Chosen for His Desert Throne

by Caitlin Crews

  Anya’s heart was picking up speed again, but this time, without all the other telltale signs that she was descending into a panic attack. Because she wasn’t.

  She recognized the heat. And what felt an awful lot like need, curling inside her, like flame.

  It had been there from the moment she’d first seen him. And now, buffed and plucked and polished to please, she understood that it had been for him as much as for her. She’d felt pretty in her mirror.

  But when Tarek looked at her, she felt alive.

  It was crazy. Maybe she was crazy. At the very least, she needed to leave this country and sort out what had happened to her—and how she felt about it—far, far away from the very dungeon where she’d been held all this time. This was likely nothing more than PTSD.

  But tell that to the softest part of her, that melted as she sat there.

  “You appear to be filled with questions,” she said. Less flirtatiously, to her credit.

  “I have spent a long year as a man of action, primarily,” he said, and she made a note to look up the coup he’d mentioned. And what he’d done to combat it when his brother had been involved. “But I have always found that intellectual rigor is the true measure of a person. For without it, what separates us from the beasts?”

  Anya forgot the plates piled high before her. “Some would say a soul.”

  “What would you say?”

  She was dimly aware that they were not alone. That the ambassador and his aides were still at the same table, sharing the same meal. But she couldn’t have said where they were seated. Or what they were talking about. Or even what any of them looked like.

  It was as if there was only Tarek.

  “I think that when everything is taken from you, what’s left is the soul,” she said quietly. “And it is up to you if that sustains you or scares you, I suppose.”

  There was a different, considering light in his gaze then. “What did you find, then?”

  Something in her trembled, though she knew it wasn’t fear. But it was as if some kind of foreboding kept her from answering him, all the same. Instead, she made herself smile to break the sudden tension between them. She reminded herself that they were not alone in this room, no matter how it felt.

  And that he might have told her that he intended to be honest, but that didn’t make it true. He was a very powerful, very canny king who had proved that he was more than capable of holding on to his throne, the ambassador had told her earlier.

  “He is not to be underestimated,” the man had said.

  Anya spread open her hands, shrugging. “Here I am. I suppose that means that I found a way to sustain myself, whatever it took.”

  Tarek lifted the glass before him, sitting back in his chair. He looked every inch the monarch. Currently indulgent, but with that severity lurking beneath.

  She should certainly not have found him remotely compelling.

  She told herself that of course she didn’t.

  Yet as the dinner wore on, she admitted privately that something about this man seemed to be lodged beneath her skin. She might have told herself it was simply because he was the first truly, inarguably beautiful man she’d seen since her ordeal had begun. But a glance around the table put paid to that idea.

  Because the ambassador’s men were all perfectly attractive. She could see that...but she didn’t feel it. Her body didn’t care at all about these bland men with their overly wide smiles and targeted geniality.

  But the brooding, dangerous Sheikh who could have them all executed with one of those tiny flicks of his finger made her pulse pound.

  Anya made a mental note to seek out psychiatric help the moment she returned to American soil.

  “We’re prepared to take you to the embassy tonight,” the ambassador said at the end of the meal. “You must be anxious to leave the palace behind.”

  His smile was slick and aimed directly at Tarek.

  Tarek looked faintly bored, as if these discussions were beneath him. “Dr. Turner is, of course, welcome to do as she pleases.”

  Anya thought that what would have pleased Dr. Turner the most would have been to remain full and happy again, without the unmistakable tension that filled the room. Especially because she doubted very much that any of the diplomats particularly cared about her feelings in this. She was a figure. A cause.

  She was tired of being something other than a woman.

  “I thought I made this clear before dinner,” she said, as if she was concerned that the ambassador had gotten the wrong end of the stick when she knew very well he hadn’t. “I’m not being held here. Not anymore.”

  Though it took everything she had in her not to look at Tarek when she said that, to see if that was actually true.

  “I know it suits you to think of me as your pet barbarian,” Tarek said to the ambassador, in a voice of silk and peril. “But I am nothing so interesting as a monster, I am afraid. Some things are regrettable mistakes, nothing more.”

  “Then there should be no trouble removing Dr. Turner from your custody,” Ambassador Pomeroy replied with a toothy smile. “The American people would breathe a little easier, knowing she was safe at last.”

  “That is entirely up to Dr. Turner,” Tarek replied. “As I have said.”

  Anya thought of her mobile, still on her bed back in her suite. She thought of the life that waited for her, in that phone and back in the States. Of the time she’d spent in Houston. Of her father.

  Mostly she thought of Tarek, the heat in his dark gaze, and the question he had yet to ask her.

  Because she knew he hadn’t forgotten. Neither had she.

  She picked up the linen napkin in her lap and dabbed gently at the corner of her mouth. “I would love to put the American people at ease. And I appreciate your assistance, Ambassador.” She smiled, as punctuation. Or performance, maybe. It was hard to tell with so much molten heat making her ache. “But I spent eight months locked beneath this palace. I’m going to spend at least one night sleeping like a princess before I go. It’s literally the very least this palace can do for me.”

  There were protestations. Some dire mutterings from the ambassador and far louder commentary from his aides. Still, eventually, they left her to the fate she was almost certain she already regretted choosing.

  Yet Anya didn’t open up her mouth and change that fate, even though she knew she could. And almost certainly should.

  When the palace staff retreated after the Americans had left, she found herself once again alone in a room with this obviously ruthless man who really should not have fascinated her the way he did.

  Especially when he took a long, simmering sort of look at her, setting fire to the quiet between them.

  “I take it your rooms are to your liking, then,” Tarek said, almost idly. “And though I am glad of it, surely you must be in a great hurry to resume your life. To see your family, your friends. To pick up where you left off eight months ago.”

  Anya felt that knot in her chest tighten a painful inch or two. “The funny thing about spending so long locked away is how little some things seem to matter, in the end. My friends are scattered all over the globe. I miss them, but we’re used to not seeing each other. And my life had become nomadic. I haven’t truly lived in a place since I left my last hospital job in Houston.”

  He was watching her almost too closely. “And your family?”

  “It’s only my father and his wife.” She could feel herself getting tighter, everywhere, and was horrified at the idea she might collapse into panic here. With him. “We aren’t close.”

  Anya didn’t want to talk to him about accommodations or her lonely little life. Not now they were alone. Not now he seemed looser as he sat there. Lazier, almost, though she did not for one second mistake that leashed power in him for anything else. She could feel it as if it was a third presence in the r
oom.

  She could feel it inside her, turning her to flame.

  Anya frowned at him. “Is that the question you wanted to ask me?”

  He laughed at that, as if it was funny, when she felt so sure that it was crucial that he ask her his question. That it was fate.

  But he was laughing. And Anya took the opportunity to ask herself what she was doing here. Why wasn’t she on her way to the American embassy right now? And if she really wanted to sleep in that glorious bed—which she truly did, after a prison cot—why wasn’t she up in that suite right now, continuing to pamper herself?

  Why was she sitting here next to Tarek, imprisoning herself by choice, as if he was cupping her between his palms?

  Worse still, she had the distinct sensation that he knew it.

  “It is more a proposition than a question,” he told her.

  And Anya did not need to let that word kick around inside her, leaving trails of dangerous sparks behind. But she didn’t do a thing to stop it. “Do you often proposition your former captives?”

  “Not quite like this, Doctor.” He didn’t smile then, though she thought his eyes gleamed. And she felt the molten heat of it, the wild flame. She thought she saw stars again, but it was only Tarek, gazing back at her. “I want you to marry me.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “MARRY YOU?” HIS suspicious doctor echoed.

  Notably not in tones of awe and gratitude, which Tarek would have expected as his due from any other woman not currently seeking asylum in the Canadian provinces.

  But then, that somehow felt to Tarek like confirmation that this woman was the correct choice for this complicated moment in Alzalam’s history. And for him, because she was...different. A challenge, when women had always been an afterthought at best for him.

  “It is an easy solution to a thorny problem.” He watched, fascinated, as a hint of color asserted itself on her fine cheeks. “I assume you acquainted yourself with the media coverage of your case before dinner.”

  Her color deepened. “I did not.”

  He lifted his brows. “Did you not? I find that surprising.”

  She moved her shoulders, but it was less a straightening, or even a shrug. It was more...discomfort, he thought. And he found he liked the idea that she was not immune to him, to this. That he was not the only one wrestling with entirely too much sensation.

  “I haven’t had access to the internet for a long time,” she said after a moment. “It seemed almost too much, really. I’m sure that will pass and I’ll find myself addicted to scrolling aimlessly again. Isn’t everyone?”

  Tarek did not allow himself the weakness of addiction. But he did not say this here, now. He liked, perhaps too much, that she had not raced off to look herself up. That the stories others told about her—and about him—had not been her first priority.

  That she was in no hurry to resume her old life could only support his proposition, surely.

  He should not have let that notion work in him like heat. “I assume your ambassador and his men shared with you that you have become something of a cause célèbre.”

  Anya didn’t meet his gaze. And though he hadn’t known her long at all, it was clear that looking away was not usual for this woman. She was all about her directness. She was forthright and pointed. A scalpel, not a soft veil.

  That, too, was its own heat inside him.

  “I don’t exactly know how to process the notion that anyone knows who I am,” she said after a moment. “I know some people enjoy being talked about like that, but I’m not one of them.”

  “Allow me to recap,” Tarek offered, sitting back in his chair so he would not indulge himself and touch her. Though he marveled at how much he wished to do so. “Because I did spend the evening catching up on the sad tale of the American doctor we so cruelly imprisoned here while handling a small, inconsequential revolution. After she illegally crossed our border.”

  Her gaze snapped to his then, and Tarek wondered why it was he preferred her temper when he would not have tolerated it from anyone else.

  “Careful,” she said softly. “The mocking tone doesn’t help your case.”

  “Forgive me. It is only that looking at you, it is hard to imagine that you suffered at all.” She looked too ripe. She glowed. She was... You must remain calm, he ordered himself, when he could not recall the last time he was not calm. Supernaturally calm, his brother had once claimed. It was only now that Tarek understood that had been a warning he should have heeded. “I know, of course, that is not the case.”

  “You’re always welcome to lock yourself away for eight months and see how you enjoy the experience.” Her smile was sharp. “I wonder how you’d look at the end of it.”

  He felt his lips curve despite himself. “Touché. Consider me adequately chastened.”

  Her smiled lost its sharpness. “You were telling me my story.”

  “Indeed. The fact is, while there was certainly interest in all the doctors disappearing that night, when the male doctors were returned but you were not, it created...consternation.”

  She looked amused. “Consternation?”

  “Concern,” he amended. “The news reports have been increasingly more frantic as time has gone on.”

  “I’m surprised the ambassador didn’t insist upon seeing me sooner, then.” Her gaze darkened. “Or at all.”

  “There is no possibility that the ambassador could have visited you before now,” Tarek assured her, not pleased with that sudden darkness. Not pleased at all. “At the best of times, the palace does not comment on internal matters and therefore, never confirmed nor denied that you were held here. And during the troubles, the palace was locked down completely. There was no access. Regrettably, what that meant was that as far as the world knew, you went into the same prison as your colleagues, then disappeared.”

  She toyed with the gleaming edge of her scarf. “That does sound dramatic.”

  “Had I been less preoccupied with putting down a coup and suffering through the very public trial of my own brother for high treason, I would have paid more attention to international headlines myself.”

  “I am moved, truly, by this non-apology.”

  Again, he found himself moved to smile when surely he should rage. “Alas, my focus was on putting my kingdom back together. That brings us to today and your immediate release once I learned of your incarceration.”

  “And your solution to this tale of the world’s cruel mischaracterization of your perseverance is...marriage?” Anya laughed, and even though Tarek knew the laugh was directed at him, he found himself...entertained. Or not furious, anyway, which amounted to the same thing. “Maybe you can explain to me why the King of Alzalam, who surely could marry anyone, would want to marry a woman he quite literally lifted out of a cell.”

  “It is practical,” he told her, though the heat in him was surely nothing of the kind. “You could not have suffered any great abuses here, could you, if you end up marrying me. Your experience will be seen as romantic.”

  “A romantic imprisonment.” Her tone was dubious. “I don’t think that’s a thing.”

  Tarek only smiled. “Is it not?”

  She flushed again, and he felt that too distinctly. Like her hands on him.

  He took pity on her. “Western audiences live for romantic love. They insert it into the most unlikely scenarios. You must know this is so. How many stalkers do you suppose are heralded as romantic heroes? I can think of dozens and I am no particular aficionado of your Western stories, no matter the media.”

  “I think you underestimate the difference between fiction and reality,” she replied, no longer looking or sounding the least bit flustered. “And hard as it might be for you to imagine, the average Western woman is perfectly capable of judging the difference between the two.”

  “But is the average Western journalist capable o
f the same?” Tarek shrugged. “I do not think so.”

  Anya nodded slowly, as if taking it all on board. “This is all a bit out of left field, but I understand where you’re coming from. It even makes a kind of sense. But what can you imagine is in it for me?”

  The answer should have been self-evident, but Tarek could not allow himself to dwell on the day’s indignities. “That is where it comes in handy that I am the King.”

  “I see that more as a detracting factor, to be honest, given my people gave up on kings in the seventeen hundreds.”

  “Ah, yes, the lure of independence. So attractive.” He waved a hand. “But this is not practical, Anya. You can find independence anywhere. Meanwhile, I am a very powerful, very wealthy man. A sheikh and a king who can, if I desire, make my wishes into law. Tell me what you want and I will make it so. Anything at all.”

  “For all you know I’m going to ask for a spaceship.”

  “Then one shall be built for you.” He bit back his smile. “Is that what you want? I assumed it would be more along the lines of wishing to practice medicine here in the capital city, even once you become Queen.”

  But to his surprise, she paled at that.

  He didn’t know quite how to feel about it when she blew out a breath, then met his gaze once more as if she hadn’t had that extreme reaction. “You say that as if a female doctor is as fantastical as a spaceship.”

  But Tarek found he liked her spiky voice better than watching her pale before him.

  “Alzalam is not in the Stone Age, Doctor,” he murmured. “No matter what foreign publications may imagine. We have a great many female doctors. But what we do not have, and never have had, are queens who work. Perhaps that is an oversight.”

  Anya huffed out another breath, as if she couldn’t comprehend that. “I have to tell you, of all the endings I imagined to my time in prison, talk of queens did not enter into it.”

  She was too pretty, he thought. And getting more so by the moment, to his mind. Because he liked her bold. He liked how little she seemed in awe of him. He could not deny that he also liked the hint of vulnerability he saw now.