depths of a nightmare as one of their Jeeps lurched as the ground beneath it gave way. The driver tried to veer off the collapsing slice of mountain, failed and tilted sideways, over and over and over down the ravine leading to where they were.

  The moment it crashed a dozen hundred feet away, chaos erupted. Screams, dozens of people running towards the crash, Malek ahead of everyone, his shouts drowning everyone else’s with orders and directions, his speed outstripping them all.

  She was running, too, her mind streaking ahead.

  Get emergency bag. Prepare for the worst. Take charge. This is your turf.

  She came back from fetching her bag to see Malek on top of the Jeep, sending everyone running back to fetch all they’d need to extract their people from the crumpled mess. She got nearer, her eyes riveted on him as he knocked in the remainder of the windshield to get to the injured inside. And then she saw it.

  A boulder rolling down the mountain, right at him.

  White noise exploded inside her skull, flooded her limbs with the power of desperation. She dimly felt she’d fly, as she needed to, to reach him, to shield him.

  Then she did reach him, shielded him.

  That knowledge and the detonation of all-encompassing pain were the last things she registered.

  Malek heard the uproar rising again over the strident panting filling his ears. The sheer panic congealing his blood told him it was about Jay.

  He wrenched around, saw it all at once.

  Jay streaking towards him, her face a panicked, manic mask. The boulder he wouldn’t be able to outrun. Janaan stopping in its path up the slope. Th
e boulder hitting her with the speed of a racing car, knocking her down and rolling right on top of her before it hit the Jeep, its momentum almost spent. Spent against Janaan’s body. Her body.

  And suddenly he was flying, swooping down on her, her name an endless roar erupting from his chest, pouring from his eyes. Janaan.

  Lying there broken. Because of him. And he wouldn’t be able to reach her. Like he hadn’t been able to reach Majd.

  “Sheikh Malek.”

  He heard the shouted admonition. Felt the strong hands trying to snatch him back from the precipice of madness.

  “Sheikh Malek, she needs you now. She needs you.”

  Saeed. His right hand. Right now, his right mind. He’d just said the only thing that could wrench him out of the vortex of despair, the incapacitation of horror and guilt.

  Janaan needed him. He couldn’t afford to lose his mind, or have a stroke. He’d succumb to either, or both, only when he’d taken care of her, when he’d saved her.

  “Sheikh Malek, we can take care of her from here …”

  His roared “No!” silenced whomever had dared suggest anyone but he would care for her. Only he would fight for her. No one else. Ever.

  He reached a quaking hand to her carotid. She was alive.

  He knelt over her, kissed her all over her swelling face, mixed his tears with her blood, murmured his pledge, “I’m here, ya habibati. I will never leave you. Never.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  JANAAN WOKE UP in heaven.

  She’d woken up many times before. Hazy, distorted times, in the mobile surgery unit’s IC, in a different and far larger IC, in a hospital bed somewhere huge, ultra-modern and soothingly lit. The only constant she was sure she saw was Malek. In her delirium, in her episodes of distressing semi-wakefulness. Pouring caring, healing and love over her. He looked so haggard, so stricken, she wept. She couldn’t see him this way.