by Olivia Gates
A few dozen feet from the hall’s soaring double doors, which were heavily worked in embossed bronze, gold and silver Zohaydan motifs, the music became louder. The quartertone-dominated Zohaydan music with its Indian, Turkish and Arabian influences and exotic instrumental arrangement and rhythm swept through the air, riding the fumes and scents of incense.
Then four footmen in black outfits embroidered with gold thread pulled back the massive doors by their circular knobs.
She stumbled to a stop, everything falling away.
She’d thought the ceremony would be a damage-control affair that would boil down to two purposes—the king’s to publicize their so-called secret marriage, and theirs, to get her hands on the fake jewels. But this…this…
She hadn’t, couldn’t have expected this.
She moved again, propelled by the momentum of her companions across a threshold that felt as if it opened into another realm. Into a scene lifted right out of the most lavish of One Thousand and One Nights.
From every arch hung rows of incense burners and flaming torches, against every wall rested miraculous arrangements of white and golden roses among backgrounds of lush foliage. Each pillar was wrapped in bronze satin that rained silver tassels and was worked heavily in gold patterns. Sparkling gold dust covered the marble floor. Everything shimmered under the ambient light like Midas’s vault, among the swirling sweetness of ood, musk and amber fumes.
And studding the scene were far more than the two thousand people who’d populated the first and only ceremony she’d attended here. A mind-boggling assortment, from those dressed in the latest exclusive fashions to those who did look as if they’d just stepped out of Arabian Nights.
Her feverish eyes made erratic stops as she recognized faces. King Atef and King Kamal, sitting on a platform to one side on thronelike seats. Dozens of highest-order international political figures and celebrities. Queen Sondoss and Shaheen’s half brothers, Haidar and Jalal, among probably every other adult Aal Shalaan and their relatives.
The only one she couldn’t see was Shaheen.
Shaheen…he’d done all this. For her. But when? How? Where was he? She couldn’t be here, face all this, without him… “Johara! Breathe!”
She gulped a breath at Laylah’s prodding. Then another.
“Stop. You’ve hyperventilating,” Aliyah exclaimed.
She forced herself to regulate her breathing. She could just see the headlines if she fainted.
Pregnant Aal Shalaan Bride Passes Out At Wedding Ceremony.
Her vision had cleared and her steps had firmed when the openly gawking crowd parted to stand on two sides as she and her procession made their way through. She felt she was treading the insubstantial ground of a dream as the thunder of clapping rose and the music, which she realized issued from an extensive live ensemble, began the distinctive percussive melody of the most popular Zohaydan wedding song, the one that called everyone to come wonder at the bride’s splendor and her groom’s phenomenal luck. By the time Aliyah and Laylah were singing along, she was floating on auto.
Then she saw her father.
He was mounting three gold-satin covered steps to a gold-satin-covered platform at the epicenter of the hall. She’d chosen him to act as her proxy, the one who would put his hand in Shaheen’s during the ritual. She’d thought they’d all sit down and it would be over in minutes. Now it seemed his role included taking her to her groom with all the ceremony of this carefully choreographed piece.
She’d seen him for minutes last night with Shaheen and the king and only to tell him of the situation. To say he’d been shocked would be the understatement of the century.
He now waited for her, the litheness of his figure accentuated in a tight-fitting bronze silk tunic and pants, his chest heavy with the shining and colorful medals of honor and distinction he’d received throughout his service, his broad shoulders bearing the tags of the highest rank he’d quit. She felt Aliyah and Laylah fall behind as she climbed the steps, each diverging on one side of the platform to lead a portion of her procession to form a circle around it. As she reached the top, her father took her hands in his, his earlier shock replaced by lingering bewilderment tinged by guarded joy.
But it was the apology that lurked in the depths of his black eyes that made her pull him to her in a fierce hug.
He let out a ragged breath as his arms trembled around her. “I’m sorry I was so absorbed in my own problems I didn’t notice what was going on with you. Is that why you felt you couldn’t tell me? You thought I couldn’t be there for you?”
Mortification rose inside her. She wasn’t letting him in on more than he could think. She hugged him tighter. “No. If it concerns only me, I will always let you in, Daddy.”
“But it concerned Shaheen, too, and you were protecting him.” She nodded into his shoulder. He sighed, pulled back to look at her, his eyes level with hers. “You love him?” She nodded again, knew she didn’t have to say how much or for how long. It was there in her eyes. “Then this is the best thing that ever happened to me, to see you marry the man you love. I can’t think of a better man for you, or a better man, period. I do think Shaheen is the best of all the princes. And you know how highly I think of them all.”
“Even me, Berj? You think highly of me?” Johara jerked as Amjad descended on her and father’s tête-à-tête, clamping her father’s shoulder and tugging him under his, looking down into his startled eyes, his radiating that ruthless shrewdness and uncanny emerald fire. “Now, where could I have possibly gone wrong?”
“Crown Prince Amjad…” Her father looked totally confused. “I meant no offense…”
“Oh, don’t apologize to him, Dad.” Johara glared up into Amjad’s merciless teasing, trying to gauge if he was going to do more than tease, all but baring her teeth, warning him off.
“My impending sister-in-law has spoken.” Amjad did that thing he did so well, looking one in the eye and talking about them in third person, sidelining them. “Seems you’ve been granted license to offend, Berj. And I hope you’ll also reconsider your high opinion. We wouldn’t want to give me a good name, now would we?”
As her father smiled like someone who’d just walked into the middle of a conversation and was too embarrassed to ask what it was about, Amjad’s eyes traveled down the mind-boggling simulation of the pure gold cascading choker necklace, encrusted in two hundred fifty carats of diamonds ranging from pure ice to golden yellow, that covered her from high on her neck to the edge of her décolleté. “So which, in your opinion, is the real Pride of Zohayd, Berj? Your daughter or this?”
He touched the necklace. She stamped her foot on top of his.
Amjad didn’t even wince as her high heel jammed between his bones, his only response an intensifying of the bedeviling in his eyes. The tug of war had been subtle enough to go unnoticed by all, so her father almost jerked in shock when Amjad threw his head back on a guffaw as if out of the blue. The sound was so predatory it would have scared her if she weren’t so furious.
She was about to hiss to Amjad that she wasn’t above making a more overt retaliation if he dared renege on their deal when a storm of murmurs mushroomed, drowning out the music and her intentions.
As the crowd turned in a wave toward the new focus of attention, she knew. It was Shaheen.
“Grandstander,” Amjad murmured. Then he bent to deliver his next words in her ears. “Enjoy. But not so much that you forget what this is all about.”
“And don’t you forget my special forces gathered right outside this hall.”
Harres had materialized on her other side. He gave her a bolstering smile and Amjad a subtle tug, making him fall back, gesturing for her and Berj to precede them.
The moment their quartet descended from the other side of the platform, the lights dimmed, until the hall was dipped in darkness with only a spotlight following her procession, focused on her. She couldn’t see anything beyond her next step.
Her stampeding heart shifted
into higher gear. She could feel that she was moving deeper into Shaheen’s orbit, felt his eyes on her, caressing her, loving her.
And though she couldn’t see him, she opened herself, letting him see everything inside her. Along with all of her that he knew he had, she gave him her gratitude that he hadn’t let this be a rushed apology of a ceremony. Even if she was dying of embarrassment, would have preferred something far more private and far, far less extravagant, she knew this was his way of shouting to the world his pride of being hers the loudest he could.
And she knew it was already causing untold damages.
She’d noted the pointed absence of all the tribes they’d been negotiating with. She could only surmise the worst.
But for now, he was giving her more miracles by the moment. And she would take them all and treasure each forever.
The music changed into a hotter rhythm. Her heart followed suit as the spotlight following her split in two, the duplicate inching away, leading her gaze with its sweep.
Then it fell on him.
She stopped, yanked her father to a halt with her, heard Amjad snort as he and Harres almost walked into them. But nothing mattered. Nothing but Shaheen.
It was the first time she’d seen him like this. And she’d thought he looked like a desert god in modern clothes!
Now, swathed in the trappings of his heritage, the distillation of its art and chivalry and history, he was beyond description. And his eyes were telling her he cared about only one thing. Becoming hers.
She moved again, the desire to examine his every detail more closely galvanizing her.
The vigorous waves of his hair, now brushing his collar, gleamed deepest mahogany under the spotlight, which struck tongues of flame from his fiery-brown eyes. His face had never looked more noble, more potent, with every slash of character carved deeper in the stark light. The rest of his perfection was encased in a three-piece outfit fashioned from heavy jamawar silk in browns and golds echoing her own clothing. A scarf printed with the royal insignia in an ingenious repetition and gathered by a dazzling brooch, another piece from the Pride of Zohayd, overlaid his high-collared, fitted golden top. A wide bronze satin sash connected the top to deeper bronze pants that stretched over the power of his thighs and legs, billowing at their ends to gather into burnt brown polished leather boots.
But it was the cloak on top of it all that that made her feel he’d come to her from a trip through the past.
The color of darkest, richest earth, it fell from his endless shoulders in relaxed pleats to his feet, looked as if it were constantly sighing in pleasure to be surrounding him. Embroidery on its front panel descended in a wide V to his waist level, the gold thread and beads forming such elaborate motifs, the artist in her salivated for the chance to examine their formation and realization. The embellishments seemed to accentuate his masculinity, if that was possible.
With her every step nearer, he tensed, and the cloak seemed to bate its breath with him for her arrival. She wished he’d hide her within it, transport her away from all the pomp and attention.
But she knew he was doing this for her, to honor her, to show her that this was no damage-control maneuver but the one thing he wanted to do, was proud to, and was doing with as much fanfare as possible so no one would mistake his desire and pride.
Before she could throw herself into his arms, a blonde woman in a cream sarilike outfit and a man as tall as Shaheen in all-black with midnight hair down to his shoulders stepped out of the darkness into the circle of light.
Johara almost choked.
She’d been sad that this would be too rushed, too hushed, not even a real wedding, that she wouldn’t have them here. But Shaheen…he…he…
He’d brought her mother and brother to her!
For a stunned moment, her mind compensated for her body’s inability to move, streaked.
She hadn’t seen Aram face-to-face in over a year. She’d missed him terribly, drank in the sight of him now. He looked more like a pirate than ever, seeming to grow more imposing with each passing year, her total opposite in coloring, having inherited her mother’s dazzling turquoise eyes and their father’s swarthy complexion and night-black hair, and combining their mother’s family’s height with the sturdiness and breadth of their father’s. Her mother looked her eternally beautiful self.
And she surged to them, encompassed them with Shaheen in her delight. Her kisses moved from her mother to Aram, ended all over Shaheen’s face with a reiteration of thanks, for this gift, his best yet.
The music changed yet again, to take on a more solemn and momentous timber, to herald the next stage in the ceremony.
Her mother caught her closer, kissed her again. “Ma cherie, I never thought this day would come to pass. I was so worried about you.”
Johara pulled back from her, stunned. “You knew?”
“I always knew.” Her mother’s eyes grew more brilliant with tears. “It’s why I never wanted to come back here. I didn’t want you exposed to heartache. I thought your love for Shaheen would only hurt you, since it was impossible. I can’t tell you how relieved I am, how happy that I was wrong.”
She surrendered to her mother’s fierce hug again, processing this new knowledge. Seemed she was totally useless in keeping a secret. Everyone except her father had read her like an open book.
Then a thought struck her and she pushed out of her mother’s arms and rounded on Aram. “Which reminds me!” She glowered her displeasure at him. “You were wrong.”
He looked taken aback for a second, his eyes flying accusingly to Shaheen, before he looked back at her, smirking. “If this doesn’t prove I was right, I don’t know what does.”
“You were wrong then. And I want an apology!”
“I won’t apologize for doing what I had to, to protect you.”
“Oh, you will apologize. To Shaheen! How could you accuse him of…any of that? You of all people, his supposed best friend?”
“You’re not going to have another sibling fight right here, are you?” Harres groaned. “I thought we’ve had enough of those.”
“No such thing as enough sibling fights,” Amjad said, his very voice an incitement. “And again, when better? I say this is long overdue. Have at it, boys and girls.”
Aram bared his teeth. “I didn’t realize how much I missed you, Amjad.”
Amjad grinned back, baring the demon inhabiting his own body. “Was that my cue to say I missed you, too? Oops, missed it.”
Johara’s father cleared his throat. “I’m realizing with each passing second that I know nothing about what’s been going on around me, but will you take pity on me and not make me feel more like the deaf in the parade here?”
Johara and Aram hugged him in apology. Shaheen let it last a moment, then he put his arms around the quartet of her family.
“There will be no more fights among us.” He looked emphatically among them. He meant all of them. Him and Aram, her and Aram, her mother and father. He didn’t continue until he got their consenting nods. “Now we need to put the ma’zoon out of his misery. After he finishes marrying us, he will spend the rest of the night printing our royal book of matrimony.”
With that, they broke apart, and her father placed her hand in Shaheen’s. Shaheen hugged her to his side as he led her and their procession to their final destination, a gilded woodwork miniature of the palace—the kousha—where the ma’zoon awaited them, and where they’d sit throughout the wedding proceedings.
As they sat down on the silk brocade couch, Johara between Shaheen and her father and the rest of their family on either side, she exchanged a look of total love and alliance with him.
Then the ritual began.
Three hours of escalating festivities later, Johara stood jangling in the aftermath of it all in Shaheen’s bedroom, at his dresser, taking off the jewels.
He’d told her he’d wanted to take her to their home by the sea, or even fly them away and have their wedding night on board his jet.
But the jewels were prohibited from leaving the palace.
She was completely okay with it. She’d been imagining being with him in this room ever since their aborted time together the night he’d come back to Zohayd.
He’d gone to inform their fathers that the jewels would be returned in the morning. When she asked what excuse he’d given for that, he made her wish she hadn’t. She blushed now thinking about it.
“Take your dupatta off, ya joharti.”
She spun around as the hunger in his bass rumble licked her back. She watched as he approached, her hands automatically rising to obey him.
As her dupatta slid off her head, he snapped his scarf off his neck, hurled it to the floor. “Now your lehenga.”
She obeyed again, at once, unable to wait to be free of her clothes and crushed beneath him, taken, invaded, made whole.
He covered more of the two dozen feet between them, giving up his cloak for her skirt, then his top for hers. She swallowed over and over at the sight as each move gave her a show of rippling strength and symmetry. Soon all that remained were her panties, and she gave him those for his sash. All she had left on were her three-inch sandals.
“This is the ultimate unfairness,” she croaked as he stopped before her in his low-riding pants and boots, a colossus carved by gods of virility. “You always have more clothes.”
His eyes crinkled as they swept over her, the fire in them rising, singeing her. “I wish I can take credit for that. There’s no higher cause than feasting on your nakedness.”
“You can take credit this time.” She cupped her breasts, trying to assuage their aching. “For everything. Today was beyond anything I ever dreamed of, ya habibi. The outfit, the thought behind it, the note, every last detail of this night, Mom and Aram. I have no words to tell you what your thoughtfulness meant to me. What you mean to me. You’ve always meant…everything. Now…now… No…there are no words. I only hope you’ll always let me show you how much I love you, as you keep showing me.”