A Sulta's Ransom

by White, Loreth Anne

  “Paige?”

  She said nothing. She left him sitting on the blanket and crossed the courtyard, scrambled up stairs and climbed up to the parapet. She placed her hands on the stone wall, looked out over the moonlit plains and let the evening breeze wash the emotion from her face.

  And suddenly he was behind her, arms around her, mouth under hair at her shoulder, breath in her ear.

  Her legs turned boneless in spite of herself.

  “Damn you, Rafiq,” she whispered. “Please, leave me alone. I—” Her voice cracked. She pulled away, kept her face turned to the desert, not wanting him to see the tears escaping her eyes.

  “Paige, I know what you’re thinking. I want more, too. I want you in a way I haven’t been able to have a woman. Ever.”

  He turned her round to face him. “Do you understand what I’m saying? I want you with my heart, my mind, my body and my soul. I’ve never done that before. Not even with Nahla.” He lifted her chin. “I am a virgin in that sense, Paige,” he whispered. “And I think you might just be, too.” His eyes gleamed with emotion in the moonlight. Her warrior had tears of his own. Her heart squeezed tight.

  He brought his lips close to hers. “Do you care about me at all?”

  Tears streamed faster down her face. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, half wondering if this was just one of his seduction techniques.

  “Then,” he whispered over her mouth, “it could be a first for both of us.” He allowed his lips to feather hers, and her legs went limp. “Maybe you could guide me a little,” he murmured.

  That did it. Heat speared through her belly, snapping her control, melting her fears, blinding all thought. She reached up and threaded her fingers into his thick hair, pulled him down to her, hard, her mouth finding his.

  His lips pressed over hers, his energy unleashing, furious, ravaging, his tongue searching, thrusting deep. It made her ache desperately for more. She leaned her body into his, her hands moving up the strong column of his neck. He groaned, his tongue thrusting deeper as he lifted her skirt, his hand finding her thighs, stroking the insides, his calloused fingers rasping against her tender skin. She moved against him, needing him. All of him.

  He found her panties, pulled them roughly aside. Her head swam. “Rafiq…I want…”

  He kissed her harder, his tongue aggressively silencing her, melting her.

  She moved her leg to give him access, felt his hand hot against her wetness, his palm rough, his fingers searching, slipping. She moaned, leaned onto him, tasting the salt of his mouth as beard stubble rasped hard against her cheeks.

  His palm rubbed against her, hard. Her insides coiled like a spring, vibrating energy through her, explosive, breathless. She thought of the armies coming, of dawn, the bombs…so little time. He drew her down to the ground, lifted her skirt up above her hips, parted her thighs to the moonlight. She was hot. Wet. Ready. More ready than she’d ever been in her life.

  And she knew she—they—might never live to do this again. They might not make it through the mountains. He might not survive a battle with Sadiq. And even if she did lose him, even if she did die, she’d have had something worth living for… She arched her back and lifted herself to him, and she felt him enter her. Thick. Hot. He took her on those crumbling castle walls—a warrior, rhythmically driving into her, an act as old as time.

  And no less urgent…as the clock ticked against them.

  Chapter 12

  02:13 Charlie, Asir Mountains, Saturday, October 4

  Rafiq opened her pale thighs and sank himself into her slick heat, driving himself higher and higher, her skin smooth against his hips, heating under his friction, until the delirium of sweet hot pain shattered through him in violent release.

  His fingers dug hard into her back as he shuddered into her. She bucked under him and cried out—one low scream into the desert night as her body dissolved into a ripple of hot contractions around him. The sound of her cry flushed an owl out of the crumbling turrets up high. It fluttered above them, the shadow of its wingspan crossing the moon as it swooped down to the plains in search of prey.

  They lay there, atop the stone wall, staring at the sky, fingers laced, utterly content. Words were not possible, and they were not needed. They were too simple a form of communication at a time like this that felt so oddly profound to Rafiq. He’d never felt more complete than at this moment, with this woman lying in his arms. And never more ready to complete what he had to do.

  He studied the stars, feeling her body rise and fall against his as she breathed. Dawn would be leaking into the sky soon, and their moment would be broken. Would they ever have one like it again?

  The notion of the future hung over him, heavy and ripe with both promise and threat. He closed his eyes, breathed a sigh.

  “We must go, Paige.”

  She nodded.

  Rafiq saddled the camels while she rolled up the blankets and filled the goatskin water bags. He placed his hand on her shoulder. “You sure you’re ready?”

  She stilled, looked up into his eyes. “As ready as I’ll ever be.” She glanced at the camels, then back at him. “Let’s go finish this, shall we?”

  He grinned, took her hand. And he knew from that moment they were a unit. They’d shared the deepest of bonds, and whatever happened, that tie would strengthen them on the road ahead. But it would be a dangerous road, and a long one. He hoped the bond would hold.

  She lifted the swollen goatskins, carried them over to the camels. Rafiq watched her—the way her hair rippled over her shoulders, the way her skirt swished around her ankles making the bells chink. And a claw suddenly clutched his heart. What he had just gained, he also stood to lose.

  He felt his jaw grit and a slow burn ignite down low in his stomach. He loved again. And with the blossoming of that realization inside him, came the rawness of soul that Rafiq knew made him dangerous.

  God help anyone who stood in his way this time.

  In the crisp dark hours of the dawn, they left the castle walls and began to climb the arduous trail—two spectral black-robed figures on camels—quietly picking their way through sharp rock and dry soil, leaving the ruins far below them.

  The sun started to rise over the Empty Quarter, behind the mountains, etching the peaks into a ragged line against the brightening sky. The air grew hot.

  Paige’s mouth turned dry. Her back began to ache. They were entering a precipitous patch where the stones were small and loose, and each step her camel took sent a small avalanche skittering down into the crevices. One slip, and she’d be gone.

  She tried not to look down, to focus instead on Rafiq’s solid form. But it didn’t quell her growing anxiety as they got higher and the path grew narrower. She held the braided reins tighter, her body growing more and more tense until she was feeling something akin to immobilizing panic.

  She stopped the camel in an effort to regain her composure. She knew that half the battle when it came to doing things like this was in the mind. She concentrated on trying to breathe.

  Rafiq halted ahead of her. “What’s up? You okay?”

  She nodded, her mouth dry as the pale sand she was sending down the mountain.

  “You sure?”

  “I…I’m fine. I just lost my nerve there for a minute.”

  He waited, patient, until she lifted the reins, nudged the camel, and began to move again. “Talk to me while you ride,” he said. “It’ll help take your mind off the drop. No one to hear us for miles up here.”

  She laughed nervously, trying not to look down. “What do you want me to talk about?”

  “I don’t know…your parents, maybe? You haven’t told me what it was like to grow up like that, you know, never going to a proper school, living in the jungle.”

  He was doing his best, but she really didn’t want to talk about her parents. Her parents made her think about loss in relation to love…about the possibility of losing Rafiq. Because she would lose him. Even as she thought about it now, she k
new a future with him could not be possible. Or was she subconsciously shutting out that possibility because of her past, her fear of abandonment? Here she was self-analyzing again, shutting down emotionally again. Because she was afraid.

  She was afraid to let go of that last little nail grip she had on herself and let herself tumble freely down into love.

  “Tell me about the Congo,” he called over his shoulder.

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel good?”

  “Maybe you need to talk, too, Paige. Maybe I also want to know you better.”

  She swallowed, taking her mind back seventeen years, to the time she was fifteen…to sitting in a huge tent, the air thick as warm soup, bugs bumping on the canvas and mosquito netting. She was doing her homework and it was going to be dark soon, the sudden dark that fell like a black curtain in the jungle so near the equator.

  Paige gripped the reins tighter, took her mind further back, to the big fight. It was a memory that stuck out in her mind because she’d never heard her parents yell at each other like that—as if their lives were at stake if they did not get their respective points across.

  Her heart blipped. They had been at stake. She could see it now that her memory had context after what Rafiq had said about Nexus, Science Reach…Dr. Meyer. Paige ran through the sequence again, rewinding and replaying it like an old movie in her head. Her heart beat faster.

  “You still with me, Paige? You okay?”

  “I…yes…I was just remembering the fight my parents had before my father left for Brussels to see Dr. Meyer.”

  “And?”

  “It never had context for me before. It was just a bunch of yelling that scared the pants off me because my parents never went at each other like that.”

  “Do you remember anything about what they were saying?”

  “My mother was screaming at my father that his work didn’t belong to him. I had no idea what that was about, but I’m guessing now that he’d told her he wanted to defect from Science Reach, and publicize his work for proper peer review. I always thought she was furious…but now that I think about it, I believe she might have been really terrified. My dad was yelling that if he put the word out, nothing could happen to them, because the whole world would know.”

  Paige rocked on her camel, the movements becoming smoother, more hypnotic as the path widened a little. “I guess he didn’t listen to her. I guess that’s why she was so upset about his trip to Brussels,” she said more to herself than him.

  She lifted her chin. “I suppose it should encourage me that he had a conscience. But where does that leave my mother?”

  “Protective. Like a mother should be. Probably worried about you.”

  She smiled. He continued to surprise her. He made her feel good about herself.

  “How did your parents meet, anyway?” he asked.

  “They met in Manhattan. My father was there for a biochemical conference, and my mom was apparently in town doing a consulting job for an organization called the Venturion Corporation. It’s like a—”

  He halted his camel sharply, spun round. “I know what it is. It’s a high-powered think tank, a nonprofit institution supposedly designed to improve policy and decision-making through research and analysis.”

  “Yes, it’s—”

  “Paige,” he said, his eyes flashing hotly, “the Venturion Corporation counts top U.S. decision-makers as its clients. It funds high-powered political campaigns, helps shape U.S. policy. This could conceivably be the heart of the Cabal.” He got his phone out of his saddlebag, quickly punched in a number.

  “Sauvage,” he barked. “I’ve got an idea. Get the guys to check out the Venturion Corporation. See if you can find any links to Science Reach International, Nexus, BioMed—throw it all in the bag. Dr. Sterling’s mother did work for Venturion in Manhattan before—” He threw Paige a questioning glance.

  “Before she was given a research grant from Science Reach International, along with my father.”

  “—before the Sterlings were snapped up by Science Reach and sent into the jungle.”

  He signed off, pocketed his phone. “I think we might just be on to something.”

  Paige stared at him. She didn’t share his excitement. She felt profoundly unsure about how she should feel. These were her parents he was talking about. This was her intimate past. Their mysterious disappearance in that jungle shaped the scientist—the woman—she had become. She had tailored her entire life around searching for answers.

  And now that she was finally finding them, it was more unsettling than satisfying. It left her feeling stripped, her foundations gone. The most solid thing in her world right now was that man on his camel. And he didn’t belong to her.

  He belonged to a nation.

  For the first time, she wished he didn’t have to come back to Hamn. And she felt sick with selfishness because of it.

  They rounded a ridge as the sun exploded over the mountains in a crashing symphony of color that caused the landscape to burst into life. Shades of deep purple and gray rippled into nuances of ochre and dusty olive-green. Heat swelled instantly with the color, chasing heavier, cooler currents of air down to hide in deep, dark crevices.

  Paige caught her breath. It was as if some great giant had turned on the lights and fired the furnace. They rounded the next curve and Rafiq stopped. Spilling down the hillside in front of them was a tightly terraced patchwork of farmland. A path zigzagged between the pockets of land to a small stone house. A wisp of smoke curled up from the chimney.

  “I can’t believe people actually live up here. How do they manage to farm this stuff?”

  “It’s a hard life,” said Rafiq, studying the vista. “These mountain dwellers are a unique and tough breed. Many are exiles from a more mainstream life.”

  “I guess by hiding out in the mountains they can avoid Sadiq’s iron hand.”

  He studied her, a strange look in his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it, turned away, and nudged his camel on.

  Paige felt suddenly abandoned. She tried to shake the sensation, telling herself she was just tired. But it lingered like the cold air down in the crevices, hidden from the sun’s warmth.

  The sun was white-hot and at its zenith when they heard a helicopter in the mountains for the third time. The Royal Hamnian Air Force had joined the hunt. The first two helicopters had flown farther to the northeast, scanning the route through the saddle, where they’d originally planned to travel. This chopper was closer. They were broadening their search, circling out from the saddle.

  Rafiq raised his binoculars, scanned the hazy peaks for a sign of the helo. He figured he and Paige were at an elevation of around eight thousand two hundred feet now. The height and terrain and the midday glare of the sun would not be making it easy for the pilot. Then he saw the chopper, the size of a black gnat in his scopes. It grew rapidly in size, taking discernible form. This one was heading right their way.

  “Quick, we need to dismount.” He couched the camels with a sharp cluck of his tongue.

  The sound of the beating blades swelled into the gorge as the pilot found the trail they were on and began to follow its course.

  “Run, Paige,” he yelled as she slid from the saddle. He grabbed the ropes. “Get under that rock ledge up there!”

  Stones clattered down the mountain as she lifted her skirt and scrambled up the trail. He trotted after her, jerking the beasts behind him. They balked, growing more and more edgy and obstreperous as the sound of the chopper grew louder.

  Rafiq coaxed the camels under the overhang, squeezed himself in beside Paige, pulled the animals closer, using their sandy color as a shield. It was hot. The animals’ breath was heavy. He could smell the warm rock.

  Paige’s eyes were wide in the slit of her chador and as the helicopter neared, they remained steadily fixed on him.

  He slipped his arm around her, held her tight. He could feel her heart beat against his chest.

&
nbsp; The chopper hovered somewhere above them, then the machine began to lower slowly into the valley. The pilot must have seen something, decided to come down for a closer look.

  Waves of sound thudded into their shallow cave and beat deafeningly against their eardrums. The helicopter came lower and lower, stirring sand into a blinding blizzard. The camels jerked sharply, yanking the rope against their nose rings. Rafiq held them firmly, he pulled Paige’s head down against his chest, he tucked his chin into his neck and scrunched his eyes shut against the stinging sand.

  The chopper came lower still. Rafiq squinted sideways through the gap in his turban. He could see the skids. A few more inches and the pilot or his spotter would see them. He felt for Paige’s hand, pushed the camel ropes into her palm, wrapped her fingers over them, and squeezed, showing her that she had to hang on. He lifted his tunic, reached for his firearm. He slid it out of his holster, and held it ready.

  The chopper inched even lower. Rafiq fingered the trigger softly. He didn’t want to have to use the weapon. A downed chopper would pinpoint their location in seconds—via radio, smoke, explosion. They would never make it to the border.

  It hovered, moved slightly to the left, then back in front of their hide, then suddenly it veered up and lifted back up into the sky.

  Breath punched out of him. He blinked against the grit in his lashes, slipped his gun back into the holster and waited for the dust to settle. The clapping sound died gradually into the hills to the west, and his muscles eased.

  “Thank God,” she whispered.

  He looked into her kohl-rimmed eyes and the intensity there speared him in the gut.

  “Rafiq,” she whispered.

  “What is it?”

  “Will…will you just hold me a second, please?”

  Emotion rushed through him. He drew her tightly into himself, held her hard against his body, feeling her beating heart. “It’ll be okay, Paige.”