Ransomed for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 13)

by Annabelle Winters

  I have one free hand now, Maddy realized suddenly, and although she couldn’t speak clearly, it seemed she could move all right. So she whipped her free arm out, reached for her mother, and grabbed her by the throat, looking up over her head and seeing Gaurina’s eyes go wide in shock. The old queen had been distracted, her eyes focused on Imraan undressing, her mind perhaps reliving memories of her own youth, reveling in the sickness of her own past.

  Maddy stared up into her mother’s eyes as her own mind swirled with thoughts that seemed to have no basis in anything. Was my mother herself abused as a child? Did someone else turn her into the creature she became? Am I just the continuation of the classic cycle of abuse? Was she just an oppressed woman doing what her king and husband demanded?

  She saw Gaurina’s lips move as if she was trying to whisper something, but Maddy took a breath and squeezed as hard as she could, forcing the trigger words to stick in Gaurina’s throat. Maddy watched as her mother’s face went red, her eyes widening, pupils dilating, capillaries bursting as the oxygen drained from her body.

  Gaurina clawed at Maddy’s arm, but the daughter was too strong. Then Gaurina’s eyes moved to her sister-queen, Khalifa, who was standing in the shadows and silently watching, not looking away but not stepping in either. Khalifa just shook her head and smiled, and Maddy felt herself smile too even as tears rolled down her face. She could feel a dark energy pour through her as she realized what was happening, what she was doing.

  “Tell me you are a victim too,” Maddy whispered through her own sobs as she squeezed the life out of her mother. “That there was a reason for what you did, an excuse, an explanation.”

  But Gaurina’s eyes were rolling up in her head, her lips turning blue as she desperately clawed at Maddy’s viselike grip. Maddy eased the pressure a bit, hoping Gaurina would look at her and say yes, I was a victim too, just like you were. I was a product of my own past, a creation of others. But there was no response, and Maddy knew there wouldn’t be a response. The only words that would come from Gaurina’s lips would be those trigger words that had been designed to control, to contain, to constrict.

  Still, Maddy eased up just a little more, until a hint of color appeared in the dying queen’s lips. Then those lips moved.

  “Alaistimae waltaen,” Gaurina managed to say, and she looked past Maddy and towards the Sheikh, who’d been on his knees as if frozen. “Alaistimae waltaen!”

  Maddy realized she’d made a mistake, and she gritted her teeth and squeezed again. She cried as she did it, but she cried for herself, not her mother. She cried for herself, because she realized that Gaurina was who she was because it was her essence, it was what was inside her, it was in her blood. And that meant it was in Maddy’s blood too, it was part of her too, it was perhaps all of her. There was no excuse, no explanation, no escape.

  Then suddenly she felt strong hands close around her own throat, and her eyes went wide when she saw it was Imraan, his eyes glazed over. Maddy was still on her back, reaching up behind her head and strangling her mother as her stepbrother looked down on her and squeezed her windpipe until her eyes felt like they were going to pop out of her head.

  I’m going to die, Maddy thought. He’s going to kill me, and then he’s going to fuck my mother and live happily ever after. She almost laughed as the insanity of that scenario registered in her suffocating brain, and she looked up at the Sheikh and smiled. You have no excuse either, do you? You’ve understood that we are what we are because of our blood, not our choices or the choices of others. There’s no hope for us. Hypnotism, trigger-words, the cycle of abuse . . . all those excuses are meaningless. We are what we are, and that’s the end of the story.

  But whose story is ending here, Maddy thought as she looked at her hypnotized brother and then her dying mother. Don’t I get to choose that? Perhaps I can’t change the ending itself, but I can decide whose story ends first, can’t I? And doesn’t that change things? Doesn’t that mean genetics and destiny might not be the same? Who knows? Who the hell knows!

  She looked at Imraan one last time, and then she knew. It was their story, her story, his story. She thought of the two of them playing in that desert spring like newborn babes, when a few days before that she’d been in a cage, at his mercy, being tamed as if she were a wild animal. She thought of the madness with which he’d taken her that first time, the way they’d collapsed against each other, sobbing in confusion, both of them understanding that there was no one else in the world who could ever see them for what they were and still love them.

  If that’s who I am, then I’m going to embrace it, love it, use it to get the ending I want, Maddy decided. So she squeezed her mother’s throat, using the last of her own strength and sanity to try and drive the remaining life out of Gaurina even as she felt her own vision narrow down to a dark tunnel as the Sheikh pressed harder.

  “It has to be you who does it, who kills Gaurina,” Khalifa had told her earlier. “If my son does it, the darkness will own him just like it did his father.”

  But what will happen to me if I kill my mother, Maddy wondered. Will I become her? Overtaken by the darkness that runs in my bloodline? Is that what Khalifa wants? Is that what both the queens want?

  And as her vision went black, Maddy understood. She understood why Khalifa had killed the old Sheikh, why Khalifa was standing back and watching as Maddy squeezed the life out of Gaurina, why Khalifa had welcomed her own death by Maddy’s hand. This was their plan. This was the ending they wanted. They wanted what any parents wanted, what all of life itself wanted: to replicate, to evolve, to produce the next generation. They just wanted to make sure their children understood who they were first, who they all were, what kind of family this was.

  Which means if I kill my mother, I will give them the ending they want, Maddy realized. The moment she dies, Imraan will be released from his spell. And then the cycle will be complete. I will become my mother, I will turn Imraan into his father, and . . . and then what? Will we have children? What of them? What hope will they have?

  No, she thought, releasing her mother. I’d rather die than continue this bloodline. This is what the queens wanted, didn’t they? The oldest drive in existence, the need to see your line go on. Genetics, destiny, and simple biology . . . all of it mixed with the madness that defined these people’s lives. No. It won’t happen.

  You won’t kill me, she thought as she glanced up at Imraan and looked into his eyes. If I am my mother’s daughter, then shouldn’t I have her strengths as well as her weaknesses? If she has this power, then shouldn’t I be able to find it in myself too? Look at me, Imraan. Really look at me. Let go of that guilt, that self-hatred, that confusion. You were still a child when she took control of you, just like I was a child when they took control of me. But because you were always physically stronger than her, it’s harder for you to accept that you were a victim too. So look at me and see yourself, see both of us, see both of them! Let go, Imraan. Let go.

  Maddy could barely see, but she focused as hard as she could, drawing the last of the oxygen in her cells to fuel her concentration. She could feel the Sheikh’s strong hands crushing her, but she kept her focus on his eyes, trying to draw on instincts that she told herself she had to have buried in there. If she got the worst of her mother, then surely she had the best of her too.

  She could feel her windpipe about to collapse, but then suddenly the Sheikh let go, his eyes clearing up as if a cloud had lifted. He blinked and looked down at her, his face going dark, eyes widening in shock. Then he looked at her mother kneeling behind Maddy, and as Gaurina began to mutter something in Arabic, the Sheikh reached out and grabbed her by the throat, roaring in anger as he did it.

  “This ends now!” he shouted, pressing so hard Maddy was certain Gaurina wouldn’t last more than three seconds.

  “No!” came the scream from the shadows, and as Maddy’s vision returned in splinters, she caught a fla
sh of Khalifa running across the room, picking up the dagger that Maddy had dropped earlier, and then pushing it into Gaurina’s side, cutting upwards as Gaurina screamed in agony.

  Then Khalifa drew the dagger out, and in one swift move sliced across her own throat, her eyes going wide and then dimming before she crumpled to the floor.

  34

  The Sheikh watched his mother die, but he felt nothing. Ya Allah, what is wrong with me, he wondered as he turned his attention back to Gaurina, who was curled on her side, bleeding to death as Maddy stared down at her.

  “Look at you two, father and daughter,” she whispered, her voice so weak Imraan could barely understand the words. “Our beautiful bloodline, mixed forever. May Allah bless you with many children of your own. Father and daughter.”

  Imraan stared at Gaurina as she smiled, her eyes narrowing for a moment as if she took some strange delight in those last words, as if those last words were her own way of fighting back, slicing deeper than any knife could.

  “You say you don’t want to be part of this family? You are. In more ways than you can imagine,” Gaurina muttered, that smile still on her face. “Think back, Imraan. When was Maddy born? You do not remember, do you? You do not remember that the girl you thought was your step-sister was actually born nine months after you first spilled your seed inside me. You do not remember. Or do you?”

  The Sheikh almost choked as the sickness rose up in him. “No,” he muttered. “You are lying. That is impossible. I was too young. It cannot be. Your lies will not twist us into the people you want us to be.”

  “It is not a question of what we want to be. It is a matter of who we are! And you two know who you are! Brother and sister. Father and daughter. Man and woman. King and queen. You are all of it, and you know it.” Gaurina laughed, coughing as blood poured from her mouth. “You have already put your seed in her, have you not? So there you go. You have already become who you were destined to be. Our work is complete. Our line will go on, stronger than ever, combined in the most beautiful way. All our genes mixed together.”

  “You’re sick,” Maddy muttered, staring down at her dying mother. “Please die. Please die now, or I’ll put that knife back into you.”

  The two of them watched in silence as Gaurina took her last breath, and then they looked at one another.

  “No,” said the Sheikh. “It was her last attempt at twisting us beyond repair. It cannot be true. Our bodies would have known it. Nothing so unnatural could have occurred. We could not have felt what we felt if what she said were true.”

  Maddy blinked as she stared at the Sheikh, and Imraan could see the faintest of doubts in her eyes. And then he felt that seed of doubt emerge within him too, and he looked away as the sickness rose up in him again. Could it be true? Or was this her last attempt at manipulating them, the last move of a twisted woman, the legacy of a family defined by depravity.

  “But these are the people who gave birth to us,” Maddy said slowly, the panic spreading across her face as she touched her naked belly. “Who knows what we’re capable of feeling, what we’re capable of doing, what we’re capable of . . . creating. Oh, God, Imraan, what if I’m pregnant? What if I’m carrying our child? What if—”

  She looked at that dagger, covered in the blood of three people. Then she looked at the Sheikh and took a breath.

  “No,” said Imraan. “Maddy, no. Let us think for a moment. We cannot trust anything that woman says. There are medical DNA tests that will—”

  “I don’t need any fucking tests to tell me that my DNA is twisted beyond repair,” Maddy snarled. She picked up the dagger and rose to her feet, standing naked before him as the Sheikh straightened and faced her. “We’re not going to give these people what they wanted. Our line ends today. All of it.”

  “Maddy,” he said, taking a step closer and then stopping when he saw the look in her eyes. “You are not thinking clearly. Neither of us is thinking clearly. Put the knife down, and let us focus on getting out of here.”

  “We aren’t getting out of here. Neither of us. Stop right there or I’ll scream my head off and let those armed men finish it.”

  “You are not going to kill me,” the Sheikh said quietly. But he did stop his advance. “So what is your move?”

  Maddy blinked as she looked at the dagger. Then she raised it to her own throat. “The only move left. I can’t live with that thought in my head, knowing that what Gaurina said could be true, knowing that my own mother would want that to happen!”

  “It is not true. Search yourself, Maddy. We could not have felt that attraction for each other if we have common blood between us,” said the Sheikh, a part of him sensing that he was trying to convince himself of it too. “I understand the doubt. I understand that we can’t trust our genetics, knowing how twisted our parents are. But I also understand that what we’ve felt over the past week is real, perhaps the only thing real in all this madness.”

  Maddy shook her head, pressing the edge of the blade until a faint line of blood appeared along her throat. “It doesn’t matter. Even if she’s lying, to know that she would want us to believe that . . . Imraan, that’s even worse, in a way! And that’s who we are! The spawn of these people! It’s over, Imraan. I’m at the end of my rope here. You’re right. I won’t kill you. But I’m done. If you get out, good for you. But I’m taking myself out of the picture. I won’t be responsible for polluting the earth with our sickness any longer.”

  The Sheikh glanced at his naked stepsister, her body glistening with perspiration, her breasts hanging heavy, nipples pointing delicately off to either side in perfect symmetry. He glanced shamelessly at her dark triangle, her thick thighs, her muscular calves. He felt his cock move, and right then and there he decided that he was right, his body was right. Gaurina herself had said it earlier, hadn’t she? Trust your body. Your body knows the truth.

  Yes, the Sheikh thought as he slowly undid the buckle of his belt. He was already shirtless, and as he dropped his trousers and pushed down his underwear, releasing his cock and letting his erection spring out, he saw the way Maddy's nipples stiffened on their own. That is the only way out. That is the only test that will convince her, perhaps convince me.

  “What are you doing, you sick bastard?” she muttered, glancing at his cock and then into his eyes even as he saw the way she tightened her buttocks.

  “You know what I am doing, he growled, stepping out of his clothes and standing before her fully naked. “If we can’t trust our memories, can’t trust our parents, can’t trust our genetics, then we have to trust the only thing that is left: Our bodies.”

  “Stand back,” she whispered, her hand shaking as she pointed the dagger at him and then held it against her throat again as if she couldn’t decide, didn’t want to decide. “Imraan, we’re sick. We’re diseased from the inside out. We have to end our line. You know it.”

  “Just the desire to end your line because you think you are sick proves that you are not sick, does it not?” the Sheikh whispered as he took another step towards her. “It proves you care about the world, about the kind of person you are, about the kind of child you might put into this world. And that means there is hope. It means we can rise above our genetics. Make choices that overrule the choices made for us. There is hope, Maddy. Hope that we can get the ending we want, not the ending they wanted!”

  He saw her expression change, her knife-hand shake, and the moment of hesitation was enough. With a silent grunt he leapt at her, grabbing her wrist and twisting the knife from her hand. He pressed his other hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t scream, and he drove her backwards until she slammed against the red walls of the empty room.

  He looked into her eyes long and hard as he felt his cock rise up and line squarely with her warm slit. He could feel her heat, sense her wetness, smell her arousal. His body was right, he knew. So was hers.

  “This is the test,” he
whispered, glancing down at his cock and then into her eyes. “It got us here, and it will take us past this.” Slowly he reached down and grasped his own shaft, moving his swollen cockhead against her clit until he felt her body shudder in response. “Yes? Yes, Maddy?”

  She blinked once, and he felt her nod as he pressed up against her. And as he massaged the head of his cock into her opening, reaching down with his left hand and raising her thigh, he removed his hand from her mouth and leaned in and kissed her.

  It does not matter, came the thought as both his tongue and his cock entered her at the same time. I am now everything and everyone to her. That was the commitment I made when I took her the first time. That is the commitment I will hold on to for the rest of our days. The way our bodies are reacting convinces me that we share no blood, that what we are doing is not unnatural. But in a way it does not matter, because I will be everything to her from now on: friend and family, brother and lover, father and husband.

  35

  She knew he was right the moment she felt his cock push into her, the moment she tasted his kiss, the moment she felt his strong hands press her ass as he began to drive his hips and pump into her. She was his, and it didn’t matter what of his she was: his sister, his lover, his friend, his daughter, or his wife. It didn’t fucking matter, because he was all the man she needed, all the man she wanted. He was all her men in one, and although she could tell just by the way her body was opening up for him that there was no way what Gaurina had said was true, she decided it didn’t matter. They’d passed the test. And now it was just the two of them, always and forever.