THE TRUE KING OF DAHAAR
Page 6
“There are none.”
Her mental gears checked through the list of things she had to do so rapidly that it took her a few seconds to understand. “But then who—”
“Once they realized I would be of no more use to them, the terrorist group left me in the desert to die and moved on with Ayaan, as far as I can figure. He was still valuable to them.” His voice was so low, so weighed down with whatever he felt, that it raised goose bumps on her skin. “I had already lost a lot of blood. The Mijab found me, and patched up my hip the best they could. Luckily for me, I was unconscious for most of it.”
Shock removed the filter from her words. “But the Mijab are not even the most advanced tribe. It’s a miracle you’re still standing.”
Instant regret raked through her.
Because it wasn’t a miracle. She had never believed in them.
Even having gone through everything he had, even weighed down by the bitterest self-loathing he seemed to be under, Azeez Al Sharif was too much a force of life to just wither away and die. The fact that he was still standing was a testament to the man’s sheer willpower and nothing else.
“I like to think of it as my penance, rather.”
“Penance?”
“Death would have been—it still is—too easy a punishment.” His tone was matter-of-fact, as if there was no doubt about what he said. “Living my life is the harder one.”
Her throat felt raw, her entire body felt raw at the quiet resignation of his words, at the emptiness in them. “Why should you have to serve penance at all? Why didn’t you come back when you recovered a little?”
This was the thing that hurt and confused Ayaan the most. And her, too. The very fact that Azeez Al Sharif had chosen to stay away from Dahaar, his family, it shook the very foundations of every truth she knew.
He turned away from her, signaling an end to this conversation. “You’ll have to accompany me to the hammam.”
Whatever she had been about to say misted away. Enjoying a minute of uncensored, unwise desire she felt for him without guilt and shame was one thing, accompanying Azeez Al Sharif to what was essentially a steam room was another.
She had delivered babies, she had no false modesty or squeamishness left in her. But this was…him.
He halted at the door. “Unless you think what I ask is beyond the bounds of propriety and want to call the whole thing off, Dr. Zakhari?”
She fisted her hands, wanting to wipe the mockery off his face. He was constantly going to try to push her to leave. “There are servants to help you there, Azeez.”
“Do you know that Ayaan had all the old servants, like Khaleef, people who have seen me as a baby, reassigned to work in this wing?”
She frowned, remembering what her father had said. “Yes. I thought it a good security measure since you insist on not letting the people of Dahaar learn that you’re alive.”
His mouth set into a bitter line. “These are the same people who carried me on their shoulders in the palace, taught me how to ride a bike, celebrated with me when my father announced me Crown Prince. These are people who have known me my entire life, Nikhat. And now, when they look at me, all I see is their pity. That pity…Ya Allah…” He sounded tortured, his shoulders shaking with the enormity of it. She wasn’t the only one who had loved him—the entire palace, all of Dahaar had worshipped their magnificent prince. “It haunts me day and night, jeers me for the mockery I have become. I hide from my parents and yet…there they are, silent witnesses to my inadequacy, to my guilt.”
He turned away from her. Ayaan had truly no idea how much his brother was suffering inside these walls. “If it scares you to be around me, helping me, then say the word, latifa. But I will not accept help from anyone else.”
That resentment would have frayed her at one time, but not anymore. Each little facet of his pain that she saw only strengthened her resolve.
Somehow, or especially because he wanted to punish her by keeping her close, he had decided she would be the one he leaned on. And even though every word from him, every moment spent with him, poked holes through her will, she still wanted to do this.
She met his gaze, striving for a casualness that she was far from feeling. “I used to feel overwhelmed and afraid and thrilled and God knows what else by you, all those years ago. I don’t anymore.”
His gaze swept over her cotton tunic top and leggings. “I can see that. Living away from Dahaar apparently suits you very well. You will have to change out of those clothes.”
“I’m your servant, remember, not your spa buddy.” That teased a smile from his mouth. “And I have already showered.”
He stiffened next to her, and slowly pulled his arm away. “I know. I can smell the scent of your jasmine soap. You smell exactly like you did eight years ago.” He said it as if it was a curse he was enduring. And for her, it was as if someone had sucked out the oxygen from the room. “But I’m going to need help and you will melt if you enter the hammam in those clothes.”
CHAPTER FIVE
IN THE END, Nikhat didn’t give in to his demands. At least, not completely.
The first room, which was a heat room, was an architectural marvel—a huge cavernous room with sweeping archways, its interiors made of gold marble that glittered in the billowing steam. Candles threw dim light around, just enough to spot the seats and pillars. The smell of eucalyptus filled the air, while crystal decanters in a variety of intricate shapes lay around.
Azeez lay on the marble platform in the middle, the pride of the room, his face down, his lower body covered by a thick, white towel. A concession for her.
Tendrils of her hair stuck to her forehead, her skin tingling and heating everywhere. Except to lend a hand as he settled over the marble bed, she hadn’t really helped him. But suddenly, she felt the most rampant curiosity to see his wound.
Seeing it wouldn’t particularly serve a purpose. And yet, she couldn’t talk herself out of it. From what Ayaan had said, Azeez spoke of his wound with no one, not even a doctor. But he had spoken of it with her, in a matter-of-fact voice that glossed over the horror of it, but still he had.
She was it—his doctor, his psychiatrist, his nurse and his friend. Had he realized what he had asked her to do? How had fate once again brought them to this point?
The timer she had set outside for thirty minutes pinged. Wiping her face on her sleeve, she made her way to him.
Bending at her waist, she placed her hands on his shoulders. His skin was like raw velvet under her hands. “Azeez, it’s time to leave.”
He leaned his chin on his hands, his coal-black eyes glittering with a thousand emotions in the flickering candlelight. The razor-sharp angles of his cheekbones, the strong jawline—he was a visual feast. “You have to help me up.”
There was no smile on his face, but there was no bitterness, either. She wondered if he came to the same conclusion as she did.
Nodding, she pushed her sleeves back and tucked her hands under his shoulders. His muscled arms anchored around her waist, he rose up, leaning on his left side. The scent of him enveloped her, the sweat from his body mingling with hers, and he slowly slid off the marble.
She averted her gaze as he pulled on another fresh pair of loose cotton trousers. She flicked the light on and walked back to him before her courage deserted her.
“I want to see it, Azeez,” she spoke in a rushed whisper. The cavernous room amplified their voices, enveloping them together.
“Not the best time to see it, latifa. Steam tends to do things to it,” he said with a sinful curve of his mouth.
“What?” Heat scorched her cheeks as his meaning sunk in. “I’m not talking about your…your…”
“Yes, Dr. Zakhari? What precisely are you not talking about?” Challenge glinted in his words, his mouth tugged up at the corners.
She had graduated with honors in her class. She was an ob-gyn, yes, but she had seen naked men before. And she wasn’t going to let the Prince of Dahaar reduce her into a blushing twit. “Your penis, okay? That’s not what I want to see. And you know what? I can also say sex, vagina, erection and—”
He threw his head back and laughed. A rich, powerful, hearty sound that brought prickling tears to her eyes, and the most painful tightness to her chest. She wanted to hear it again and again, see the flash of his teeth, feel the warmth of it steal into her. To forever be the one who made him laugh like that.
The corners of her own mouth tugged up.
“It is like you are a different woman, Nikhat. More fun, daring…” His gaze gleamed with an inferno of emotion. “Whatever it is that you…did in New York really agrees with you.”
The unspoken question sizzled in the silence. But she didn’t take his bait this time.
“I want to see your wound.”
His laughter died. “There’s nothing you can do for it.”
Her bare feet almost slipped on the floor and she grabbed him for support. She grasped his forearms tight, refusing to let him move. “I prefer to be the person making the judgment. And as arrogant and all-knowing as you are, I’m the one with a medical degree here.”
His fingers tightened on her arms, the thin cotton of her caftan no barrier to his touch. His eyes ate her up. “But I’m the Prince. I’m the one with all the power. I make the rules between us, Nikhat. I decide what I will use you for and what I won’t. You seem to be under a fantastic delusion that you’re as important to me as you were eight years ago. You are not. It is only your history with my family, your usefulness to me, that has you standing here. Don’t mistake it as anything else.”
The breath-stealing arrogance in his words bounced off her. But the fact that he belittled her presence here…she couldn’t tolerate it.
In a perverse little twist, she wanted him to acknowledge that she was here because she was the girl he had known once, the girl he had loved once. The need for that acknowledgment burned through her even as she realized that it was dangerous.
She was standing on a precipice, and all she wanted to do was jump. “You will not steal the little I have. You’ve no idea what I have faced, what I still face, to be standing here in front of you without shattering into a million pieces.”
His mouth, enticingly close to hers, hardened, the intensity of his focus a fierce little thing. “Why are you pushing me, Nikhat? Why does it matter what I think after all these years? And whatever you have faced, it was all your own doing. You chose this path, don’t ask for understanding now.”
“You think me heartless, you think it is easy for me being near you, seeing you in pain.” She blinked at how easily the wound she closed could open again. “It is not. Every minute I spend in this palace hurts me just as much as it hurts you.”
A dark smile curved his mouth and she held her breath at the stark beauty of it. He pushed a tendril of her hair behind her ear, then clasped her jaw, the rough ridges of his fingers and palm chafing against her skin. She shivered, every inch of her body focused on the minute contact. “After everything I have done, everything I have brought on myself—” his gaze caressed her eyes, her nose, her mouth, a dark fire in it “—you would think that wouldn’t have given me the satisfaction it does. But I’ve never been magnanimous or kind or—”
“Or anything but your true self. Since you’re satisfied that I’m suffering as much as you are, let me see your wound, Azeez.”
“Why are you hell-bent on plunging us both into misery again? How much more do you want me to suffer?”
And just like that, he gave her back all the power he stole from her. He hated the servants seeing him like this, his brother seeing him like this, but above all, it was her presence that tortured him the most.
Why? Did he think she would be revolted? Did he not see the very strength inside him that still kept him standing there?
Suddenly, it became irrationally imperative that she learn everything he had suffered, if only to share his pain.
She would have done that much for even a friend. So she stayed silent, refusing to back away.
With a curse that punctured the air, he undid the string of his trousers and Nikhat wondered if he could hear the thump-thump of her heart. Breathing hard, she moved to the side to let the blazing lights overhead illuminate the small sliver of flesh he uncovered.
She breathed hard at the first sign of a violent scar—stitched up roughly, almost the width of her wrist. Closing her eyes, she laid her hand on his hip. His skin was blazing hot under her palm, the muscle clenching into rock hardness as she moved her fingers.
He stiffened but she couldn’t stop herself.
A picture emerged in her mind as she moved her hand, traced the ravaged tissue, learning the breadth and length of it. She clutched her eyes closed, locking the searing heat back.
She couldn’t help imagining the kind of pain he must have suffered. And following that, hope flooded through her.
She had been right. He had survived because he was Azeez Al Sharif. And if he could survive that wound, he could survive anything.
There was no smooth flesh left on the side of his hip. It was a jagged mass of muscle, the patched-up scars abrasive against her soft palm, running down his thigh. The moment her fingers fluttered lower and she felt the coarse hair of his thighs against her fingers again, it was her turn to shudder all over.
His skin here was hot and different against her palm, but the muscles rock hard.
A pulse of something else clamored between them—a heated awareness at how intimately she was touching him. He was half turned away from her, his hard body pressing into her front, his arm brushed up between her breasts, his long, rough fingers anchored around her nape.
Every inch of her came alive at the delicious pressure in all the right places. His breathing sounded harsh, too, every hard muscle that pressed into her tight with tension.
She righted his trousers, her fingers deceptively steady, as if she did this every day, as if she hadn’t pulled them through an emotional firestorm goaded by a fiercely selfish desire. “Did the bullet shatter the bone?”
He sighed, as though accepting that she wasn’t going to back off, and she wrapped her arms around his waist. “No. It hit the bone and dropped momentum somehow. From what I gathered from them, the Mijab were able to quickly extricate it. They took me to a hospital at the border of Zuran. A small metal joint was inserted to hold the bone together until it could grow back.”
“They left it inside,” she said, finally understanding the source of his pain. “That’s why it gets so stiff, why it hurts so much.”
He nodded and his hands pulled her hands away from his hip. “Are we through?”
Nikhat straightened and looked away. “Here, yes. We will start stretching immediately.”
She halted at the exit, her skin gleaming with vitality, her eyes blazing with piercing honesty. The fabric of her caftan stuck to her body and with her hair curling around her face, she was the most striking woman he had ever seen, and a sharp hunger, unbidden and unwelcome, yet one that made him feel fiercely alive, clawed at Azeez.
All he would have to do was close his eyes to feel the feathering touch of her fingers over his flesh, hear the sinuous whisper of her breath over his skin.
“You can’t imagine what Khaleef and the others see,” Nikhat said. “They see the prince who always had a kind word for them, they see the prince who remembers their name without hesitation, they see the prince whom they mourned with tears and their hearts—they do not see your limp or your scars or your guilt. And what you see is not their pity, Azeez, but their love.
“I would give anything
to see my mother one more time. Think about what you’re doing to yours.”
* * *
His hip muscles sore, but also surprisingly limber, Azeez slid himself onto the bench in his private garden.
He had expected Nikhat to decline his invitation.
Was she as curious about him as he was about her?
The silverware tinkled as she poured him mint tea. Sitting here, as the sun streaked the sky gold and red, surrounded by lush roses, the scent of Nikhat, jasmine and something undeniably her, shouldn’t have registered at all on him. Yet, as she handed him the tea and took a sweet date cake for herself, the scent of her wafted over him, teasing arousal from his beaten body.
The sensation was fierce, sharp, after so many years of feeling nothing.
He took a sip of tea and grimaced. His hip was throbbing, the muscles in his thighs and arms shaking from the strenuous stretching after four months of inactivity. “I need something stronger than this.”
“No alcohol, Azeez. Not as long as you want my help.”
He frowned, and yet was unable to stop smiling at the relish with which she said it. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Yes. How many women can claim Azeez Al Sharif bows to her every command?”
“None.”
The cake shook in her fingers. Coloring, she put it in her mouth.
She licked a crumb from the corner of her mouth, and another kind of ache shivered in his muscles. He felt incredibly hungry for a taste of her mouth, for a taste he had been denied for so long. And the fact that he hadn’t touched a woman since the attack, the six years of celibacy, had little bearing on his desire for her.
The delicious tightening of his muscles, the coils of heat spreading like wildfire through him, they were all because of the woman who had boldly traced his scars with her hand even as her breath had hitched in her throat.
She was such a mixture of strength and vulnerability, of caring and indifference, every word from her a contradiction to her actions, he felt as if he would never understand her.