by Tara Pammi
He was the most casually dressed man in the hall and yet a thrumming energy vibrated around him. It was a cruel joke indeed that he didn’t realize the sense of power he wielded with his very presence. And it had nothing to do with being a prince either. From all the stories she had heard from his mother, Zohra knew he had once been laid-back, the one who had made everyone laugh, the one who had been the palace staff’s favorite.
But he was more than that boy had ever been. Whether it was the torture he had been through or the responsibilities that lay on his shoulders now, Prince Ayaan was a formidable force in his own right.
He extended his hand toward her, palm up, cutting through her thoughts. She stared at the long fingers that always felt sinfully abrasive against her skin. “Princess?”
She raised her head and his gaze drank her in hungrily, as though he had been just as starved for the sight of her as she had been of him. “What is the point of being the Mad Prince if you can’t at least postpone meeting the people you dislike?”
She laughed. The exaggerated arrogance in his gaze, the to-hell-with-it attitude of his words, it was knee-buckling. This was how he must have been before he had been captured.
A cocky, fun-loving prince who had been loved by everyone.
He straightened, his gaze unmoving from her face. “Why didn’t you shut his filthy mouth?”
What could she say? That being amid her father’s family made her feel like a lost and heartbroken thirteen-year-old girl again? That they had a way of punching her in the gut with the saddest truth of her life?
She didn’t belong anywhere.
“You’re the daughter of a king, wife to a crown prince. And more than that, you are...” Her heart crawled into her throat as he raked his gaze over her, “...you, Zohra.”
You are...you, Zohra.
He hadn’t mocked her or called her princess.
His words washed over years of hurt, warming the cold, hard pain that had become a part of her. Her heart swelled, even the shadow of Karim’s words, the bitterness of being here couldn’t dilute what Ayaan’s simple words meant to her.
Blinking back tears, she placed her hand in his. Her steps faltered, the strong clasp of his fingers around hers felt incredibly good, in more than one way.
She held her head high. It was borrowed courage, she knew that. But in that moment, she took everything the man next to her lent her.
The aunts and uncles and cousins were people who were related to her by blood, who should have been a source of comfort to a grieving girl but saw nothing past the circumstances of her birth. She finally had a chance to turn her back on them.
The moment they entered the corridor, the walls lined with portraits of the esteemed ancestors of the Al-Akhtum family, he stopped her. “I want an answer to my question, which you very cleverly evaded.”
She shrugged. “They have called me names for eleven years, much nastier than today. Nothing I say or do today is going to change that. My stepmother’s family hates me because I represent the pain my father caused her. And now they think I have stolen Saira’s chance to be the queen of Dahaar. To my father’s family...I am nothing but a taint on their lineage, a taint he dared bring to Siyaad. My father is responsible for whatever I face today.”
“Does he know how they speak to you?”
“What would he do even if he did? Go back in time and stop having an eight-year-long affair with my mother? Change his mind about walking out on her when it was time to be king? Change his mind about taking custody of his bastard?”
His fingers tightened over her arms. “Stop referring to yourself as that.”
She felt a hot sting at the back of her eyes. She was not going to cry just because someone finally had a glimpse into what eleven years of her life had been. She didn’t need his pity. It only weakened her. “Powerful as you are, you cannot change the truth.”
“What about the threat that Karim made? This man you were involved with...do I need to find Faisal? Is he the kind to—”
Foreboding inched tight across her skin. “How do you know his name?”
“You are my wife. Knowing everything about you, especially—”
“Especially what?” she said, swallowing the distaste his words brought back.
His expression intractable, his aristocratic features reminiscent of centuries of powerful lineage, he was every inch the arrogant prince in that moment. “Especially anything that could come back and cast a bad light on you and Dahaar, I have to know about it. I have to be prepared.”
The same past that she had shamelessly used to try and get out of this marriage to him now curdled in her stomach. “Are you regretting your decision to not listen to me when I warned you? Wondering if you should sever all ties with me and leave me here in Siyaad?”
“I made my vows. Nothing will make me turn my back on them.”
His words cut through her sharper than if he had said he had regrets. “Of course, your blasted word. Nothing in the world is allowed to interfere with it. How much detail do you want? How I met Faisal? Why I fell for him? How many times he—”
He thrust his face closer, bracing his hands on the wall on either side of her. His breath fanned against her skin. “My lucidity is nothing but the barest veil over my madness as you very well know, Princess.” His words were low, gravelly, and instead of scaring her, they incited the most dangerous tingle in her blood. “Do not provoke me. You don’t want to see what an animal I can become.” He pushed back from the wall, as though he found her nearness suddenly distasteful. “All I need to know is if he is a threat.”
She laughed, bitterness tinged into the sound. “He is not. I’m not the woman he wanted me to be.”
His frown deepened. “You’re pining after a man who cared about the circumstances of your birth? I’m disappointed in you, Princess.”
She shook her head. It was tragic how she was surrounded by men with highest codes of honor and yet they inevitably hurt her. “He didn’t. As luck would have it, Faisal was nothing if not full of honor. When he learned who I was, he thought I should be grateful that my father acknowledged me as his daughter. He thought I should become this paragon of virtue and spend the rest of my life proving to Siyaad and its people that I was worthy of being a princess.
“He thought I should embrace my duty. He wanted to live in Siyaad, wanted to earn a place by my father....the list was endless. When I suggested we leave Siyaad as he had been planning before he met me, he looked at me as though I had committed the greatest sin. He left without saying goodbye.”
The corridor echoed with the bitterness in her words, the silence filling up with her anger.
“Then you’re the one responsible, aren’t you?” he said, a hard edge to his words. “Not your father, or anyone else. You ruined your happiness.”
A dark fear inched its fingers around her heart. “All I wanted was to leave this place,” she said, speaking past the thick lump in her throat. “I would have gone anywhere with him.”
“Maybe he realized your hatred for this life was more than your love for him? That he was just the excuse you needed to finally leave?” Ayaan delivered the words with a quiet ruthlessness, leaving her with nothing to hide under.
“Why are you being deliberately cruel?” she said, tears coating her throat.
His mouth curved, a bitter mockery of a smile. “I am returning a favor. Truth. It is the only real thing between us, isn’t it? You tell me the truth that everyone else around me is too scared to voice for fear of making me mad again, and I do the same.
“If you had truly loved him, Princess, would it have been such a hardship to live with him in Siyaad?”
She shook where she stood, everything inside her balling up into an unbearable knot in her stomach. Ayaan became a blurry form as he turned away.
She had been so ang
ry with Faisal for not taking her away, so heartbroken that he would put her status in Siyaad, and all it entailed, before her.
I won’t be the one who will steal you away from your fate, Zohra. Those had been Faisal’s words.
She grabbed the wall behind her, knees shaking under her.
Can you not view it as anything but a sacrifice?
Her father’s words pricked her. Was she, once again, clinging to her stubborn anger and letting life pass her by? Was she going to spend the rest of her life waiting for someone to save her, as Ayaan had done just now, instead of saving herself?
CHAPTER SEVEN
AYAAN LEANED AGAINST the hip-length wall on the roof terrace, letting the peace and quiet steal into him. But even with the rooftop lit up, the dark black of the night seeped into his blood, working its shadows on him. He hadn’t seen Zohra after yesterday, not even at the dinner with her family just now.
He hadn’t wanted to inquire after her in front of King Salim and upset his already frail health. But after seeing the pain she hid from her father, the utter loneliness he had spied in her gaze, he didn’t want to leave for Dahaar without seeing her.
He should have kept quiet about the man she had loved. But he had told her the bitter truth. Because the alternative had been to let her believe that she hadn’t been loved. And he just couldn’t do that.
A wave of possessiveness, selfish and unyielding, hit him hard. Did she still love that man? Was she even now bemoaning his loss somewhere in the palace?
His unwilling wife had left an indelible mark on the palace in just a few days, and more importantly, on his life.
In such a short space of time, Zohra had seen the truth, while his mother and he had struggled, danced around the issue, caused each other immense pain because they had each thought they were doing the best for the other.
Ayaan had endured the torment of seeing his brother’s things, the medals from his military service, his degrees, the sword he had been presented, he even lived in the wing that had been specifically designed for Azeez when he had been crowned.
Because he hadn’t wanted to hurt his mother.
But he couldn’t bear it anymore, not when being near them stifled the breath out of him. So he had finally told her last night.
Ayaan had stood stiffly at the entrance to the day lounge she used, like one of the old iron-armored soldiers that adorned the palace, unable to move, unable to look into her eyes, terrified that she would touch him or even worse embrace him.
She had come to stand by him, and stopped suddenly as though realizing what her nearness did to him. “I will arrange a different wing for Zohra and you, away from the old ones. I only...want you to be happy, Ayaan.”
To which he had nodded, incapable of answering, and walked away without a backward glance. Even though, for once, he hadn’t felt like a pale shadow of his brother, hadn’t felt the ball of guilt around his neck.
There were still things unsaid between them; her grief and his isolation were indefensible walls. But in that moment for the first time in eight months, the tight band around his chest had eased a little.
And he owed it to Zohra.
Every time he saw her, a little bit of his hold on himself loosened, forever vanished in the face of his escalating need to touch her. The need to feel like he could connect with at least one person in the world, to feel like he wasn’t one man standing in the midst of a desert, alone. It was a dangerously seductive need.
Which was why he was standing here, waiting for his errant wife instead of on his way back to Dahaar.
He looked up as she appeared on the other side of the roof. A long-sleeved white shirt hugged her upper body, tucked into cream-colored jodhpurs. The outline of her torso, the long line of her thighs made his mouth dry up.
There was a strain on her features which fractured the mask of strength she donned so easily. She had left for Siyaad without a word to him, exactly as they had agreed. But her sudden disappearance had rankled more than he liked.
She stayed there, her gaze widening gradually.
He looked around, noticing what she saw. The rooftop glittered with hundreds of tiny, artistic lanterns lighting up the vast expanse, throwing orange packets of light everywhere.
A small table stood at the center of it, a traditional one of low height. A myriad of desserts sat atop it on silver plates, a silver jug with intricate patterns next to it. Two divans with plump cushions were placed either side of the table.
It looked incredibly romantic. A setting he himself would have orchestrated in another life. And he hadn’t noticed it until Zohra had joined him, as if she was the only one who could awaken things in him that were not for mere survival.
He reached her side and leaned against the wall, smiling at the stiff way she held herself.
Finally, she met his gaze, extreme wariness in hers. “What is all this?”
“I asked Saira to summon you here to meet me. And that we were not to be disturbed.” He looked around himself. “Apparently, Saira has a very active imagination.”
“And I have no idea how to wake her up to reality,” she said, shaking her head.
“Is it so unbelievable that for Saira, this life, this reality might not be so bad, Princess? Amira’s wedding had been arranged, too. And I know that she was extremely happy. If you love Saira, you have to accept her reality, too.”
She nodded without argument, her expression thoughtful.
“How long are you staying in Siyaad?” He hadn’t realized he even wanted to know until the words left his mouth.
She frowned. “I checked with your assistant and mine before I left. There were no state functions or ceremonies that needed my—”
He cut her short, irritated with himself. “It was a casual question.”
“Oh.” Her frown didn’t ease. “I thought you were flying back to Dahaara before...nightfall.”
Her unspoken concern lingered between them. She knew what new surroundings did to him at night. “I will leave early morning tomorrow.”
“Another night you will just forego sleep then?”
So she was aware that he had taken to skipping sleep for days together. He stayed silent, refusing to be baited into an argument.
The silence stretched between them.
“Was there a reason you summoned me here, Prince Ayaan? More interrogation about—”
He grabbed her arm and turned her toward him. “I never want him mentioned again, Princess, ever,” he said, enunciating his words through gritted teeth. “Is that clear?”
She nodded, surprising him again. She was definitely acting strangely tonight and he didn’t have to think too much to figure out why. “Why do you do that?” he said, fighting the flare of anger at her actions.
“Do what?”
“Call me Prince Ayaan? Address me as if we were...”
She quirked an eyebrow, the stubborn jut of her chin more pronounced.
“As if you were a stranger who hasn’t seen me at my worst, as if you are not the one person who sees past the prince to the co—” She halted his words with her finger on his mouth, shaking her head. He pulled it away, accepting the very fact he had been fighting for three weeks. “As if you were a lowly servant instead of my wife, my equal.”
Her eyes went wide, her mouth trembled. And his curiosity about her multiplied. Why did she look so surprised? “And I didn’t realize I needed a reason to see my own wife,” he said, uneasy with her uncharacteristic silence.
His gaze fell on her hair, and instantly the long, silky length of it draped over his pillow flashed in his mind. It was an image that teased him constantly. “Do I need one to tell her that she looks striking?”
She blinked, color seeping under her skin. She didn’t smile though and he wanted to be the one who put it there. For
one evening, he wanted to pretend that there was nothing wrong in his life.
He picked up the thin envelope he had left on the table and handed it to her.
She looked at his hand as if he had sprouted claws.
“My mother reminded me of another custom I didn’t keep. The groom’s gift to the bride.”
She looked up at him, her gaze softening. “You spoke to her?”
He cleared the knot of emotion from his throat and nodded. “Mostly she did. But I said a few words, too.”
A quiet joy lit up her eyes, her mouth curving into a wide smile. “That’s...wonderful. She must have been ecstatic.”
She grasped his hands with hers, and a longing of the most intense kind swirled into life inside him. His gaze stayed on their hands, his throat dry.
She looked down at their hands and stilled. The tension around them could have detonated with the smallest spark. She slowly pulled her hands back as though afraid of just that, but he felt the tremor that went through her.
He leaned back against the wall, and after a second’s pause, she did the same at his side. “You like her,” he said, surprised. “Even with all the rituals she makes you go through.”
She stretched her arms across the wall, a thoughtful expression on her face. The movement stretched the white shirt tight across her breasts and he looked away guiltily. “It’s hard not to like her. She is so...strong. She bears so many responsibilities, she has been through so much and yet, through it all...” She cleared her throat. “She’s your father’s strength too, isn’t she? She doesn’t let him rule over her. With her by his side, I’m not surprised he was able to weather everything he has with such dignity.”
Ayaan had always thought of his father as the strong one. Not that he thought his mother weak. To Ayaan, she was a woman, a mother and nothing more. And yet no one would have been able to stay standing after what had happened five years ago, but his father had kept going.
Because he’d had his wife. And he had taken on immense pain by lying to her. Zohra might not understand it but Ayaan understood why his father had done it.