Radeem nodded uncertainly.
“One, two…”
Radeem screamed in agony. “By the light of Asman, man! Why didn’t you do it carefully, like hers?” he grumbled.
Tahj ignored him, moving to retrieve the strips of cloth on the ground near the girl. Seeming to understand what he was doing, she handed one to him. He paused, gazing into those big, dark eyes of hers. “Thank you.” She nodded again, and a glimmer of a smile touched her lips.
Tahj turned back to Radeem, shaking his head to clear it a little. She had such a strange effect on him. He wrapped a strip tightly around Radeem’s thigh, and this time the captain only winced and sucked in his breath a little when Tahj tied it off, but then he scooted back, resting against a tree trunk with his injured leg bent at the knee, his other leg straightened in front of him. Tahj returned to the girl’s side. “Can I bind your wound?” he asked, squatting and staring into her jewel-like eyes. She nodded, sitting all the way up.
Tahj tied the remaining strips together, making one long bandage. “I’m going to loop it over your right shoulder and then under your left arm.” Again she nodded. He began to work the strip as he had described, chuckling nervously. “You’re quiet.”
The girl laughed, surprising him. “If only my brothers could hear you say that.”
Tahj passed the end of the strip from hand to hand, careful to not touch her as he passed in front of her. “You have a big family then?”
She nodded. “Two sisters and five brothers.”
His eyebrows rose. “Five?” He finished, tucking the end of the bandage into the folds he had created. He remained squatting in front of her, glancing down at the ground for a second, and then back up, squinting. “What’s your name?” he asked her for the second time, wondering if she would again refuse to answer him.
“Bashea,” she replied softly.
“Bashea,” he repeated. “That’s pretty.” Her gaze shifted from one of his eyes to the other with an unreadable expression on her face. He watched Bashea, frozen by her beauty, until Radeem’s loud snoring rudely broke the spell she’d cast. He laughed. “He’s a jewel, that one.” He gestured over his shoulder. Radeem’s head had fallen back against the tree trunk, his mouth open wide as he slept. Tahj got up to retrieve a blanket and spread it over the sleeping man, still laughing quietly.
“He is your brother?” she questioned upon his return.
“What? Radeem? No. My friend.” He busied himself by searching through the bag for a minute. “I’m Tahj, by the way.” He held out his hand, and she slipped her slender one into it.
“Prince Tahj?”
He frowned, rifling through the bag again. “I suppose. But prince of what?” he muttered, unwanted images of his slain mother and father filling his mind. A breeze blew, and she trembled again, wrapping her arms around herself. “I’ll get the fire started now.”
She started to stand. “I’ll help.”
Tahj laid a hand on her uninjured shoulder. “You just relax. You’ve had enough action today.”
Clearing a spot in between the trees, Tahj collected brush to start his fire. He pulled a flint box out of one of the packs and soon had small flames leaping to life. As he returned to Bashea, he found her face even more bewitching in the firelight.
“That feels good.”
“Hmmm?” he responded absentmindedly.
“The fire. It feels good.”
He stirred himself to respond to her. “Oh, yes. Well, I’m sure a bigger one would feel even better, but I don’t want to take any chances on being discovered. We’ll just have to stay close. To the fire, that is,” he added lamely, but Bashea didn’t seem to notice. She was staring into the fire, mesmerized by the dance of the flames.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I’ll be right back. I want to find a boulder or something to rest our backs against.”
Tahj’s lopsided smile sent a strange shiver through Bashea. She looked down, afraid he would notice. After a second, she laughed at herself, shaking her head. Thick, wavy black hair, perfect, bronzed skin, a face that looked like it had been chiseled by a master, and that tantalizing flash of white teeth—what was not to like? But it was foolish to get all gaga over a man, and she was no fool.
Bashea watched him leave the already comforting ring of light from the fire, feeling a sort of pang as he slipped away into the dark. She glanced over at his friend, who was oblivious to it all, and wondered over how she had gotten where she was, in the middle of the woods with a handsome prince and a loveable buffoon.
Not for the first time, she thought about her family. Would they be sitting around a fire now, too, telling tales as they were the night she was abducted? Was Gaspard relating a story he read in some book he dug up, or was Bagrat horsing around with Jahmeel, coming dangerously close to the fire as they sparred with one another? Bashea hugged her knees closer, ignoring the pain it caused her shoulder, even as she was unable to ignore the pain in her heart. She rested her forehead on her knees and let hot tears roll down her cheeks where no one could see them, face buried in the little valley of her legs. Seconds later, hearing the crunch of a stick, her head sprang up and she hastened to wipe away the tears.
Tahj had searched through the brush and now came back, emerging from the dark with a five-foot section of log laid across his shoulders, arms looped over it like a yoke. He grinned at Bashea, obviously pleased with his find. Carrying the log left pieces of bark on his shirt, and long, smeared lines of gray to go with the red streaks of blood. Whether they were from their earlier fighting, or her own wound, she wasn’t at all sure.
He would have looked almost comical if he weren’t so darn good-looking, she thought. His right sleeve was ripped from shoulder to forearm, and, as he shifted his hands so they were underneath the wood, she could see the ripple of his biceps and felt an unwanted stirring in her blood. Tahj straightened his arms out over his head with very little effort, and the display of strength had her fighting back a sigh. He dropped the log to the ground with a dull thump and rolled it with his feet until he got it where he wanted it, near the fire. He planted a boot on it triumphantly.
“Our couch,” he said, bending and waving his hand gallantly along its length.
He approached and reached down, sliding his large hand behind Bashea’s good shoulder to help her up. She scrambled to her feet, shying away from his touch as much as she welcomed it. After she was comfortable by the log, he sat down next to her, crossing his legs in front of him. They sat quietly at first, surrounded by the night rhythms of the forest, the lazy sound of crickets chorusing with the popping of some of the greener kindling the fire consumed, and the deep bass of Radeem’s snores. The pair soon was enjoying the soothing sensation of fire-roasted faces and clothes, even as the cool air chilled their backs to balance out the heat.
“How’s your shoulder?” Tahj asked after a while.
“A little sore,” she said hesitantly, “but, all in all, I think it could have been a lot worse.”
He nodded in agreement. “Where are you from, Bashea?”
She liked the way he said her name, with care. She stared into the leaping, yellow-blue flames and sighed. “We call it Tamook. It’s just a little village near the bottom of Mount Sabalan, to the north. My people are a nomadic tribe,” she explained. “We herd sheep and move from place to place to find pasture.” She felt embarrassed to be a mere sheepherder in the presence of a real prince, even though in her own tribe she was considered a princess, the daughter of the chief. But it was hardly the same, princess of a wandering land full of sheep dung, compared to prince of the glorious city of Avistad. She’d heard wondrous things about the city and all the goods that could be found there, all the things that could be done there, for the right price.
Tahj picked up a stick and idly played with the fire, trying to find a way to form his next question. “I’m sorry…” He stopped and started again, laying the stick aside and turning to her. “They took you away from your home, those men
?”
Even in the firelight, he could see her cheeks flush. She quickly looked away from him, staring blindly again into the dance of flames. After several seconds had passed, she answered. “Yes.”
“We will take you home, then, tomorrow.”
She looked at him, her eyes wide. “You’d do that?”
“Of course.” Reading the surprise on her face, an idea occurred to him and, his voice a bit panicky, he questioned, “You didn’t think I ordered, or had anything to do with what those men—”
“No,” she said quickly. “I didn’t think that.”
But he could tell it was a lie. He studied her profile in the flickering firelight. She still didn’t trust him entirely. Her face still held the cuts and bruises from her tormentors, but it was no less beautiful, with a sense of pride and strength, framed with those tumbling black curls. She was unusual, this girl, and he found himself longing to unlock the secrets of her heart.
She drew her knees up and rubbed her arms. Tahj rose, and her eyes darted in his direction, still cagey and frightened. “I’m getting you a blanket.” She nodded, but didn’t speak again, going back to gazing into the depths of the fire. What was she thinking? Was she remembering the awful things that had happened to her the night before?
Tahj picked his way over the uneven ground to where the horses stood dozing. He pulled off the other blanket, which was rolled and tied to the back of the saddle. He stood for a moment, one hand on the horse, the blanket tucked under his other arm, and watched her. She was unaware of him, absorbed in her own thoughts. She was completely enchanting, magic in the firelight, intriguingly as fragile as she was strong. The holes he found in the cool distance she tried to maintain, the moments when she dropped her guard enough to let him in, fueled his desire to tear away all boundaries between them. He walked slowly back to her side, but she still jumped when he drew near.
Without speaking, Tahj knelt in the dirt, unrolling the blanket to lay it out by the fire. He lifted his eyes to hers. Bashea watched him guardedly, perhaps wondering if he expected her to join him in the bed he made. She glanced nervously in Radeem’s direction, but he was still crashed out, snoring incessantly. It was as if she was measuring the odds, determining if she could fight Tahj on her own if she had to, or if Radeem would help him to subdue her, and do…whatever else to her.
Tahj rose and stalked to the edge of the clearing. He couldn’t stand to see the pain in the girl’s eyes, knowing, in a roundabout way, he had caused it. Sure, he didn’t order the raid on her village, but it was undertaken to play a joke on him, so he felt some of the blame was his. As a leader, he hadn’t won over his troops, and this was the result. She didn’t trust him, and why should she? Her thinking poorly of him hurt. At the same time, it angered him that the men had acted out of hate and lust, and the pure evil dwelling within them.
These thoughts led him to others, thoughts of his father, whose body lay broken upon the bed, blood poured out upon the tiles Tahj had crawled over as a baby. And even as he saw this face, another one was superimposed over it—Kadeesh’s, his dear brother. Boltar had taken Tahj’s entire family away from him, and the need to avenge their deaths burned in his heart. But there was nothing to be done tonight, and he needed first to right things with the girl.
Tahj turned back to the camp. To his surprise, he found Bashea curled up where she had been, lying on her side against the tree he’d lugged out of the woods, the blanket abandoned. He headed silently toward Bashea, careful to avoid any branches that might snap and wake her. He retrieved the blanket, and, bending down next to her, noted how tightly she was curled up against the cold, how her hands lay clenched by her face. Tahj stretched out the blanket over her small body, being sure it covered the injured shoulder. He paused a second more, soaking in her face, and then unconsciously reached out to run the back of his hand down a soft cheek.
He felt a slight quiver under her skin. She had flinched at his touch. She was awake then, only pretending to sleep. He understood now—she was afraid to face him, afraid of what demands she imagined he would have. He drew back his hand and retreated to the other side of the fire. But, through the night, he continued to watch her as she slept. The moon traveled over the sky before he finally fell asleep, curled up on his side as she was, feeling suddenly very, very alone.
CHAPTER SIX
He was standing over the fire, mere feet away, with his back to her, gnawing on something, when the girl woke with a start. He heard the sharp intake of her breath and turned, holding a greasy finger to his lips. Radeem squatted down in front of her. “The prince is still asleep.”
Straightening, he spun to sit next to her, too close, causing her to sit up and draw the blanket around her more tightly, though he pretended not to notice. He was staring at Tahj thoughtfully. Tahj lay on his side, head on his folded hands, with no pillow, no blanket, curled up against the cold. “He didn’t sleep well,” Radeem commented.
The girl followed his gaze. “He didn’t?”
Radeem turned to stare at her. “Coming across your father with his throat slit, and then holding your dying mother in your arms will do that to you.” He got up, disgruntled, angered at Boltar and his men and sore from sleeping on the ground. He was ravenous, having found only a small amount of dried meat in their packs, and all that made for a grumpy captain. Radeem rarely missed a meal.
He strode off to the horses to search the packs some more. He glanced up, catching the girl as she gazed at Tahj. There was something going on there, he was sure of it. The concern on Tahj’s face when he found out she was hurt, the way she was looking at him now—there was definitely something going on. It amused him—he’d never seen Tahj with a woman—and irritated him. She was a beautiful girl, after all, and had no idea he was married, yet she chose Tahj over him. He fished an apple, which he had overlooked, out of a pack and then strode back over to her with purpose and sat down, chomping on his find it noisily.
“So,” Radeem began uncertainly, “where is your home?” He turned toward her, resting a forearm on his knee, holding the apple loosely, in what he hoped was a casual position, not bothering to tie his shirt so she could see his massive chest. With his free hand he reached over to play with her hair.
She narrowed her eyes, but didn’t pull away. “Tamook, at the foot of Mt. Sabalan.”
He gestured to her bandaged shoulder. “Tahj do that?” he asked, with just a hint of accusation.
She nodded, but didn’t elaborate.
“What’s your name, Ziba?” he queried, using his best, honeyed tone, looking into those fathomless eyes and letting himself get lost for a moment with a stupid grin on his face.
“Bashea,” she answered through clenched teeth.
“Bashea…pretty, like you.” Radeem ran a finger down the girl’s cheek, giving her his most charming smile, but in exchange he got a death stare meant to put him in his place.
Out of nowhere, a pack landed at Radeem’s feet. He jumped in surprise. He had been so engrossed with Bashea, he hadn’t noticed Tahj rising. “We need to leave,” Tahj said coldly.
If Radeem had thought something was going on between them before, this only confirmed it. Oh, yes, he’d bet a silver coin on Tahj being jealous just now. Radeem smiled up at him. “You’ve got it, Your Highness.” He rose and offered the girl his hand. She looked from him to Tahj, but the prince was walking away. She placed her hand in Radeem’s, letting him help her to her feet. But when Radeem pulled Bashea in close she gave him the same icy stare. He backed up, holding his hands out as if offering her his surrender.
Tahj had stormed past them to the horses and now came back, squatting to roll up Bashea’s blanket. She bent to help him, but he whipped the end out of her hand. “I’ve got it,” he snapped, not looking up at her. He continued to roll the blanket up roughly and she backed away, rubbing a hand where the blanket must have burned as it was jerked from her grip.
Tahj would have felt bad about that if he wasn’t too busy fuming over wh
at he saw when he opened his eyes after a horrible night’s sleep. Just as the bright sunlight chased away his nightmares, he heard their voices. He sat up just as Radeem was reaching out to touch her hair. She did not flinch at his touch. From Tahj’s angle, he couldn’t see Bashea’s face, just Radeem’s big, fat, foolish one, smiling at her like he was about to eat her up for dessert, and Tahj was angry.
It was perfectly reasonable to be angry with her. She sat there and flirted with Radeem, who was a complete stranger, and she shrunk away from Tahj’s touch like he was diseased. Who wouldn’t be angry? And then when Radeem touched her face, that was too much. Tahj thought about it as he threw the pack onto Ballamore’s back, nearly flinging it off the other side in his fury. He thought about it as he stamped out the fire, kicking the logs apart and spreading the remains high and wide.
“You all right there, Prince?” Radeem asked, peering at him curiously.
“Fine. Just ready to go,” Tahj mumbled, not wanting to have to explain himself. Besides, at the moment he was pretty sure any extended conversation with Radeem would end up with the good captain being belted.
“Sure thing,” Radeem responded in a chipper manner, which set Tahj’s teeth on edge. Tahj reached up for the saddle horn, stepping into the stirrup. “Bashea,” Radeem added, drawing out her name, “can ride with me today. Give Ballamore a rest.”
Tahj froze for a second, his muscles tense. “Fine.” He finished pulling himself up and sat, staring straight ahead.
“My dear.” Radeem offered Bashea a hand to help her onto the horse.
She took it, but muttered under her breath, “I’m only letting you help me because my shoulder is sore.”
“Of course.” Radeem winked and Bashea frowned at him. He climbed on in front of her. Tahj wondered about the exchange for a moment, but then decided he didn’t care. Whatever was going on between the pair was none of his business. None of his damn business.
They took off, heading north through the trees, not running, but keeping a steady clip all the same. Tahj just wanted to be done with the whole thing, leave the girl with her family and…what? What was he to do now? His home was gone, his family was gone… But he’d escaped with his life; he would at least be grateful for that. He would start a new life somewhere else. Somewhere…far away from these two, he concluded. He tried not to look, but every once in a while he couldn’t help but glance over at her hands around Radeem’s waist, as they had been around his the day before. Once, Bashea glanced back over at him, and he turned back around. He didn’t want to look into those eyes of hers.
Taken by Storm (ROMANTIC REALMS COLLECTION) Page 5