Zakir handed Nikki a camel rope. She took it with her right hand, where he’d noticed the calluses. Clucking her tongue, she coaxed the animal to lower itself to the ground and climbed expertly into the saddle, clicking her tongue again. The camel protested, pulling back its lips and showing yellowed teeth, yet she managed to make it rise like a complaining wobbly leviathan. Zakir repressed a small smile.
He felt a grudging admiration for the way she’d stuck to her guns in arguing with him.
He also liked the way she’d felt under him. But he quashed that thought. “Ready?” he called to her over the wind.
She nodded, looking a little pale.
Zakir frowned. Every now and then he felt in his gut she was telling the truth. But then there were signs that once again made him nervous. He’d have to watch her carefully.
He mounted his own camel and flicked his tasseled whip, calling his dogs to heel behind him, and they began to move in a small convoy. Zakir allowed Nikki to take the lead so he could watch her back. A third camel, roped to his, took up the rear with the medical supplies and gifts for the Berbers, along with ropes and tent equipment.
The wind grew harsh as they neared the Rock of Swords. Zakir wound his kaffiyeh over his nose and mouth to keep the dust out. His eyes were hidden behind shades. He looked like an ordinary Berber dressed in plain black, riding his camel.
Nikki also wound her scarf like a turban over her face and hunched into the hot wind.
They rounded the Rock of Swords and began to climb a very narrow and steep path into the mountains.
Chapter 7
Nikki squinted into the wind, her knuckles white as she gripped her camel rope. She’d lost track of how many hours they’d been climbing. The trail had narrowed, a chasm dropping sharply off to her left, the blowing sand obscuring her vision of the cliff edge.
As they climbed higher into the mountains, clouds began to roll over the jagged peaks, sweeping down over them in great big tatters, worsening visibility. She wondered if Zakir could see much in this light. But as she turned to glance back at him, her camel lost its footing and stumbled. Nikki gasped as dislodged stones and rocks clattered down into the void on her left. She reined in her camel, heart thudding.
Had she lost the way? Taken the wrong path?
Zakir came up behind her, his dogs following him in single file along the very narrow trail. “You sure this is the right trail?” he called over the wind.
“I…I think so. It’s hard to make out the landmarks in this storm.”
“It’ll be dark soon. We won’t be able to travel without light from the moon or stars tonight. We need to find a place to set up camp.”
He was wearing his long wool cape now to ward off the chill at this high elevation. She, too, wore a cape that had been packed for her at the palace, and she was grateful for the warmth. But in spite of his simple black garb, Zakir could not hide his regal stature. He looked like a man born to lead whether in common turban and cloak on a camel or in glittering brocade in his castle.
His words snaked through her mind. I have enemies who will not stop until they have wiped out the entire Al Arif bloodline. They are bold and highly creative.
It was true. More so than he realized. His enemy lurked among his most trusted bodyguards. She should tell him.
But she didn’t doubt the intent in that Gurkha’s eyes. There was something reptilian about Tenzing Gelu that chilled her soul. She believed he’d follow through on his threat.
Nikki had to think of her kids first. This was not her country—or battle.
Or was it?
Had Tenzing Gelu just made it hers? She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling trapped. “Nikki?”
Her eyes flared open. “I’m fine.” She clucked her tongue quickly and nudged her camel forward. Slowly, they began to climb again, the path growing narrower, steeper, closer to the cliff edge.
Nikki topped a rise, and suddenly the sky was clear again. At this elevation, they were above the blizzard of sand being whipped across the valley and foothills below. But even though the wind carried no sand, it remained fierce. And now it was cold.
Her fists tightened around her camel rope as more rocks clattered down into the gorge. Then suddenly her camel’s hooves slipped on loose sand. The beast scrambled wildly, front legs buckling as it lost footing, and Nikki was tossed forward over the saddle. She screamed, grabbing wildly for the rope, but her camel got to its feet and scampered up the path. Nikki hit ground hard. She rolled twice like a rag doll. Then she began to slide toward the cliff edge.
She screamed again, digging nails into stone, trying desperately to find purchase, but couldn’t hold…she was going over.
Dread slicked through her stomach as she felt herself dropping through the air. She bounced against a rock, grabbing wildly as she slid farther along the steep face. But all she succeeded in doing was releasing a shower of sand and stones that avalanched down with her. With a sharp jolt she hit a small ledge. Breath whooshed from her chest. She heard Zakir calling her name, but she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t call out to him. Rocks clattered down. One smacked her temple.
Blood leaked down the side of her face as nausea roiled in her gut. She wasn’t sure if she could move her legs. She tried to turn her head, but as she did, the sandstone ledge she was resting on crumbled along the edges, more rocks clattering down into the abyss below her.
If she moved, the ledge would break.
Nikki inched her head again, this time to look down. As she did, dust dribbled out from the ledge, small stones clicking down, down, down.
Terrified, disoriented from the bash on her head, she lay dead still, blood trickling down her temple.
“Nikki!”
She didn’t dare move again. “Down…here,” she managed to rasp.
“Hold on! I’m coming to get you!”
No. He couldn’t. It was a sheer drop of crumbling sandstone. But he moved somewhere way up above her and a shower of sand and rocks cluttered down on her head. She tried to dodge sideways a little. More sandstone crumbled and sifted out from beneath her ledge. Her throat closed in on itself.
She couldn’t look down. Too far. She closed her eyes. Shaking inside.
She hadn’t felt such intense fear since that Christmas Eve when the black SUV had rammed into her, sending her spinning on ice, sliding through snow, crashing through the bridge barrier. She’d had the same gut-hollowing sensation the instant she’d realized her car was going over, plunging down, down, down to the highway below, her twins waking up in the back. The nauseating crunch of metal. The lights from the oncoming semi. Brakes. Swirling snowflakes. The truck sliding sideways, trying to stop, out of control on the ice.
Nikki scrunched her eyes tight, trying to block the sounds—the screeching, crunching, Chase’s screaming. Silence from Hailey’s crumpled, bloodied body.
She felt the cold in her bones as she remembered Chase in the emergency room as they tried in vain to pump life back into his little body. The unbearable grief of losing everything that was dear to her.
The shocking realization that the driver of the black SUV had been hired by her own husband to run her off the road.
She’d been planning to file for divorce, suing for custody of the children. She’d intended to expose Sam’s affair. If she had, Sam would have lost access to Nikki’s substantial inheritance. He’d have lost his kids. His reputation would have suffered.
So he’d tried to have her eliminated instead, she was sure of it. Yet she couldn’t prove a thing.
She thought she’d seen a black SUV following her on several occasions. Once before it had tried to run her off the road when she was driving alone. She’d confronted Sam about it, and he’d laughed mockingly, said she’d imagined it. Then on Christmas Eve Nikki had gone to a colleague’s party. She wasn’t supposed to have the kids with her that night, but her sitter had called in sick at the last minute, so Nikki had taken the twins with her, just for a quick visit.
The
y’d been asleep when she’d left the house, and her friends had helped her carry them to her car, which had been parked in the garage. They’d been sleeping in the back when she’d backed out of the garage into the snowy driveway. Sam’s hired gun had no way of knowing they were in the vehicle with her.
Sam had lost it when he learned he’d killed his children instead.
He tried to blame Nikki for their deaths. He leaked to the media that she’d been at a Christmas party that night and that she’d been driving drunk with her kids sleeping in the back.
The press jumped on it—big-shot senator’s wife falls from grace. Top surgeon under investigation. And when the police found nothing—she’d only had one glass of wine—Sam slapped her with a massive civil suit instead.
Nikki simply lost the will to fight. Sam was just too damn shrewd and powerful, a narcissistic sociopath. He had all the contacts. People wanted to stay in his graces—he was being groomed for a run at party leadership. She’d tried everything to numb the grief, the gnawing sense of loss. Drugs. Alcohol.
She’d spiraled so badly, tried so hard to lose herself.
Nikki dug her nails into her ledge. She would not let herself fall. Never again.
She forced herself to remember the television ad for Mercy Missions that had saved her six years ago. And she remembered her orphans, waiting for her to return. Hot tears filled Nikki’s scrunched-up eyes. She gritted her teeth against the sand in her mouth.
She had to try to get back up the cliff. For them.
Another shower of stones rained over her body. It was Zakir. Somehow he was coming closer.
She sucked air in deep, blinking blood from her eyes, and reached very carefully, slowly for the cliff wall. Terror rose in her throat again as more stones dislodged beneath her. But she found a hold, and inch by inch she pulled herself closer to the wall. Then she found another hold. She dug her fingers in. But the sudden shift in her weight broke the ledge, and with horror she felt it giving out under her. Slabs of sandstone thundered down into the gorge.
But just as she was about to go down, she felt his hand, solid, strong, clamping around her wrist. “Hold on, Nikki.” His voice infused her with power, strength. She glanced up.
Relief gushed through her.
He had a rope.
He’d tied it to himself and was belaying down. “Grab my arm with your other hand and dig your feet into the cliff.”
She sucked in her breath, counted to three and released her grip on the rock, slapping her hand over his arm. He braced. His rope stretched. She prayed it would hold them both. He held dead still for a moment, getting used to the additional weight.
“Okay,” he said, breathless. “Good job, Nikki. Now I’m going to pull us both up. I want you to try and walk your feet against the wall. It’ll take some pressure off. Just a few feet higher and the incline is much easier, okay?”
She nodded, more blood trickling into her eye.
And slowly, he began to work back up. It was hard, tedious work. Perspiration gleamed on his skin, and she felt the tremor of his muscles straining. More rocks skittered down from higher above. He ducked quickly, the motion knocking his glasses off his face. They clicked and clattered all the way down to the bottom.
He paused, catching his breath. Then slowly they began to move again.
Finally, they made it over the top, back onto the path.
They both just lay there for a moment, panting, trying to catch their breath, the realization of what almost happened suddenly becoming too raw, too real. Zakir’s dogs milled excitedly around them, and Nikki saw with relief that the camels were still there.
He helped her to her feet. “Can you stand?”
“I…I think so. Just wobbly. Sore.”
He guided her gently over to the leeward side of a rock outcrop. “Sit here. Did you break anything?”
“Just my head, I think.” She smiled, suddenly insanely delirious with the idea she’d cheated death. Again. She was going to live.
And Zakir had saved her.
He grinned, pushing her matted and bloodied hair back to examine the gash on her temple.
“It’s not deep, just messy.” He retrieved a first-aid kit from the camel with the supplies, tore open a disinfectant wipe and began to clean the wound. It stung like hell and Nikki gasped, eyes watering. With another wipe he cleaned the side of her face, wiped the blood and sand from her eyes.
The tenderness in his powerful movements was suddenly overwhelming. To be touched, to feel protected, cared for, was something Nikki had not experienced in over seven years. She’d been walking such a solitary and secret road. And deep, deep down she’d felt so lonely, that to be touched like this made tears slide from her eyes.
He stilled as he saw them, then wiped them away, something shifting in him, too. “You’re going to be fine, Nikki,” he said gently.
She bit her lip and nodded. “Thank you. You saved my life, Zakir.”
“How could I not?” he said quietly.
He was a different man out here, not afraid of being watched. Not afraid of touching. No need for political posturing. And she felt for him. He was in a tough position, and he was alone, like she was.
His dogs nudged him, impatient. It was getting dark, and the hounds sensed the coming night.
“We need to move, Nikki, find a place to set up camp before dark. It’ll grow very cold, and there are jackals in these mountains. We can clean this wound better once we have cover.”
He helped her to her feet and led her camel back to her. From the saddle pack she took another scarf, winding it over her head to protect her wound. Her nails were torn. She was covered in grazes, and she hurt all over. But she was still in one piece. Because of him.
Zakir began untying the rope he’d secured to a rock. The knots looked expert. Nothing had slipped. If they had, they both would have certainly tumbled to their deaths.
He’d risked his life to save hers.
“How’d you know how to do that?” she asked, nodding toward the rope. “Have you climbed?”
“Military training. And yes,” he said, coiling the rope around his arm. “I’ve done a couple of expeditions, including an Everest summit.” He smiled, and she was shocked by how gorgeous he looked when he did, a real warm genuine smile, white teeth against his dusky skin, rugged in this terrain. Natural. And without the dark glasses she could see the twinkle in his inky eyes.
“If you’ve got enough cash,” he added with a laugh, “you can pretty much pay a team of experts to haul you up to the summit.”
“Like you hauled me,” she said, returning his smile.
He stilled for a moment, watching her, then he quickly glanced away and got busy hooking the coil of rope back on the saddle pack.
“You lost your glasses,” she said.
“Not a problem. My men can bring another pair.” He didn’t turn around, but she heard the shift in his tone. He didn’t like the fact she’d noticed.
Once they’d secured their gear, they started to move again.
After twenty minutes, the path opened onto a dry moonscape surrounded by a cirque of ragged rocks. “We’re on the right path,” she called out with relief. “I recognize that circle of peaks. This is where the sentinels revealed themselves to me for the first time.”
Zakir reined in his camel. He shielded his eyes, scanned the barren windswept terrain. “They’ll be watching now,” he said. “We can set up camp here. We’ll be less of a threat if we show we have nothing to hide.”
They dismounted, and together they began setting up the tent. Nikki took orders from him, working to secure ropes, her fingers sore, her head throbbing. Darkness was falling fast. Already he’d lit a fire for warmth and light. Zakir worked efficiently with his hands, and he seemed familiar with these simple tasks.
He caught her watching. “What is it?”
She shrugged, the movement painful, making her wince. “I did not expect this, you risking your life to come alone with me in the moun
tains.”
He crooked up a dark brow, laughed low and guttural, and it stirred something in her belly. “Looks like you risked your own life back there, Nikki.” His expression sobered. “It was a damn close shave,” he said quietly. “Come sit here by the fire with me.”
He draped a wool blanket over her shoulders as she sat. “Let’s take another look at this gash.”
She winced as he cleaned it out properly. “You could’ve just put me on a plane to the United States, you know, like you threatened. Why didn’t you?”
He inhaled deeply, dabbed at her cut. It made her eyes water. “Because I really do need you to facilitate my meeting with the Berber sheik, Nikki. I’ve been focused exclusively on the seat of government in Al Na’Jar, at the expense of these no less important rural areas. You reminded me that these tribes could be a cornerstone in my success as a ruler. And I had to seize the opportunity when it arose. You gave me a way in.”
This man was definitely not the tyrant she first thought.
“Besides, I’ve always taken risks—in business, pleasure. It puts you ahead of others who are afraid. It adds a bite to life.” He smiled. His eyes liquid, beautiful, unguarded. “And I don’t believe I’ll come to harm in your presence. I’m no threat to them without my military convoy and Gurkhas.”
She was quiet for a moment. “You really trust those Gurkhas.”
“More so than I can anyone else. They have no allegiance to either side of the war here. They’re completely neutral. Paid to do a job.”
Guilt burrowed into Nikki. She should tell him, but she couldn’t. She believed that Gelu would hurt her children.
He stirred the pot of soup he’d put over the fire. Silence fell over the camp, broken only by the crackle of flames and the sound of his hobbled camels pulling at dry tufts of scrub between rock cracks behind the tent. He’d fed his dogs, and they slept quietly, ears attuned to sounds.
He spooned soup into a mug and handed it to her.
“You’re quite the renaissance man, Zakir,” she said, taking the mug with both hands.
He glanced up. “Meaning?”
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