Rayyan

by Marian Tee

  Since then, the palace’s hidden passageways had been her girl cave (literally) – a safe place to let off steam, which she certainly needed to do so now.

  “Dammit, goddammit, dammit.”

  I should never have lowered my guard with Mrs. B., Hyacinth thought mournfully.

  But she had, and now she was paying the price.

  So what’s the next step, H?

  No doubt her homeroom teacher imagined her struggling with a deep, dark secret. But the truth was so much simpler – and worse.

  I’m an evil, foul-mouthed, bad-tempered little bitch.

  She had always been one for as long as she could remember, and she was half-convinced she had been born one. Everyone had always thought she was the nicer Kahveci sister, and all of them couldn’t be more wrong. Anisah might be frowning all the time, but at least her sister’s frowns were genuine while all of Hyacinth’s smiles weren’t real…just as Mrs. B. had suspected. Anisah might often speak harshly, but at least her words were always meant to help. Hyacinth, however…

  Last Sunday, she and Anisah were doing groceries when the cashier had recognized them and started muttering under her breath about how lucky some people were, to live in the palace even without royal blood.

  Anisah being Anisah had taken the high road by ignoring the woman’s bitter ranting, and Hyacinth, knowing what was expected of her, had done the same. But in her mind, she was like a feral, rabid dog begging to be let loose.

  You old dumb hag, you have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about!

  Palace wards like us are held to the same standards as the royal family – but minus all the perks! We even get targeted for kidnapping threats, but unlike the royal family, we don’t have private security to keep our butts safe.

  It may be state money that pays for our education, but we’re also expected to pull our weight at the palace – for free!

  So next time you open your fucking mouth, you could at least damn well make sure you know what you’re talking about. And while you’re at it, here’s a goddamn toothbrush – you don’t seem to have ever used one since YOUR BREATH FUCKING STINKS!

  Now that she thought about it, ‘harsh’ might not even be the right word to describe the nature of her thoughts. No, her thoughts were probably on another level. More likely, they were better described as…savage?

  Hyacinth absently nodded to herself.

  Yup.

  Her thoughts were the very definition of savage.

  And that’s the truth, nothing but the truth, so help me God, Hyacinth thought. I’m an evil, foul-mouthed, bad-tempered, savage little bitch.

  She tried to imagine herself saying the words – and the shitstorm it would generate all the way to the royal palace.

  Nope.

  Not happening.

  Ever.

  Mrs. B, being the strict but well-meaning teacher that she was, would likely blame herself for a student’s character defect, especially if that same student was her so-called favorite. And then there was her overprotective sister, who was likely to go into hysterics, and of course the royal family would have to be involved, maybe even forced to issue a public apology on Hyacinth’s behalf.

  And all that, she thought in frustration, was because she had smiled a little too much than what was necessary?

  Hyacinth angrily kicked a loose stone out of her way. She didn’t care what people thought. #nofilter truth was overrated, and it only hurt more than it healed.

  “Dammit, goddammit, dammit.”

  She started pacing, her mind sifting through her bank of ready-made excuses in search for a perfectly plausible, fail-proof explanation she could feed to her homeroom teacher.

  “I’m…”

  A fake.

  A goddamn fake.

  And I’m unable to breathe---

  Her hands flew to cover her mouth before the words could escape. She could never ever say such things, never –

  Thump.

  Hyacinth froze, her anxieties immediately disappearing as her mind instinctively went on survival mode.

  Thump.

  Her head snapped towards the sound, and her heart jumped in fright when she saw the tall, powerfully built man standing by the entryway. He was dressed entirely in black, a helmet and balaclava that hid all but his eyes, and a Kevlar vest strapped over his chest.

  Oh…shit.

  Chapter Two

  A shower, a bed, and a beautiful woman to fuck, Rayyan Al-Atassi thought wearily as he shoved the boulder to the side, just enough to slip into the passageway that burrowed all the way back to the palace.

  That was all he needed, preferably in reverse order, and he could die a contented man.

  His side started stinging like hell when he had to exert effort in shoving the boulder back into place, but all he could do was grit his teeth against the discomfort. Sooner or later, the painkillers should kick in, and he’d be able to make better time. But until then, every tiny movement would be like having a thousand needles pricking his side, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  A faint voice reached him when he was about a hundred meters in, and the sheikh froze. Was that…a woman?

  He waited, tense and unmoving, but when only silence followed, he allowed his breathing to ease a little. The painkillers must be making him imagine –

  Pluck!

  It was the sound of a stone hitting another hard surface, and Rayyan had already drawn his handgun out in the next second. He moved forward, letting his instincts lead the way through the maze of damp and narrow passageways. The ground was rough and uneven, but even so his footsteps fell silently on its surface, his dark, blood-speckled boots a startling contrast to the streaks of gold streaking down from the tunnel’s wall-mounted sconces.

  “Dammit, goddammit, dammit.”

  Rayyan stiffened. So he hadn’t been imagining it, after all. There was someone else, but it wasn’t a woman. It was someone who sounded noticeably younger, and a moment later, he came upon her, the unexpected sight of her arresting his movements.

  Hyacinth Kahveci?

  The teenage girl stood inside an unmarked chamber, hands planted on her tiny waist, and glaring so hard it was almost as if the wall before the girl had done something to offend her.

  Prior to this, the girl had only existed in the fringes of the sheikh’s all-too-hectic life, and Rayyan frowned as he strove to remember anything essential about her. They might have been living under the same roof for over a decade, but the years that had gone past only afforded him the vaguest memories: a young, well-behaved lady with a sunny nature, never the kind to make trouble with anyone.

  Which was why, he thought absently, he would never have expected to see the girl here, trespassing and as seemingly well versed in swearing as the next drunken sailor.

  He was curious to know how a girl like her had ended up in the palace’s secret tunnels, but because he was also never the type to get unnecessarily involved, the thought of letting the girl know of his presence didn’t even occur to the sheikh.

  But just as he turned away, he heard her choke out a word.

  “I’m…”

  And that was when he saw it.

  The look on her face, reminding him of the past, and the sheikh reacted instinctively, his feet moving forward before he could even understand what was happening. He watched her look up, and it was as if the whole world was in slow motion – he knew he still had every chance to conceal his presence, but even so he remained there, almost as if he wanted to be discovered.

  Terror flashed in her big, dark eyes when she saw the gun in his hand, but before Rayyan could tell the girl who he was in order to assuage her fears, she had already started speaking.

  “Did Al Afea send you?”

  Rayyan slowly sheathed his gun.

  This, he thought, was going to be interesting.

  Adrenaline pumped into Hyacinth’s blood the moment she saw the man poised by the entryway.

  Shit. Oh, shit. Goddamn shit.

/>   And then she noticed the gun in the man’s hand, and her mind wasted no time making a lightning-quick assessment of the situation.

  Objective: to stay alive.

  How?

  Establish her value as a hostage.

  By doing what?

  Make use of your years’ worth of firsthand experience and knowledge of palace life and lie about having a deeper connection to the royal life.

  And if you’re asked who…

  The Emir Sheikh (too much of a hard sell, everyone’s watching him too closely)

  Sheikh Altair (improbable, not the type to court controversy by having a secret affair with a teenager)

  Sheikh Malik (spends too much time away from the palace)

  Sheikh Tarif (lifestyle as a playboy is too well-documented to make anyone believe someone like her could ever be his type)

  It had taken Hyacinth only a grand total of five seconds to assimilate all such thoughts, and as soon as the only viable answer came to her, she didn’t let herself entertain any doubts of fears. She simply went and outright said it.

  “Did Al Afea send you?”

  The man slowly sheathed his gun at her words, and she nearly expired in relief. Oh, thank God. She had done the right thing then. Al Afea was another name that Sheikh Rayyan Al-Atassi answered to, and Hyacinth had been hoping that the air of mystery that constantly shrouded the royal sheikh would make her lie more believable.

  Forcing herself to meet the man’s gaze, she demanded, “Did you not hear what I said? Because the sheikh will not be pleased at all if he sees his woman---” Her voice died when she saw the man reach for his helmet.

  Oh. Shit.

  She had watched too many true crime shows not to know how much danger she was in, and Hyacinth slowly took a step back. If he was willing to show her his face, then it only meant one thing. He wasn’t worried she would be able to identify him – because he had no plans of keeping her alive.

  The helmet clattered to the ground, and the moment he reached for the edge of his balaclava, Hyacinth spun around to take advantage of his momentary blindness and make a run for it.

  But she had barely been able to take several steps when long, hard fingers curled around her wrist and hauled her back.

  She screamed. She kicked and thrashed against him. She gave him as good as she got, hell bent on fighting to her dying breath –

  “Stop struggling!”

  “Stop, dammit!”

  “Will you just look at me---”

  The man’s words eventually penetrated the haze of terror that had clouded her mind, and even though she dared not stop pummeling his chest and doing all she could to knee him in the groin, she did let her gaze move up to her assailant’s face –

  “HOLY FUCK!”

  Startled at the expletive, Rayyan unconsciously loosened his grip on her just as Hyacinth made another attempt to free herself. She succeeded this time and backed away as soon as she could. Too soon as it turned out because the next thing she knew, she was falling and falling and falling –

  Thud.

  Hyacinth couldn’t tell which hurt worse: her ego or her ass. All she knew was how her embarrassment was growing with every second, more so when she saw the sheikh slowly crouch down in front of her.

  “Well, anisdi…” Rayyan paused. “This certainly isn’t the kind of reaction I was hoping to get from my woman.”

  A strangled sound escaped Hyacinth.

  Oh. My. God.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  She had forgotten about that.

  “And for the record---” She saw his gaze dip down. “White underwear isn’t a favorite of mine.”

  Too late, she realized she was still sprawled on the ground, her legs wide open, and her abaya falling all the way back to her waist.

  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

  Chapter Three

  “You look a little…lost,” Anisah remarked as she joined Hyacinth at the breakfast table. “Everything okay?”

  Well…there was the fact that she had accidentally shown Rayyan Al-Atassi her panties a few days ago, and she hadn’t been able to stop thinking of it since then, but other than that?

  “Just worried about finals,” she lied. “But it’s nothing too many hours at the library won’t fix.”

  Anisah flashed her a smile. “That’s true. I’m so glad you’re always thinking positively about these things.”

  Hyacinth only allowed herself to relax when Anisah started talking about work while pouring honey all over her pancake until the latter was drowning in it. Sweet, meet Tooth, Hyacinth thought, and she suppressed a smile, knowing how her serious-minded sister considered her love for sweets a shameful source of weakness.

  Must be a genetic thing, Hyacinth thought absently, considering how much she hated the way she had developed a sudden but perfectly normal infatuation with Rayyan Al-Atassi. The man was an international heartthrob, after all, and a girl had to be blind to be immune to the man’s looks.

  For all I know, she reasoned to herself, this stupid, heart-thumping obsession over him could be nothing but a delayed response to Stockholm syndrome.

  Either way, this horrible fixation of hers was going to pass sooner or later, so she had to stop making a big deal of it.

  Anisah waved Hyacinth off when she was done with breakfast. “Go on, I’ll take care of the dishes. I’ll see you at school later. Is there anything you want to tell me before I meet your teachers?”

  Her heart skipped a beat, but it was for the very worst reasons. “Yup, there is,” Hyacinth managed to say. “You can ask Mrs. B. who her favorite student is and if she doesn’t say it’s me, she’s lying.”

  The sound of her sister’s laughter trailed after Hyacinth as she left their apartment, but her smile disappeared the moment she was out of Anisah’s sight.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Hyacinth checked her watch.

  Six hours, she thought with a gulp.

  She had been so busy mooning over Rayyan Al-Atassi she had forgotten about Mrs. B. possibly ratting her out during today’s PTA.

  But…all hope was not lost.

  Six hours, she reminded herself.

  She still had six hours between now and later to figure out something that could get Mrs. B. off her back and keep her from unnecessarily worrying Anisah.

  It’s doable. Right, H?

  Jemima Black stretched languorously over the satin covers, her naked body still humming in the aftermath of the sheikh’s torrid lovemaking. She had half a mind to plead for just one last round of sex before he left, but then self-preservation kicked in, and she wisely opted to keep her silence. The sheikh had never been the type to linger, and ever since he had finished with law school and taken on the mantle of leadership in managing the kingdom’s coffers, each and every minute of his day had become more precious than gold.

  Jemima knew her worth, but she also knew her limits, and it was the latter more than anything else that allowed her to be who she was now.

  Turning to her side, Jemima propped her head on one hand as she indulged herself with the sensuous sight of the sheikh dressing himself. As opulent as her suite was, none of its expensive trimmings could compare to the sheikh’s powerful, strapping figure. Sleek, hard muscles flexed with every moment, so fluid they appeared almost sinuous, and her mouth dried as she remembered how sensually skillful the sheikh was as a lover: the way he stared, the way he used his mouth, the way his fingers moved – oh, he knew exactly how to use every part of his body to make a woman forget her own name, and the way he could dwell for a tortuous eternity between her thighs, licking and sucking, never failed to reduce Jemima into a screaming mess.

  Jemima had to bite back a sigh of regret as she watched the sheikh’s formidably muscular form disappear under the pristine-white cloth of his thobe, custom-designed as always by a local modiste. Those who didn’t know the sheikh would have assumed it was a choice based on sartorial preferences, but those who knew him better – and Jemima, in her vanity, liked to th
ink she was one of them – would have known Rayyan Al-Atassi’s every decision was calculated.

  Anything that was to the kingdom’s interest was met with favor – and vice versa. It was always that black and white with the sheikh, which was also why Jemima had long abandoned any silly dreams of becoming the sheikh’s wife. She might have the right lineage, the right looks, the right social skillset – but she was also a divorcée, and that would never do for a man whose every desire was intrinsically rooted in the kingdom’s progress.

  When the sheikh faced her again, Jemima couldn’t help drawing her breath even as she hated herself just a little for it. Damn him for being so beautiful. He was the epitome of masculine perfection, and it did not help that the extraordinary tandem of his ash blond hair and piercing blue eyes was as rare a sight as snow in the desert kingdom.

  She had been his lover for over five years now, but oh, even knowing what a cold, unfeeling bastard he was, it never made a difference. There were still many moments, just like now, that the sheer magnificence of his looks would catch her off guard, and her heart would skip a beat.

  Which was quite mortifying, Jemima thought wryly, for a woman of her age and experience. At thirty-six, she was a good seven years older than her lover, and so she really should know better.

  Rising reluctantly from the bed, Jemima wrapped the sheets around her body as the sheikh retrieved his watch from the bedside table.

  “I’ll let you know when I’ve need of you again,” the sheikh murmured.

  “You can just say ‘thank you’ and ‘good night’ for once, you know.” It was meant to be a joke, but she should’ve known better than to hope the sheikh would ever unbend with her. She had seen him with his guard lowered when among his family and the most trusted members of his staff, but with anyone else – and that included women who were welcomed only to his bed…