by Sarah Morgan
‘Is this going to freak you out?’
But for once Batal was behaving himself, his ears flicking back wards and forwards like radar, listening to the cheers.
‘Attention seeker.’ Bella adjusted the scarf across her face, hoping that it didn’t fall. If it did, she was sunk.
Riding up towards the starting line, Connor took the bridle. ‘The Sheikh was starting to think you weren’t coming. I told him we didn’t want Batal to be in a public place any longer than necessary. Oh, no—’ His face paled. ‘Bella, he’s coming across to wish you luck! If he gets too close he’s going to know you’re not Hassan.’
‘Stop him,’ Bella said urgently, turning Batal towards the starting line. ‘Tell him I’ve got my hands full, tell him I don’t want to tempt fate—tell him anything, but don’t let him get close to me. How long have I got before the start?’
‘One minute.’
It felt like the longest minute of her life.
As Connor hurried away to head off Zafiq, Bella urged the stallion towards the rope, her hands shaking on the reins.
Batal threw up his head and squealed, as if to say, Who put this idiot on my back? and Bella gave a weak laugh because she was starting to agree.
And then she caught the vicious glare from one of the jockeys and her mouth dried. Trouble, she thought, but she didn’t dare speak, or do anything to reveal herself as a woman, so she had no choice but to keep her mouth closed.
Batal shivered with anticipation, and Bella stared straight ahead of her, determined to do this right. The horse could win; she had no doubt about that. Whether she’d still be on his back as he crossed the finishing line was another matter.
The roar of the crowd intensified and then the flag dropped and the horses sprang forward.
Batal flew into the lead and Bella allowed him to take the front position, knowing that she couldn’t risk being bunched by the others in case one of them tried to unseat her.
As the sand flew into her face, all she was aware of was the pounding of hooves and the pounding of her heart. She could hear horses behind her, but Batal’s long, effortless stride immediately lengthened the distance between her and the others.
She smiled, feeling a rush of confidence.
‘You are fantastic,’ she yelled as the wind and the sand flew past her face and the marker appeared in the distance. ‘If you win I’ll never say anything bad to you again. I’ll even let you kick me and bite me. Go on, Batal, go on!’
As she turned Batal around the flag and showed him the finishing line, she felt something yank her leg hard.
Taken by surprise Bella clutched at the stallion’s mane, but at full gallop there was no chance of recovery and the next moment she was on the ground, the sudden fall jarring her shoulder, her foot still jammed in the stirrup as her body was dragged bumping and twisting behind the horse.
Shards of agony shot through her body and Bella closed her eyes and prepared to die.
And then suddenly she stopped moving.
Squealing with impatience, Batal was looking down at her as if to say, All you had to do was sit there and you even messed that up.
Bella registered that she was still alive but the relief was only fleeting because the rest of the horses were thundering down on her.
Throwing his head in the air Batal reared up and Bella squeezed her eyes shut and prepared to die for a second time. It was obvious that the stallion was going to trample her.
When nothing happened, Bella opened one eye and found herself looking up at the belly of the horse.
The stallion had straddled her, his powerful legs forming a protective cage as the other runners raced past.
Choked with emotion and half crying with pain and gratitude, Bella struggled to sit up, but her shoulder was so agonising that it knocked the breath from her body. As the other horses galloped past her she registered the fact that someone had pulled her off deliberately because they didn’t want Batal to win. The same person who had landed Kamal in hospital? The same person who had tried to kidnap Amira?
Raw anger acted like an anaesthetic and Bella tried again to sit upright, this time using Batal’s legs as a frame.
The last of the horses had passed her and she knew there was no hope of catching the winner, but she was determined to finish the race.
Furious with whoever it was who had dragged her off the horse, Bella tried to mount but Batal was too big for her and she couldn’t use her hand to pull herself up because her shoulder was hurting too badly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m really sorry, Batal.’ Tears blurred her vision and then, just when she’d given up, Batal gave a snort and dropped down onto his knees next to her.
For a brief second Bella just gaped at him, and then she slid gingerly onto his back and Batal immediately sprang upwards and forwards, not giving her time to retrieve her stirrups.
Her shoulder was killing her, her hands were shaking and bleeding from her fall and she hung onto a clump of his mane and urged him on, knowing it was hopeless, knowing they couldn’t possibly win now.
But Batal had other ideas.
Outraged at having been passed by the other horses, he surged forward with such an astonishing burst of speed that it was as if she’d hit a button saying Turbo Boost.
They passed horse after horse and suddenly Bella felt a tiny flicker of hope come to life inside her.
‘Now I know why they call it horse power. Come on, Batal,’ she croaked, wincing as her shoulder jarred again, ‘faster, faster, you can do this—’
Determined to be in the lead, Batal dug deep inside himself and found the extra speed he needed. Nostrils flaring, the whites of his eyes showing, he thundered over the winning line half a length ahead of the horse and rider who had tried to put them out of the race.
Remembering that she was supposed to gallop him straight back to the stables, Bella tried to turn him, but Batal had ideas of his own.
Ignoring Bella’s feeble attempts to control him with one hand, he slowed his pace and cantered straight across to the stand where the Sheikh and all the VIPs were standing watching the race.
‘No…please, no—’ Dizzy from her fall and feeling decidedly weird, Bella tugged weakly at the reins, trying to turn him, but the stallion gave an angry snort and came to a halt in front of Zafiq. He stood proudly, neck arched, tail held high as if to say, That’s how it’s done.
A smile spreading across his handsome face, Zafiq stepped down from the stand and walked over to them just as Bella felt darkness close in on her vision.
She heard voices far away—shocked voices—followed by an almost eerie silence.
Knowing that she was going to faint, Bella clutched at Batal’s mane but it was too late.
‘I love you,’ she muttered as she slid off the horse and plunged into darkness.
Zafiq paced the floor of the modern, well-equipped hospital room, his eyes never moving from the girl on the bed. ‘Fetch another doctor,’ he ordered. ‘I want another opinion.’
Kalif hesitated. ‘You have already had five opinions, Your Highness. All the doctors are in agreement. Miss Balfour banged her head in the fall, but the scan has shown no trauma. She has a mild concussion and is now sleeping. Her shoulder was dislocated and she has many bruises but—’
‘She fell from Batal at a gallop…’ And he’d never forget that moment. Even when he’d thought it was Hassan who was on the floor, his heart had been in his mouth. To discover that it had been Bella—
‘It is indeed a miracle that she survived,’ Kalif agreed. ‘Had Batal not stopped when he did and had he not protected her with his body… It was an astonishing spectacle. People are talking of nothing else. Not only that an animal of his reputation stopped for the girl, but that he then lowered himself so that she could mount. Quite remarkable.’
‘I can’t believe she rode the stallion.’ Zafiq ran his hand over the back of his neck, so tense that he felt as though he were going to explode. ‘I can’t believe I d
idn’t spot that it was her.’
‘She fooled all of us, Your Highness, but perhaps it was for the best. Had you known it was her, you would have stopped her. And then Batal would not have won the race,’ Kalif said logically. ‘After Kamal was injured, there was no one else to ride him. She is a very brave young woman.’
Staring at her still form, Zafiq felt suddenly cold as he considered what might have happened. ‘She is reckless,’ he said hoarsely. ‘She has always been reckless.’
A noise behind him made him turn and he saw a crowd of anxious faces in the doorway. His brother Rachid was in front and behind him his sister Sahra, Yousif, his Master of Horse, and at least fifteen of the palace staff.
‘Is there any news?’ Rachid spoke for all of them and Zafiq made an exasperated sound as he scanned the number of heads in the corridor.
‘She is resting!’
‘We are all worried. Even Batal is very unsettled,’ Yousif fretted. ‘He wants to see her.’
‘I’d like to see him,’ came a small voice from the bed, and they all turned and saw a white-faced Bella, struggling to sit up.
‘Don’t move,’ Zafiq commanded, but she ignored him, pushing her blonde hair away from her face with a hand that was scraped raw from her fall.
‘I need to sit up.’ She gave him a wary look, as if she sensed trouble, and then glanced over to the doorway where everyone else was gathered.
Watching her face brighten, Zafiq felt something tug deep inside him.
She’d made friends.
‘You were magnificent,’ Rachid said hoarsely, crossing the room in two strides and pulling her into a hug without waiting for Zafiq’s permission. ‘What a woman!’
Stunned by how badly he wanted to drag his brother away, Zafiq watched in tense silence as everyone poured into the room, all of them ignoring him, apparently too over whelmed by the need to check on Bella to care about protocol.
Smothered in fuss and praise, Bella looked faintly uncomfortable and the only thing she said was ad dressed to Yousif. ‘Is Batal all right?’
‘He is very proud of himself,’ Yousif assured her immediately. ‘I think he knows he has achieved something quite extraordinary. No doubt he will be quite unbearable now.’
Bella grinned weakly and flopped back against the pillows. There was a bruise across one cheek bone where she’d fallen and Zafiq knew she must be aching from head to foot. But she didn’t utter a word of complaint; she just listened while everyone bombarded her with stories of the reaction of the crowd.
‘They all thought you were dead—’
‘—reared up, thought he was going to kill you—’
‘—formed a cage—’
‘—and when the horse knelt down—’
‘—the fastest race anyone has ever seen—’
‘—such a relationship between horse and rider—’
‘At least we kept Amira,’ Bella murmured happily and then frowned slightly as her words were greeted by an uncomfortable silence. ‘What? We won, didn’t we?’
‘You won. The rest of it doesn’t matter,’ Yousif said quickly, but Bella glanced between him and Zafiq.
‘What’s going on? What’s wrong?’
‘You are a woman,’ Yousif muttered. ‘The officials are saying that Batal must be disqualified because he was ridden by a woman.’
‘What?’ Her distress visible, Bella shot upright again, wincing with pain. ‘No, they can’t do that.’ She turned to Zafiq, her expression desperate. ‘You’re the Sheikh! Tell them they can’t do that! Batal won. He was a complete champion. It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d been ridden by a monkey, he still would have won. Oh, this is all my fault for fainting at the end. I was supposed to ride him to the stable and swap places with Hassan.’ With a groan she covered her face with her hands and Rachid pulled her into his arms.
Seeing her clinging to his brother for comfort was the final straw.
‘Out,’ Zafiq commanded in a low, dangerous tone. ‘All of you out. Bella doesn’t need this level of stress.’
But Bella was already struggling out of bed, her legs buckling as her feet touched the floor. ‘You can’t let them take Amira, Zafiq! Promise me!’
He caught her before she fell and lifted her back onto the bed. Letting her go was harder and he kept his arms around her for a moment, his body tightening as he felt the softness of her skin and the familiarity of her slender frame.
An in tensely disciplined man, it exasperated Zafiq that all he wanted to do was flatten her to the bed and soothe her injuries personally. Apart from that one brief kiss in his stables, he hadn’t touched her since the desert.
‘Zafiq, you have to do something!’ Her fingers dug into his arm, her eyes a deep, fierce blue as she pleaded with him. ‘Batal won that race!’
Realising that they still had an audience, Zafiq threw a fulminating glance towards the doorway and intercepted his brother’s startled gaze. Whether the shock in his eyes was caused by Bella’s lack of formality or the fact that Zafiq was still holding her, he had no idea, but that glance was sufficient to ensure their privacy and Rachid coloured and ushered everyone out of the room, leaving the two of them alone.
With a huge effort of will, Zafiq forced himself to release Bella. Sitting down on the edge of the bed he put a safe distance between them but the strain on his self-control combined with the anxiety of seeing her fall, added to his stress levels.
‘Once again you were reckless, wilful—’ His restraint snapping, he leant forward and kissed her, the softness of her mouth creating an explosion of sensation through his body. After weeks of self-denial he was on the verge of losing control and it was only her sudden gasp that made him draw back. ‘I am hurting you,’ he groaned guiltily. ‘You are bruised everywhere.’
‘No, it isn’t that—I don’t care about that.’ Her eyes were swimming with tears. ‘I wasn’t trying to be wilful or reckless. For once in my life I was trying to do the right thing. There was no one else who could ride him and we all wanted to save Amira—and I messed it up.’
‘You didn’t mess it up.’ Telling himself that it was perfectly reasonable to comfort her or she might make herself worse, Zafiq shifted position and lay down next to her, pulling her carefully into his arms. ‘You were ridiculously brave. Do you have any idea how I felt when I saw that it was you? And then when you slid off the horse a second time—’
‘You caught me. It’s becoming a habit.’ Her face rested on his shoulder, her voice muffled.
‘That is one habit I would gladly break.’ Zafiq moved onto his side so that he could see her properly. ‘You are the bravest woman I have ever met.’
‘And the most annoying.’
Zafiq gave a faint smile. ‘That too.’
‘What can you do about Amira?’
‘Do you really think I would let them take Amira?’
‘But if the rules say a woman can’t be riding—’
‘The rules don’t say that. There is actually no mention of women in the rules. It is time I rewrote them.’ Confident that this announcement would ensure an appropriate degree of gratitude, Zafiq was surprised when she pulled away.
‘But that won’t protect Amira! They’ve already tried to steal her once, and Kamal’s fall wasn’t an accident and then there was today…’
A red mist of anger descended on Zafiq’s brain as he saw the bluish tinge on her cheek. ‘Today,’ he said thickly, ‘you could have been killed. And the culprit is already in custody. There will be a full investigation but you can trust me when I say that there will be no more attempts to infiltrate my stables.’
‘Life’s hard, isn’t it? You think people are basically good,’ she mumbled, ‘and then this happens and you realise that some people are horrid.’
‘What happened to you was a symptom of greed and jealousy. The horse who came second is owned by the ruler of a neighbouring state, but it was his jockey who pulled you off Batal at the marker.’ The thought of what might have happened turned
him cold. ‘You could have been killed. If the stallion hadn’t stopped—’
‘I didn’t realise you were watching. I thought we were too far away for anyone to see what happened.’
‘I had binoculars. And there were officials positioned at every part of the course. They saw what he did. They would have helped you, but you were back on the stallion before they could reach you.’ Zafiq drew in a long breath. ‘Did you not think that getting back on the horse was dangerous after that fall?’
‘I wasn’t thinking at all. All I was thinking of was not losing Amira and not letting you and everyone else down. But when I felt his hand on my leg, I thought that was going to be the end of me. With Batal galloping and my foot stuck in the stirrup—and then he just stopped. As if he knew.’
‘It was the most surprising, moving thing that anyone watching had ever witnessed. All the more surprising when you know what a bad-tempered, aggressive animal Batal can be. That he showed such gentleness towards you…’
‘It’s because of him I’m alive,’ Bella said simply, her eyes drifting shut. ‘I suppose next time he bites me in the stable, I’ll just have to put up with it.’
‘You will not be returning to the stable, habibiti.’ His mind made up, Zafiq delivered the news he knew would bring a smile to her face.
Her eyes flew open and the look on her face was one of horror. ‘You’re firing me?’
‘I am not firing you. You can spend as much time in the stable as you like, but the rest of the time you will be living in the palace,’ Zafiq announced, pleased with his solution to the problem.
She would live with him. Why not?
‘L-living in the palace?’
‘Yes. I have…’ Zafiq hesitated and her eyes widened.
‘What?’
‘I have…missed you.’ He found it almost embarrassing to acknowledge just how badly he wanted this woman. ‘I’ve missed having someone who…challenges me.’
‘Zafiq—’
‘We are not going to talk about this now.’ Zafiq sprang to his feet and pressed the buzzer by the bed. ‘You are to stay in hospital and rest until at least six doctors agree that you are well enough to return to the palace. Then you will be guest of honour at the winner’s banquet.’