by Maisey Yates
He did neither. He simply stood there with the box held out in front of him until she reached inside and took the ring, putting it on her own finger.
“You may not want to do that just yet, princess,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I am prepared to ask you to wear it. But only after this. I want to talk to you about what happened at the oasis.”
“Oh,” she said, looking down, heat bleeding into her face. “You know what? I’d rather not.”
He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted her face up so that she met his gaze. “Did I hurt you?”
“What? No.” She shook her head and took a step back. “No, you didn’t hurt me.”
“Did I frighten you?”
“I…I…no.” It wasn’t him that scared her. It was herself. The way he’d made her feel. The fact that he’d commanded a response from her, with such ease that she hadn’t even realized she was capable of feeling.
“Then why did you run?”
“I didn’t…run. I was cold and I went back in the house.”
“You were right to be afraid,” he said.
“I wasn’t afraid.”
“Then you should have been.”
“I’m sorry—I should be afraid of you? I beat you in hand-to-hand combat, lest we forget.”
“I believe I beat you,” he said. “Both times.”
She scowled. “You cheated. You bit me.”
“It was not cheating. But that’s beside the point. I have something to tell you about that day. And you won’t like it. But I have to tell you before you concede to marrying me. Because it will change things. I owe you this explanation. Though I’m certain I will regret giving it.”
“Then why give it?” she asked. She suddenly felt afraid. Because she was starting to feel at ease with this man. With this situation. With the fact that she was to be his wife.
More than finding ease…she was starting to want things. From him. From life. And she was afraid that whatever he said next might take it all away.
“Because you have to know. Because if you aren’t afraid, then you need to understand that you should be. You need to understand why I can never be allowed to lose control. Why I have spent sixteen years doing nothing more than ruling my country. Why I despise passion so very much.”
“The same reason we both have to distrust it,” she said. “Because it led our parents to a horrible end. The only innocent party involved was your mother, and yet, she suffered just as badly for having been there as any of them.”
“It is true,” he said. “She was the only innocent party. She was true to her marriage vows. She didn’t attack anyone. She was simply there when your father and his band of men decided to make my father pay for what he’d done.”
“It was wrong, Ferran. All of it. And I’m willing to put it behind us.” And she meant it. This time, she meant it for real. “Because…it has to be. It can’t keep being my present and my future. I can’t allow it. Not anymore. I want something different. For the first time I just want to move on from it and please…please don’t take that from me.”
“It is not my intent to take anything from you. But to inform you of the manner of man you’re to marry.”
“Does it matter what manner of man?” she asked. “If I have to marry you either way, does it matter?”
“You spoke to me of honor when we first met, Samarah. You were willing to die for it, so yes, I think it matters. I feel I have to tell you. For my honor at least. What little there is.”
“And I have no choice?”
“This is giving you a choice. So that you know who you let into your body at night once you’re my wife. I owe you that. Or I at least owe it to my sense of honor.”
Her face heated. “That was unnecessary.”
“It hardly was. I nearly took you this morning at the oasis. I nearly took your virginity on the ground. Do you understand that? Do you understand that I am capable of letting things go much too far when…when I am not in control.”
“You didn’t.”
“You stand there and blush when I talk about being inside of you. It would have been a crime for me to do that there. In that manner.”
It wouldn’t have been. And part of her wanted to tell him that. That she was blushing because she was inexperienced. Because she was embarrassed by her response to him. Confused by the fact that she felt desire when she’d expected to endure his touch. Not because she found the idea of being with him in that way appalling.
“I don’t…I don’t think I would have stopped you. And if you say I couldn’t have, I’m going to do my best to remind you that I, in fact, could have. Don’t ever forget what I can do, Ferran. Who I am. I am not delicate. I am not a wilting flower that you’ve brought out to the desert. I survived that day. I survived every day after. You don’t need to protect me, and I refuse to fear you.”
“I killed your father,” he said, his dark eyes boring into hers.
“I know,” she said.
“No, Samarah, you don’t. I did not have your father arrested. I did not send him to trial. I was hiding. In a closet. I heard everything happening out in the corridor and I hid. That is when your father burst into the family quarters. And he attacked my father with a knife. I stayed hidden. I did nothing. I was afraid. I watched through the partly open door as he ended my father’s life. My mother was in the corner. A woman, unarmed, uninvolved in any of it. And then he went for her and…I didn’t hide anymore. She begged, Samarah. For her life. She begged him to spare her. For me. For my sake and the sake of our people. For the sake of his soul. But he didn’t. I opened the closet door and I took a vase off of one of the sideboards and I hit him in the back of the head with it. I was too late to save my mother. She was already gone. And I…disarmed him.”
“Like you did me,” she said, feeling dizzy. Feeling sick.
“Yes. Exactly like I did you. But unlike you…he ran. And I went after him.”
She tried not to picture it, but it was far too easy. Because she’d been there that day. Because she’d heard the screams. Because she knew just how violent and horrible a day it had been. It was so easy to add visual to the sounds that already echoed in her head.
“Ferran…”
“I was faster than he was. Because of age or adrenaline, I’m not sure. But I want you to know that I didn’t even give him the chance to beg for his life. Because he never knew I had caught him. I ended him the moment I overtook him. I stabbed him in the back.”
Samarah took a step back from him, her eyes filling with tears before she could even process what he was saying. She shook her head. “No…Ferran don’t…don’t…” She didn’t know what she wanted to say. Don’t say it. Don’t let it be true. Don’t tell me.
“It is the truth, Samarah. You should know what kind of man you’re going to marry. You should know that I am capable of acting with no honor. There was no trial. He was not given a chance. I acted out of emotion. Out of rage. And it is one thing I refuse to regret. You need to know that before you agree to bind yourself to me. I killed your father and I will not regret it.”
She growled and ran forward, shoving his chest with both hands. “Why must you do this now?” she asked, her voice breaking. “Why did you make me care and then try and rip it away?”
“I’m being honest,” he said, gripping her arms and holding her so that she couldn’t hit him again. “You have to know. Am I the man you want in your bed? Then you must know the man I am.”
She fought against him, not to break free, but just because it felt good to fight against something. Because it was easier than standing there passively while all these emotions coursed through her. Grief, rage, anguish, panic. All of it was boiling in her, threatening to overflow. And she didn’t know how to handle it. She didn’t know how
to feel all of this.
This wasn’t simply breathe in, breathe out. This wasn’t a calculated plan for revenge and satisfaction of honor. This wasn’t even the low hum of sixteen years of anger. This was all new, and shocking and fresh.
And horrible.
Because she hurt. For what she’d lost. For her father. For the man he truly was. A man who killed an innocent woman because he was scorned. A man who was not the one she’d loved so much as a child.
And she hurt for Ferran. As horrible as it was to imagine him being involved as he had been, she hurt for him. The boy whose mother had died before his eyes. The boy who had avenged her.
As she would have done.
Oh, as she would have done to him if he’d allowed it. And then what? Would she be the one standing there with nothing but a scorched soul? With haunted eyes and the feeling that she had no honor left because in her rage she’d allowed herself to justify taking the life of someone else?
“You see now,” he said, “who I am. And why I cannot permit myself to be led by my emotions? I am no better than they are, Samarah. I am no better. I am not stronger.”
And neither was she. Not really. Because she’d been prepared to act as he had, but not in the heat of rage. Not in the midst of the fight. With years to gain perspective, she’d been ready to behave as her father had done.
As she looked at Ferran, at the blank, emotionless void behind his eyes, she felt she could see the scars that he’d been left with that day. It had been so easy for her to imagine him as the one who’d come out of it whole. He’d had his country. He’d had his palace. Hadn’t that meant in some way, that he had won? That she had lost and therefore was owed something?
But when she looked at him now, she didn’t just understand, she felt, deep down in her soul, that he’d lost, too. That there had been nothing gained for him that day. Yes, he’d ascended the throne, a boy forced to become a man. Yes, he had a palace, and he had power. But he had lost all of himself.
That was why he looked so different than the boy she’d known. It wasn’t simply age.
She struggled against him, and he held her tight, his eyes burning into hers. “How dare you make me understand you?” she asked, the words coming out a choked sob. “How dare you make me feel sorry for you?” Tears rolled down her cheeks, anger and pain warring for equal place in her chest. And with it, desire. Darker now, more desperate than what she’d felt at the oasis.
And she knew it now. There was no question. It was what she’d felt that first moment, in his bedchamber when their eyes had met. What she’d felt watching him shirtless in the gym, fighting him, getting bitten by him.
It was what she’d felt every time she’d looked at him since returning to the palace. It had just been so expertly mixed with a cocktail of anger and shame that it had been impossible to identify.
But now that she’d tasted him, she knew. Now that she’d gone to heaven and back in his arms, she knew.
Now that she understood how you could long for a man’s teeth to dig into your flesh, she knew.
“How dare you?” she asked again, the words broken. “How dare you make me want you? I should hate you. I should kill you.”
She leaned in and claimed his lips with hers, even as he tried to hold her back. He released one arm and reached around to cup the back of her head, digging his fingers deep into her hair, squeezing tight and tugging back, wrenching her mouth from his.
“Why are you doing this, Samarah?” he growled.
“Because I don’t know what else to do,” she said. “What else am I supposed to do?”
“You’re supposed to run from me, little girl,” he said, his expression fierce. He was not disconnected now—that was certain. He wasn’t hollow. Her kiss had changed that. It had called up something else in him.
Passion.
Passion that he thought she should fear, and yet she didn’t. She found she didn’t fear him at all.
“I don’t run,” she said, her eyes steady on his. “I stand and meet every challenge I face. I thought you knew that about me.”
“You should run from this challenge,” he said. “You should protect yourself from me.”
She pushed against him, and he pushed in return, propelling her backward until she butted up against the wall. “You don’t scare me, Ferran Bashar,” she said.
“As far as your family is concerned,” he said, “I am death himself. If you had any sense at all, you would run from this room. From this palace. And you would not wear my ring.”
Her heart was raging, each beat tearing off a piece and leaving searing pain in its place. And she couldn’t turn from him. It would be easy to get out of his hold if she really wanted to. A well-placed blow would have him at her feet. But she didn’t want to break free of him. Even now.
“You need me to run, coward?” she asked. “Because you fear me so? Because I am such a temptation?”
That was the moment she crossed the line.
His lips crashed down on hers, his hold on her wrists and hair tightening. It wasn’t a nice kiss. It was a kiss that was meant to frighten her. A show of his dangerous passion, and yet, she found it didn’t frighten her at all.
She kissed him back. Fueled by all of the emotions that were rioting through her, fueled by the desire that had been building in her from the first moment she’d seen him again. From the moment she’d walked into the palace, with vengeance on her mind.
She had wanted him then, but she’d been too innocent to know it. And desire had been too deeply tangled in other things. But she knew now. The veil had been ripped from her eyes. And all the protection that surrounded her heart seemed to have crumbled.
Because she couldn’t hate him now. Not even with the newest revelation. All she could see was what they’d both lost. All she could do was feel the pain of losing her father over again. The man who’d been a god in her mind transforming into a monster who would kill an unarmed woman. And all she could do was let it all come out in a storm of emotion that seemed to manifest itself in this.
At least a kiss was action. At least a kiss wouldn’t end with one of them dead.
Though now, with all of the need, all of the deep, painful desire that had possessed her like a living thing, like a beast set on devouring her insides if she didn’t feed it with what it wanted, she wondered if either of them would survive.
He pulled his mouth from hers, his hands bracing her wrists against the wall behind her head, dark eyes glaring, assessing her. “Why do you not run from me?”
“Because I am owed a debt,” she said, her breath coming in short, sharp bursts. “You stole my life from me. You stole this,” she said, speaking of the need she felt now. “I had never even kissed a man because I could afford to feel nothing for men but distrust and fear. I had to guard my own safety above all else because I had no one to protect me. I could never want, not things beyond food and drink. So you owe me this, Sheikh. I will collect it. I will have you, because I want you,” she said. “It is your debt. And you will pay it with your body.”
“So you want my passion, Samarah? After all I have told you?”
“Is it not my right to have it? If it has been used so badly against me? Should I not be able to take it now, when I want it, and use it as it would satisfy me?” Anger, desire, anguish curled around her heart like grasping vines. Tangled together into a knot that choked out everything except a dark, intense need.
“You want satisfaction?” he asked, his voice a low growl, his hips rolling against hers, his erection thick and hard against her stomach.
“I demand it,” she said.
He leaned in, his breath hot on her neck, his lips brushing against her ear. “Do you know what you ask for, little viper?”
“You,” she said. “Inside my body. As discussed. You seem to think I don’t know what I wan
t, but I will not have you disrespect me so.”
“No, Samarah, I am of the opinion that you likely always know what you want, at the moment you want it.” That was not entirely true, because she hadn’t realized how badly she wanted him until today, when she knew it had gone on much longer than that. “But what I am also sure of, is that sometimes you don’t always want what is good for you.”
“Who does?” she asked.
“No one, I suppose.”
“We all want things that will harm us in the end. Cake, for example. Revenge for another.”
“Sex,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Sex.”
“That’s what you want? You want sixteen years of my unspent desire unleashed on you?”
“That’s what I demand,” she said.
He tugged her away from the wall and scooped her into his arms in one fluid movement, carrying her across the room. She put her hand on his chest, his heart pounding so hard she could feel it pressing into her palm.
“Then you shall have what you demand,” he said, depositing her onto the mattress before tugging his shirt over his head and revealing his body to her. So perfect. So beautiful. Not a refined, graceful beauty. His was raw, masculine and terrifying. So incredible she ached when she looked at him. “But know this, my darling, your command stops here. For now you are mine.” He let his finger trail over her cheek, his dark eyes boring into hers. “If you want this, I will give it you. But the terms will be mine.”
“This is my repayment,” she said. “I agreed to nothing else.”
“And that is where you miscalculated, my little warrior. For in this, I am nothing short of a conquerer.”
“And I no less a warrior.”
“I would expect nothing else. But in the end, I will stake my claim. Run from me now, if you do not want that.”
She could hardly breathe. Could hardly think. But she didn’t want to think. She wanted to focus on what he made her body feel. Because this, this release that she was chasing with him, overpowered the feelings in her chest.
This desire won out above all else, and she so desperately needed for it to continue to do so. And she did not want to run.