by Lora Leigh
He grimaced at the thought.
He’d fought to keep them apart over the years, even knowing it was doing little good, and that the day would come when nothing could stop it.
It wasn’t that he believed Abram would hurt her, or even that he wouldn’t be good for her. It was simply that Khalid knew his brother, and he knew, after the deaths of his first two wives, any lover he had would suffer the ultraprotective possessiveness Abram would feel.
Independence would go to hell along with the hearts. Abram wouldn’t be able to control himself, and all that dark, tortured hunger inside him would become a ravening beast in the face of Paige’s determination.
And this was where Paige would struggle.
There was no hunger strong enough, no love vital enough and no woman with enough patience or enough understanding to stand against a man determined to lock her away from the world.
Khalid had always feared that was exactly what Abram would attempt to do with the fiery independence that was so much a part of Paige.
And there wouldn’t be a damned thing he could do to save her from it.
Chapter 4
She was so screwed.
That was the first thought that drifted through her mind as Paige’s eyes blinked open and she found herself in an unfamiliar room.
If she thought her suite at her brother’s home was too expensive and opulent, then it was nothing compared to where she found herself now.
The room was huge, at least twelve feet tall with several motorized fans turning lazily overhead and creating the slightest breeze.
She was laying on a huge bed, its comfort unlike anything she had known before. Beneath her naked body she could feel the excellent grade and cool perfection of the silk sheets.
Laying over her was more silk, the sheet against her flesh airy and cool while the ultra-thin cashmere throw laying on top of her added a measure of warmth.
Looking around, she saw velvet upholstery on the chairs next to a fireplace, and what appeared to be a silk-covered chaise lounge positioned at the side of the room. There were large pillows tossed in front of the hearth in differing sizes and in different expensive materials.
The windows were high and arched with wooden shutters pulled closed against the sunlight.
The slats in the shutters allowed the fragile, heated rays to slip in and pierce the dim light.
White stone walls peeked out from behind several large tapestries, reminding her of the ancient castles she’d visited in England.
Stone floors were covered here and there with matching tapestries, and in front of the fireplace lay what appeared to be a thick, cashmere rug.
Swallowing tight, Paige felt the gummy, sticky feeling of her mouth. She wondered how long she had been unconscious as she fought to keep her hysteria under control.
If she didn’t concentrate on something else, then she wouldn’t make it. She collapsed into a heap of pure hysterical fear.
Because she knew exactly where she was. She’d heard her mother describe this room so many times it was burned into her brain.
This was the room she had lived in during her stay when she wasn’t locked in Azir’s bedroom.
She ate in this room, wept in this room, and plotted her escape from this room.
She was in the Mustafa stronghold on the Saudi Arabian and Iraqi borders. A wasteland of unproven ground, where even oil didn’t reside.
Nothing of consequence lived here, as she had heard Abram and Khalid say, except the people who had been born here, worked here, and eeked out their living here.
The fortress had been built centuries before, the castle a mix of both Middle Eastern and English influence well before the days of the Knights Templars and the holy wars.
She had seen pictures of it. Khalid and her mother had put together a map of sorts of the castle and the outlying areas around it.
There were ways to escape; Paige just had to find them.
Terror was crawling through her now. She hadn’t believed Azir Mustafa would retaliate against Khalid. He’d threatened before. How many times had Paige been locked behind protective walls because Khalid and Azir were feuding again, or because Azir had, in one of his periods of insane fury, threatened to kidnap Paige’s mother and bring her back where he believed she belonged?
There had been too many times to count. And he’d never done it before. Evidently he had grown tired of simply threatening.
He had actually managed to kidnap her, and evidently Abram had no idea. If he knew, he would have been there when she awoke, she told herself. He wouldn’t have allowed her to face this alone.
Now he had her. A monster.
Her chest tightened, her throat nearly closing with fear and tears as she fought against it. She wasn’t going to allow him to see her cry. It was a sign of weakness, and like any jackal, she couldn’t allow Azir Mustafa to see her weakness. Or her fear.
Pulling the sheet and throw closer around her nakedness as fear began to send shudders through her body, Paige’s breath hitched as she pushed back her screams.
She was stronger than this, she assured herself. Azir Mustafa would be looking for fear. And he might have her now, but not once Abram found her, or learned she was there, which would be as soon as Khalid contacted him. If he hadn’t already.
No. Her hands tightened on the sheet and throw convulsively. If Khalid had contacted Abram then Abram would be here. He would be assuring her everything was going to be okay. He would be finding a way to get her home. And he really needed to get on that. Sometime before her heart burst from terror.
She was naked, in a bed. Breath hitching, gasping from her lips she began to check her body, to feel between her thighs. Desperation was an oily stain across her mind as she checked her body, praying to God she hadn’t been raped, because she knew Azir Mustafa wasn’t above drugging a woman to rape her.
There were no signs of it, but the fact that she was naked, that someone had undressed her to bare skin while she was unconscious was a violation as well. It made her feel helpless and out of control and that terrified her.
She’d always sympathized with her mother for what she’d gone through with Azir. She’d hated the bastard for it. But now, she understood much better exactly how her mother had felt, and she was scared.
She should have listened to Khalid and not left the house. If she had just stayed in place, this wouldn’t have happened. At least not yet. Not this way.
Every time she ever refused to listen to him, she had paid for it. That was why she hadn’t fought against him as hard as she could have when he first had her taken to the house by Daniel Conover.
Because she knew Khalid wouldn’t have done it without good reason.
Rising from the bed she moved around the room, searching for the clothes that had been taken from her. Her jeans and shirt, her underclothes. Her shoes. Oh God, she really needed her shoes. How was she supposed to escape without running shoes?
Se couldn’t bear to be naked as she was. She felt too exposed, despite the sheet and throw she had wrapped around herself. The material didn’t even begin to be protective. Not that clothing would have been.
She couldn’t bear to feel this helpless. That was what Khalid didn’t understand, and what she could never tell him. She had only been this helpless once before in her life and the memories of it sent a surge of terror racing through her again.
She tried to shake the memory away. Dealing with the memories of that night right now would shred what little control she had left over the hysteria bubbling inside her.
She had to clear her head. She had to be able to think and find a way out of this.
She had to find a way out. She had found a way out the last time she was this helpless and had escaped. She had to do it again. She didn’t think her sanity could survive otherwise.
The door was locked. The shutters on the windows were locked. Her mother hadn’t mentioned hidden doors or passageways in this ro
om.
She couldn’t find her clothes. There were no dressers and the four armoires in the room only held bedding materials. There were no clothes.
Her breath felt trapped in her lungs. Her heart was racing out of control and panic was beginning to close in.
She would go crazy in this place.
* * *
Abram sat back in the comfortable leather of the modified Land Rover as Tariq drove into the fortress compound. His gaze narrowed at the men and women milling around in the outer yards. The women were covered from head to toe in the required burka, while the men were dressed in fatigues or combat-ready pants and shirts.
The face of the Mustafa province was changing and he hadn’t been able to stop it during the years when stopping it had mattered to him. All he did now was look on in regret.
Once, this land had thrived, if not from oil then from the small mines outside of town where precious ore was eeked out and sold to the government. It had been a minimal income, but when added to the funds the monarchy had once sent, the lands and mines had been sufficient to keep the small farms pulling precious water from the deep wells and the crops growing.
The province had held a small but thriving area of trade due to those crops and the ore.
Something it no longer held because of Azir’s greed and murderous inclinations.
“Look who showed up.” Tariq nodded toward the fortress castle where a lone figure stood at the top of the stone steps against the stone wall.
The tall double doors were his backdrop, emphasizing the slender, muscular form, his dark hair pulled back from a lean, Arabic face.
The man who had been slowly overtaking the Mustafa fortress even before the deaths of Ayid and Aman Mustafa. No matter how Abram had fought over the years, still, Jafar Mustafa—along with Ayid and Aman—had facilitated the steady introduction of men Abram was certain were no more than soldiers to the terrorist cell Ayid and Aman had commanded. A cell Jafar was now rumored to command.
First cousin to both Abram and Tariq, Jafar was the son of the youngest of the three Mustafa brothers who had inherited differing sections of the province from their father.
Until the two youngest brothers had died under highly suspicious circumstances. Abram had always suspected Azir had had his brothers killed, but he had never been able to prove it.
“He can’t want anything good,” Abram assured him as Tariq drew the Land Rover to a stop before the castle. Stepping from the vehicle Abram allowed Tariq to move in behind him and cover his back. They mounted the steps and moved up to the entrance where Jafar awaited them.
The dark arrogance in the other man’s expression was a forewarning. Abram could feel the tension emanating from him, the animosity that had been brewing between them mixing to create a heavy, barely civil atmosphere.
The cynical amusement in Jafar’s odd green eyes was a clue to the fact that he wasn’t going to like whatever the other man had to say. Fortunately, there was at least a shred of information in anything Jafar said. He enjoyed the games he played and the fact that Abram couldn’t do a damned thing to stop the steady infiltration of the terrorists moving in.
Like Abram and Tariq, Jafar’s mother had been American. But unlike them, Jafar had actually inherited some of his mother’s traits. His hair was a deep, dark brown, rather than black, and the celadon green of his eyes was damned off-putting in a land of mostly dark eyes.
The men of Mustafa seemed to have a particular fondness for pale-haired or redheaded women.
Jafar’s mother had been a Scandinavian blonde and like Abram and Tariq, he had taken his height from her ancestors.
It was a fondness their sons seemed to share as well, Abram thought.
“What the hell do you want, Jafar?” he growled as he topped the stone stairs and faced his cousin.
Jafar chuckled, the amusement in the sound matching that of his eyes as his gaze flicked between Abram and Tariq.
“Perhaps I just want to wish you a good afternoon, cousin. After all, it’s been a while since we’ve visited. Don’t tell me you haven’t missed me.”
“I haven’t missed you,” Abram assured him with a sneering lift of his lip. “Is that all you wanted?”
The smirk on Jafar’s lips assured him otherwise.
It was too bad they seemed to have gravitated to opposing ends of their own beliefs. There had been a time when he and Jafar had been close. When they had both spoken of the dream of a far different future than the ones they had embraced.
Abram waited for long, tense moments for Jafar to reveal why he was waiting, but when he didn’t, Abram’s patience began to dissolve.
“Go to hell, Jafar,” he grunted. “Let me know when you’re doing more than fucking off.” Jafar’s eyes narrowed at the deliberate vulgarity. He and his cousin had been in more than one battle in the past years over Abram’s language or Jafar’s deliberate disrespect. Many times their disagreements had almost turned violent and nearly resulted in a punch being thrown.
“Tell me, Abram, do you believe your friendship with the son of a prince will save you forever?
Or the fact that the unpaid funds owed to the land of Mustafa can only return at your inheritance assures your safety from those who suspect your depravities?” His depravities. What a damned joke. He enjoyed a good whiskey, a beautiful woman, and on occasion he was prone to enjoy watching his lover become a willing sensual feast for not just him, but a third as well.
Those were his depravities.
“Friendships rarely stand when you need them to, Jafar. I believe we’re both aware of that.” He stared back at his cousin mockingly.
Jafar’s lips thinned. “I knew nothing of Lessa’s crimes, nor did I know of the plans to punish her.” It wasn’t the first time he had denied the knowledge, and it wasn’t the last time Abram would accuse him of it. Because he knew his cousin had to have at least suspected.
“Nevertheless, I vowed I would never again have to depend upon those I call friends to aid me,” Abram informed him. “That is a commodity that only a fool can expect.” Better Jafar believe to the bone that Abram expected no help from anyone should the religious police decide to actually take action against him for his suspected depravities, especially the son of a prince, the government contact in charge of investigating the terrorists taking over the Mustafa lands and focusing their attention on Paige Galbraithe.
Until he learned Azir’s plans for her, he couldn’t rest. And so far, he hadn’t been able to learn anything except that Azir was definitely planning something.
Abram would take them all down to keep her safe. Jafar, Azir, the son of a prince, he’d see them all laying in the dust if that was what it took to keep the evil infecting his father from touching her.
“I’m busy, Jafar,” he finally stated. He fought to push back his anger as he moved to pass his cousin once again.
“Abram.” Jafar stopped him again as he moved to enter the castle.
“What do you want, Jafar?” he questioned impatiently, his teeth clenching at the anger he couldn’t seem to stop from surging through him.
“Do you remember when we were sixteen and I caught you and that American student you were friends with at the whore’s apartment?”
Abram’s lips thinned. “She was no whore, Jafar.”
They had been in America visiting with cousins who had lived in D.C. Abram had met up with friends of Khalid’s and from there, had done his best to enjoy the time there rather than involving himself with a family that had escaped years before.
“She was taking two men into her body at the same time,” Jafar reminded him mockingly. “In any culture, she is called a whore.”
“Only in this one,” Abram snarled. “Now tell me what you want.”
“Answer me first,” Jafar told him. “Do you remember?”
“I remember,” Abram snapped. “Now what does it have to do with anything?” Jafar’s lips thinned. “I warned you about bringing
your hungers from America to your home,” Jafar reminded him. “And you brought them not just to your home, but to your wife.”
“Don’t make me kill you, Jafar.” Even now, more than ten years later, the memory of what had happened to Lessa had the power to enrage him.
“Don’t make me have to deal with the religious police, Abram,” Jafar warned him in return.
“Keep your depravities under control. The battle we are involved in together, I prefer to win fairly.”
“There is no battle,” Abram assured him seriously, and as far as he was concerned, there wasn’t one. There would never be one.