by Maisey Yates
“The entire royal family, and all loyal servants were killed,” he said, his voice rough. “That was the report that was sent back to me.”
“They were wrong. And for my safety it was in my best interest that they continued to think so. But I am alive. If only to ensure that you will not be.”
He laughed, but there was no humor to the sound. “You are a reaper come to collect then, are you? My angel of death here to lead me to hell?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Very interesting.”
“I should think I’m more than interesting.”
He stilled. “You made me fear. There are not many on earth who have done so.”
“That is a great achievement for me then, and yet, I still find I’m unsatisfied.”
“You want blood.”
She lifted her chin, defiant. “I require it. For this is my vengeance. And it is all about blood.”
“I am sorry that I could not oblige you tonight.”
“No more sorry than I.”
“Why am I the object of your vengeance?” he asked. “Why not the new regime? Why not the people who stormed the palace and killed the royal family. The sheikha and her daughter.”
“You mean the revolutionaries who were aided by your men?”
“They were not. Not I, nor anyone else in Khadra, had part in the overthrowing of the Jahari royal family. I had a country to run. I had no interest in damaging yours.”
“You left us unprotected. You left us without a king.”
“I did no such thing.”
“You had the king of Jahar tried and executed in Khadra,” she spat, venom on her tongue. “You left the rest of us to die when he was taken. Forced from our home. Servants, soldiers…everyone who did not turn to the new leader was killed. And those who escaped…only a half life was ever possible. There was no border crossing to be had, unless you just wanted to wander out into the desert and hope to God you found the sea, or the next country.” As her mother had done one day. Wandered out into the desert never to return. At least, in recent years it had eased. That was how she’d been able to finally make her way to Khadra.
“I am not responsible for Sheikh Rashad’s fate. He paid for sins committed. It was justice. Still, I am regretful of the way things unfolded.”
“Are you?” she spat. “I find I am more than regretful, as it cost me everything.”
“It has been sixteen years.”
“Perhaps the passage of time matters to you, but I find that for me it does not.”
“I say again, I did not give the order to have your people killed. It is a small comfort, certainly, as they are gone, but it is not something I did. You aren’t the only one who doesn’t believe. I am plagued by the ramifications of the past.”
She curled her lip. “Plagued by it? I imagine it has been very hard for you. I’m not certain why I’m complaining about the fate of my country. Not when it has been so hard for you. In your palace with all of your power.”
“It is hard when your legacy is defined by a human rights violation you did not commit,” he bit out. “Make no mistake, I am often blamed for the hostile takeover of your country. But I did not send anyone into the palace to overthrow your government. Where have I benefited? Where is my hand in your country? What happened after was beyond my reach. And yet, I find I am in many ways responsible for it.”
“You cannot have it both ways, Sheikh. You did it, or you did not.”
“I had choices to make. To stand strong for my people, for my father, for my blood. Had I foreseen the outcome, as I should have done, my choices might have been different.”
“Are you God then?”
“I am sheikh. It is very close to being the same.”
“Then you are a flawed god indeed.”
“And you? Do you aspire to be the goddess?” he asked, moving to the foot of the bed, standing, tall, proud and straight. He was an imposing figure, and in many ways she couldn’t believe that she had dared touch him. Not when he so obviously outmatched her in strength and weight. Not when he was so clearly a deadly weapon all on his own.
“Just the angel of death, as you said. I have no higher aspiration than that. It isn’t power I seek, but justice.”
“And you think justice comes with yet more death?”
“Who sent the king of Jahar to trial, Sheikh? Who left my country without a ruler?” Who left me without a father? She didn’t voice the last part. It was too weak. And she refused to show weakness.
“I did,” he said, his tone hard, firm. “Lest we forget the blood of the king of Khadra was on his hands. And that is not a metaphor.”
“At least Khadra had an heir!”
His expression turned to granite. “And lacked an angry, disillusioned populace. Certainly the loss of the king affected Jahar, but had the people not been suffering…”
“I am not here to debate politics with you.”
“No, it is your wish to cut my throat. And I must say, even politics seems preferable to that.”
“I am not so certain.” She looked away for a moment, just a moment, to try and gather her thoughts. To try and catch her breath. “You left a little girl with no protection. A queen without her husband.”
“And was I to let the Jahari king walk after taking the life of my father? The life of my mother.”
“He did not…”
“We will not speak of my mother,” he said, his tone fierce. “I forbid it.”
“And so we find ourselves here,” she said, her tone soft.
“So we do indeed.”
“Will you have me killed?” she asked. “As I am also an inconvenience?”
“You, little viper, have attempted to murder me. At this point you are much more than an inconvenience.”
“As you see it, Sheikh. The only problem I see is that I have failed.”
“You do not speak as someone who values their preservation.”
“Do I not?”
“No. You ask if I aim to kill you and then you express your desire to see me dead. All things considered, I suppose I should order your lovely head to be separated from your neck.”
She put her hand to her throat. A reflex. A cowardly one. She didn’t like it.
“However,” he said dryly. “I find I have no stomach for killing teenage girls.”
“I am not a teenage girl.”
“Semantics. You cannot be over twenty.”
“Twenty-one,” she said, clenching her teeth.
“Fine then. I have no stomach for the murder of a twenty-one-year-old girl. And as such I would much rather find a way for you to be useful to me.” He slid his thumb along the flat of her blade. “But where I could keep an eye on you, as I would rather this not end up in my back.”
“I make no promises, Sheikh.”
“Again, we must work on your self-preservation.”
“Forgive me. I don’t quite believe I have a chance at it.”
Something in his face changed, his eyebrows drawing tightly together. “Samarah. Not a servant girl, or just an angry citizen. You are Samarah.”
He’d recognized her. At last. She’d hoped he wouldn’t. Not when she was supposed to be dead. Not when he hadn’t seen her since she was a child of six.
She met his eyes. “Sheikha Samarah Al-Azem, of Jahar. A princess with no palace. And I am here for what is owed me.”
“You think that is blood, little Samarah?”
“You will not call me little. I just kicked you in the head.”
“Indeed you did, but to me, you are still little.”
“Try such insolence when I have my blade back, and I will cut your throat, Sheikh.”
“Noted,” he said, regarding her closely. “You have changed.”
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br /> “I ought to have. I’m no longer six.”
“I cannot give you blood,” he said. “For I am rather attached to having it in my veins, as you can well imagine.”
“Self-preservation is something of an instinct.”
“For most,” he said, dryly.
“Different when you have nothing to lose.”
“And is that the position you’re in?”
“Why else would I invade the palace and attempt an assassination? Obviously I have no great attachments to this life.”
His eyes flattened, his jaw tightening. “I cannot give you blood, Samarah. But you feel you were robbed of a legacy. Of a palace. And that, I can perhaps see you given.”
“Can you?”
“Yes. I have indeed thought of a use for you. By this time next week, I shall present you to the world as my intended bride.”
CHAPTER TWO
“NO.”
Ferran looked down at the woman kneeling in the center of his mattress. The woman was, if she was to be believed, if his own recognition could be believed, Samarah Al-Azem. Come back from the dead.
For surely the princess had been killed. The dark-eyed, smiling child he remembered so well, gone in the flood of violence that had started in the Khadran palace, ending in the death of Jahar’s sheikh. What started as a domestic dispute cut a swath across the borders, into Jahar. The brunt of it falling on the Jahari palace.
It was the king of Jahar who had started the violence. Storming the Khadran palace, as punishment for his wife’s affair with Ferran’s father. An affair that had begun when Samarah was a young child and Ferran was a teenager. When the duty to country was served by both rulers, having supplied their spouses with children. Or so the story went. But it had not ended there. It had burned out of hand.
And countless casualties had been left.
Among them, the world had been led to believe, Samarah.
Was she truly the princess?
A girl he’d thought long dead. A death he had, by extension, caused. Was it possible she lived?
She was small. Dark-haired. At least from what he could tell. A veil covered her head, her brows the only indicator of hair coloring. It was not required for women in employment of the palace to cover their heads or faces. But he was certain she was an employee here. Though not one who had been working for the palace long. There were many workers in the palace, and he didn’t make it his business to memorize their faces.
Though, when one tried to kill him in his own bedchamber, he felt exceptions could be made. And when one was possibly the girl who had never left his mind, not ever, in sixteen years…
He truly had exceptions to make.
He was torn between rage and a vicious kind of amusement. That reckoning had come, and it had come in this form. Lithe, soft and vulnerable. The most innocent victim of all, come to claim his life. It was a testament, in many ways, to just how badly justice had been miscarried on that day.
Though he was not the one to answer for it. His justice had been the key to her demise. And yet, there was nothing he could do to change it. How could he spare the man who had robbed his country of a leader, installed a boy in place of the man.
The man who had killed his family for revenge.
They were two sides to the same coin. And depending upon which side you looked at, you had a different picture entirely.
Also, depending on which version of events you heard…
He shook off the thoughts, focused back on the present. On the woman. Samarah. “No?” he asked.
“You heard me. I will not ally myself with you.”
“Then you will ally yourself with whomever you share a cell with. I firmly hope you find it enjoyable.”
“You say that like you believe I’m frightened.”
“Are you not?”
She raised her head, dark eyes meeting his. “I was prepared for whatever came.”
“Obviously not, as you have rejected my offer. You do realize that I am aware you didn’t act on your own. And that I will find who put you up to this, one way or the other. Whether you agree to this or not. However, if you do…things could go better for you.”
“An alliance with you? That’s better?”
“You do remember,” he said, speaking the words slowly, softly, and hating himself with each syllable, “how I handle those who threaten the crown.”
“I remember well. I remember how you flew the Khadran flag high and celebrated after the execution of my father,” she said, her tone ice.
“Necessary,” he bit out. “For I could not allow what happened in Jahar to happen here.”
“But you see, what happened in Jahar had not happened yet. It wasn’t until the sheikh was gone, the army scattered and all of us left without protection that we were taken. That we were slaughtered by revolutionaries who thought nothing of their perceived freedom coming at the price of our lives.”
“Thus is war,” he said. “And history. Individuals are rarely taken into account. Only result.”
“A shame then that we must live our lives as individuals and not causes.”
“Do we?” he asked. “It doesn’t appear to me that you have. And I certainly don’t. That is why I’m proposing marriage to you.”
“That’s like telling me two plus two equals camel. I have no idea what you’re saying.”
He laughed, though he still found nothing about the situation overly amusing. “The division between Khadra and Jahar has long been a source of unrest here. Violence at the borders is an issue, as I’m sure you well know. This could change that. Erase it. It’s black-and-white. That’s how I live my life. In a world of absolutes. There is no room for gray areas.”
“To what end for me, Sheikh Ferran? I will never have my rightful position back, not in a meaningful way. The royal family of Jahar will never be restored, not in my lifetime.”
“How have you lived since you left the palace?”
“Poorly,” she said, dark eyes meeting his.
“This would get you back on the throne.”
“I will not marry you.”
“Then you will enjoy prison.”
The look on her face nearly destroyed what little was left of his humanity. A foolish thing, to pity the woman who’d just tried to kill him. And she could have succeeded. She was not a novice fighter. He had no illusion of her being a joke just because he was a man and she a woman. He had no doubt that the only thing that had kept him from a slit throat was her bare moment of hesitation. Seconds had made the difference between his life and death.
He should not pity her. He should not care that he’d known her since she was a baby. That he could clearly picture her as a bubbly, spoiled little princess who had been beautiful beyond measure. A treasure to her country.
That was not who she was now. As he was not the haughty teenage boy he’d been. Not the entitled prince who thought only of women and what party he might sneak into, what trouble he might find on his father’s yachts.
Life had hit them both, harsh and real, at too young an age. He had learned a hard lesson about human weakness. About his own weaknesses. Secrets revealed that had sent her father into the palace in a murderous rage…one that had, in the end, dissolved a lineage, destroyed a nation that was still rebuilding.
She was a product of that, as was he. And her actions now had nothing to do with that connection from back then. He should throw her in a jail cell and show her no mercy.
And yet he didn’t want to.
It made no sense. There was no room for loyalty to a would-be assassin. No room for pity. Putting your faith in the wrong person could have a disastrous end, and he knew it well. If he was wrong now…
No. He would not be wrong.
This was not ordinary compassion leading
him. There was potential political gain to be had. Yes, Jahar had suffered the most change during that dark time sixteen years ago, but Khadra had suffered, too. They had lost their sheikh and sheikha, they had been rocked by violence. Their security shaken to its core.
The palace had been breached.
Their centuries-old alliance with their closest neighbors shattered. It had changed everything in a single instance. For him, and for millions of people who called his country home.
He had never taken that lightly. It was why he never faltered. It was why he showed her no mercy.
But this was an opportunity for something else. For healing. One thing he knew. More blood, more arrests, would not fix the hurts from the past.
It had to end. And it had to end with them.
“Can you kill me instead?” she asked.
“You ask for death?”
“Rather than a prison cell?”
“Rather than marriage,” he said.
Her nostrils flared, dark eyes intense. “I will not become your property.”
“I do not intend to make you my property, but answer me this, Samarah. What will this do to our countries?”
“I almost bet it will do nothing to mine.”
“Do you think? Are you a fool? No one will believe one girl was acting alone.”
“I am not a girl.”
“You are barely more than a child as far as I’m concerned.”
“Had I been raised in the palace that might be true, but as it is, I lived on the streets. I slept in doorways and on steps. I holed up in the back rooms of shops when I could. I had to take care of a mother who went slowly mad. I had to endure starvation, dehydration, the constant threat of theft or rape. I am not a child. I am years older than you will ever live to be,” she spat.
He hated to imagine her in that position. In the gutter. In danger. But she had clearly survived. Though, he could see it was a survival fueled by anger.
“If you kill me,” he said, “make no mistake, Khadra will make Jahar pay. If I imprison you…how long do you suppose it will take for those loyal to the royal family to threaten war on me? But if we are engaged…”
“What will the current regime in Jahar think?”
