She set him on the floor, which was a surprisingly fine carpet. Her bed was equally surprising – as big as his own, when he'd travelled, with several cushions that looked to be made of silk. Stolen, he was certain.
"I'll go fetch some," she said, heading back out the way she'd come.
The moment she was out of sight, he leaped across the carpet for the pallet, aiming for the nearest silk cushion. Oh, how he'd missed the feel of silk against his skin. The only fabric that felt like a woman's caress, which he'd missed for even longer.
But the moment his feet touched the cushion, he experienced nothing so sensuous. No, what he felt next could only be described as every bit of his body sneezing at exactly the same time.
Seventeen
A normal princess would have brought a maid, and a whole troop of servants to see to her needs, Anahita reflected as she dug through their things for a bucket. A normal princess wouldn't have to find her own bucket, and use it to fetch water for an unusually arrogant frog.
But Anahita had never been, and would never be, a normal princess. None of her father's other children had her gift of being able to converse with creatures. In fact, aside from herself and Maram, none of the others seemed to have any magical abilities at all. Which was why Maram was destined to be alone, and if it weren't for Haidar and Asad, Anahita would be, too. But the three of them made perfect travel companions, because they knew each other so well, and she would trade a whole palace full of servants to take these two men with her.
Servants would only complicate matters. So, with a sigh, she carried her bucket to the oasis and lugged the slopping load to her tent. For the haughty frog.
She shouldn't have agreed to let him come with them. She didn't need another pet – and this one might prove to be a dangerous distraction. Even bringing Merlin with her risked losing the bird, after the way Fakhri had claimed Vega for his own, all those years ago. What if this new sheikh was just as bad, trying to take everything from her so she would be an obedient wife?
Two words that should never be used to describe her: obedient, or wife.
As Fakhri had found out, in his final moments.
His lifeblood flowed over her hands again, warm and sticky as the night it happened. For she would never forget. Even her arm ached at the memory.
But it was a memory – no more. No man would ever share her bed again.
Anahita took a deep breath, and another, attempting to calm herself. So that she would not appear agitated in front of a frog. She choked back a laugh. Frogs could not discern facial expressions.
She ducked through the tent flaps, stepped inside, then straightened. And stopped dead.
The bucket slipped from her suddenly nerveless fingers, splashing water up to the very roof of the tent, and soaking her to the skin, but Anahita did not feel it.
A rich, mellow voice called out, "Why, you are quite the loveliest woman I have ever seen, under those shapeless things!"
Anahita closed her eyes, but she couldn't seem to shut out his voice, which made things curl up in her belly. So she opened her eyes again, and took in the scene, as Asad had taught her to do.
A lean, muscled man, his skin gleaming in the lamplight, reclined on her cushions, his dark eyes gazing on her with obvious approval. Other parts of his anatomy rose to salute her, too. Bits she'd hacked off and burned in a brazier…
Anahita turned on her heel and marched out of the tent.
Asad and Haidar rose from their seats by the fire.
"What's wrong?' Haidar asked. "I've never seen you look so pale."
Asad squinted at her. "Me neither. Not since that first night, when – " Haidar waved him into silence, but it was too late.
The night Fakhri died was uppermost in her mind, as it was in theirs.
Anahita fought to keep her breathing even. "There is a man in my bed. An amorous one." She couldn't suppress a shudder.
"There can't be," Asad scoffed. "We've been sitting here all night. No one could have gotten past us and into your tent without us seeing him. You must have imagined him."
It wouldn't be the first time she'd imagined such a thing, and they all knew it. Her memories sometimes rose up so strong, it would take all three of them to banish them back to the past, where they belonged. But she hadn't known this man – all he'd had in common with her long-dead husband was his mighty erection, and his unwelcome presence in her bed.
Anahita lifted a shaky finger and pointed at the tent. "Then you go in there. And tell me what you see, for I will not sleep in that tent unless I know my bed is empty."
Haidar led the way. "Real or imaginary, I will remove him. Asad will help, as he's so certain no one could have gotten past him."
Anahita folded her arms across her chest and stood by the fire, watching the men enter the tent.
The brazier silhouetted them against the tent wall as they leaned down, then came up with a third man between them.
A sob escaped from her lips, before she got hold of herself.
Then she blinked, and three men became two. The mystery man had vanished.
"How dare you!" a thin, reedy voice screeched. "The girl herself invited me into her bed! For laying hands on me, I shall have you executed!"
Faster than any frog should, the creature leaped across the sand and back into the oasis with an audible plop, still grumbling about faithless women, jealous men and methods of execution.
Haidar emerged from the tent, looking disgruntled. "He was here, and we lifted him off your bed, but then it felt like he slipped through my fingers, and now he is gone. Almost as though we all imagined him." Haidar held out his hand. "But my hand is wet – look!" Moisture shone in the firelight.
"The cushions have wet spots, too, look." Asad stuck his head out of the tent flaps and held out a cushion.
"I spilled a bucket of water. It probably splashed on them," she said, but not even she believed her own words.
Instead, she turned over Philemon's words in her mind. A cursed prince. He might not be a prince, but there was something magical about him. Magic that had made him into a man, if only for a moment.
And on the morrow, she would insist he tell her the whole story of how it happened. That would make the unwanted journey go faster.
"Well, if he's gone, I'm going to bed," she said, and the two men moved aside to allow her entry. Sleep came surprisingly swiftly to her that night.
Eighteen
Philemon sat in the water for a long time, seething. How dare those barbarian boys lay hands on him – a prince? If it had been the girl, he might have forgiven her – she was pretty enough to suit his tastes, and for that one glorious moment, he'd been human again. Desire had flared in her eyes for that moment, too. He hadn't imagined it.
But those men had ruined everything when they seized him and he'd turned back into a frog. He'd watched them from the water, and he was certain neither was her husband. She moved too freely for a wed woman. The easy familiarity between all three of them was the sort he'd known among the city guards before his father had died and he'd claimed the crown. Like brothers. They could be her brothers, though she was tiny compared to them. The child of a second wife, perhaps.
When all three of them retired to the same tent, he was certain of it. Two older brothers, protecting their younger sister. An untamed girl who was more than old enough to wed, but had not yet been taught the proper decorum for a married woman. Her husband would see to that, he was sure of it. The men of the desert demanded much of their wives.
He'd had concubines like her. Girls their fathers could not find suitable marriages for, so they'd been given to him as part of the price for the hospitality of Tasnim. Girls who had taken to Tasnim like ducks did to water, for Tasnim was different to other desert cities.
A city he had to save at any cost, or he had no right to call himself its prince.
He could wait in the oasis for a proper caravan, but who knew how long that would take? These three were the first travellers he'd seen sinc
e he took up residence here, and he had delayed long enough already.
He'd struck a bargain with the girl, wild though she was, and something told him she would honour it. But just in case she changed her mind, he would find a place among their things to stow away. The half-filled water bucket outside her tent seemed the most sensible place, he decided, when the night air had cooled the sands enough for him to hop across the camp to investigate.
He settled in the bucket to doze until dawn.
Nineteen
Avian shrieks and swearing woke Anahita from a sound sleep. She did some swearing of her own as she stuck her head out of the tent into the pre-dawn light, where Merlin appeared to be fighting with the water bucket.
"Surrender, foul foe, or I shall drown you!" came the reedy voice of Philemon.
Merlin's head appeared to be stuck in the bucket. She flapped her wings, lifting herself and the bucket a short distance off the ground, before dropping again.
"I do not jest, minion of hell!"
Anahita strode over to rescue them both. She stuck her hand in the bucket and pulled out the frog, who had his tiny arms around Merlin's head. Again. Sighing, she pried them loose. Merlin flapped away with an indignant squawk, shaking off water.
Anahita lifted the frog up so she could look him in the eye. "You're a troublemaker, aren't you?"
The frog puffed up in indignation. "I am a troublemaker? What about that dishonourable demon of a bird, attacking a man in his sleep, no less! I was merely defending myself! Why, if I but had my sword…"
"You have a frog-sized sword? I'd like to see that," Anahita interrupted.
Could a frog glare? She suspected that's what he was doing.
"A sword fit for a prince, from before I was cursed," he said stiffly. "Of course."
"Of course," she repeated. "Are you sure you want to ride with us, seeing as I travel with Merlin?"
He drew himself up. "I am on a quest to save my city from the witch who cursed me. If you had a hundred such birds, I would still fight every one of them in order to succeed at my quest. I am a prince!"
"So you keep saying," Anahita said.
"You saw my princely magnificence with your own eyes last night. How can you doubt me?"
She burst out laughing. "Princely magnificence? Is that what you call a naked man where you're from? I'm not sure what I saw last night. You're no normal frog, but whether you are truly a frog or a man, I do not know." She thought for a moment, then added, "But no matter what you are, I am certain you will prove an amusing travel companion. You may ride with me today, and tell me all about your quest and the city you wish to save."
The frog executed a bow, or at least he tried to. "It would be my pleasure."
Twenty
Anahita refused to allow Philemon to ride in a bucket on the back of her camel, where he would be a terrible temptation for her bird, or so she said, so she and Philemon reached a compromise. He rode in the neck of a half-filled water bag that was strapped in front of her saddle.
"I feel like a wax stopper," he complained.
Veiled against the sand, still she brought her hand to cover her mouth as she giggled. "Most stoppers don't have eyes. Nor are they small enough to slip inside the water bag if Merlin decides she wants to attack you again."
He glanced around, but he could not see the murderous bird. "Where is the creature?"
"She's riding with Asad on the lead camel. Leaving me free to listen to your tales while we travel. So, tell me about your quest, Philemon the frog."
There was little to tell yet, for it had just started. "Have you ever been to Tasnim?" he asked.
She shook her head, sending ripples through the white fabric of her veil. It was too big for her – more suited to one of the men she travelled with than a delicate young woman. No wonder she took it off in camp. "This would have been my first time, but the gates were closed to us."
Her first journey away from her people, Philemon guessed. Then he registered the rest of her words – the gates of the city were closed. He breathed a sigh of relief. No one would loot the place in his absence. Good.
"Until the oasis where you found me formed, Tasnim was the only water source for miles in any direction. An underground citadel in the desert, impregnable and impossible to besiege." He smiled. He was right to be proud of his city. "No one knows who built the first tunnels, but it was used in times of war and the ancients kept a permanent garrison there. Some of the city's present day residents are descended from those soldiers." Even him, for the city's princes had sometimes taken brides from the city people instead of looking further afield, as Philemon had.
"We saw no sign of soldiers. No sign of anyone, actually, no matter how loudly Haidar knocked at the door."
A barbarian girl and her brothers could not afford Tasnim's hospitality, though it was likely there had been no one left in the city to offer it this time.
"They must have fled the curse," Philemon said. "But had they not, they still might not have opened the gates. The price for Tasnim's hospitality is high. Why, I have known men who have sold their daughters to pay the price."
Her eyes – the only part of her face he could see – narrowed. "Perhaps that is why the witch cursed you and your city. Hospitality is one of the sacred laws of the desert."
She was painfully close to the truth, and yet so far from it, too. "We offered her our hospitality, including apartments in my own palace, for a price that should have been a trifle for someone with magic. Yet she refused to cast the spell. She tried to hold us to ransom."
"Did she turn everyone into frogs? Or just you?"
Anahita was observant. Too observant. "Just me. My people…she let them leave, unharmed."
"So you offended the witch somehow. You must have been particularly rude for her to transform you. I've only heard of a few enchantresses who are capable of such complicated magic, and they would need a really good reason to do it. What did you do, Philemon the frog?"
"Why must I be guilty? Perhaps the enchantress envied me the wealth of Tasnim, and wished to take the city for herself!" Philemon said.
Those narrowed eyes did not believe a word of it. "Perhaps. What sort of wealth did Tasnim have? It just looked like a pile of rocks in the desert to me."
"Have you seen the Sultan's palace in the capital?" Philemon didn't wait for her answer. "Tasnim outshines it tenfold. Maybe more. Even the common people's houses have costly mosaics on the walls. In my own palace, no wall or ceiling is unadorned. Every ruler throughout history has commissioned artwork to commemorate their reign, some of which are in the palace, but many are in the city itself. Why, my great grandmother, the Regent Princess Khurshid, had the ceilings of all the public meeting chambers painted to resemble the sky at different times of day. Dusk and dawn, midnight, noon…ah, the work is exquisite. Even now, gazing up at them, one might think they were standing in the open air, instead of beneath a thick layer of stone."
"So you live in a state of perpetual night underground?" she asked.
"On the upper levels of the city, close to the surface, there are air and light wells that let in sunlight during the day. But everywhere there are lamps, so the city is ablaze whenever light is needed. It is not as bright as the desert sun at noon, but only a madman would wish to be out in such heat!"
This did not seem to impress her at all. "So men sell their daughters into slavery so that you might have light?"
"There are no slaves in Tasnim. No…the girls are given as gifts, and I take them into my harem as concubines," Philemon said.
If anything, this only seemed to anger her further, as her eyebrows descended even lower. "Oh, and being forced to warm your bed is better than slavery."
Forced? He'd never forced a woman in his life! His concubines had come willingly to his bed. Had she forgotten what he looked like? He had no need to force women!
"My concubines were always appreciative of my attentions," he snapped.
"I'm sure they had little choice in the mat
ter. A concubine who doesn't have her master's favour has little power in a harem, and he may discard her at will. So of course she will lie through her teeth if she has to, just to keep the place she has."
For a girl so young, she seemed to have excessively strong opinions about life in a harem.
"You know nothing about my concubines!"
Her eyes blazed. "No, YOU know nothing about them. My mother was a concubine, and I grew up in the harem. Saw how they were treated. So don't tell me your concubines were happy, with wives lording it over everyone, knowing you could be cast aside at the merest whim, and there was nothing you could do about it!"
Perhaps in whatever desert sheikh's harem she had grown up in, but not in a civilised city like Tasnim. "I had no wives, and as my concubines, the girls who were given to me were under my protection. Unless they chose to marry men of the city. Then their husband became their protector. But some girls preferred the harem, for it was all they had ever known. Nida had learned to play every musical instrument she could lay her hands on, and her voice soared above them all, like an angel come to Earth. If she had to choose between a husband and her harp, she would pick the harp."
Anahita's eyes widened. "You didn't touch your concubines?"
It would have been easier to say he hadn't, but he refused to lie to her, even to protect her obvious innocence about the real ways of the world.
"I lay with those who wished it. Two in particular, Zareen and Simin, were skilled in the arts of love, and took great pleasure in practicing those arts. Why, they knew things I'd never heard of…" His mind wandered as he remembered nights spent with Zareen or Simin, or, on rare occasions, both girls together. He sobered when he realised he would probably never see them again. They would be welcomed as courtesans in any court, and never return to him or Tasnim. Finally, he said, "But you don't want me to talk about concubines." He didn't want to think of them, now, either. Or all that he had lost.
"You're less amusing than I had hoped, Philemon the frog," she said frostily.
Kiss- Frog Prince Retold Page 6
