The killing blow was swift, almost merciful. Graham's enemy gurgled for breath, gasped and fell to the ground, staining it scarlet. An appreciative murmur swept over the watchers. The sand eagerly drank the blood, thirsty granules greedily pulling it down.
Fluid, so precious in these dry, barren lands.
Inner sorrow pulled him. Again, he had killed. He wiped his sword on the robes of his enemy, sheathed it. Then he bound his arm with the silk sash at his belt. The Bedu's respectful nods he met with a hard stare.
"The houri is mine," he said in Arabic. "I will take her and leave."
Mahjub smiled, showing a wide horizon of gum and the broken stubs of yellowed teeth. "The houri delivered to us enthralls you so much that you kill one of my clan? Then wait no longer to claim her, Khamsin, with your powerful magic. My tent."
And with a grand gesture, he swept a hand toward the many-poled dwelling standing nearby.
Emotion squeezed Graham's chest. For the first time, fear skidded up his spine. What the hell did he want? "I can wait," he grunted.
"You will not," the sheikh countered, his graying brows drawing together. "I insist on the hospitality of my tent to take this virgin. It is our tradition that a warrior who has fought and fought well be rewarded with a woman. Do you refuse my hospitality?"
"I do not refuse the hospitality of Mahjub, the great sheikh of the Jauzi, whose name is honored above all others in this land. But I will not bed this woman here and now."
Graham's formal words made no impact on the sheikh, whose expression shifted to calculating intent.
"I think you are reluctant to bed her because you lied. She is not an houri, a virgin from paradise. And if you lied, we will cut out your tongue as we do to those who lie to us. Let us see if you told the truth, Khamsin. Take this virgin and show us your powerful magic. If you refuse, we will take her into the desert as food for the jackals, as we do with all defiled women."
Fear squeezed his heart. "No one will touch her," he swore.
A loud scraping of unsheathed scimitars rang in the air. Graham stared into a forest of gleaming steel.
"A man sometimes may choose his death, Khamsin. He may choose to die in the soft arms of a woman, or he may die with the bite of a blade against his neck. Which do you choose?"
Powerless, he swallowed rising revulsion. He had no choice. Forgive me, Jilly, he said silently. To the sheikh he said, "Bring her to your tent. I will claim her there."
Jillian fought the women as they bathed her in the black tent and then dressed her in a gown of green gauze. They covered the nearly transparent clothing with a thick black garment and led her outside. The women shoved her into the largest tent and removed the covering. She stumbled, nearly falling onto the thick carpet. Silks billowed in the desert breeze.
Graham stood before her. A rough beard covered his face. His hair swept past the collar of the indigo coat, a thick mane tousled by the wind. His sleeve was torn in one spot, showing a makeshift, reddened bandage. Eyes darker than midnight silently appraised her.
He said loudly in Arabic and then in English:
"I fought for you. And I shall claim you, in the ancient right of this tribe."
She felt miserable, afraid, and greatly relieved to see him.
And he? He looked every inch an exotic, powerful sheikh, as if he were playing a part upon some stage of windswept sand.
He came to her, black brows drawn together, no longer the duke. She scarcely recognized him. Sun and sand had swallowed him. He'd shifted like the changing, silent dunes.
The women all watched, bright-eyed with speculation. Graham turned to them and barked something in Arabic. The women meekly filed past, marched into a room curtained off from the main tent.
Barely had they done so when Graham began unwrapping the blue turban and shedding the indigo coat He sat on the carpet and gestured at his boots.
"Take these off," he ordered loudly. "Woman, do as I say before you invoke my wrath."
The thin curtain shielding the women twitched. Biting back a caustic remark, Jillian removed his boots. She stared in astounded shock as Graham stripped down to his bare chest and stood, tugging at the drawstring holding his blousy trousers up. "What in heaven's name are you doing?" she demanded.
"Undressing. Take your clothes off. Now!"
"No." She backed away from him, hands out¬stretched. Old fears arose—her father, always controlling her, making her feel powerless. Why was Graham doing this? What had happened to the considerate man she'd married?
"Listen to me," he said urgently, gripping her arms. "I've just killed the man who stole you. The tribe thinks you are an houri, a virgin from paradise delivered to them. The women back there are watching us. The men are outside, listening. If I don't take you, they'll cut out my tongue for lying about you. If they don't think you're a virgin, they'll let you die in the desert."
"I don't know if I can do this," she whispered.
His gaze softened. He touched her cheek. "Jilly, I don't want to do this any more than you do. But we must. Do you understand? We have no choice."
Swallowing hard, she nodded.
"I'm sorry," he said softly, and suddenly she was reminded of their first time together.
He ripped the thin silk from her body with a rough growl. Jillian shook violently, trying to shield herself with her hands. He took her hands, held them apart, staring at her breasts intently. Whispers flitted from behind the silk curtain.
Her eyes closed in bitter shame. Graham pulled her to him and kissed her, his lips gently coaxing hers apart as his tongue slipped inside, stroking and caressing. It was a sensual kiss, but she felt no desire. She felt rigid as rock. Graham pulled back, determined intent turning his eyes to midnight. He kissed her again, and trailed a line of hot, urgent kisses across her collarbone. His hands caressed her bare shoulders, drifted lower to skim her hips and then slide into the juncture of her thighs.
A jolt of arousal speared her. She moaned as he gently stroked, culling moisture, to prepare her for what lay ahead. He pulled back and shed his trousers, displaying his rigid arousal. She tried not to hear the feminine murmurs and gasps.
How could she bear this? You must, she told herself as he lowered her to the sheepskins, his dark gaze intent as he moved between her legs. His hard male body with its broad shoulders and muscles rippling beneath the taut biceps was as familiar as her own. Yet he was a stranger. She felt him probing her center, which was slightly damp from his ministrations.
"Now. Cry out," he ordered.
He pushed forward, piercing her. Not fully prepared for the shock of his entry, her inner passage resisted. Jillian screamed and arched. A low laugh and words in rough Arabic sounded outside the tent.
Tears blurred her eyes. She felt horridly exposed and humiliated; the act she'd relished as tender and passionate now reduced to crude lust, a private moment stripped down to a public act.
Her husband bent his face close to hers and softly crooned words in Arabic as he slowly expanded her resisting muscles. Then she looked into his eyes and saw tenderness brimming there. Graham whispered into her ear in English, "They're not here. No one else is. Just us, alone. Pretend, my love."
"I can't," she said brokenly. "I just can't."
"You can, Jilly," he said, kissing her tears away. A smile touched his mouth. "Do as every English mother tells her daughter on her wedding night. Lie back and think of England."
His gaze turned serious as his hips surged forward and he thrust inside her. The gentle tone and reassuring words contrasted his pounding thrusts, and the whispers of their audience.
"Look at me, Jilly," he said softly in English. "Come with me. We're in a garden in England, lush and verdant. There are pink tea roses climbing a white trellis by the pagoda where we sit, sipping tea. A mockingbird is chirping from the boughs of a willow. Can you feel the caress of the cool breeze upon your lovely cheek? You are laughing because I've just spilled crumbs from the delicious scones on my new waistcoat. There
's an orange butterfly dancing nearby and you wish to catch it."
Jillian closed her eyes, willing herself into the fantasy as his body slapped against hers. She forced herself to drift. The sticky, harsh heat melted into a delightful English breeze. No odor of stale sweat from the dirty sheepskins beneath them, but the perfume of roses and freshly cut grass from the craggy-faced gardener swiping at it with a scythe.
"My beautiful Jillian, in your green eyes I see the water's reflection. So cool, so serene. Nothing can bother us here."
Jillian willed the images to dance in her mind. She saw Graham's face, smiling and laughing as he chased her and the pumpkin butterfly, dancing out of their reach. His deep laughter sounded as they raced across the soft grass, and Graham chuckled as he caught her in his arms and whirled her around for a kiss....
A harsh groan rasped above her, startling her out of the vision. Her eyes flew open to see her husband stiffen and shudder, his powerful body tensing as he found his release. She felt the warmth of his seed fill her.
Misery swallowed her. But then he sighed and kissed her, his soft murmur caressing her ear as he lifted her hair and kissed the lobe. Confusion swept her as he rolled off, for she could not fathom the words he'd whispered. Her senses were surely scrambled, and she couldn't be sure, but it had sounded like, "I love you."
* * *
So many times he'd used fantasy in his own horrible reality of the black tent. He'd dreamed of being anywhere but there—in England, climbing fence posts, or the captain of a pirate ship, sailing to find treasure on tropical islands. He'd fantasized anything but who he was and where he was at that particular moment.
Now filled with self-loathing, he sat up, his back to the wall sectioning off the sheikh's harem. Furtively he grabbed his jambiya and cut himself. He smeared the blood on the sheepskins, then quickly dressed.
He paused to glare at the faces peeping out from the thin curtain. "Get her clothing. Now," he barked in Arabic to the women. They scrambled to obey. He picked up his scimitar and jambiya, slid them into his belt. His oily rifle he slung over one shoulder. As the women hustled back into the tent, bearing Jillian's clothing, he regarded his wife.
She dressed, shoulders slumped, gaze downcast. Graham held out a hand. Jillian took it as they went outside. Men stood nearby, watching with dark, burning gazes. He felt the wild rage to feel bone and blood beneath his crushing fingers.
Graham suppressed emotions and stood alone, ordering Jillian to mount her camel. He did not dare drop his gaze or let his hand leave his scimitar hilt.
"She's mine now. I will take her with me." His bristling stance and hand on the scimitar hilt said, Try to stop me.
Mahjub gave a slight, respectful nod and said in Arabic, "Go with Allah in peace." But Graham could read the sheikh's sly thoughts. A man alone with a woman in the desert was vulnerable.
Instinctively Graham knew they must put as much distance between themselves and this tribe as possible. Violence and greed swirled in their dark eyes.
As he fingered the butt of the rifle against his hip and stared at Mahjub, the sly gaze lowered. Graham nodded and headed for his camel.
Chapter Twenty-two
They did not talk as they traveled, pausing now and then to erase their camel tracks. Graham spoke once, to explain he was trying to confuse the Bedu, should they decide to follow. The wind filled the silence between them, licked her clothing, adding to her internal misery. Graham had remained grimly quiet since his whispered confession of love. It was as if the words were never spoken.
They camped near a remote oasis with a cluster of date palms. There were two springs, one clean and cool, the other bubbling and warm. Jillian sat on the sands and studied the location. Small animal prints abounded. A crow landed nearby, regarded her with black eyes. Black as Graham's. In misery she watched it drink and fly away. Free.
The wild hare he caught with his crossbow he skinned and spitted. It smelled delicious as the grease made the fire spark and hiss, but she had no appetite. She prepared the meal in silence by the light of the flickering campfire.
Shadows danced across the grim set of his jaw as he sat cross-legged, eating.
After the meal, she washed the dishes with water, a luxury, and took a towel and soap to bathe at the spring. Graham's dark eyes burned into her.
"It's not safe alone. There are vipers."
Turning from him, she spoke in a low voice over her shoulder. "I'll take my chances."
But he rose and joined her anyway, trudging over the sands to the tiny spring. Jillian bit her lip as she stared in longing at the clean water. She hesitated at undressing before him.
"Go on," he said gruffly.
While she slipped from her clothing, he whirled. Graham stood, legs outspread, the rigid blue wall of his back facing her. He was giving her privacy.
Hot, soothing water surrounded her as she entered the little spring. Jillian ducked beneath it, swam a little ways out, clutching the soap. Silent sobs wrung from her throat. For long minutes, she cried, covering the sound with sounds of splashing and scrubbing. She scrubbed at her body with fierce loathing, erasing memories and smells.
When she emerged, her body was red from both the warmth and scouring. She quickly dried off and dressed. Graham stood a little way off, still with his back to her.
She wondered if he'd heard her sobs. She didn't even care.
They walked in silence back to the camp. Jillian took a seat on the striped blanket in their tent as Graham sat beside her. Misery overwhelmed her. She didn't know how to ask for comfort to ease what had happened between them. She felt as if she were losing him. Perhaps she already had.
"I'm sorry I had to do that to you, Jilly," he said.
She hugged her knees tighter, remaining silent.
"It was degrading. I violated and humiliated you."
Her throat tightened. "I suppose you had to do as you must, to save us both. Don't blame yourself, Graham. Your actions were justified."
Dark fire leaped in his eyes as he turned to her, his expression fierce and haunted.
"No. There never is any justification for forcing someone against their will—"
"They forced me, not you. I agreed," she protested, shrinking away from the violence in his eyes.
"I should have killed them."
"You would have been killed. You were outnumbered. Death is not preferable."
"Sometimes it is."
She went still, sensing something haunting in his tone. His eyes were distant as he gazed off into the sky. "Because once, Jilly, the same thing happened to me."
Fearful of shattering the moment, afraid that he would run away inside himself once more, she said nothing. Graham's dark gaze flicked to hers.
"In the desert there is no hiding from yourself. I didn't want this moment to come, but it has. It's time you know what happened when I was six. I wasn't raised by a nice English couple after my parents were killed. I was taken prisoner by one of the men who slaughtered them, taken into his black tent and raped."
The hollow feeling in Graham's chest echoed his desolation. Sweet Christ, it had finally come to this. She would see the blackness inside him and then it would be her choice to walk away or stay. He felt the blackness wrap its inky arms about him like the coldness of a stone tomb. He dully recited the story, not daring to meet her eyes; his gaze riveted to her feet instead, hidden beneath the white robe.
He left no detail out, from the moment his panicked gaze saw the warrior tribe galloping toward the caravan, his mother shoving Kenneth into a basket to hide him and his parents desperately trying to find a hiding place big enough for him. The sun flashed on the steel scimitars as the raiding al-Hajid took lives without mercy, the steel scimitar hovering above him as he cringed. He told of the shining gleam in the eyes of the warrior who studied him and then grabbed his arm, taking him prisoner.
Hidden feet beneath Jillian's white robe. A peep of small, delicate toes, scrubbed pink. Graham stared at them as he relaye
d the details of the dirty sheepskin grinding into his nose, the nightly torment from Husam, his captor—and Faisal, the man who pulled him from the wretched blackness with a hand outstretched in kindness.
"Faisal saw me taken prisoner and took pity on me," Graham said. He dared to glance at her face. Would he find pity there? Or disgust?
Jillian showed neither. Her expression remained carefully blank. But her fists clenched, showing the little rounded hills of her knuckles.
Graham told her Faisal had lived among the infidel in Cairo and knew English. At the risk of his own life, he'd smuggled sweet dates to Graham whenever his captor let him go hungry. Discovering the boy had a quick, clever mind, he'd taught him as he taught his own sons—how to hunt the wild hare, to analyze camel tracks in the sand, to read in both English and Arabic, to look for signs of water and survive in the desert on nothing but dates and camel milk. He even told her of al-Hamra and the slim hope he'd held out for escape—and the terrible price he paid for such hope and trust.
He did not tell her al-Hamra was her father. Some things were simply too terrible to reveal.
Graham told Jillian how, when he was nine, Husam tired of him. His captor had turned him out into the desert miles from the camp, leaving him to die in the scorching sun. At this, a harsh intake of breath escaped Jillian. Graham glanced at her. Tears shimmered in her eyes. She blinked them away.
His gaze locked on the ground once more. If he looked at his wife, he, too, would cry. Graham pushed aside his emotions, concentrating on keeping his voice steady instead.
He had been left in the desert to die, but returned three days later, crawling on his hands and knees, but alive. Faisal had stepped in and told the sheikh he had learned the ways of the desert and earned the right to live. The sheikh had given reluctant permission for Graham to live with Faisal, but vowed he would never be acknowledged as a warrior.
The Panther & the Pyramid (Khamsin Warriors of the Wind) Page 23