by Ella Brooke
“Who?” he asked, his insides burning. There was only one obvious answer for who would dare to mess with his family. “Who took them?”
“Abir. That guy? Totally creepy, and I can’t believe you’re related,” Haley said, slipping out of his grasp but still staying seated on the ground. “He’s a grade-A psycho. He said he hurt your dad, too; that he set the stroke in motion with some drugs so he could get the kingdom. Jamsheed...” she began, breaking into tears. “He already tried to kill your dad. I don’t think Mom and the babies have much time. You have to stop him!”
Jamsheed patted her hand and then surged to his feet. “I promise you, Haley. I will find him and save your mother, and then I shall tear my cousin limb from limb.” His fists clenched at his side and he felt the fire and fury of a thousand suns. “Abir will pay. For all of this.”
***
“Do you know how long I’ve waited to be the Sheikh of Zomelia?” Abir asked as the caravan of Land Rovers sped off from the palace grounds. It didn’t even surprise her that a few of the men in the party she recognized as official palace security. Abir had spies everywhere this whole time, men still loyal to him, and now she and her children would pay for that. “I was the one who waited here, did everything Uncle asked, and stayed in Zomelia for our people. I never asked anything for myself.”
She let out a pained breath even as the pain tore through her back and abdomen. Something felt stick between her legs, and every inch of her was terrified that it was blood. “You just took. You know that Jamsheed will find you, don’t you? He’ll never stop hunting you down. So you can do whatever you like to us, but you’ll be a wanted criminal, and you will never be sheikh.”
“I have enough rebels at my command that I can influence,” he said, stroking his beard again. “If I’m the clear heir, then Jamsheed will find himself fighting in the midst of a civil war.”
“Haley was right,” she gasped out, furrowing her brow at the pain assaulting her. “You’re a monster.”
“I prefer to think of myself as a strategist,” he said, leaning down and pulling a large Bowie knife from his pocket. He brought the point to rest under her chin and pressed against it until the first drops of blood welled up. “I found the solutions through my problems. I laid in wait, and I executed everything I needed.”
“Yeah, you’re a real free spirit, there,” Brenda bit back.
He chuckled and moved the blade so that the flat side of it was caressing her cheek. She shivered at the warm stickiness on its tip.
Blood. My blood.
“I am going to kill you now, American scum. Then all my troubles will be over.” He drew back the blade and she screamed, trying to kick him away as best she could even with the spasms crippling her back.
The blade descended and it was if time stopped, her whole life flashing before her eyes—her parents, her beloved oldest Haley, and then Jamsheed. All the appointments they had with Dr. Gurpurasad, creating the nursery together. All of the planning to build a life they’d never have, and then all her insecurities seemed so sad, so foolish. How could she ever have doubted that he loved her? That they could last?
Closing her eyes, she cupped her belly. “I’m sorry, Jamsheed. I love you.”
She expected the cold steel in her gut, the rending of flesh, but none of that came. Instead something huge and heavy slammed into the Land Rover. The driver up front cursed, something sharp and biting in Arabic she assumed, and she opened her eyes in time to see him spin the wheel furiously. It didn’t help. The Land Rover made wide donut loops in the sand before sputtering to a stop, stuck in a divet from which it couldn’t escape.
Abir glared at her and raised up his knife a second time, but the door to the back seat was pulled open. On the other side stood Jamsheed and a squadron of his fiercest guards, all armed to the teeth. Her sheikh had a semiautomatic pistol aimed at his cousin’s head.
“Abir, stop. I shouldn’t even think of offering you asylum or anything close, but you’re still royal blood. You can come with us for a trial and fair sentencing.”
Abir snarled and eyed her. “So I can be hanged in a public square, an example to the people?”
“So we can deal with this between us, Cousin. It’s always been about us. You don’t have to make it about her and the children.”
“They matter to you like the throne matters to me,” he spit back.
Jamsheed eyed her, those amber depths promising her safety and so much more. “I love her, and I love them. They’re my whole world. I’d give the throne up for them if I could, but I won’t leave the country I love to a mad man either. Now, Cousin, please, let us be civilized. Either you come with me now or…”
“Screw you all,” Abir said, bringing his arm down fast.
Just as quickly a thunderclap rang out between all of them. She shuddered as the bullet hit Abir first, running through his skull before his knife’s edge reached her. His head jerked back and he fell onto the floor of the Rover, a mess of bone and skin and blood.
Jamsheed and his guards wasted no time pulling Brenda back out of the car. He kissed her and held her tightly to him. “My phoenix, my habibi, are you all right?”
“It hurts,” she managed, in between sharp breaths. She was sure now she was bleeding and that she was about to miscarry. “The babies… I think they’re coming!” Jamsheed tried to keep her on her feet so that they could walk to his own jeep, but even at ten feet from her, it might as well have been miles. The pain tore through her belly and back, and she stumbled. Breathing heavy and chest heaving, she looked up at Jamsheed as he cradled her. “I love you.”
“No, we’re getting Dr. G, and it’ll be all right, beloved. Please, just wait for him.”
She shook her head and kissed him, coughing when she pulled back. “I’m holding on as best I can. But I need you to promise me one thing.”
“Anything,” he said, stroking her hair. “Name it.”
“If you have to choose between saving me and the babies, then save them, please.”
He kissed her and she blinked, trying to fight back the darkness consuming her. “Then I’ll save you both.”
Chapter Eleven
Brenda woke with a start, and gasped heavily with the tube down her nose, making her feel as if she were choking. Loud beeping echoed in her ears, and almost instantly, a woman she’d never seen in a crisp, white nurse’s uniform was helping pull the breathing tube from her nose.
“Where am I?”
“The medical wing of the palace, my sheikha,” she replied bowing low and then scurrying to pick up the call button. She pressed it and turned her attention to the machine. “The sheikha is awake.”
Brenda took a deep breath, trying to remember everything that had happened. Had she passed out at the wedding ceremony? What had happened to land her in the hospital? Then it came to her a vivid Technicolor flash: Abir abducting her, the knife to her throat, and the pain lancing through her side. Instinctively she reached to her stomach to touch her children. To her horror she found it flatter than it should have been.
Turning to the nurse, she begged her for any information. “How long have I been out? Where are the children? Did they make it?”
Before the nurse could answer, Jamsheed and Haley both burst into the room. She was so grateful to see her eldest daughter that at least a few of her fears were quelled. Haley had been breathing when Brenda was dragged off, but there was no guarantee her condition wasn’t severe, that things wouldn’t go downhill. Her daughter reached her first and she opened her arms wide to hug the girl she loved so dearly. Tears poured down her cheeks as she kissed her daughter’s forehead.
“I love you. You shouldn’t have stood up to Abir.”
“Mom, I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” her daughter said, an impish grin on her face that sometimes annoyed her now sending warmth to her heart. It was amazing to see her daughter be so selfless and be someone who would so gladly step in front of harm not just to protect Brenda, but also the trip
lets.
Oh God where are the triplets? How long has it been?
“I was bleeding wasn’t I?” she asked as Haley broke away from her and Jamsheed rushed forward to kiss her and then took her hand. “Are the babies all right?”
Jamsheed sighed. “Dr. G was able to help. We rushed you back here for an emergency C-section. The triplets were barely thirty-two weeks. Two are so strong, but one still has to be in an incubator to help him breathe, but he gets stronger every day.”
She blinked. “Him? I have a son?”
Haley rolled her eyes. “You have three sons. I’m totally outnumbered. He’ll pull through. Dr. G is going to be taking him off of his regime in about a week. It’s going well.”
She nodded and wiped at her cheeks. “How long was I asleep?”
Jamsheed’s jaw clenched and she watched as a cord in his neck pulled tight. “Almost two weeks. We were worried with how much blood you lost that you’d be out even longer. I never believed you’d die. You’re too strong for that, but I’ve been here every day, as much as I can around my country’s needs. I was so worried, my phoenix, but I’m glad I gave you that nickname. Allah has surely blessed you.”
She leaned up and kissed him. “I think He’s blessed us both.” Sitting up higher, she swung her legs over the mattress to the edge of the bed and gestured to the IV in her arm. “Can you get Dr. G to unhook me? I want to see our children. Please.”
Jamsheed rubbed her back, one large palm giving warmth and security to her in the smallest of gestures. “I thought you’d never ask.”
***
The children were so tiny, the two blue bundles in cribs in the corner of the hospital room set up for them. She leaned over and picked up one first. The baby didn’t cry—maybe he knew who she was on sight—and then he opened his eyes, they were the same amazing amber of his father, and she wondered again if all their children would carry that distinctive coloring.
“Did you name them?”
He shook his head. “We go by the designations of the medical team. We have Baby A and Baby B here. The one in the incubator still is Baby C. There was no way I was going to presume for you and do this by myself,” Jamsheed replied, picking up their second child and cradling him gently. “Do you have any ideas for these two?”
She looked down at “Baby A,” at the delicate cheek bones and the nose that reminded her just a hint of her father. “Can he be Franklin, after my father? Is that not allowed since he’ll be a sheikh?”
“I think the royal head of Zomelia can be called whatever he pleases. We’ll give him a traditional middle name, but…” Jamsheed said, smiling down at the child. “Hello, Frank.” Then he rocked “Baby B,” who had opened now identical eyes to blink back at both of them. “And would Farook be fine with you for our second son?”
“Are we now getting a consonant theme?” she asked, joking. “Fs for all?”
Jamsheed winked. “I think some alliteration is allowed.” He nodded to someone across the room, and she smiled, relieved to see Jazmina walking across to them.
Her servant held out her arms. “My sheikha, allow me to watch your boys while you go to the clean room for your other son. They’ll be safe with me.”
“Jazmina was the one who ran so fast to alert me that you’d been taken.”
Brenda set Franklin in the crib and then turned to her servant and embraced her. “Thank you, Jazmina. I don’t know what we’d have done without you. If Jamsheed had even been a second later…”
The older woman pulled back and kissed both her cheeks gently. “Do not worry on what might have happened. Fortune has smiled on all of us, and we have you and the children all safe. It is more than one could ever hope for and everything our kingdom needs.”
“If you ever need anything, Jazmina, you can have it,” Brenda asked, winking at her. “Just don’t ask me to hide a body for you or clean up a crime. I would, but it would be an awkward spot for a Head of State to be in.”
“I am a law-abiding woman, this I swear, but I will think of my payback carefully. Still, I’d have done everything I could to save you all. You’re my family too, sheikha.”
She hugged Jazmina once more before returning to Jamsheed’s side. “I feel the same way.”
Jamsheed pulled her flush against him and led her to the next part of the nursery suite. For several minutes they had to scrub their arms and put on gowns and masks to ensure they wouldn’t bring any microbes into the room that might assault Baby C’s immune system. The pneumatic doors of the clean room slid open and they walked hand-in-glove-clad-hand to the incubator. Her heart fluttered when she saw their son there, so much tinier than Franklin and Farook. Tears threatened to well in her eyes and one or two may have slipped out when she followed Jamsheed’s lead to reach with her fingers through the portholes and stroke their child’s back. The tiny infant brought a small thumb to his mouth and sucked at it.
“He’s so little,” she said, the quiver in her voice threatening to overwhelm her words.
“He’s a fighter, like his mother. He’ll pull through. Like Haley said, it’s only a week more until he can join his brothers in a proper crib.”
“He’s beautiful,” she said, grinning broadly when their child opened his eyes, that same golden gaze of Jamsheed—of all their sons—glinting back at her. “Walheed.”
Jamsheed’s eyes opened wide. “What?”
“It’s only fair. We named one after my father, and the proud Rahal line should always remember one of its best sheikhs, no matter what happens to your father, he’ll always live on.”
Jamsheed nodded and leaned forward to kiss her, even though he didn’t move his hand from their son’s back. She didn’t either. “We’ll live on because that’s what we do. It’s who we are, my phoenix.”
“Exactly.”
Epilogue
Five Years Later…
“Mommy! Mommy! Watch me!” Franklin shouted as he did a cannonball off of the side of the pool. It was a special one, built like an oasis, but it only went to four feet deep. They always had two staff life guards on duty whenever they were there.
A huge splash flew up from the water, dousing poor nearby Farook, whose soft curls had been dry until then. “Mom, he splashed me!”
Jamsheed sat up from his position on the lounge chair and pushed his sunglasses off of his eyes. “Then maybe you should splash him back, my lion.”
A devious grin lit up her middle son’s face as he jumped into the pool and swam after his brother. Franklin was every inch the future king he would one day be—bold and decisive—whereas Farook was sneakier, more deliberate in his actions. The two of them seemed to clash on everything and would probably be engaged in a splash war for hours as the nervous lifeguards watched on.
“They are so noisy,” Haley said, returning to her chair and handing Brenda a virgin daiquiri. After her accident, every drink Haley touched was virgin and Brenda was glad about that. “I take it back. I don’t want five-year-old triplets running around anymore.”
“Except you do,” Jamsheed said, chuckled and beckoning with his hand to where Franklin and Farook splashed at each other. “You’re their favorite sitter.”
“Yes, but sometimes I swear if I watch one more Power Rangers I’ll scream.” Haley shook her head and took a sip of her drink. “But they’re cute, especially the two of them.”
All three of them let out a contented sigh to where in the shallowest end of the pool Sheikh Walheed was teaching his young namesake how to doggie paddle. After almost six months in a coma, the old sheikh had woken up and then gamely worked through months of physical therapy. He still had a limp, but the old man was as big a survivor as any of them, and she was glad her family was whole. The bond between the two Walheeds was so strong that she suspected it had more to do with how much they’d endured and survived in the hospital and not even their names. Few things filled her heart with more joy than watching their special relationship blossom.
Haley set her drink down and slipp
ed off her beach cover up. “Excuse me, you’re making that face, Jamsheed.”
“What face?” he asked, winking back at her.
“The one where you’re going to suck Mom’s face. If you’ll let me go, I’m about to teach Franklin and Farook how to really splash around. Cowabunga!” she shouted jogging for the edge and landing in a spectacular cannonball that shed water everywhere.
“I was not looking at you like that,” Jamsheed defended.
“Actually,” Brenda said, turning her gaze back to his haunting golden one. “I hope that you were. If you don’t look at me like that all the time, then I’m losing my touch.”
He leaned over and kissed her, his tongue tangling with hers and promising her so much more later that night once the triplets were asleep. “You’ll never do that my phoenix. I love you, my habibi, and I always will.”
“Me too, Jamsheed. Me too.”
THE END
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Prince’s Temporary Baby
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Prince’s Temporary Baby
By Sophia Lynn
All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2017 Sophia Lynn.
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Chapter One
The rain was sleeting down as if it were the very heart of winter rather than the first breath of spring, but according to the reports from the pilot and air traffic controller, the prince's flight was still on track to land at the private air field right on time.
Thank little green frogs, Benny thought, stuffing her phone back in her purse. It would have been hilarious if it had taken him all this time to get here only to be turned back by a little spring weather.