by Olivia Gates
He still attempted a rejoinder. “Tut-tut, is that any way to talk to your probable new king?”
“First, I’m American if you’ve forgotten, so at best, the king of Azmahar would be my boss. Second, cows will skate before you become king. So stop wasting everyone’s time and fly back to whatever vultures’ aerie you swooped down from.”
It was no use. Even with the tightness in his chest, which he wouldn’t even try to analyze, every word that pelted out of her mouth seemed to find a receptor in his humor centers.
His lips spread. “The only time I’ll swoop down will be to carry you away, my luscious lamb.”
“Then too late in midair, you’ll find out I’m no such thing.”
“Aih. Thankfully. But the feline you really are is why you found me irresistible.”
She used to say he was aptly named, a human lion. He’d called her his wildcat, his lioness, among other things.
“Nowadays, the world doesn’t give a fig about your irresistibility, like I don’t. But unlike you, who clearly aren’t here to take part in resolving the crisis but to indulge in obnoxious score-settling, I have work to do. You had your fun last night, so be a good evil mogul and let me get on with it.”
He lay back on the bed, hard as rock again. “How counterproductive can you get? You’ve just said the magic words that will assure that you won’t see the last of me. Not before I make you eat those words, of course. Out of my hand. Again.”
She didn’t answer for a long moment. His breath shortened, his every muscle quivered with arousal and anticipation. What was that unpredictable storm of fire and femininity up to now?
“Satisfied your last-word syndrome? Just like you did your have-your-way disorder last night?”
And he laughed, deep and delighted. “I knew you had to be brilliant to be where you are today. But that’s a truly novel way to have the last word, ya naari. I concede. This round goes to you.”
“Oh, joy. You mean I can go now?”
“You mean you can’t hang up on me?”
She did.
He laughed again, long and loud, as he hadn’t done in…probably ever. Certainly never when he’d been alone.
Then he headed to the shower again.
He came out half an hour later, made a few phone calls.
He got the lay of the land, the schedule of relevant events for the next week. The most important function was next evening at the royal palace. A gathering of all political and economic figures engaging in the dance of trying to figure out how not to end up at the bottom of the food chain.
Roxanne was going to mediate the rituals.
Although she’d known because of her sensitive position, he was sure his candidacy wasn’t public knowledge yet. Sure, he must have invaded the gossip circles and social media with his stunt at her door by now, but people probably thought he was just passing through, that she was the focus of his visit. He could still resume the secrecy of his purpose in Azmahar.
But she wanted him gone. Better. She’d hurled the gauntlet in his face. That settled it.
To hell with flying under the radar.
Time to prove to her he could get cows to skate.
Time to make an official swoop on Azmahar’s vacant court.
* * *
The last rays of a blazing sunset were giving way to the dominion of a velvety evening as Haidar arrived at the edifice he’d been recruited to take over.
He pulled his rented Mercedes to a stop in the wide-as-a-four-lane-highway driveway and gazed up at it through the windshield. Twilight conspired with shadow-enhancing, detail-popping lighting to make it look like some colossal creature from a Dungeons & Dragons fantasy.
He exhaled, slammed out of the car. Qusr Al Majd—literally Palace of Glory—must have seemed like a good idea to Faisal Aal Munsoori, its builder and the founder of Azmahar’s now ex–royal family—the regrettable half of his genes. Back in the sixteenth century, overwhelming demonstrations of power, wealth and invulnerability were all the rage, after all.
And though the man’s descendants had managed to destroy his legacy, impoverish his kingdom and squander his throne, Al Majd remained one of the world’s architectural wonders. Or so it was touted by those who swooned at ostentatious constructions. It certainly gave the overhyped Taj Mahal a run for its money.
But the Taj was doing something useful besides look pretty. He’d certainly have tourists crawling all over this place if he ever became king. It should at least earn its keep.
As for him, should the dreaded day come, he’d frequent it only to keep up appearances and conduct power games. But to live, his—as of this morning—house had it beat by light-years.
He handed his keys to a gaping valet, took the hundred and one imperial white granite steps up to the entrance in twos. In moments he was striding through thirty-foot-high, elaborately carved and gilded doors, then crossing the suffocatingly ornate foyer, making a mental note to simplify and modernize the damn place if he ever became its keeper. And to do something about its patrons’ sense of style, too.
He swept a coalescing gaze over the loitering crowd, grim humor twisting his lips. Considering that most looked as if they’d stepped out of an Addams-Family-cum-Aladdin masquerade, they had a nerve, gaping at him.
Seemed his presence here really was unexpected. Most probably unwelcome. He might be right, after all, and his recruiters knew nothing about what the people of Azmahar wanted or would accept. That, or the openmouthed gawkers had heard of his escapade at Roxanne’s and were trying to imagine him spread-eagle on her bed begging to be used.
Not that either explanation mattered in the least.
He’d taken Roxanne’s challenge and would see this game to the end. And if this kingless kingdom needed his leadership, it was damn well getting it.
Without slowing, he headed to his destination. He hadn’t been here for over eight years, but he remembered well where all pompous, mostly pointless gatherings took place. In the Qobba ballroom, literally Dome, since it resided under a hundred-foot one at the heart of the palace’s main building.
Good thing he also knew the place well enough to have learned its secret shortcuts. He made a set of memorized turns leading to a deserted corridor. Once in its blessed peace and subdued lighting, he breathed in relief to be rid of the bustle and invasive eyes.
Suddenly, footsteps joined his in the muted silence.
They came from behind. Sure, steady. Single. In an alternating rhythm to his footfalls. No attempt to catch up to him, just keeping pace.
A chill crackled through his every nerve.
It wasn’t fury that someone was following him. Or even worry at the possibility of an attack.
It was a…presence that had engulfed him.
Immense. Potent. Ominous.
He stopped. So did the steps behind him. He turned slowly, felt the icy menace of that manifestation swirling around, hindering him like a straitjacket of chains. By midturn every instinct was shouting at him, Don’t look back! Just walk away!
It took all he had to overcome the unreasoning aversion, mostly out of burning curiosity.
Next moment, it was his turn to gape.
Twenty paces away, a man stood so still he might have stopped time in its tracks, so dark he seemed to absorb shadows, snuffing out light. Tall, taller than even him, as broad, in an abaya that opened over shirt and pants, falling to the ground like a shroud of night. He projected something far larger than his physical size, emitted a force Haidar had never felt from another human being. His stance was deceptively relaxed, arms passive by his sides, face slightly lowered, dark eyes leveled on him from beneath dense, winged eyebrows, transmitting a message, a knowledge. That it would be at his whim that he walked away from this confrontation. And it looked like…
Rashid?
Every muscle in his body went slack with shock.
But…no. It couldn’t be. The dimness was playing tricks on his vision, his imagination. He had been thinking of Rashid a lot lately, must be superimposing his memory on this man who resembled him—
“I heard you were pimping yourself out.”
A sickening sensation jolted through him. That voice…
It shared elements with the one he’d last heard over the phone. After they’d become enemies. It had been cold and dark then, nothing like the lively, expressive baritone of the man who’d once been his best friend, sometimes closer to him than his own twin. He’d thought the ugly conflict had been coloring it.
It was far worse now. Fathomless with terrible mysteries.
It was Rashid. Changed almost beyond recognition, yet undoubtedly him. Then he moved. With every step closer, it became clearer. The orphaned distant cousin who, through what he’d once thought a twist of magnanimous fate, had become the biggest part of his and Jalal’s life, had not merely changed.
He’d metamorphosed.
One of the most apparent facets of radical change was his hair. Rashid had always kept it long, to his guardian’s distress. It had once reached the middle of his back. Even when he’d joined the army, he hadn’t gotten the usual military crop.
It was now almost shaved.
But it was worse than that. As he came to a stop a few feet away, in the light from a brass sconce, he could see it. A bloodcurdling scar slashing its way from the corner of Rashid’s left eye down to the corner of his jaw, slithering down his neck, then lower…
“So tell me, Haidar, how long have you been hiding this burning desire to be tied, gagged and abused?”
That new voice, that predatory rumble, revved inside his chest with an oppressive sorrow. For the two-decade friendship that had ended and taken another chunk of his humanity with it.
But regret served no purpose. And his humanity, according to the best of authorities, hadn’t existed to start with.
Tilting his head, conceding that there would be no quarter given on either side, his huff was the very sound of bitter amusement. “Dominated. Abused is a whole different subcategory.”
“Just goes to show you can never claim to know anyone.”
The bile of confusion at how vicious Rashid had become in his enmity rose again. “So true.”
Those black-as-an-abyss eyes poured icy goading and burning scorn over him. “Word is you exiled yourself from Zohayd after your mother tried to roast half the region and serve it to you on a platter. I wonder how much effort you put into fabricating that ‘fact.’”
Rashid was one of the trio who could ever smash through his defenses, melt the layers of ice at his core. Boil his blood.
But a heated defense was exactly what Rashid wanted.
He’d long been done giving anyone what they wanted from him.
“You know me, Rashid. Such things come to me effortlessly. I leave it to…lesser men to exert themselves.”
Seemingly satisfied he had gotten the reaction he’d wanted after all, Rashid said, “So now that Zohayd has wised up and kicked you out on your ear, you’ve come to blight Azmahar with your presence. But if you knew anything about me, you’d know people leave it to me to…deal with discord and its sowers.”
Without the tinge of sarcasm in his tone, he would have thought Rashid was deadly serious. Deadly, period. This was the face of someone who would kill without mercy.
As he had before.
Not that it worried him in the least. Two more things he’d been born without were fear and the ability to back down.
He raised Rashid double his provocation. “I just thought I’d come see what I can do to save Azmahar from the dire fate of having to settle for someone with your…fundamental deficiencies. You know how charitable I can be.”
Something lethal slithered through the depths of Rashid’s eyes—not exactly an emotion, but a reaction. Haidar didn’t know why, but it forced his focus back to the scar.
Ya Ullah, how had that happened? When? Not during his army years. He knew that. What he didn’t know was why he’d never heard of Rashid having it, or how he’d gotten it. Did anyone know?
He had a feeling no one did. No one but Rashid himself.
“How much did you pay those clans to ‘choose’ you as their candidate?”
Rashid’s voice, harsher now, brought his eyes back to his. He didn’t want his scar scrutinized. Especially by him.
Haidar exhaled. “How much did you?”
“I was actually offered whatever I could ask for. A lot of people will do anything to stop you, or your asymmetrical half, from taking the throne.”
Suddenly he was fed up. He hated this. Hated that they had to keep stabbing at each other, deepening the wounds, widening the rift. He’d never wanted any of this. Now he wanted it all to stop.
It wouldn’t be a concession of defeat if he reached out to Rashid. It would be an olive branch to an injured adversary. Who should have never become one.
He inhaled. “A throne is something I never thought about or wanted, Rashid.”
“That’s a famous tactic.” Rashid shrugged. “The sour-grapes maneuver. You were the Prince of Two Kingdoms who could never be in line for the throne of, either. What else can you do but pretend you aren’t interested?”
“No pretense. After a lifetime of watching what kind of pain in the neck, heart and butt being king is from the woeful example of my father, I wouldn’t wish it even on you.”
“I’m so touched that you consider me your worst enemy.”
Wanting to kick himself for the terribly timed joke, when it was certain Rashid had taken it literally, he started to clarify.
Rashid overrode him. “But don’t I now share that status with your pointedly absent semi-demon twin?”
Haidar waited for the mention of Jalal to finish turning the skewer embedded in his gut.
Rashid only stabbed him harder. “I came after you only to tell you how entertaining it will be, watching you two campaign for the throne, adding your arrogance to your uncle’s ineptness, your cousins’ excesses and your mother’s all-round villainy.”
Having inflicted all the injuries he’d wanted to, Rashid turned.
He’d walk away, and any chance to heal their severed bond would be lost.
Haidar lunged after him, grabbed his arm.
Rashid’s gaze lowered to the fingers digging into his abaya-wrapped flesh. Haidar could swear his hand burned.
He didn’t care if Rashid possessed heat vision for real and would burn off his hand. He had to know.
“What happened to you, Rashid?”
After a chilling moment, Rashid calmly removed his hand from his arm, stepped away as if Haidar’s nearness soiled him.
His gaze was opaque. “You were always a self-involved son of a major bitch, Haidar.”
He wasn’t up to contesting the accuracy of that summation, wasn’t sure how it applied here. “I’m trying to get involved now.”
“A bit too late for that. Years too late.”
“B’haggej’jaheem. Stop being cryptic. How did you get this way?”
“You mean the scar? You should have seen it before the corrective surgery.”
Haidar thought his head would burst with frustration. “I mean everything. The visible and…otherwise.”
For a long moment it appeared Rashid wouldn’t bother answering.
Then he said, “I dropped my guard.” His glare could have pulverized a rock. “Trusted the wrong people.”
Haidar staggered back a step. “Are you saying I somehow had a hand in this?”
“It’s so heartwarming to see how you’ve mastered self-deception, not to mention self-absolution, Haidar.”
Now his b
rain was threatening to liquefy with incomprehension. “That’s insane, Rashid. I know we’ve had our differences in the past years—”
“You mean we’ve been trying to destroy each other.”
“I’ve been trying to stop you from destroying me. And whatever I did in retaliation for your actions, it was only business.”
“This…” Rashid tilted his head, giving him an eyeful, slid a lazy finger down the ridge of disfigurement to the base of his neck. Haidar was certain it snaked lower onto his back. It seemed to have forged all the way to the recesses of his soul. “…was only business, too.”
Haidar stared at him, helplessness and confusion sinking their claws into his gut. “You’re making no sense.”
“Neither are you, if you think you can reinstate any personal interaction between us again. And if you think I’d ever be party to making you feel better about yourself in this lifetime, you have me confused with the wrong Rashid Aal Munsoori. One who ceased to exist long ago.”
Haidar grabbed his arm again as he started to turn. “Rashid, you at least owe me—”
Rashid rounded on him, snarling. “I don’t owe you, or Jalal, or any member of your family a damn thing—”
He stopped, his eyes burning black holes into Haidar’s soul.
Then his lips spread in a sinister parody of a smile, his teeth gleaming eerily against his darkened skin.
Haidar barely suppressed a shiver.
What the hell had Rashid metamorphosed into?
“I beg your pardon, Haidar.” What? “I was inaccurate when I said I don’t owe you and your family a thing. I do owe you. A lot of pain and damage. I always pay my debts.”
This time when he turned away, Haidar let him go.
Before he exited the corridor, Rashid turned with a serene-as-the-grave glance. “Sit tight, Haidar, and wait for your share of my payback.”
Five
I haven’t gotten my share of your payback yet?
What were the past two years all about then?
Haidar struggled not to pursue Rashid, tackle him to the ground in front of everyone and force him to explain.
