Traded to the Desert Sheikh

by Caitlin Crews

  But he did not.

  “They approve my choice of bride and have offered us a place to stay,” he replied instead, his voice even. “More or less. It will not be a palace, but it will have to do.”

  She blinked as if he’d insulted her. Perhaps he had.

  “I’m not the one accustomed to palaces,” she reminded him, her voice still calm, though he could feel the edge in it as if it were a knife she dragged over his skin. “I keep telling you, I was only ever a princess in name. Perhaps you should be worried about how you’ll manage a night somewhere that isn’t drenched in gold and busy with servants to cater to your every need. I have slept under bushes while hiking across Europe, when it was necessary. I’ve camped almost everywhere. I will be fine.”

  He wanted to crush her in his arms. He wanted to take that mouth of hers with his, and who cared what was appropriate or who was watching or what he had to prove? He wanted to lose himself inside her forever. But he could do none of those things. Not here.

  Not yet.

  “I will also be fine, azizty,” he said, his voice blunt with all these things he wanted that he couldn’t have. Not now. “I grew up here.”

  * * *

  Kavian strode off and left Amaya standing there, all by herself in what was truly the middle of nowhere, as if he hadn’t dropped that bomb on her at all. He didn’t look back as he disappeared into a three-sided tent structure with a group of stern-faced men. He didn’t so much as pause.

  And for a wild moment, Amaya’s pulse leaped and she thought about running again now that she was finally out of his sight—but then she remembered where she was. There had been nothing, all afternoon. Nothing but the great desert in every direction, which she’d found she hadn’t hated as she’d expected she would. But that didn’t mean she wanted to lose herself in it.

  She had no idea how Kavian had located this place without a map today, just as she had no idea what he’d meant. How could he have grown up here? So far away from the world and his own palace? Her brothers had been raised in royal splendor, waited on by battalions of servants, educated by fleets of the best tutors from all over the world before being sent off to the finest schools. Amaya supposed she’d thought that all kings were created in the same way.

  It occurred to her, standing there all alone in the middle of the vast desert that Kavian was clearly bound to in ways she didn’t understand, that she didn’t know much about this man who had claimed her—even as he seemed to know her far too well. And better every day whether she liked it or not.

  You do like it, a small voice whispered. You like that he notices everything. You like that he sees you. But she dismissed it.

  Kavian had marched off with those men as if he was a rather more hands-on sort of king than her brother or father had ever been. Amaya assumed, when she shifted to see the women watching her from their place by the central fire, that she was meant to be the same sort of queen. No lounging about beneath palm trees eating cakes and honey, or adhering to the stiffly formal royal protocols in place at her brother’s palace. No disappearing into the tent that had been set aside for them and collapsing on the nearest fainting couch. All of those options were appealing, and were certainly what her own mother would have done in her place, but she understood that none of them would win her any admirers here.

  You run, she reminded herself. That’s who you are. Why not do that here? Or do the next best thing—hide?

  But she hated the notion that that was precisely what Kavian expected her to do. That he believed she really was some kind of fluttery princess who couldn’t handle herself. It was so infuriating that Amaya ignored the waiting tent, ignored what her own body was telling her to do. Instead, she made her way over to the group of women and set about making herself useful.

  When Kavian finally returned to the center of camp with that same cluster of men hours later, Amaya found she was proud of the fact that the evening meal was ready and waiting for him, as the encampment’s honored guest. It wasn’t the sort of feast he’d find served in his well-appointed salons, but she’d helped make it with her own hands. There was grilled lamb, a special treat because the king had come, and hot, fresh flatbread the women had made in round pans they’d settled directly in the coals. There was a kind of fragrant rice with vegetables mixed in. There were dates and homemade cheeses wrapped in soft cloths. It was far more humble than anything in the palace, perhaps, and there was no gold or silver to adorn it, but Amaya rather thought that added to the simple meal’s appeal.

  The men settled down around the serving platters and ate while the women waited and watched from a distance, as was the apparent custom. It was not until the two old men who sat with Kavian drank their coffee together that the village seemed to relax, because, one of the women Amaya had come to know over the long afternoon told her in the half Arabic, half hand gestures language they’d cobbled together as they’d gone along, that meant the king had settled the dispute.

  Amaya ate when the women did, all of them sitting on a common mat near one of the tents, in a kind of easy camaraderie she couldn’t remember ever feeling before. Out here in the desert, they didn’t have to understand every word spoken to understand each other. It didn’t take a common language to puzzle out group dynamics.

  Amaya knew that the older woman with the wise eyes whom the others treated with a certain deference watched her more closely than the others did. She knew exactly when she’d gotten that woman to smile in the course of their shared labors, and she hadn’t been entirely sure why she’d felt that like such a grand personal triumph. Or why she’d laughed more with these women she’d only met this afternoon and only half understood than she had in years.

  The night wore on, pressing down from all sides—the stars so bright they seemed to be right there within reach, dancing on the other side of the fire. It reminded her of that winter in New Zealand, but even there the nearby houses had cast some light to relieve the sprawl of the Milky Way and its astonishing weight up above. Not so here. There was no light but the fire and the pipes the men smoked as they talked. There was nothing but the immensity of the heavens above, the great twisting fire of the galaxy. It pressed its way deep into Amaya’s heart, until it ached as if it were broken wide-open or smashed into pieces. Both, perhaps.

  “You did well,” Kavian said when he came to fetch her at last. He reached down and pulled her to her feet, making the other women cluck and sigh, in a manner that required no translation.

  “They think you’re very romantic,” she said, and she didn’t know why she felt something like bashful, as if she thought so, too. Or worse—wistful.

  “They think we are newly wed,” he corrected her. “And still foolish with it.”

  “It’s the same thing, really.” She tilted her head up to look him in the eye as best she could in all the tumultuous dark. “Either way, it’s not expected to last.”

  She thought he meant to say something then, but he didn’t, and she didn’t know why it felt like a rebuke. She had to repress a shiver at the sudden drop in heat as he led her away from the group, the flames, the laughter. She felt a sharp pang as she went, as if she was losing something. As if she would never get it back—as if it was so much smoke on a Bedouin fire, curling its way into the messy night sky above them. Lost in the night, never to return.

  Amaya made herself breathe. Told herself it was the thick night, that was all, making everything seem that much more raw and poignant than it was.

  There were lanterns guiding their way through the cluster of tents, and Kavian’s strong body against the impenetrable darkness that pressed in like ink on all sides, but that didn’t change the way she felt. It didn’t help that ache inside.

  If anything, it intensified it.

  “I am told you impressed the women,” Kavian said as he pulled back the flap and ushered her into the unpretentious tent that was theirs for
the night. She felt as nervous as she had in the baths that first day in Daar Talaas, Amaya realized. She walked ahead of him, running her gaze over the bed flat on the floor but plumped up high and piled with linens, the serviceable rug that looked handwoven, the fine pillows scattered on the floor to mark a cozy seating area and a collection of lanterns that made it all seem deeply romantic. And she was astonished at how much she wanted it to be. “That is no easy task.”

  “Did you imagine I would cower in the tent?”

  “I accepted that was a possibility. You did once secrete yourself amongst my shoes.”

  “One of the gifts of having moved somewhere new every time my mother felt like it, is that I’m good with groups of strangers,” Amaya said. She made herself turn and face him, and she was surprised at how hard that was with so much tumult inside her. “It’s that or no one speaks to you for months on end.”

  “There is being friendly and then there is helping cook a meal for the whole camp.” Kavian still stood near the entrance, his gray eyes searching hers. “They are not the same thing.”

  “You told me I was to act as your queen.”

  “And you take direction, do you? How novel.” He eyed her, but she couldn’t let herself respond. Not when she had no idea what it was that held her in its grip. “Does a queen normally tend a cooking fire and sit in the dirt with strangers?”

  “This one did,” she retorted, not sure why she was trembling. Why she couldn’t stop. His hard mouth crooked slightly. Very slightly. It didn’t help at all.

  “I am a man of war, Amaya,” Kavian said softly. “I need a queen who can get her hands dirty. Who is not troubled by palace protocol when the palace is nowhere in sight. You please me, my queen. You please me deeply.”

  Something turned over, deep inside her. “I’m not your queen.”

  “Now you contradict yourself.”

  “I think you’re confused because I cooked for you. Like a real person.”

  That gleam in his eyes turned them a polished silver in the soft light. And she couldn’t tell him that what had really happened was first that she’d wanted to defy his low expectations—and then that she’d wanted to make him proud.

  Here, today, she’d wanted to be his queen. She couldn’t say that. She couldn’t admit it to him when she could hardly accept it herself.

  “Are we not real?” he asked. Almost gently.

  Her throat felt too tight. “Things aren’t the same in the palace, are they? It’s a palace.”

  “A palace is a building made of carefully chosen stone and the concentrated artisanship of hundreds of loyal subjects across decades,” Kavian said quietly. Intently. “It is a monument to the hopes of my people, their desire for unity and strength against all that might come at them. As am I. As are you, too. It could not be any more real than that.”

  “But you said you grew up here, not there.”

  He moved farther into the tent and she watched as he unwrapped his traditional headdress, then shrugged out of his robes, stripping down until he wore nothing but a pair of boxer briefs low on his narrow hips. He should have looked like a normal, regular, everyday man, she thought with something like despair. He was in his underwear in a tent in the middle of nowhere. Surely that should...reduce him, somehow.

  But this was Kavian. And today, she’d wanted to please him. To be the queen he wanted. Looking at him here, she understood that suicidal urge.

  He better resembled a god than any mere man. It was as if he’d been hewn from the finest marble and then breathed into life. His skin gleamed like old gold in the lantern light and she couldn’t read a thing on his face as he came toward her. Nor when he reached for her.

  He unwound her scarves from her as if he was unwrapping a precious gift. Slowly. Reverently. He combed his fingers through her hair when it tumbled down, then helped her out of the long, traditional dress she’d been given yesterday by his dressmakers. When she wore nothing but her slip, a basic thing that wasn’t meant to be at all alluring, his gaze heated, but still he did nothing but gently rake his fingers through her hair.

  It was almost as if it calmed him as much as it did her.

  “My uncle was the king of Daar Talaas when I was born,” he told her, so softly she thought at first he hadn’t meant to speak at all. “He was a good ruler and the people loved him, but despite the wives he took and the many concubines he kept, he had no sons. So when he died, the throne passed to his younger brother. My father.”

  He wasn’t looking at her. His attention was on the thick fall of her dark hair that he wrapped around and around his hand instead, then let unravel again. Yet Amaya found she could hardly breathe.

  “My father was a young man with two wives, one renowned for her fertility, the other for her beauty.” His gaze was dark when it met hers. Something like tortured, she’d have said. “His first wife had given him four sons already, my half brothers. The people were pleased, for my father and his wealth of sons ensured that the throne would remain in the hands of our family, come what may. That meant stability.”

  “What about you?” she asked. “Were you considered part of that wealth?”

  He did not smile. If anything, his gaze darkened.

  “My mother was a fragile woman who had nothing but her beauty and, perhaps because of it, a great envy for all the things she felt she was owed,” he said, in the cool tones of someone who was telling a distant myth, a legend. Not his own family’s story. His story. That shook through Amaya, but she didn’t move. She didn’t speak. “She was far more pleasing to my father in bed than his first wife had ever been, but even when she had me, she could not compete with the simple fact of her rival’s four healthy heirs. My father’s first wife was a simple woman, without my mother’s looks or cleverness, but none of this mattered. She was the queen. She was revered. My mother came second, and I, her only child, fifth.”

  Amaya might have realized only today that there were a great many things she didn’t know about this man, but she did know that he didn’t have any family. Everyone knew that. Which made her heart stutter in her chest, because this story could be headed only one horrible way.

  She reached over and pressed her hand against the hard plane of the muscle that covered his heart, and her breath began to shake when he slid his hand over hers and held it there.

  “You don’t have to tell me this story,” she said, and her voice was barely a whisper. “I didn’t mean to dredge up bad memories.”

  “My mother took a lover,” Kavian said by way of reply. His voice was so dark, leading them inexorably toward a terrible end. She could see that much on his face. She could feel it in the air around them, crushing her in a tense fist, but she made herself stand tall. If he could tell it, she could take it. She promised herself she could. “He was one of my father’s ministers, ambitious and amoral. But he was not content to simply defile my father’s wife. He wanted the throne.”

  “How could he take it? Was he related to you?”

  “The throne of Daar Talaas is held by the man who can hold it.” Kavian did not so much say that as intone it. “So it is written in the stones on which the throne itself sits. So it has always been.”

  Amaya had to press her palm that much harder against him, to remind herself he was real. Flesh and blood, not a statue in a palace hewn from rock. Not etched stones beneath an old throne. Far more than the story he was telling her. Far more than the darkness that was pouring from him now, his eyes and his voice alike.

  “I don’t know what that means.” It was more that she didn’t want to know. But she didn’t look away.

  “It means that while families often hold on to the throne for some generations, this is because they tend to consolidate their power, not because there is a blood requirement.” He shifted, which made his previous stillness seem that much more extreme by comparison. “My mother’
s lover was no fool. He knew he could not take the throne by force. The Daar Talaas army cannot be manipulated. They serve the throne, not the man.”

  He had never looked as distant as he did then. Bleak and uncompromising. He stepped back, Amaya’s hand fell to her side, and she thought she’d never felt so empty.

  Yet Kavian kept going. “He slit my father’s throat as he sat at the dinner table, in a place where there is meant to be only peace, even between enemies. Then he killed my brothers, one by one. Then both of my father’s wives, including my mother. Especially my mother, I should say. Because even the man she colluded with hated that she was traitorous enough to betray her own husband. Her own king.”

  “Why did he spare you?” She hardly recognized her voice.

  That wasn’t a smile he aimed at her then. It was far too painful. It cut too deep.

  “My mother had a servant girl who she did not so much trust as fail to notice. The girl knew of my mother’s lover and enough of the plans they made that when the first alarm sounded, she ran. She took me out of the palace and claimed I was her own.”

  Amaya knew who he meant immediately. “The woman with the wise eyes. All the other women looked to her today.”

  “She is the wife of the chief here,” Kavian said, but there was a flicker in his gaze that told her she’d impressed him, and it warmed her. It more than warmed her. “Back then, however, she took a terrible risk in bringing me to her father’s tent, alone and unwed, with a toddler she could not prove was the king’s missing son. The elders might not have believed her. She risked her life and her family’s honor to save me.”

  “But they believed her.”

  “They did.” He studied her face. “And they are simple people here, not aristocrats with agendas. Good people who follow the old ways. Blood begets blood, Amaya. They raised me to avenge my family, as was my right and responsibility as its only remaining member.”