Guarding the Princess

by Loreth Anne White

  Just as he veered back into their own lane, he suddenly swerved again, this time to avoid a warthog that burst out of the tight grass on the side of the road and scampered across, followed by babies, tails held erect.

  The sun was sinking toward the horizon and the wind was warm against her face. The plains rolled away in endless browns and golds. Dalilah touched her naked ring finger, a crazy sense of freedom overcoming her as they barreled down this road, through empty land as far as the eye could see. The more she thought about it, the wilder the excitement racing through her heart—she wasn’t going to marry Haroun.

  She’d decided that when she took off the ring. But coupled with a delirious sense of liberation, Dalilah was also deeply anxious about how to break the news to Haroun, to her brothers and to the world, especially after their official engagement had been reported by media around the globe. The guest list was already being prepared. And Brandt was right—one invitation was being sent to the White House, too.

  She glanced at him. Strong, protective, sensitive, caring. He had no idea what he’d done for her, and at this moment Dalilah just wanted to stay out here, travel this road with him, with the warm wind in her hair. But she couldn’t outrun the inevitable looming consequences of her decision not to uphold the treaty.

  There would be an end to this road, and she still had to face it. Brandt slapped the dash suddenly, and made her jump.

  “What is it?”

  His hands fisted tight on the wheel. “We shouldn’t have interacted with them. You shouldn’t have touched the kid. They’re going to get hurt.”

  “My touching that toddler isn’t—”

  “We shouldn’t have been there, Dalilah! We should’ve split the instant that Wusani kid saw us.” He gritted his jaw, face going darker, shoulders tighter.

  “Brandt, we can’t change what happened now.”

  “Our tracks lead right up to that village. Amal is going to go in there and start asking questions—”

  “And the headman will tell him we stole the jeep, like you said.”

  “One of those kids, or women…someone in that village is going to let something slip if Amal and his men start scaring them. He’s going to find your ring. Amal’s going to find your ring and they’re finished.”

  They passed a dead cow on the side of the road. Two women with knives bent over, skinning it to reveal a sinewy white carcass. It must have been hit by a vehicle, and they were not going to let it go to waste. She turned away, feeling suddenly sick, fear whispering through her again. They drove by a few more signs of civilization—another road sign, two women walking with large bundles on their heads. Soon there was a high game fence running alongside them for miles.

  Brandt swore again, eaten up by what they’d done.

  “We had no choice but to interact, Brandt, after that child saw us.”

  “Because I was too damn busy kissing you—that’s why!”

  She swallowed. His fury at himself was palpable and increasing in direct proportion to the distance they were putting between themselves and the village. It made her edgy, nervous for the villagers. Images assailed her again—that dead delegate under the table, Amal’s men mowing them all down, slaughtering innocents.

  Brandt swerved sharply to avoid a man standing on the side of the road, waiting, presumably, for a ride. Next to him was a garbage bag of clothes and two wooden boxes filled with old-fashioned glass pop bottles. Dalilah guessed he was going to sell them.

  “This is where we leave the road,” Brandt veered off the paved section and jounced over a dirt track toward a break in the game fencing. The jeep trundled over a series of cattle grids as they entered the controlled area. He stopped the vehicle, got out, grabbed a branch from the side of the path and went back to the road, sweeping over their tracks.

  When he got back into the driver’s seat Dalilah saw he was pale under his tan, his skin tight—he really was broken up about leaving those villagers.

  Conflict torqued inside Dalilah as they entered a gorge, high rocky cliffs on either side, casting long shadows.

  “Valley of Ghosts,” he said.

  “Is that what it’s called?”

  He nodded. “A superstitious place.”

  They traveled for a while down the gorge, cliffs narrowing in on them.

  He sensed her uneasiness. “Don’t worry, the path veers off before it narrows too much.”

  “It’s not the gorge, Brandt. It’s the village. I mean, if they claim we stole their jeep, surely—”

  “Omair has told me things about Amal,” he said coolly. “He revels in destruction, pain, hurt. He’s evil, Dalilah. I saw firsthand what he did at the lodge—I can see him slaughtering every one of those villagers for pure pleasure.”

  “Okay, so you’re right, maybe we should have just walked.”

  “And then? You’d be dead by sunrise. Because if we were on foot, he’d be on our asses before dawn with his horses and jeeps.”

  She stared at him.

  “So you chose me over that village.”

  He drove in silence.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. And she truly was. For being an Al Arif royal, for attracting Amal, for Omair forcing Brandt into this. For bringing possible devastation to an innocent village, for pushing this man to break his vow of peace.

  “Brandt,” she said suddenly, “stop the car.”

  “What for?”

  “Just stop. Now!”

  He did. Dust settled. The sound of birds rose around them.

  “We need to go back.”

  He rolled his eyes. “We can’t—I’ll be signing your death warrant, Dalilah. My sole purpose out here is to keep you alive.”

  “We have to go back.”

  “And do what, exactly?”

  “Kill Amal.”

  He stared at her, stunned by the determination—and fear—on her face.

  “We need to protect that village, Brandt, and we need to head Amal off, lead him away…. I don’t know, trap him or something.”

  “Don’t be naive,” he snapped. “You know what’ll happen, Dalilah—we’ll all die. Villagers, you, me…I get to see a repeat of what happened to Carla.”

  “Oh, so it’s about you.”

  He swore violently. “That is not fair.”

  She swiveled in her seat, faced him square. “Listen to me, Brandt, I can’t keep running. If we don’t end this now, if Omair doesn’t catch him, he’s always going to be out there somewhere.” She pointed into the distance. “There will always be the fear that he’ll come after one of my family, anywhere, anytime, somewhere in the world. I have to end this now.”

  “You?”

  “We do. Me and you. A team.”

  “Dalilah—”

  “Listen, Brandt, I know you made this vow not to use violence, but please, help me do this. I can’t keep running, not now that I have everything to live for. I gave away that ring because I decided I couldn’t give up who I am in order to marry Haroun. You helped me reach that decision. Now I’m almost there—almost free. Help me go the rest of the way.”

  He stared. Something unreadable in his face. Something changing in the lines of his features, in the quality of light in his eyes—anticipation, hope. It fueled her.

  But he said, “Dalilah, I cannot endanger your life. I just…can’t. My job is to protect you.”

  She grabbed his arm. “Brandt, this is not about your job, it’s not about delivering me to Omair—I’m not going anywhere. This is about us. About…maybe trying to make things work.”

  The muscle in his jaw ticked. He swallowed. “What are you really saying, Dalilah?”

  She glanced away. What was she saying? Then she spun back to face him. “I’m saying that when this is all over, I want to come to your farm, Brandt. I’m saying I want to get to know you better—if you’ll let me.”

  All the color drained from his face.

  “But I have to tell Haroun I’m not upholding the treaty, and I have to inform my bro
thers. If I can also tell them Amal is gone, it’s going to win me favor. That’s my offer to them, my compromise. That’s what I can do for my country. And I need your help.”

  “Christ,” he breathed.

  “Remember, Brandt,” she whispered, “you told me yourself, whatever you do out here, don’t run. Because there’s nothing out here that you can outrun. I’m not running anymore. And neither are you, because if you come back with me, and we take out Amal, you’ll kill those memories in your head, I swear it.”

  He continued to stare at her. “You’re not going to marry him?”

  She smiled, a little tremulous, excitement glittering in her eyes, exhilaration shining around her.

  “No,” she whispered. “If I marry, Brandt, it’s going to be for love.”

  He felt as if he was on the edge of a precipice, and she was asking him to jump without a chute. He was so damn afraid that what she was promising wouldn’t work out. The princess and the mercenary.

  Was it even possible?

  “If you help me kill Amal, Brandt, I can be free.”

  “No,” he said. “No way am I letting you do this for your brothers. I can’t allow you to have blood on your hands. It’s not you, Dalilah, to kill a man. You don’t even hurt animals.”

  “He’s not a man. He’s a monster. You said it yourself—he’s evil.”

  Brandt shook his head.

  “I’m not taking you back there. I’m not getting you killed.” He hesitated, his brain racing through options. She was right about one thing—they couldn’t run forever. If Amal did find their tracks off the road and into this controlled game area, there was a very real chance he’d end up tracking Brandt all the way back to his farm, and Amal could reach the farm before reinforcements ever arrived from Omair. This could end in a violent confrontation either way. He cursed inwardly. He’d rather bring the confrontation to Amal, on his own terms.

  “I’ll go back myself,” he said. “I’ll hide you here, up in those cliffs.”

  “What?”

  “You hide out here in the gorge—and if I don’t return, you make your way back down to the main road and start walking south. There’ll be a truck at some point. Stop the truck, get the driver to take you to the first village, find a phone and call Omair. He’ll come get you. Tell him my debt is paid. Tell him I went after Amal.” He opened his door, got out and leaned over into the backseat, began repacking a box.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Leaving you supplies.”

  Dalilah flung open her door, went up to him, grabbed him by the arm. “Brandt, stop. Look at me!”

  He stilled, and slowly met her eyes.

  “Just how are you planning on doing this alone?”

  He said nothing.

  Blood drained from her face. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “You’re going to lure him away and drive until Skorokoro runs into the ground? And then he’ll kill you.”

  “Dalilah—”

  Her face hardened. “That’s rich—make me fall in love with you, make me abandon my country and my obligations, then you go on a suicide mission?”

  “How,” he said very quietly, “can you ever think you could want to be with me on my land in the remote Botswana wilderness, Dalilah? You’re riding on an adrenaline rush. When you sober up in a few days, you’ll see. I’ll be history in your eyes.”

  She barked a harsh laugh. “Oh, and here I thought you said you knew me! You know nothing, Brandt Stryker, about my love for this continent, about who I really want to be. Who I can be. But you had the gumption to show me—you can’t abandon me now.” Her eyes glittered with emotion, and hot spots of color rode high on her cheeks. “And I’m not going to let you do this alone.”

  She placed her hand against his face—skin soft, warm. “Either we do this together or we let those villagers die.”

  “If we do it together I might be letting you die,” he said.

  “Then we go out in a blaze…we go like Thelma and Louise, like Bonnie and Clyde, like…I don’t know—like Brandt and Dalilah.”

  He opened his mouth, but she put her fingers to her lips. “I don’t want to face a future without trying to make one with you, Stryker. A team. Like you said back at the cliff, one rock at a time. And then when we’re done, you take me home. Your home.”

  Conflict twisted so tight in Brandt he couldn’t breathe.

  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. She’d just given him everything…the whole world, a future, to fight for. A reason to live. To try again. Another chance.

  And everything to lose.

  His eyes burned as he met the fierce passion in her gaze. And he knew—he knew with every molecule in his being, that he loved this woman. This woman who never stopped surprising him, who was his match in so many ways and more. A woman who could challenge him and take him to task when he got out of hand.

  She wanted him. This princess who’d never been with any other man—she wanted him to take her home.

  To his bed.

  Dare he do this? Could he ambush Amal, take him out and keep her alive at the same time? All he had was the jeep, one rifle, shells, a panga and a knife.

  And his wits, he told himself. He had his smarts. He was a veteran guerrilla fighter.

  A rush like thunder exploded through his chest and his brain started firing on all cylinders. It would be dark soon. Amal could have found their camp at the abandoned airstrip by now—or would soon. They were running out of time.

  He thought about what he had in the jeep, in the boxes. Petrol. Motor oil. He had matches. A lighter. His brain raced. Then it hit—the man with the wooden crates of empty glass bottles at the side of the road about a klick or two back. Unless a vehicle had come down the road already and picked him up, he might still be there.

  He turned to Dalilah, heart thudding a tattoo against his ribs, sweat dampening his shirt, a wild, mad exhilaration racing through his blood.

  “I have an idea. Get in.”

  “What—”

  “Get in!” He jumped back into the driver’s seat and fired the ignition as Dalilah scrambled into her seat. Hitting the gas, he spun his wheels and did a one-eighty turn, heading back toward the main road. They thumped over the cattle grids and as he hit the road, he turned north.

  The man with the bottles was still there. Brandt screeched to a stop beside him, leaped out of the vehicle.

  Using rapid-fire Setswana, Brandt exchanged a hundred-dollar bill for the two crates of empty cola bottles.

  Dumping them in the back of the jeep, he got back in and swung onto the road. Dusk crawled over the land as the sun slid below the distant ridge. Night was almost upon the bushveldt—the violence was about to begin.

  Chapter 15

  Brandt pulled off the road into a low gulley. In the dark, out of sight, they worked silently with headlamps, quickly filling the cola bottles with petrol, stripping the blanket and soaking the fabric strips in gas. They used the strips to make wicks into the bottles. The Molotov cocktails—twenty-four of them—were now stocked in the two wooden boxes, safe until they were lit. Brandt then filled the cooking pot with rifle shells, and he made sure the camping stove was in working order.

  About an hour later, not far from the village, Brandt reversed Skorokoro carefully up a slope, ready for a quick getaway. Leaving the keys in the ignition and Dalilah in the passenger seat, he cupped the back of her neck. In the moonlight her eyes shimmered with liquid excitement, fear. He felt the tension in her body.

  Silently, he kissed her.

  Then he placed his knife in her hand, took his rifle and some spare shells, and trotted up to the lip of a ridge. If Amal was following their boot tracks from the abandoned airstrip, he and his men would pass underneath this cliff on their way to the village. It was a sheer cliff, no vehicle access up the front.

  Hours ticked by. The moon and stars shifted. Night sounds filled the air.

  Suddenly lights appeared in the distance. Brandt heard the purr of engines—Amal’
s posse. It had to be. They were moving slowly. The vehicles stopped and a shadow moved in front of the headlights. Brandt’s pulse quickened—they had a tracker out front on foot. He had to time this just right.

  Skorokoro had speed, but if the engine packed it in, they were dead.

  The jeeps started to move again, coming closer. Brandt could make out horses in the silver moonlight.

  He aimed his rifle, curling his finger around the trigger. Breathing in, he counted to three, then softly squeezed.

  A gunshot cracked through the night.

  Beetles fell silent, then rose in a wild crescendo again. Brandt fired again.

  There was yelling. A horse reared, then jeeps started to move directly toward the cliff, veering away from their tracks that led to the village. It was definitely Amal and his crew.

  Brandt scrambled down the slope, jumped over the door into the driver’s seat. “They’re coming.”

  Firing the ignition, he raced for the road, leaving clear skid marks as he swung onto the paving and barreled south. Both were tense, silent, Dalilah gripping the door.

  The moon was low, big, and stars bright—all good. Brandt was thinking several steps ahead while focusing on the road. Amal would reach the ridge, realize he had to drive around it, and be delayed. They’d also come slowly along the road, looking for tracks off it. This would give Brandt and Dalilah the window of time they needed to set up, but barely.

  The game fence appeared, shimmering in the moonlight as they bombed down the road.

  He glanced up into the rearview mirror. No lights in sight yet. Brandt wheeled off the paved road and Skorokoro bounced and thudded over the sets of cattle grids. He made sure he left deep tire marks pointing their way. This was where Amal would have to lose his horses—they’d be unable to cross the grids and enter the game-controlled area. Either he’d have to tether the mounts near the road and pack the horsemen into his two jeeps, or he’d instruct the men on horseback to continue down the road, looking for a way into the fence, which they would not find for another fifty kilometers or so.