Hilda almost laughed with surprised glee when she saw something change in this dark man’s eyes, a glimmer of recognition, a twinkle of awareness. It was fleeting, but it was real.
He is with me, Hilda told herself. He is here to help me finish this story.
Thoughts raced through Hilda’s mind as she tried to sort through memories and connections in this woman’s frazzled brain. But it was too much, and Hilda just grabbed the last question that seemed important and blurted it out:
“Who is trying to destroy you?” she said. “More cousins? What is this claim of succession, and why is your family killing each other? Isn’t there—”
The dark king spoke quickly, like he was been impelled from within by Rahaan’s urgency. “The king of my land never married and never fathered an heir. He was a warrior-monk of sorts, you could say. He took a vow of celibacy as a young man, and was a believer that a king should prove himself and should not be simply granted the throne based on lineage. In fact he did away with the royal bloodline over the years.” He snorted and shook his head. “Ended the bloodline with blood. At least he thought he did.”
Hilda took a breath and kept pushing. She wasn’t sure if the Sheikh’s consciousness was fully present in this man, but it didn’t matter. She knew she had to keep going. She’d learned from her experience with the girl from the attic that once she figured out the solution, she could pull them all into a new parallel world, change this couple’s timeline, fix things and then fly off like a fairy godmother!
“Go on,” she said almost matter-of-factly. “So the king wiped out his own family over the years?”
He nodded. “His own brothers and sisters. His cousins, uncles, aunts. I believe that if his own parents were alive, he would have executed them as well, he was so committed to his goal of having the throne pass down to the one who is most able.”
Hilda frowned as she glanced down at her half-open corset. Well, she certainly had the same boobs in this world. She found herself drifting and wondering how that little girl would “blossom” over the years, but then quickly chastised herself and got back to the moment, only briefly noticing how chilling it was that this woman seemed unfazed by talk of such brutality. “And how would he decide who was most able? That’s the old laws you mention?”
He laughed and nodded. “Yes. The laws of nature. That is what I meant, my lady. The king decided there are no laws greater that the natural law.”
“Which means what?” said Hilda, impatient almost. “So who becomes the next king? Who gets the throne?”
The man stood broad and tall and looked past her for a moment before focusing his green eyes on her. “The man who takes it. Simple as that.”
54
“I can’t take it,” Di gurgled as she doubled over and coughed and finally curled up in the fetal position as she stared with bleary eyes at the red glow of the sun as it began to kiss the horizon. “Wake me up.”
You are awake, came the answer from Diamante. We are both awake. Truly awake. Come with me. Let go of your hold on this world. The pain is because you are trying to hold on to what you think is real. You must let go and walk with me across the bridge of time.
“I don’t know how,” Di gasped as she tried to stand. “I can’t even sit up. How can I walk?”
You do not need your legs, Princess, whispered Diamante. You do not need your body. Let go of the illusion that your “real” self is in the New Mexico desert. Merge with me and we will fly together. Give yourself to me and we will have the power to walk anywhere, anytime, anyhow.
Somehow the words in her head registered, and Di began to laugh hysterically when she realized that of course she didn’t need to stand up and physically walk anywhere! That was the whole point! Time travel wasn’t about transporting your body! She knew that!
Go with her, Di told herself as she felt a mystical calmness envelope her. She could felt herself soar, a part of her rising up in a way that terrified her at first and then sent exhilaration rushing through her like the swift desert wind. Suddenly the landscape changed, and Di knew she was back in her dream, back in that place, walking with Diamante.
Go with her, was the last thought of Di as she saw a woman with flaming yellow hair riding with a hundred men across the plains, toward the mountains, in hot pursuit of an exiled king and his commoner bride.
Go with her because you are her, whispered Di into the sand as New Mexico faded and the sun touched the horizon. You are her, and this is your story now.
55
An inexplicable sense of dread seeped into Hilda’s world as she tried desperately to stumble through this world and into the next. Or the previous. Or the third. Whichever. It was all so messed up. So turned around.
You are this woman but don’t get dragged too far into her short-term needs. She doesn’t know what you know. Not in the same sense. She’s still marveling at how she ran into the father of her child again seemingly by coincidence at that ball. Now she’s wondering if this man engineered that meeting. Perhaps it was magic, she’s thinking. Was it black witchcraft, it occurs to her next. Had God forsaken her for sinning with this foreigner, with a heathen, bearing his child and lusting for him even while married to another? Was Satan leading her to his lair now? Was this dark, devilishly handsome man with long scars on his arms speaking the truth or was he telling her the lies of the devil? Did she even care? What other options did she have? The last of her money was spent on these clothes to get to that ball. And so what if he was a liar? So was she! She’d lied so much over the years her tongue might well be black! But still, had he really come back for her? Why?
It doesn’t matter, Hilda tried to convey to the woman—and to herself. Coincidence or not, it doesn’t matter. It’s not surprising that you two met again. It makes perfect sense that you were drawn to each other. Shut your trap, you silly woman in your corset! Put your boobs away and let me speak!
“I bore your child,” Hilda blurted out, taking over but still using this woman’s emotions to power her words. “Your son. He is with my sisters in my village. I told him of his father. I told him his father was a king, and that you would return for us and take us to your castle. I told him I was a queen, that he was a prince, but that it was a secret. He is two years old so he cannot understand, of course. But I told him anyway. Perhaps I needed to tell it to myself. Perhaps it was the only way to—”
He took a step back and then a step forward as all the color drained from his face before rushing back in. He blinked three times and then held her gaze, searching her expression.
“Do you speak truth? About the child? A son?” he said, his voice low and hoarse. “Speak quickly, my lady. Do you—”
“Yes!” Hilda shouted as she felt the Sheikh’s urgency in the other world, an urgency combined with that unmistakable sense of dread coming across time, like although time was an illusion, she was still running out of it! “Yes!” she screamed again, and now the pieces suddenly fit like when a jigsaw becomes clear and you rush through it with delight, snapping the squiggly bits into place as the picture comes to life. Saying all that was the missing piece, and it pulled everything into perspective. That was this woman’s dream, was it not? This fake lady’s fantasy. This lying wench’s childish dream. She told herself the story of bearing a king’s heir in secret, of herself being a queen in secret, of their tryst being more than a Lord having his way with a kitchen maid. She had the same dream as the girl from the attic. Of course she did. It was the same dream, the same woman, the same man. The girl from the attic. The woman from the carriage. And the astrologer from Albuquerque.
Finish it, Hilda thought as she felt that shift somewhere deep inside her consciousness, the sign that parallel worlds were aligned according to her will, her power, her gift.
“That is my dream,” she said confidently, wondering how she was thinking in modern American but speaking like an English woman who probabl
y couldn’t read. “And I will have it. I will have my dream.”
56
The Sheikh groaned as he kissed Hilda’s smooth bare stomach, his face dangerously close to her hips. He could smell her clean feminine scent, and his need was so strong he could barely see straight. He wanted to bury his face between her legs, feel her wet pubic curls in his mouth, drive his tongue through her warm forest and taste her. He wanted to hear her scream as she came for him, howl as she bucked her hips into his face, moan as her orgasms rolled in. Then he wanted to flip her over and raise her magnificent buttocks, kiss her smooth rear and spread her wide from behind, grasp his throbbing manhood and guide it close, touch the massive head of his cock to her perfect pink rear pucker, slide his fingers into her cunt and push himself into her dark—
“Enough,” he grunted into her skin as he forced himself to get back in control. She needed him to hold her in this state, which couldn’t happen if he allowed himself the release he desperately wanted. Did their fate truly depend on whether or not he could control his own swinging balls?! Were the gods that trivial? That cruel? That sadistic?!
I am going mad, he decided as he heard her moan and saw her eyelids flutter as he forced himself away from the intoxicating smell of her cunt and back up along her naked, glistening body. They were both soaked with sweat, and although the night was cool, their bed was ablaze with the heat from their combined fever.
Yes, I am going mad, he decided when he thought back to the moment where he felt he had managed to slip into that dream with Hilda, where he was there with her. But he hadn’t been able to hold himself there, and now he wondered if that had been real or not.
Hilda moaned again, and she was writhing beneath him, deep in an erotic trance but somehow restless, he could sense.
“What is it, my queen?” he said as he drew his head back but kept his body close. “What do you need?”
“I need help,” she muttered. “It is taking too long. There is too much . . . too much to work out still. I need . . .”
She trailed off, and the Sheikh looked down at her, confused for a moment. Help? Was she in danger? No, she said it was taking too long, Rahaan reminded himself. And by Allah, it is. I feel it too. My intuition tells me we are running out of time, that Diamante is moving faster than we are, that if she shifts her story too far in that world, it is all over.
He glanced over at the dark porthole. The stars were still out, but he knew the sun would begin its ascent soon. He had no idea why sunrise was somehow a deadline, but it felt like it was. Yes, the opening ceremony would happen shortly after sunrise, and along with it the assassination attempt. But it was more than logic telling him to hurry. It was instinct, his goddamn gut.
My gut, he thought. My instincts. My . . . gift?
Bloody hell, Rahaan thought now. I may not have the gift my woman does, but I have some of it, do I not? And I do believe I broke through into the world Hilda’s in right now, albeit briefly. Can I do that once again? Is that what she needs? Can I do it? Will it help?
The Sheikh took a breath as he wondered how, but of course he knew. It was time to give in to what he needed. To use some of that pent-up energy. To step into his woman’s world. To advance. To go forth. To enter.
He looked down as her shimmering body, her white skin looking silver in the starlight. Did she know what he was capable of in bed? Did she know how rough he could be, how hard he could be, how desperately he wanted to spank her buttocks red, lick her rear hole pink, enter her every which way and claim her for all of time. Ya Allah, there is still so much we need to learn about each other in this world! Will she handle the man I truly am?
He touched her brown curls gently, bringing forth a moan as he parted her dark nether lips. He gasped at the sight of her open vagina, bright and beckoning, red and glistening. And then he got on top of her and spread her wide, grunting as he entered, inch by inch, pushing himself into her as he felt his consciousness soar and spin, twirl and curl, rise above them both and then dive deep within itself as he drove himself all the way in, all the way down, all the way deep.
“I will finish it,” he gasped as he felt his consciousness leave him as her warm valley cradled his heat. “I don’t know how, but I will finish it. Even if it kills me, I will finish it.”
57
Hilda heard herself scream as she watched her man bleed into the dark sand of the arena as cheers rose up around them. She stood there with her son, forcing the child to watch and not bury his face into her skirts.
My God, she thought, still reeling. It seemed like a moment ago she was in her chambers on the outskirts of London, this man excitedly telling her about the reason he’d come to England to find her, that she’d been his first and only.
“I was secretly raised to be the next warrior-monk king of my land,” he had told her. “Celibate and chaste, in the mold of the king. You see, my mother believed she was part of the king’s bloodline, the bastard daughter of the king’s murdered cousin. She’d decided that when the time came for a new king, the people would stand behind a man who lived his life according to the philosophy of the king but also shared his blood. She thought that although the people liked the idea of a king proving himself on merit, there was also the romanticism associated with a royal bloodline, hearkening back to the days where people liked to believe their rulers were somehow connected to the gods in a way a commoner could never be simply by virtue of blood.”
She’d stared at him as he spoke, wondering if somehow they’d been pulled into a new parallel world where they’d never made love before. Hilda searched the memories of that woman she was, but the memories of that night three years earlier were still clear and fresh, just like the memory of the two of them in the carriage just the day before, just like the certainty that their son was very real and very much alive.
“I do not understand,” she’d said. “Even if what you say is true, that I was your first and only, it means you are no longer chaste. Does that not disqualify you from the throne?”
He had smiled and shaken his head. “My lady, it in fact qualifies me for the throne in a way nothing else can!”
Hilda watched as her man spun away from what would have been a fatal blow to the head, grasping his curved blade from where it had fallen. She did her best not to scream again, and she held her son tight as she reminded herself that she was a queen and her son was a prince and this brutality was the price they paid for who they were, for who they wanted to be. Strangely enough, she wasn’t scared. And as sick as it sounded, she was almost enjoying this. What kind of a woman was she in this world! What kind of a man was this lying rogue?
The man had gone on: “One year ago it was discovered that our great and honorable monk-king was in fact human, suffering from human desires and needs,” he told her with not a small amount of amusement in his tone as he glanced her up and down in her corset. “Desires and needs that I know only too well can sway even the most chaste and cherubic of us.”
“You seemed to know your way around a lady quite well, I would say,” she’d said. “It was hardly your first time. You can’t convince me I was the first.”
“Believe what you want,” he’d said, almost gruffly before smiling. “It is no matter. See, once word spread about the great king’s transgressions, the public began clamoring for a return to the old laws, to the royal bloodline. They forgave their king—indeed, the only violation he’d committed was towards his own sworn philosophy—and they asked him to give them an heir, to revive the royal line, to make sure the kingdom would have a ruler for the next generation.”
Hilda had nodded. “And?”
He took a breath and shook his head. “The king admitted that he’d sired many bastards over the years.” He paused. “And put each one to the sword, in keeping with his oath to end ascendancy by blood.”
“Oh, God in heaven!” she’d said, closing her eyes tight as a chill whipped
through her. Immediately she made the connection that if this man before her was of royal blood, then his bastard son was of royal blood, which meant that—
“So what does it mean for . . . for our son? Is he in danger?” she’d asked slowly. “No. Because you did not know until I just told you. And so . . . and so I still do not understand why you came back.”
“I came back for my queen,” he’d said firmly. “The old king cannot father an heir now, and so this is my chance. That is why I came back for you. Because you were my first, and I carry with me the idea that for each man there can be only one woman. If I stake my claim with a queen at my side, the people will stand firm with me against my challengers. And now, with a child, a son, an heir . . . by God, woman, it is magic, destiny, fate, a miracle! You were my first, woman! And although I am a pretender and a rogue at many levels, in this one thing I am true. This one feeling of mine is pure. When I return I will make my blood-claim to the throne, make it in public. My mother married a wealthy merchant when I was a child, and my family is well-known and well-respected for our charity and honorable business dealings. The people will stand with me. Public opinion will be in my favor.” He’d paused. “If the people stand with me in overwhelming majority, by the old laws very few will have the right to challenge my claim. There is maybe just one who can challenge my claim. Perhaps no one will challenge my claim! Our claim!”
Hilda had shaken her head as she felt that urgency rise up again. She needed to move all of this to a new parallel world, resolve this before time ran out. In fact, it should have moved to a new world by now, given that the solution appeared to be in sight. Why had it been so easy with the teenage girl and not with this woman, this version of Hilda? What was different?
She does not believe, came the answer from Hilda’s subconscious. Remember, this woman isn’t just a bystander. It is still her story! That girl from the attic at some level truly believed she was a queen, in the innocent way a child can make herself believe anything! But this woman has suffered years of indignities and hardships, insults and injustices. She has made mistakes, compromises, small decisions that have chipped away at her sense of self-worth. She may dream of being a queen, but can she actually get herself to believe it? That’s what’s preventing me from taking this to a new parallel world even though the solution is in sight. Her negative emotions are holding us back.
Stars for the Sheikh_A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel Page 21
