Panther's Prey

by Doreen Owens Malek

  Malik smiled. “It’s funny to think you’re responsible. Before he was wounded Anwar couldn’t wait to get rid of you. And after his injury he was unconscious and didn’t know until today that you had effected his cure.”

  She reached out and touched his cheek. “I didn’t do it for him,” she said softly.

  Malik stared at her for a long moment and then slowly closed his eyes, turning his head to kiss her hand. When she lowered it to trace the curve of his lips with her finger he snaked out one long arm and drew her to him fiercely.

  Amy gasped as he pressed his face to her exposed bosom, rubbing his skin on hers like a cat. She shuddered when she felt his tongue trail along her collarbone and then probe the valley between her breasts, his mouth so hot and wet it turned her bones to water. When he lifted his head and opened the bodice of her dress, her knees gave way and he pulled her into his lap.

  He had one nipple in his mouth before he had even seen it, his free hand greedily cupping the other. Amy sank her fingers into his hair and held him against her, her breath coming in short bursts as he sucked and nipped and teased, drinking his fill of what he had denied himself for too long.

  He pulled the sleeves off her arms and shoved the dress down to her waist, kissing the white smoothness of her shoulders, the tender, blue veined flesh of her throat and wrists and inner elbows. The sight of his dusky skin against her paleness, the feel of his strong hands roaming her bare back as his mouth caressed her made Amy faint with longing. She clung to him, so enervated she would have fallen without his support, when he stood suddenly with her in his arms and strode briskly to a patch of grass.

  He flung Amy’s shawl upon the ground, then set her down on it, sprawling full length next to her, catching himself with one arm as he dropped. In the next instant he had rolled Amy under him and lay poised above her, his liquid eyes filling the world.

  “I have wanted you so much,” he said thickly, his voice sounding strange, as if the admission had been wrung from him against his will. “So much, from the beginning.”

  “Don’t talk,” she whispered, blinking back tears as she pulled him down to her once more. “Don’t talk.”

  The last was said against his mouth as his lips met hers for the first time, and it was a sensation she would never forget. She had been kissed before, by the boys who had courted her back in Boston, but not like this. Malik was a man, and this was a man’s embrace: powerful, demanding. His mouth was soft, a contrast with the hardness of his teeth and the hard body pressed against hers, and she could taste the faint tang of tobacco and the bitterness of raki on his lips. He kissed her again and again, his mouth fused to hers, his weight pinning her as he stroked her hair, running the silken strands through his fingers. Amy slipped her hands inside the waistband of his pants and loosened his shirt, tracing the muscles of his back, which bunched as she touched them. His skin was hot, and she could feel his tension in the tips of her fingers. As his mouth moved to her cheek, her neck, she tore restlessly at his tunic.

  “I want to feel you against me,” she moaned, pushing the material away from his neck, where she could see a pulse beating strongly. He sat up abruptly and tore off the shirt, tossing it on the ground. When he lay back down he held himself up on his hands, looking at her, as she ran her finger down his chest. Then she gripped his shoulders to lift herself up and trace the same path with her tongue.

  Malik groaned, holding her tightly as she put her arms around his neck and arched against him, sighing with the blissful sensation of his naked torso crushing her breasts. She wrapped her legs around him as her dress rode up unheeded, exposing the slim line of her thighs to his view.

  Her innocent abandon inflamed him and he felt his control going; he ground his lower body into hers, letting her feel his arousal fully. Amy responded in kind, digging her heels into the back of his thighs and kissing him wildly everywhere she could reach: his shoulder, his bicep, the prominent cord on the side of his neck. The virginal fears she had once harbored were forgotten in the intensity of her passion. The overwhelming need to join with him, to feel him inside her, was new to her experience but not to her imagination. This was the lover she had dreamed of in Boston when the pawings of some adolescent lothario left her feeling disappointed and unmoved. Here at last was the man she had waited for, the handsome and virile man whose need of her was so all consuming that it would carry them both away.

  His hands, rough from farming and warfare and a life lived out of doors, stroked her skin as if handling the finest silk. He pushed her skirt up further and slipped one hand along her thigh, rolling back slightly, watching her expression as he touched her. She whimpered and closed her eyes, burying her face against his damp shoulder, listening to the runaway pounding of his heart as she strained against him.

  “Will it hurt?” she whispered, her words muffled by his flesh, the muscles of his back as rigid as oak under her fingers.

  She felt the impact of the question as soon as she asked it.

  His arms loosened, and to her astonishment he released her, rolling away and then sitting up with his back to her.

  “Malik?” she said, sitting up too, suddenly embarrassed by her partial nakedness. She crossed her arms over her bare breasts and hugged herself. “What is it?”

  He didn’t answer, and she saw his palpable struggle to regain control. He sat for a few moments with his head bent and his arms propped on his knees, his respiration slowing visibly. Then he stood and retrieved her shawl from the ground, not meeting her eyes as he handed it to her.

  “Put this on,” he said, striving for a calm tone, but his voice betrayed him. It was low and gravelly, and she noticed when she took the cape that his hands were shaking.

  He was not as steady as he wanted her to think.

  “Malik,” she said, trembling once more on the verge of tears, “what happened? What did I do?” She wrapped the feradge around her torso and flung the ends of it over her shoulders, heedless of the open bodice of her dress.

  “You didn’t do anything. Go back to the camp.”

  “Go back to the camp! Don’t you want me?” she wailed, unable to believe the change in him.

  He closed his eyes, a blue vein in his temple pulsing visibly. “Of course I want you,” he said between his teeth, “but I won’t take you.”

  “But I want you to!” she protested, childlike, as if her desire obviated all other concerns.

  He looked at her then, his expression contorted, as if he wanted to believe her but could not.

  “You don’t know what you want, you’re a baby,” he said, trying to convince himself as well as Amy.

  “I’m a woman,” she said, crying openly now, contradicting her words. “Was that a baby you just made love to? You’re lying to both of us, Malik.”

  “Go back to the camp,” he said again.

  “Stop ordering me about as if I were one of your lackeys!” she yelled, then covered her face with her hands. Her hair streamed over her bare shoulders, which shook with emotion as she strove for calm. It was an eternal minute before she looked at him again; by then her face was still streaked with tears, but her expression was regal, composed.

  “Is this your revenge on me for giving you so much trouble?” she asked. “Does it bring you satisfaction to humiliate me, to take me to the point of utter submission and then turn away?”

  He almost went to her then, unable to let her think that of him, unable to endure the pain he saw on her face. But he knew it was dangerous to touch her, so he held his ground and merely said, “You’re wrong.”

  “Then explain it to me.”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Why not? Am I so stupid?”

  “Amelia, I am not going to have this argument with you. It’s over, accept it and go back to the camp.”

  She stared at him, her lower lip trembling, bunching the shawl at her waist with one small white hand.

  “You’re a vicious person, Malik,” she finally said, her voice wobbly,
“and I will never forgive you for this.” She picked up her skirt with her free hand and ran out of the clearing.

  Malik waited until she was out of sight, then sat back on the stump and dropped his head onto his folded arms.

  He didn’t move for a long time.

  * * *

  After that night Malik steered clear of Amy, never returning to his tent, sleeping in the cave with the rest of his men. Time passed, he received a message from Kalid Shah naming the day and the hour for Amy’s return, and each morning Anwar was better.

  Amy stayed out of Malik’s way, helping Matka and Risa with the chores, waiting for the ordeal to end. She counted on her fingers, aware that every sunrise meant she was closer to escaping Malik’s indifference. Soon she would be away from him and, hopefully, be able to forget.

  On the night before she was to meet Kalid Shah, Amy retired early. She had undertaken so many tasks that day to make sure she would sleep that the strategy actually worked. When Malik looked through the tent flap to check on her he saw that she was sleeping soundly.

  He knew he would not be so lucky. He wandered the camp for hours, his mind filled with images of the woman he was about to give up: her face when he first saw her as she emerged from the coach; her pale hair glowing in the moonlight; her eyes closing with catlike pleasure as he caressed her.

  The memories did not make for easy slumber.

  He finally went to his customary spot to think. When he heard the sound of footsteps approaching his mouth went dry. Was it Amy? But when he stood and looked through the trees he saw Anwar, his left arm in a makeshift sling.

  “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Malik asked, as his friend sat on the ground with his back to a tree.

  “I’ve been sleeping so much since I was shot I’ve stored up enough for the next five years,” Anwar replied.

  “How’s the arm?”

  “Stiff, but I’m still here. Thanks to the girl.”

  Malik said nothing.

  “Is she the reason you’re out here in the middle of the night staring into space?” Anwar asked.

  Malik met Anwar’s eyes, then looked away.

  “I know you’re giving her over to Shah tomorrow morning,” Anwar added.

  “I guess I can’t keep any secrets around here, can I?” Malik said dryly.

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  Malik shook his head. “I think I’d better go alone.”

  “Is there any chance that it’s an ambush?”

  “No, Shah’s been straight with me. He just wants Amelia back. He waited until now to convince the Sultan he wasn’t in collusion with the kidnapping.”

  Anwar endured several minutes of silence before asking, “What went wrong between you and the girl?”

  “Nothing is wrong.”

  “Nothing is happening, but something is wrong. You won’t even look at her. As far as I know you haven’t spoken to her since the night of the bayrami, except to tell her when Shah was coming for her. What caused the silence?”

  Malik sighed. “You know I was trying to avoid getting involved with her.”

  Anwar nodded.

  “The night of the party she came after me and found me out here. I was feeling good, maybe I’d had a little too much raki at the celebration, so when she touched me I just...” He opened his hands expressively.

  Anwar sucked in his breath. “You slept with her?”

  “No, but it was close. Very close. A minute more...” He broke off again, staring at the ground.

  “What stopped you?”

  “She said something that brought me out of it.”

  “What?”

  “She asked me if it would hurt.”

  “And that reminded you she was a virgin?”

  “It reminded me of what I was doing, not only taking her maidenhead but violating a trust...”

  “Hers?” Anwar asked.

  “Hers and Shah’s. It was understood between him and me that she would return to her family the way she left them.”

  Anwar studied his friend’s face, only partially visible in the light of the waning moon.

  “You want to keep her, don’t you?” Anwar said quietly.

  “I want to, but I can’t.”

  “I’m glad you realize that.”

  “What bothers me the most is that she thinks I tricked her, led her on to humiliate her.”

  “And you didn’t?”

  “No! I just wanted her so much that I lost control.”

  “She is beautiful.”

  “It’s not just that, it’s so many things.” He smiled faintly. “Who can say why one woman drives you wild and another leaves you cold?”

  “I don’t have the answer, I only know I’ve never seen you like this.”

  Malik rose and began to pace. “I don’t want her to leave here thinking that I’m such a yellow dog, but there is no other way. If I had told her that I promised Shah to leave her untouched, that would ease her feelings of rejection, but it might also give her hope that we could have something in the future, and that’s impossible. I can’t drag her into the danger and uncertainty of my life. I have nothing to offer a woman, especially a woman who once had so much.”

  “I can see that you have given this a lot of thought,” Anwar said.

  “I’ve had plenty of time since the Sultan withdrew his troops from the Mahalle. It would have been easier to be busy.”

  “What’s our next move?” Anwar asked, rubbing his sore shoulder.

  “The granary in Antakya, on the Syrian border. Our people there are starving.”

  “When?”

  “Two weeks or so. We’ll strike when the Sultan is preoccupied with entertaining the emissaries from Greece. Our palace spies say the Greeks are arriving for treaty talks at the end of the month.”

  Anwar snorted. “He’s playing around with foreign policy while his own empire is crumbling. The man is an idiot.”

  “The more notoriety our activities attract the more he will work to convince outsiders that he’s still in charge. He’ll play right into our hands.”

  Anwar walked over to stand next to his friend and put his hand on Malik’s shoulder. “It may not seem like it at the moment, but it really is a kindness to let her go. She’ll be sad for a while but then she’ll get over it and go back to her old life.”

  Malik nodded.

  “But tomorrow will be hard,” Anwar added.

  Malik didn’t respond.

  “Do you want to come back with me?” Anwar asked.

  “No, I think I’ll sit here a while,” Malik responded.

  “Gecmis olsun,” Anwar said as he left.

  Malik thought about his friend’s parting words as Anwar disappeared through the trees.

  If only he could put his feelings for Amelia in the past, as Anwar had said, he might be able to get on with his mission–and the rest of his life.

  * * *

  Amy was awake and dressed in the gown Maya had given her before first light. Matka stood by silently as Amy wrapped her feradge around her shoulders and picked up her reticule, the only remnant of her Western clothing worth taking back with her. She put her hand on the old woman’s arm and said, “Goodbye, Matka.”

  Matka surprised her by responding, “Goodbye”, in a touching piece of mimicry that brought a delighted smile to Amy’s face. She nodded, thanking Matka for the effort, and stepped outside.

  Malik was already waiting for her, holding the reins of Mehmet. Risa and Maya stood with him. As Amy approached Risa held out a bag of dolma, stuffed vine leaves, a snack for the journey.

  “Afiyet olsun,” Risa said. To your health.

  “Thank you,” Amy replied, taking the bag.

  “Gule Gule,” Maya said, bowing with both hands pressed to her forehead. “Tesekkur ederim serefinize Anwar.”

  “You’re welcome,” Amy said. “I’m so glad Anwar is himself again.”

  Amy then looked at Malik, who said, “Dosha picked up a stone and has gone lame. We
’ll have to ride double on Mehmet.”

  The two women stood back as Malik held the reins of the horse while Amy mounted, then handed the reins to her. He leaped onto Mehmet’s back behind her and then turned the horse to the south.

  “How far are we going?” Amy asked him.

  “Not far.”

  When the horses trotted through the camp Amy saw that almost all of its inhabitants had come out to see her leave. They stood by in silence as she and Malik rode slowly past them. Amy caught Anwar’s eye as he stood by the entrance to his tent. He raised his hand in a curious little salute and Amy nodded.

  Malik’s horse gathered speed as they left the camp, and Amy leaned back into Malik’s shoulder as they headed downward toward the plain. She wished she did not have to spend this final hour in his arms, but at the same time she savored the contact she was about to lose forever. The trek through the foothills that Amy remembered as long and tortuous seemed to pass like a flash of lightning this time. When they reached the valley and emerged onto the sandy mesa she could see a lone horse approaching them from the distance. As they came closer she could see the rider, a tall dark man attired in an ivory tunic trimmed with gold. When they finally met he dismounted immediately and so did Malik.

  “Is this the little lady from America?” Kalid Shah said, smiling as Malik lifted Amy down from Mehmet.

  Malik stood by as Amy turned and faced Sarah’s husband. He was handsome in the European way, older than Malik, whose features were bolder and whose skin was browner. Amy could see immediately what had caused James Woolcott’s cousin to turn her back on Boston for this man.

  “I am Kalid Shah,” he said, extending his hand as if meeting her at an embassy party. “I didn’t bring a horse for you because I have a coach waiting about a mile away.”

  “Did you want to make sure I came alone, Kalid?” Malik said to him in Turkish.

  “She is lovely, Malik,” Kalid responded in the same language, ignoring the question. “Quite a test of your self control.”

  “Can we go, please?” Amy said, afraid that she might break down if they prolonged the farewell.

  “By all means,” Kalid replied in his British accent, more pronounced than Malik’s.