The prince switched his attention to the troops rimming the hills and let out a long sigh. “Hopefully the holy man will calm any fears of the maharaja that I am abusing his daughter and we can get our wounded ready for transport.”
Halim folded his arms over his brawny chest. “Do you really believe they are going to let us waltz out of here that easily, milord?”
“Sitara is under my protection now. The maharaja won’t sacrifice her life simply to keep us from taking to the ships and leaving this accursed land.”
“By the Prophet I hope you know what you’re doing,” Halim said.
Ardalan looked at his captain. “Do you think we can stay here unharmed, Halim?” he asked. “With or without Sitara having entered the picture, we would either be forced to try to fight our way out of here again. That worked well, didn’t it? Or we could stay here and starve. Which of those two choices suits you better, my friend?”
Halim blew out a long breath. “I am merely saying I think this was a bad idea on your part. You know what is going to happen once we get back to Asaraba. Your father will punish you, my Prince, and that punishment will be more than a light slap on the wrist.”
“I know all too well the force of my father’s punishments, Halim,” Ardalan reminded him. “If I can stand having it applied, the least you can do is endure watching it meted out.”
Halim had great affection for his prince and the thought of the young man being tortured by his demon of a father would add another few gray hairs to a crop of thick waves already threaded through with silver. “So when do you wish to leave?”
“At first light,” Ardalan replied. “With any luck at all, it will cease that gods-awful raining by then.”
“Don’t count on it,” Halim replied.
Chapter Six
The soldier Halim had sent to hang the tarpaulin bowed to his prince as Ardalan came to stand at the entrance to the room. He thanked the soldier then swept aside the stiff tarp and entered the little niche where his new bride was perched tensely on the pallet they had shared the evening before.
“Does it ever stop raining here?” he asked as he undid the top three buttons of his kameez.
“This is the monsoon season,” Sitara said softly. “I have known it to rain for three weeks straight without letup.”
Ardalan sighed. “I don’t like rain.” He sat down on the pallet beside her and drew his legs up into the circumference of his arms.
“I do,” Sitara said. “It cleans and refreshes the land and is essential to life.”
“It can also be destructive and deadly,” he said.
“True, but is it the rain or the gods who control it that makes it destructive and deadly?” she countered.
He smiled. “I see your point.”
They were silent for a moment—each lost in their own thoughts—then Sitara cleared her throat, bringing Ardalan’s gaze to hers.
“Do you wish me to undress for you, milord?” she asked quietly.
“Are you ready for bed?” he inquired. “The sun is a long way from setting.”
She lowered her head. “I thought perhaps you wanted to…” She stopped, a bright crimson stain turning her lovely face dark.
“We’ve time, sweeting,” he said in a soft voice. “Perhaps we should spend some of that time getting to know one another.”
Sitara nodded. “I would like.” She looked up and found her new husband staring intently at her. “Shall I go first?”
Ardalan leaned back, reclining on one hip, his legs crossed at the ankles, his head propped in his hand. “Please.”
“What would you like to know?”
He thought about it for a moment then asked her age.
“Twenty-four,” she replied. “And you?”
“Thirty-seven on my next birthday, which is in two months.” He tilted his head to one side in question. “Isn’t it unusual for a woman of your country to be unattached at your age?”
“Sahan was in no hurry to set a wedding date and neither was I,” she answered. “After your troops invaded Kishnu, such trivial things as a Joining were set aside.”
“I would not call our Joining trivial, sweeting,” he stated. “I will cherish the memory of it all my life.”
A faint smile touched Sitara’s lips. “Yet you did not really want to take a wife.”
He shrugged. “That’s true, but now that I have one, I find myself anxious to be with her, to hear her voice or to just look at her.”
“She’s but a new possession,” Sitara said. “One you will grow tired of once the novelty has worn off.”
Ardalan didn’t reply. He just looked at her—his lips pressed into an amused line. After a while, his smile deepened. “You are so beautiful,” he told her.
Sitara rolled her eyes. “A veritable goddess,” she quipped.
“A bronze goddess,” he asserted.
“What do you like to do in your spare moments?” she asked, wanting to change the embarrassing subject.
He chuckled. “Well, I like to swim. I go to the lake every morning when I am home and swim a mile before breaking my fast.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Even in the wintertime?”
“Especially so in the winter,” he replied. “It is very invigorating.”
She shuddered. “And very cold, I would think.”
“It can be. What about you? What things do you do to occupy your lazy moments?”
“What lazy moments?” she asked. “As eldest daughter, I have many obligations both my mother and father have set for me. My parents are firm believers in the old adage of idle hands being the devil’s workshop.”
“So what is it you do of a day’s time?” he inquired.
Sitara held up her hand and began ticking off her daily tasks. “I see to giving the servants their day-to-day responsibilities. I visit the sick each morning and take baskets to the elderly and the needy. I do accounts for the local orphanage and spend at least an hour of each day reading to the little ones. I stop by the animal shelter to make sure the strays are being seen to and help in trying to find good homes for them. I attend the mandir, our temple, each day to say a prayer for a friend of mine who is gravely ill. I stay to aid the nuns in whatever project they have at the time. Once a week I attend sitar class taught by a master and—”
“You play the sitar?” he asked, impressed.
“I do,” she said, scrunching her shoulders. “My mother adores the music and I believe gave me my name because of her love for the sitar. Actually, I detest the wretched thing.”
“Then I won’t ask you to entertain me with renditions of your local folk tunes,” he said with a twitch of his lips.
She lifted her chin. “Do you play a musical instrument, milord?”
“Actually I do,” he replied. “When I was a young boy, we had a Chalean who came to spend time with us. He was a master swordsman and he was there to teach me. Every night, he would sit on the battlement and play a tin whistle. I begged him to teach me and I’m quite good at it.”
“Would you entertain me with renditions of your local folk tunes?” she asked with a grin.
Ardalan shuddered. “Have you ever heard our folk tunes, milady?” he questioned.
Sitara shook her head.
“I didn’t think,” he said. “If you had, you wouldn’t ask me to pierce your eardrums with them, but…” He wagged his thick brows. “I might be persuaded to play a Serenian tune or two if you ask nicely.”
Sitara perked up. “Did you bring your instrument with you?” she asked eagerly.
“I never go anywhere without it,” he replied. “It is a soothing sound.”
“Unlike the shrill twang of my sitar,” she said with a giggle. “Will you play for me now?”
“You really want me to?”
“Aye!” she said, clapping her hands and coming to her knees with her enthusiasm.
“All right,” he said, and got up to go to his war chest where he kept the tin whistle wrapped in a square of soft woo
d.
Sitara avidly watched him as he sat down across from her, crossed his legs and lovingly unwrapped the tin whistle. Biting her lower lip, she was anxious to hear him play. When he put the instrument to his lips and began playing a soft, slow tune, she closed her eyes and lost herself in the music.
Ardalan enjoyed playing music, but when he was at home in the palace, his father forbade such frivolities. The sultan’s abode was a dark and gloomy place filled with unsmiling servants wearing dark visages, who walked like ghosts through the opulent rooms. No laughter or loud talk was allowed within the hallowed halls of Eshkondan for it was a bitter, brooding place filled with deadly, evil men. To break the rules was to suffer, and no one wanted to experience punishment at the hands of either the sultan or his personal guard the Faryad.
When the tune ended, Sitara opened her eyes. “What was the name of that piece?”
“It is an old Serenian folk song called The Prince’s Lost Lady,” he replied.
“It is so moving and you played it beautifully,” she complimented.
There was a loud uproar beyond their room and Ardalan got up, wincing as his wounds reminded him they were still there. He pushed aside the tarp to see what was happening. Halim and Sabir were arguing, those men who were able clustered around them.
“What the hell’s the problem?” Ardalan demanded, walking out into the larger portion of the cave.
“More men have arrived on the hilltops,” Sabir said. “At least twice what was there this morning.”
The prince’s eyebrows drew together. “You are sure?”
“I am damned sure,” Sabir snapped then as those around him gasped at his daring to speak so to the prince, he lowered his head, his hands on his hips. “Forgive me, milord, but I am concerned about this latest development.” He flicked his gaze at the tarpaulin. “While you were playing your music, two more of our men went on to their reward. This has not been a good day.”
“Those men died soothed by the sweetness of the music,” Tarik put in.
“Are they being prepared for burial with those we’ve lost since the battle?” Ardalan asked.
“Another grave was dug while you slept. Pray to the Prophet we don’t lose any more,” Halim replied.
Ardalan walked to the entrance to the cave. In the gloom of the rain he took in the multitude of warriors paused on the crest of the hill. Sweeping his eyes from horizon to horizon, he saw men and mounts, scores of more tents that had been erected since last he looked.
“He has no intention of allowing us to leave peacefully,” Halim observed.
“Perhaps the men were already en route before my Joining with Sitara,” Ardalan suggested.
“Or have arrived because of it,” Sabir grumbled.
“Should we send our own emissary to speak with the maharaja?” Halim inquired, casting Sabir a warning look.
“And risk losing him to a Kishnu blade?” Sabir scoffed. “Who would volunteer for such a mission? Certainly not I!”
“I will go,” Tarik said.
“No,” Ardalan said, shaking his head. “You are too greatly needed here.”
“Then I’ll go,” Halim volunteered.
“No, I can’t risk losing you, either,” Ardalan said. He locked gazes with Sabir. “Yours is one of the calmer heads here.”
Sitara was listening at the curtain and the situation had escalated as she feared it would. Knowing her father, he would have sent for more men, bidding them come to rescue her from the clutches of The Evil One. If she could, she would volunteer to go to her father, but she knew Ardalan would refuse such a request and rightly so. Once her father had her under his protection, the lives of Ardalan and his men would be forfeit.
“I don’t think sending an emissary will do much good,” Ardalan said, “and I’ll not risk the lives of any of our men to test that feeling.”
“Then what do we do?” Sabir asked.
“We wait until morning and then we strike out from the caves,” his prince told him. “If we have been played false by the maharaja, there is nothing we can do about it until then.”
“And if he attacks?” Sabir pressed.
“We take a stand, the princess at the center of our men,” Ardalan told him.
“Why? She is the cause of us—”
“She is not the cause of this!” Ardalan shouted. “I got us into this mess by leading the men into these caves! If it takes me offering myself for your lives, I will do it.”
Many voices shouted “No!” at the same time. Sitara rushed out from behind the tarpaulin and grabbed his arm.
“You cannot entertain such a thought, Ardalan!” she hissed at him, using his given name for the first time. “My father’s men would make you die a thousand times before you would be allowed to draw your last breath!”
“Thanks to you,” Sabir said beneath his breath.
“We must trust my father to keep his word,” Sitara said, ignoring Sabir though she had heard his statement clearly. “I have never known him to go back on a bond. As you say, the new troops must have arrived before the ceremony that bound us together.”
Ardalan turned back to the entrance and studied the troops positioned on the hills, and knew in his heart there was no way he and his men would live to see Asaraba again. He half turned and held his hand out to Sitara.
She came to him quickly and he folded her beneath the protection of his arm. Her hand went to his chest and beneath the cotton of his kameez, she could feel the steady beat of his stalwart heart and it soothed her.
“If I can see them, they can see us,” the prince said. “I want your father to know you are precious to me.”
Sabir made a hissing sound and stalked off, his shoulders hunched forward with anger, his hands doubled into fists.
“And you to me,” Sitara said.
Long into the afternoon they stood observing the men on the hills. They spoke quietly to one another—his arm around her shoulder, her arm around his waist—and watched the rain cascading over the archway of the cave entrance. He walked with her as she tended his men, standing beside her as she worked her magic on the wounded. He held her when she sobbed after the death of a young soldier and soothed her with gentle words for her ears alone. As night fell, the rain grew heavier and together they slipped behind the tarpaulin.
* * * * *
His hands shook as he eased the shirt from her body, peeling it back over her shoulders and trapping her upper arms within its soft confines to bring her tightly against his body.
“I burn for you,” he whispered against her temple.
“And I for you,” she answered.
Her small hands were at his waist, dragging the fabric of his kameez upward until she could touch the warmth of his bare flesh.
He let her shirt drift down her arms to pool at their feet. The soft undershirt of lace she wore made him draw in a breath for he could see the dark duskiness of her nipples peeking through the lacy pattern.
She pushed his kameez farther up his chest until he grasped the tail of it and pulled it over his head, baring his flesh to her tentative touch. He stood there breathing quickly as she smoothed her palms over his chest, through the wiry mat of hair and down his sides.
The skirt she wore was held at the waist by a series of small hooks and he made quick work of undoing them, pushing the material over her ample hips until it too lay on the floor alongside her shirt.
Outside, thunder boomed and the ground beneath their feet shook, but they were mindless to the world beyond their small room. His hands went up to cup her cheeks, tilting her head up so he could bend down to claim her lips. She pressed against him and his cock pulsed.
His kiss was sweet—almost shy—but there was nothing bashful about the way his tongue invaded her mouth. He thoroughly explored her, leaving no doubt in her mind that she now belonged to him. She clung to him as he tasted her, flicked the tip of that wicked muscle across her lips, dipped into the sensitive creases at the corner of her mouth then swept enticingly
along her bottom teeth.
Sitara’s legs felt as though they would give way beneath her. Her hands were clutching his sides as he worked his seductive magic upon her mouth. The thrust of his cock against her belly did wild and wondrous things to her loins.
He kissed his way over her cheeks, her forehead, down to the tip of her nose, the point of her chin, then bent down to place his lips at the hollow of her throat, suckling that ultrasensitive spot.
She slid her hands up beneath his arms and wrapped her own arms around his neck, straining to feel every inch of his warm body against hers.
“Bring your legs up and put them around my waist,” he whispered against her neck.
Sitara did as he commanded—hanging onto his neck to lever herself up—and the heat of his belly against the core of her as she straddled his waist made her groan. Even through the cotton of her undergarment she could feel that heat.
He walked with her in his arms over to the pallet and hunkered down, leaning her backwards until she was lying upon the soft makeshift bed, gazing up at him with a sultry look that made him want to fall upon her and ravish her. But knowing she was a virgin—untried, untested in the crucible of any man’s lust—he wanted this first time to be special for her, with as little discomfort as possible.
Tugging at her legs until she took them from his waist and stretched their silky length to either side of him, he wedged his hands beneath her back, and with one quick, accomplished flick had her undershirt dangling from his index finger.
“Had much practice doing that, milord?” she teased, one fine brow arched upward.
“Would you want an untried, callous youth for your lover, milady?” he countered. “One who knows not what to do with his steel?”
A shiver ran through Sitara’s body as she lay there, her naked chest heaving slightly as his eyes raked over her like burning coals. The urge to cover herself was there, but the gentleness of his hands as he touched her waist, slid his hands up to cover her breasts, stilled anything save the desire to have this man take her as he wished.
Ardalan cupped her breasts then bent his head to taste the dark areolas, the turgid nipples that were like hard little pebbles as he drew them into his mouth. He laved her, gently squeezed then lapped at her straining peaks until she was clawing at his arms, needing something she had yet to experience but eager for it nonetheless.
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