THE PLACE UNSETTLED him and mesmerized him at the same time. The same could be said about the woman sleeping next to him.
Karim watched her face in the light of the sole lamp they’d left burning. She had asked that they didn’t turn off all the lights, and he was fine with that.
She whimpered in her sleep. What she’d been through since she’d met him—a car explosion, a car chase, being shot at—would probably give her nightmares for years to come. He sincerely regretted that. He wanted nothing more than to keep her safe, her and her baby.
She whimpered again, but while he debated whether to wake her from the dream or not, she opened her eyes on her own and after a moment they focused on him.
“Bad dreams?” He willed himself not to move closer. He’d nodded off, too, when they first turned in, and had seen his own share of dark images of a fight to the death, blood and destruction.
“I dreamed about the city.”
“Baltimore?” It came as no surprise that she would be homesick.
But she shook her head. “The city drawn on the cave floor. I was running through the streets and people were chasing me.”
“Who?”
“I couldn’t tell. Dark figures. But I knew if they caught me, they would kill me.” Her voice weakened on the last words.
He did move closer then, but stopped short of taking her into his arms. “I would never let that happen.”
She still seemed shaken, and leaned toward him, looked up into his face. “Want to hear something strange? I had one of those robe dresses on.”
“An abaya?”
“Kind of, but it was a lot fancier. Kind of sheer.” She looked embarrassed as she said that. “And there were other people around, not a lot, but enough. I ran through some kind of a market. They were all looking at me.”
He reached to her face to smooth the hair out of her eyes, intending only to skim her cheek if that. But she reached up and held his palm to her skin.
“Karim—”
Her eyes were dark and large in the dim light, her face the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He wanted her, had wanted her from the first second he laid eyes on her. For a moment yet, he fought the overpowering pull. Then he gave up the fight and kissed her.
Her mouth was warm and soft. A brief brushing of his lips over hers wasn’t enough, just as skimming her cheek with his fingers hadn’t been enough. And in that moment when she opened for him, he knew with clarity that nothing would ever be enough but having her fully, forever. She would have to be his wife and her child his own.
He put all that into the kiss, hoping she felt it, too, hoping she wouldn’t put up too hard a fight while he tried to convince her.
She tasted like honey-cured figs, of which he’d had copious amounts in his childhood. Now, like then, he couldn’t get enough.
A deep fog of pleasure saturated his mind as he explored her mouth with his tongue, as he ran his fingers down her back, over her slender curves. His hand strayed to her abdomen, hesitantly, unsure how she would feel about that. But once again, she reached for him and held his palm over the life that was growing inside.
Something shifted behind his breastbone, and outside him, too, maybe. The air did seem to change in the cavern, hazier, thicker, as if some sort of an enchantment had descended over the pool and the flat plateau next to it where they had set up their sleeping bags.
He could almost swear he could smell the flowers drawn on the rock, and could hear the chirping of birds over the sounds of the waterfall that seemed quieter than earlier. An illusion, no doubt, because at the moment Julia was filling all his senses.
Their clothes seemed to fall away without much effort. There was not an awkward moment, not a doubt in him, just the sure knowledge that this was it, she was it, this was right.
When he moved over her, she parted her lean thighs with a smile, sighed in contentment as he tasted every inch of her skin. Time lost meaning. He spent a couple of years with her enlarged breasts that seemed extra sensitive.
Then out of all that easy pleasure a sense of urgency began to grow, and her body opened for him, accepted all of him, surrounded him with tight heat. They moved together to the sound of the water, swallowing each others’ moans.
When her body contracted around him, he felt more than just his control shatter. They floated away on twin tides of bliss and satisfaction to a place from which he never wanted to return.
THEIR PASSIONATE lovemaking had been, in many ways, like a dream. Julia was still under its effects the next day, could barely believe it had been real as she was waited for a ray of light to penetrate the cavern’s darkness.
The lights were off, so as to more easily spot the arriving sunlight. They talked. About the statues and old religions, about everything but what had happened in the night. And she was grateful for the darkness that made it impossible for Karim to see her face.
They had made love. And something between them had changed.
She wasn’t going to ignore that. Ignoring never made any problems go away. But she needed some time to gather her thoughts. She was about to address the issue when Karim announced that the daylight was pretty much gone outside. And since there had been no light coming in, that meant that there were no cracks in the rock above them, no ancient, hidden signal to show them any new clues. They should be going back.
“Back, back? To Tihrin?” Relief flooded her. The cavern seemed different today. Colder. Darker. Somehow ominous. She’d gotten the distinct feeling that they had outstayed their welcome. When Karim slid into the pool, she didn’t waste any time following him.
“It’s more comfortable driving at night. The air is much cooler.” He grabbed on to her hand and ducked under.
She followed him.
The way back was a lot easier than their way in, the current pushing them forward. She was breaking surface in less than a minute.
She got out and walked toward their equipment, intended to help him pack, but he stayed in the pool. “Are you bringing the idols over?”
“Just our things.” He paused for a moment. “I think we should leave the idols here.”
And strangely, some of the tension she’d been struggling with all day suddenly lifted. “Good idea.” She felt that without a doubt. Now that she’d seen the idols, she didn’t think they should bargain with them. They would have to come up with a new plan.
“Take a break. I’ll be back in a minute.” Karim slipped under the water.
She put her pants back on and borrowed a dry shirt from his bag then began picking up his tools, thinking about the strange night and strange day they had spent here. She could see their truck in the moonlight, parked in front of the cave’s mouth exactly where they had left it.
She wasn’t about to try and lift any of the larger crates, but she figured she could take small things over—a coil of rope, a couple of lamps. But when she put her hand on the truck’s door handle, it wouldn’t give.
Karim would be here in a minute.
But then a hand grabbed her shoulder from behind, and someone spoke harsh words near her ear she didn’t understand, in a voice that was definitely not Karim’s.
Chapter Ten
They dragged her aside, out of sight of the cave’s opening, and Julia could see the beat-up Jeeps now, two of them, filled with enough dents and scratches to make her think they’d seen their share of desert battles.
“Julia?” Karim was calling for her from the cave.
The hand that stunk like tobacco tightened around her mouth, half covering her nose, too, making it difficult to breathe. She struggled only briefly before she felt something cold at her temple and gave up.
“Listen, I think—” Karim fell silent when he came into view. He went completely still, taking in the situation.
She had a pretty good idea what he saw. Her with a gun to her head and who knew how many men behind her. They hadn’t allowed her to turn around.
The man who held her spoke in rapid Arabic. Karim did
n’t respond, but his face was getting darker with every passing second.
Since her captor still wouldn’t let her mouth go, she couldn’t say anything. She tried to communicate with her eyes. Do something. Don’t mind the gun. Don’t let them take us.
And for a moment, she saw Karim’s muscles bunch, his powerful body shifting smoothly into a warrior’s stance. More guns were cocked behind her. Her captor pressed the barrel of his gun to her skin so hard it hurt. People shouted.
Karim still hadn’t said a word. But she could tell when he made his decision, a shadow shifting across his good eye. She did her best to groan out a No! as he lifted his arms to the side in a sign of surrender.
Two men came from behind her, carefully, rifles aimed at his heart. One strode behind him and shoved the rifle into the middle of his back, hard. Karim swayed, but two more slams were needed before the guy could send him to the ground, to his knees.
The other guy took Karim’s car keys, and moved to his truck with two other men to search through it. They had probably already searched the cave. Ransacking the truck took them only a few minutes. When they came back, angry that they hadn’t found what they were looking for, they wrestled Karim’s hands behind his back and tied them.
Another strode into her view, an older man, his gray beard reaching to his paunchy abdomen. His robe was made of a finer material than the others’, stark black, his bearing measured, despite the fact that his face was red with rage. He directed most of it at Karim and barked questions at him, one after the other, angered even further when Karim wouldn’t respond.
At last, the man gave up and stepped toward Karim, fingered his wet hair and shouted something. Two guys ran up from behind her and disappeared into the cave.
At the same time, the men who held her thrust her forward, shoved her into the back of one of the cars. And she could finally see all the men, dressed in traditional robes and a full headdress, leaving nothing but their eyes showing.
Her hands, which had been simply twisted behind her, were getting tied now. Tight enough for the rope to scratch off some skin.
Shouts came from the cave, Arabic words she didn’t understand. Then all the men ran in there, save two that stayed to guard them, their rifles aimed to shoot. Karim remained silent, and she followed his example. Twenty minutes passed and her arms began to ache from the unnatural angle the ropes twisted them into.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the cave, waiting for the men to return, growing more and more uneasy when they didn’t. Another twenty minutes passed. She became certain now that the men had found Karim’s ropes and followed them to the pagan sanctuary on the other side of the underwater passage.
When the first man came out of the cavern with wet clothes, her heart sank. Then came the next and the next, the old man walking out last, cradling two idols in each arm like a mother cradling two sets of twins. But instead of love, hate burned in the man’s eyes.
One of his men ran to him with a brown sack and he transferred the statues, his gaze scathing when he looked at Julia and Karim. Then he gave a brief order to his men and got into the first car. Karim was dragged over and shoved into the backseat.
“Whatever happens, I’m going to find you,” he called back, and that earned him a smack with a rifle in the back of the head.
The car she was in followed the first. That was good. They were going somewhere together. But she had few illusions, knew they were in the hands of murderers.
She spent the first half hour of the ride in sheer panic, and it wore her out fast. She had to get a grip. Maybe she could distract herself by taking stock of the situation.
They’d been captured. But they hadn’t been hurt. Yet.
Maybe the old man had a special plan. That didn’t bode well for them. Or maybe the people who captured them wanted information on the fifth idol and thought Karim and she knew about it. She blanched at the thought of what they would be willing to do to get it.
She had nothing but the clothes on her back, no weapons. She could only guess the same about Karim. Her hair, too, was still damp from the pool, her braid unraveled. The water dripping from it had soaked her shirt. But the air was hot enough to dry it in another few minutes. And none too soon. She didn’t miss the way the men were eyeing her top as it clung to her breasts.
The thin material didn’t leave much to the imagination. Probably the reason they hadn’t bothered to search her. It would have been great luck if she’d had anything, even a paring knife, but unfortunately she had nothing.
Which meant if she were to get her hands on a weapon it had to come from someplace else. Like her captors. She spent the rest of the trip surreptitiously observing them.
Three men were in the truck with her. Three with Karim, plus the leader with the idols. Another man drove the delivery truck behind them. They were all armed as far as she could tell, with AK-47s and knives. She didn’t think she was ready to handle a rifle just yet, but if the chance presented itself to get her hands on a knife, she would take it.
The drive seemed to last hours. The sun was getting high on the sky, the heat nearly unbearable even with the breeze moving through the doorless Jeep. She felt faint, her lips parched, sand gritting between her teeth by the time she spotted a town on the horizon.
Hope rose in her suddenly, strong and fierce. They were going into civilization. She’d been afraid that they’d be taken to the middle of the desert and summarily executed. But in a town, people would see them. Someone would recognize the sheik. Someone would help. She tried to swallow, to wet her mouth, getting ready to scream her head off as soon as they got within hearing distance of anyone.
Which happened later than she’d expected. The town had been farther than it seemed, the flat, homogeneous sand throwing off her sense of distance.
First she could make out the buildings in greater detail. They must have been approaching on the slum side. The houses were made of mud, in places nothing more than a fraying piece of carpet serving as a roof. Poverty and a general lack of caring was stamped over everything she saw.
Then the people finally came into view. She leaned forward, caught sight of the unfriendly faces, the hard glares. Ninety percent seemed to be men, only a handful of cowed women here and there in frayed abayas who kept their heads down, not daring to meet anyone’s eyes.
She had a bad feeling here, something that made her keep her mouth shut. Everyone they passed was armed to the point of overdoing it, ammunition belts hanging off them like garlands from Christmas trees.
The men in the Jeep with her tensed, too, and made sure their own weapons were displayed and their fingers on the trigger. They drove through narrow, winding streets where sewage ran openly, the stench unbearable. The few children she saw looked around either with vacant eyes or scared expressions, most of them with scars over their small bodies.
The heat and the smell were nearly too much to bear. If her hands weren’t tied behind her back, her palms would have been over her mouth. As it was, she tried to breathe as shallow as she could.
They drove through a busy market and for a few minutes she lost sight of the other car. Then she breathed a sigh of relief when their Jeep came to a halt in front of a large, disheveled building, and she spotted the other vehicle already there. Empty.
“Out.” One of the men shoved her roughly, and she tumbled to the sand.
“Please. You don’t have to hurt me. I’ll go.” She was afraid of what they would do to her, afraid not only for herself but for her baby.
The man shoved her again, this time through the doorway, then up the stairs, shoved hard even though she had sped her steps. She was pushed down a long hallway, then into a tiny, dingy room with bars over the glassless window. Then the door slammed shut behind her, and she could hear the lock sliding into place.
She waited for Karim. When a few minutes passed and they didn’t bring him, she went to the window and looked out over the busy market. A few stands sold food. Most of them openly displayed weapons a
nd what looked like used electronics. Stolen merchandise most likely.
Another ten minutes passed before she was willing to consider that Karim might not be coming. They had been separated. And she had no idea where he was, what they were doing to him. She didn’t even know for sure that he was still alive.
THE REST OF THE DAY passed frustratingly slow for Julia, nothing happening but an old woman bringing her water. She had begged for help, to be told where Karim was, for food. The woman looked right through her with the vacant stare of a drug addict. She wasn’t impressed by the plight of a foreigner. She looked like she would sell her own daughter for another hit—probably already had.
And she had nothing beyond the water jar, nothing Julia could have taken from her and used as a weapon. But at least she had some water, which she drank greedily, and one piece of new information. There was a guard in front of her door. She heard someone lock the woman in with her, then unlock the door again when the woman knocked to signal that she was ready to leave.
When the sun went down, two men came in, bringing an oil lamp with them. The one with the gray beard she already knew; he had put on a strange headpiece, looking like a leader of some religion. The other looked like all the other men she’d seen as they’d driven through town, a bandit through and through, but better dressed than most.
The old man watched her with naked hate in his small black eyes. The other one measured her up with some interest. She drew back, all the way to the wall, unsure which one to be more afraid of.
The old one spoke first, harshly, spit flying from his mouth, and made one decisive hand signal she couldn’t interpret. The other one kept examining her thoughtfully.
The old man spoke again. The bandit responded this time. Rage contorted the old man’s face, his full attention on his buddy now, as he protested. Seemed like they were in some sort of a disagreement about what to do with her.
Desert Jewels & Rising Stars Page 91
