The sheik followed her frightened gaze and laughed with dancing eyes before speaking softly in Arabic, a question in his tone as he came forward, the candlelight playing on the muscles and white jagged scars of his bared chest.
Anna shook her head, backing away and dragging a silken coverlet to her breasts.
The sheik paused, frowning and issuing what sounded like a sharp order. But all the Arabic Anna had learned abruptly flew from her, and she could only stare uncomprehendingly, her lips quivering.
The sheik's frown deepened and there was a pounding rush in her ears as she retreated still further, stepping on the hem of her gown and stumbling as she said, "Please ... Oh God don't, please," unable to recognize the husky sound of her faltering voice. "Don't do this to me. In the name of your God and mine. ..:'
The sheik tilted his head slightly to one side, and there was a glimmer of understanding in the gaze that watched her. He stepped closer, a smile curving his lips, his eyelids half closing as he spoke, his brutal voice now seeming to vibrate with an underlying tenderness, as if speaking to a skittish horse.
Were not all women frightened until they properly knew their master? the sheik was asking himself as he said, the flower, sweet rose of Sharon," watching her azure eyes grow even more brilliant. He came closer. "You need only obey and I shall not hurt you pale little flower, priceless jewel. Do you not know our meeting was planned in the great book of Allah and is written in the stars?"
The sheik moved his other foot closer. He had not intended to take this slave girl before she had recovered, particularly since Omar Zatan had warned him of her fragility. But tonight, when he saw her in the harem, peeping from behind the fountain, looking as enchanting as an unexpected oasis, an arrow of desire had pierced his loins.
All that white skin-that hair as rich as the ruby on her finger, she was irresistible-different from any woman he had ever known. But at the end of the evening, when she had still shown neither curiosity nor the smallest desire in her frightened looks, he had remembered Omar's warning and had attempted to satisfy his lusts with two of his other women. But when he had taken them to his large fur scattered bed, and caressed their limbs, and breasts, and sex, his thoughts had known only this mystical paradise.
And later, when he had dismissed them, he had found himself still unable to sleep. Rising he had wandered aimlessly in the narrow hallways before finally finding himself here, parting the curtains to the bedchamber of this newest, most fascinating, of his female possessions.
How charming she was now, he thought, with her large eyes the color of morning sky looking at him as if he were a genie suddenly appeared out of magicians' smoke. And how fearfully she had fled to stand with her back pressed against the curtained wall of her chamber. The flaming pink hue of her cheeks had spread to color her throat and slender arms, and through the silk gown he could see her high pointed breasts so rosy, so delicate, so milky white, that the hot stirring of his desire grew stronger. His, eyes returned to search those blue pools, and again a slow smile spread across his lips as he came closer still.
He was an animal, a filthy, grinning panther, Anna thought, with cold terror making her legs shake. She was cornered. If she could only die before he touched her. If the carpet beneath her feet would only open and swallow her up like the whale had Jonah. But time ran out. His hands slid around her waist, and in a quick bending movement, he had picked her up like a child and laid her on the thick rug before kneeling over her, pinning her between his knees.
Anna gasped as his brown fist seized the jeweled dagger sheathed at his waist and drew it out. A musk-scented hand closed the scream in her mouth. There was a ripping sound as her gown was sliced open, exposing her heaving breasts. Then her wrists were captured and pressed to the carpet overhead, his furred chest rippling with every movement.
He came close, speaking in Arabic against her breasts as he kissed and sucked and fondled them. Her legs were opened and held apart, his knee bracing them, and Anna felt his hand wander lower, past her navel and beyond, to explore the softness between her legs.
She cried out, arching, twisting, jerking and pulling against his hold. But her movements made no difference. She was out of breath, pinned like a butterfly to a mat as his weight shifted and the thick knob of his manhood drew across her abdomen and pressed between her widespread legs and her own flesh gave way to his thrust that molded them so tightly that they were one.
Panting, Anna dropped her head back against the carpet and stopped struggling. She was beaten. He could have his way now, and he knew it. The lock on her wrists was released, and she felt his hands slide along her waist, her belly, and to one breast before his thumb was teasing the erect nipple of the other, and she knew a thrusting rhythm within her.
Looking up, she saw that his partially lidded eyes were focused inward, lost in enjoyment as he rode her with building momentum.
Ugly, brutal, ghastly! A beast, a beast! Frantically she flung out an arm to the side, knocking as she did something cold and rounded, and twisting her neck, she saw it was the hilt of the dagger he had so carelessly tossed aside after ripping her gown.
Stretching every tendon, her fingers reached for it, hooking it at last with the tip of a fingernail, and pulling it closer until her hand closed around its thick handle. Then, clenching her teeth, mindless of the consequences, she raised the weapon and drove it into him, feeling his flesh yield beneath the tapering point.
A tingling horror rushed through her followed by unreasoning elation. She'd killed him! Yes, murdered him! But then her, arm was violently jolted, sending the knife skidding across the floor to the foot of a large brass incense burner.
Abruptly the sheik was on his feet, staring incredulously, first at his slashed upper arm, where blood gushed and dripped off his elbow, and then back to her, as if seeing her for the first time.
The cheetah was suddenly there, too, looming over her, smelling blood. It growled, fangs bared, whiskers stiff in the golden candlelight. It crouched to leap and Anna screamed. The sheik grabbed the animal's jeweled collar with his good arm and pulled it back.
At his master's touch, the cheetah stopped growling, though it never took its ocher eyes from her as it sat back on gaunt haunches, flipping the end of its tail from side to side.
Cowering on the floor, Anna clasped her blood-stained gown to her breasts as the sheik struck a bell whose deep tones seemed to echo in her head as well as down the hall. What had she done? She must have been insane!
That she would die was certain, and now, remembering the horrible executions she'd seen, Anna shivered as perspiration trickled down her underarm. A servant running in stopped short and bowed, as his gaze passed from his master's slashed arm back to her with disbelief.
The sheik's voice was calm and clipped, as he spoke in the same tone he might have used to order a mealy. The servant bowed again and salaamed, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling and then in her direction before hastening out again in a rush of sandal slaps that disappeared down the hall.
Anna bit her lip, the muscles around her mouth tightening and jumping out of control. Any moment a number of guards would return and seize her. She would be whipped, her eyes pierced out, her bones broken with steel hammers before red-hot irons were applied to her flesh. Then just as she was about to die anyway, she would be executed by strangling. Oh, she remembered it all! The groans of the victims she had seen him murder seemed to fill her ears as she raised her eyes to find the sheik still staring at her.
Sheik Hamid al-Sharif was amazed. Was it possible? He asked himself. Could this fragile childlike girl, whose neck he could snap with one hand, have considered, have truly dared to stab him and with his own dagger! Who would have suspected that this woman, pale and alluring as the poisonous blossoms of the oleander, was also as deadly?
Anna pressed herself further back against the wall as the royal surgeon dashed in with the royal executioners only two steps behind, their swords already drawn, coiled whips in their fists.
Immediately they moved toward her, their broad meaty shoulders hunched their faces immobile. But an order from the sheik made them stop short and eye her with a mixture of astonishment and merciless savagery.
A little black boy, apparently the surgeon's assistant, was hauling in his medical bag as the surgeon quickly examined the wound. Then turning to the executioners, the surgeon spoke orders sending both his assistant and the two executioners dashing from the room.
So, she wasn't to be killed immediately, she thought, wishing she would faint rather than have to sit here so frightened her throat and heart gave separate hammering sounds. The sheik was going to prolong her agony. Maybe he would want her execution to be a public spectacle.
The executioners and the assistant of the royal surgeon returned carrying bowls of water, strips of cloth, and yet another small bag that the surgeon opened to reveal a number of shiny metal instruments.
Apparently the alarm had been sounded outside, and Anna could bear the harem stirring and the screams of women as the news was passed from hallway to hallway. She stayed cringing on the floor, watching the surgeon examine the gash, which was very deep and ran the full length of the sheik's upper arm. He pressed on the cut and the bleeding subsided. Then drawing a flask from his bag, he poured its clear substance over the wound.
One side of the sheik's mouth twitched. But it was his only gesture as his unreadable charcoal eyes continued to study her while the surgeon took up a curved needle and began to sew the wound closed. The needle pierced his flesh and created new small wounds as it was done.
The cheetah wouldn't lie on the rug, but kept pacing relentlessly. It flared its lips in a curling snarl as it padded back and forth, rolling its eyes in her direction and growling in a low rumble. Anna expected the animal to pounce and tear her throat to shreds, but the seconds ticked away and he didn't strike.
When the sheik's arm was finally closed, he did not order her dragged from the room as she expected, but instead motioned the surgeon out with a nod and dismissed the executioners with an impatient wave of his hand.
Still his eyes never left her, and when the other men were gone, he walked to stand looking down at her along the bridge of his hawked nose. Anna couldn't control her trembling. She had bitten her lip through some time ago, and vaguely tasted the blood as she looked at this man's lean brown hands, and pulled further back to cling to the wall.
His good arm grabbed her shoulder and brutally forced her face down on the carpet. Fear overcame any resistance left in her. Numb, breathless she didn't struggle. Yes, he would kill her himself, with his bare hands, just as the women told her. Well, thank God it would be quick. But while she steeled herself, still he didn't end her life. Instead be threw a leg across her as if she were a horse, spreading her legs. Then, from behind her ear, she heard him say in broken French, "Give me a son from your belly, fierce she tigress," before his hardened shaft roughly entered her and thrust swift and deep until his pleasure was spent.
Anna could only lie beneath him gasping, her fingernails, biting into the carpet. But even then he hadn't finished with her. In moments he was large and ready, his body churning in and out. Then once more he emptied himself one last burrowing movement before pulling free and rolling up onto his feet.
She lay before him, naked, sprawling, and faint. Weakly, she drew her bruised thighs together and watched as he walked to the arched doorway that led to the hall. Pausing there, the sheik spoke to the cheetah who came walking low-slung and easy, a conspiring grin about its black-striped jaw as the sheik's quiet words seemed to join the two in a mutual pact.
Anna watched as he stroked the cheetah's lowering body which dropped across the threshold, blocking any hope she might have of escape. And as its master turned and disappeared down the hall, the great cat shifted its glowing eyes onto her and methodically began licking its large claw-tipped paws.
Chapter 8
No, it seemed impossible that she, Anna Phillips, could have become the favorite, the plaything of a desert sheik who called her to him every night and used her for his pleasure in varying ways in which she had never before imagined a man might take a woman. Impossible, she told herself.
But as a month became two, she lost all hope of being rescued, and worst of all began to suspect she was pregnant-though she refused to really consider this completely ghastly possibility. Finally when her servants began examining her abdomen with a judging eye and she could no longer deny the unspeakable truth, she had lain on her bed and cried until her distressed servants called for Omar Zatan.
"It is the will of Allah, who is also your God," Omar Zatan said, his round face unable to conceal the delight he felt at knowing this favorite of favorites had conceived.
"Your God is not the same as mine," Anna said, raising her head and sniffing back still more tears. "If he were, he never would have permitted this. Never!" Stiffing her sobs, she dropped her face in her hands with a horror and weariness that moved Omar Zatan to stroke her shoulder with utmost tenderness as he said, "But is not your God the God of Adam and of Abraham, the God of Jesus who Mohammed himself coed a prophet of Allah? Yes, you see I have read your Christian writings," he said as she raised her streaming eyes. "And is your God not the God of the sky, the moon, and all the stars and the governor of all life in the world, the God who sees all events? And can you not believe that this is His will and surrender yourself to what has been written? Why must you struggle and rebel when life could be so simple and full of pleasure? Yet in this, too, the will of Allah can be seen. Ironic is it not that it has been your resistance against the master that has made him favor you so. `The fiercer the woman, the fiercer her son.' It is an old saying. And as any man, the master wishes for a son brave as a tiger and proud as the finest stallion. You are the only woman who has ever dared risk torture and death to defy him. In you he sees the virtues of power so lacking in most women. So it is you he has chosen to bear his heir. And in the stars the wise men have already seen this destiny to be yours.
"Through you will come a great leader who will not only strengthen the existing alliance between the five tribes, but will join all the tribes between Morocco and Masr, which you call Egypt, so we all speak as one voice. It is a dream long held by the master's father, and his father before him, who was the first Grand Sanusi to rule El Abadan."
With thick fingers then, the eunuch took five oranges from a silver bowl and arranged them around the edges of a low circular table.
"These five oranges are the tribes of the desert." And taking a bronze incense burner and placing it in the center of the circle of oranges he continued. "Here is our master in El Abadan in the middle of the tribes, while here to the south in the Tibesti Mountains"
Omar took a small ivory hyena and placed it on the table to one side, "Here is the tribe of Hussar who, in spite of the death of Yassan Hussar, are still powerful and numerous and only waiting with greedy eyes as they watch the rich caravans which pass under the protection of the five tribes to Benghazi in the north and back to Wadai in the south."
Anna shook her head with irritation. "But I can't see why I-"
Omar's hand gestured for her silence. "But of course you cannot see when you think only of yourself and what you want and cannot listen!" the eunuch snapped before rolling his eyes heavenward, and in throaty Arabic entreating Allah to deliver him from the ignorance and stubbornness of women.
Abashed, Anna sat back again, and in her silence, Omar continued, taking a blue silk scarf and draping it river-like through the middle of the oranges and beside the incense burner indicating El Abadan. "This is the Wadai-Benghazi trade route, and the life and blood of my people. It provides not only tribute to the master for his protection, but today it carries necessities such as dates, cotton cloth, and palm oil for cooking, as well as pleasantries like coffee and cloves and cocoa, and riches like diamonds and ivory and gold. But for many years it was not so. Many years ago, before the master himself was born, these five tribes were not united as one but constan
tly at war, foolishly feuding among themselves and allowing free rein to the powerful Hussar tribe to plunder the caravans that brought these necessities. As even as there was war, there was hunger also, thus weakening the tribes still further. And so it remained for years until Allah, showing his displeasure against the tribes, withheld the rain so all the grass died and there was no pasture for the goats and camels. So they starved in great numbers and this brought even greater death and suffering to the people until finally the leaders of the five tribes were forced to journey to El Abadan, where the wells have not dried in a thousand years, to ask the Sheik of El Abadan for permission to fill their water skins at the city's well.'
Anna cocked her head, interested though her voice held a note of annoyance as she asked, "Well? Did he give them the water?"
Omar was pleased to see the disdain leave the favorite's rebellious blue eyes and he continued. "The old sheik was very wise, and told them they might fill their water skins only if they each clasped the others in brotherhood. Of course this they were unwilling to do, so the old sheik made them go away and not return until they could settle their quarrels and do as he bid them.”
Desert Hostage Page 4