Desert Warrior

by Nalini Singh

  By force of will, he buried that part of him that had become entranced by her. It shocked him just how close he'd come to laying his heart at her feet once again, even when it was clear that she didn't trust him. He wouldn't make that mistake twice. He couldn't. Not when his vulnerability to her ran so deep it had become his greatest weakness.

  Chapter Seven

  The next few days felt as if they'd sprung fully fledged from Jasmine's worst nightmares. Tariq had withdrawn so completely from her that it scared her. No matter what she tried --humor, anger, pleas, protestations of love--none of it reached him. The strength of will implied by such total emotional excision was a huge blow to her fragile confidence. Tariq could apparently cut her out without a thought.

  " Tariq, please," she said, in the car on the way back to Zulheina, "talk to me." She was frantic to make him respond.

  " What do you wish to talk about?" He looked up from his papers, his eyes holding the mild interest of a stranger.

  "Anything! Stop shutting me out!" She was close to tears, which horrified her.

  "I do not know what you mean." He bent his head again, dismi ssing her.

  With a cry torn from deep inside, she pulled away the papers and threw them aside. "I won't let you do this to me!"

  His eyes flashed green fire as his hand snaked out and gripped her chin. "You have forgotten the rules. I no longer follow your demands." No anger, no fury, only calm control. Even his touch gentled and then he let her go.

  "I love you. Doesn't that mean anything?" she asked in a broken whisper.

  "Thank you for your love." He picked up the papers she'd hurled aside, and sorted them. "I am sure its worth is the same as it was four years ago."

  The subtle, sardonic barb delivered in that smooth, aristocratic voice hit home. "We're not the same people as we were then. Give us a chance!" she begged.

  He met her gaze with eyes so neutral they were unrecog nizable as her panther's. "I need to read these."

  He'd beaten her. Tariq's anger she could deal with, but she had no defense against this cold, inaccessible stranger. It was clear that he regretted the indulgences he'd allowed her in Zeina, the small things that had caused her guard to slip. She could imagine his thought processes. He probably thought that she believed she could control him now, because he'd allowed her so much, been so open.

  Despite that knowledge, she didn't buckle. Tariq was stub born, but she'd realized that when it came to loving him, she was obstinate beyond belief.

  Their first night back, she was tempted to sleep in her own room, hurting and unsure of her welcome. Instead, she brushed her hair in front of Tariq's mirror and lay down in his bed. And when he reached for her, she went to him. In this place, they connected. Their loving was always wild, always pas sionate. It gave her hope, because how could he touch her like that, how could he whisper, "You're mine, Mina. Mine!" as he moved inside her, if only lust was involved?

  A week later, Jasmine pinned some silver cloth in place and picked up her scissors.

  "I wish to talk to you, my wife."

  Startled by the deep rumble of Tariq's voice, she dropped the pins she'd been holding in her mouth. "Don't sneak up me like that!" She put one hand on her T-shirt, above her heart. "And stop looming."

  He frowned, and she knew he was about to remind her that he gave the orders around here. Since their return from Zeina, he'd been more autocratic than usual, and colder. It was hard to battle this warrior every day, but his anger strengthened her resolve . Anger this powerful had to spring from deep emotion.

  And, she realized, she was willing to fight the warrior because he was a part of the man she loved. The ice that tempered the fire.

  Mentally rolling her eyes, she raised her arms and smiled in invitation. Loving him was the only way she knew to prove that she'd changed. For a moment, she thought that he would refuse, and her heart clenched in anticipation of another bruise. But then he came down on his haunches beside her.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. He let her be the aggressor, remaining quiescent in her arms, but Jasmine couldn't forget the power humming just under the surface. He could have taken over at any second, but he let her control the kiss, seemingly content to taste her.

  When when she drew back, he removed her hands and clasped them between his own. "I am going to Paris for the week." Any fire that her kiss might have aroused was carefully hidden, if it existed at all.

  "What?" She couldn't conceal her surprise. Her hands curled into fists in his grasp. "When?"

  "Within the hour."

  She blinked. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

  His jaw firmed. "I have no need to tell you such things.

  "I'm your wife!"

  "Yes. And you will stay in your place."

  The unexpected verbal reprimand hit her like a slap. She bent h er head and took a deep breath. "You know some of the F rench designers are putting on shows this week. If you'd told me earlier, I could've gone with you." She'd come to expect his need for control, could even understand it, but he'd nev er treated her so harshly, as if he cared nothing for her feelings. She hadn't known that he regretted what had hap pened in Zeina that much.

  He released her hands and gripped her chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing her to face him. "No, Jasmine. You cannot leave Zulheil."

  She frowned. "You don't trust me, do you? What do you expect me to do--run away at the first available opportunity?"

  "I may have been a fool once, but you will not make me one twice," he nearly growled.

  "I came and stayed of my own free will. I won't run."

  "You did not know what you faced when you came." His features were expressionless as he brushed aside her words. "I am not wrapped around your little finger, as you no doubt expected, and I do not intend to be. Because you know this, you will wish to escape. I do not intend to lose you."

  She shook her head in denial, but he didn't release her. "I love you," she repeated firmly. "Don't you know what that means?"

  "It means that you can turn your back and walk away at any time." Rapier sharp, his jabs made her bleed. But she still wasn't beaten.

  "How long are you going to act this way?" she asked him in desperation. "How long are you going to punish me? When is your revenge going to be complete?"

  His green eyes had darkened to the color of the deepest sea. "I do not do this to punish you. To want to take revenge, I would have to feel something for you beyond lust, which I do not. You are a possession, prized but not irreplaceable."

  She felt the color leave her face. She couldn't speak. Her heart felt as if it was bleeding. In a desperate attempt to hide her grief, she bit the insides of her cheeks hard enough to taste blood, and waited for him to finish.

  "I will be involved in matters of state. Hiraz knows how to get in touch with me."

  She remained silent, barely able to hear him through the painful buzzing in her ears. When he bent his head and placed a possessive kiss on her lips, she accepted it dully, too stunned to respond. Tariq seemed to take her reaction as subtle defi ance because he moved his hand to her hair and tangled his fingers in the long ponytail, gripping her head.

  "You will not deny me," he growled against her lips. Be cause he knew her every sensual weakness, he was right. She c ouldn't deny him. Not when she'd been starving for him for s o long.

  When he drew back, cold satisfaction gleamed in his eyes.

  "I can make you pant for me anytime I wish, Jasmine, so do not try and manipulate me with your body."

  The sensual fires he'd aroused were doused instantly by his taunt. Thankfully, he didn't continue the lesson.

  " I will be leaving in forty minutes." With that, he rose and strode out the door of her workroom.

  Jasmine didn't know how long she sat there, unable to function. She felt as if he'd ripped out her heart and then laughed at her agony. She hurt too much to feel the pain. When she finally rose and made her way to the wide glass doors that led out to
a balcony overlooking the main gardens, it was to see Tariq walking to a royal limousine.

  He was dressed in a black suit, his tie the vivid green of h is eyes, his beautiful hair brushed back. She saw him stop and look up at the balcony. Quickly, she stumbled back into the room. From this far, she couldn't make out the expression on his face, but she knew he hadn't seen her. Then he stepped inside and the car drove off.

  It was as if his departure released the paralysis that had protected her from her own anguished emotions. Suddenly close to an emotional breakdown, she scurried through the corridors, praying she wouldn't meet anyone along the way. Once safely behind the locked doors of the exquisite room that was her own, she walked out into the private garden and hid under the spreading tree with the blue-white flowers. The branches were so heavy with blooms that they almost touched the ground, providing her with a scented cave of darkness in which to let go of her torment.

  Her sobs came from somewhere deep inside, wrenched out of her body with such force that she didn't have breath enough to make a sound. She was destroyed by the sudden insight that she'd been fooling herself. She'd believed that she could love Tariq enough to make him love her, a girl who'd never been loved. She had allowed him every liberty, going so far as to tie herself to him for life. She'd given him her body and her soul, keeping nothing back.

  And now he'd rejected her gift in the cruelest of ways. She was nothing but a possession to him, prized but not irreplace able. He felt nothing but lust for her. Lust! Her illusions of time healing the wounds of the past shattered under the real ization that his actions weren't born out of pain. He just didn't care if he hurt her.

  Had he married her only to humble her? Crush her?

  She curled into a ball at the base of the tree and wrapped her arms around her shaking body, trying to breathe through the pain that lay like a rock in her throat. Dusk fell outside but she didn't notice. She'd cried all the tears she had inside, but her pain was so great she couldn't move.

  Freed, the demons that she'd drowned in tears descended upon her, wanting their pound of flesh. In Tariq's land, in Tariq's arms, she'd almost managed to forget the lack in her. The missing part that made her incapable of being loved. Suddenly, the memories of that terrible day in her childhood when she'd understood the truth flooded over her.

  "Does it bother you that you demanded half of Mary's in heritance before you'd adopt Jasmine?" Aunt Ella had asked the woman Jasmine had thought was her mother. "After all, Mary is our baby sister. "

  "No. She should've known better than to get pregnant by some stranger in a bar. I don't know what possessed her to have the child. " The sound of ice cubes hitting crystal had penetrated the library door. "We aren't some charity. How else were Jasmine's expenses going to be covered?"

  "You got a lot more than that, " Ella had persisted.

  "Mary's inheritance from Grandpa was twice the size of ours. "

  "I think of it as adequate compensation for having to accept bad blood into my family. Lord only knows what kind of a loser Jasmine's father was. Mary was so drunk, she couldn't even remember his name. "

  Later, when Jasmine had forced herself to ask, Aunt Ella had taken pity on her and told her about Mary. Apparently, in order to avoid any hint of scandal, Mary had moved to America after Jasmine's birth. She'd never returned. The people who'd raised Jasmine, Mary's older sister, Lucille, and her husband, James, had already had two children, Michael and Sarah, and had been unwilling to take on another, until they'd b een given a financial incentive. Yet they'd gone on to have another child of their own--a beloved younger son named M athew.

  That day, Jasmine had been slapped in the face with the fact that any care she'd ever known had been bought and paid for. Searching for someone to love her, she'd written to Mary, saying hello. The response had arrived on her thirteenth birth day, a cool request to make no further contact because Mary had no wish to be associated with a past "indiscretion."

  An indiscretion. That's all Jasmine was to her birth mother. And to her adoptive mother she was bad blood. Neither Mary nor Lucille had been able to love her. Today, she was forced to accept that the lack hadn't magically disappeared. She was still unloved. Still unwanted.

  The next day, Jasmine decided there was nothing to be gained by crying over something she couldn't change. Despite the hurt that existed inside her like a living, breathing creature, she forced herself into her workroom and picked up the scissors she'd dropped the day before.

  She had to do something until she figured out how to handle the situation with Tariq, the man whom she'd married in a blind haze of love. Perhaps she'd made the biggest mistake of her life, but she didn't want to think about that now. Neither did she want to think about the way her old fears and inse curities had tormented her last night.

  An hour into her work, she heard a telephone ring, but ignored it. There was a knock on her door a minute later.

  "Madam?"

  She looked up to find one of the palace staff at the door. "Yes, Shazana?"

  "Sheik Zamanat wishes to speak with you."

  Jasmine's throat locked. About to ask Shazana to tell Tariq that she was busy, she recognized the possible consequences of asking a loyal staff member to lie, and nodded.

  "Please transfer the call to this phone." She indicated the one near the door of the turret.

  Shazana nodded and left. The phone rang seconds later. Jasmine stood up and walked over. She picked up the receiver... then hung up. Heart thudding, she hurried down the hallway, into her bedroom and out into the garden. The phone rang again just as she escaped. She hid under her tree.

  It was cowardly to hide from Tariq but she couldn't bear to talk to him, couldn't bear to hear the voice that she'd dreamed about for years rip her to pieces with the painful truth about her inadequacy. Last night, she'd believed that all her illusions had been destroyed, but today she realized she couldn't face the total loss of hope. Not yet. Not yet.

  Perhaps an hour later, she emerged and made her way back to her workroom. There was a message on the table by the phone. She picked it up with shaking hands. It instructed her to call Tariq at a given number.

  "Go to hell!" She crunched the note into a ball and threw it into the wastebasket, then began to work on the top she was making. Her movements were jerky and uncoordinated, as for the first time, anger began to simmer under the hurt and sorrow. So Sheik Zamanat expected her to come to heel when he hollered? She almost stabbed the material with her scissors.

  He was about to learn that his wife was not some toy he could throw aside and pick up whenever he felt like it.

  Tariq hung up the phone for the fourth time. He was an noyed by his wife's subtle rebellion, but another, more dangerous emotion threatened. That emotion would not let him forget the naked pain in Mina's eyes when he'd last spoken to her.

  After so long, the anger and hurt he'd ruthlessly controlled for years had shattered its bonds and lashed out. When Mina had voiced her love, he'd felt as if she'd torn open wounds that had barely begun to heal. The almost unbearable pain had sprung from a need that he didn't want to accept. It had caused him to say things he shouldn't have.

  Guilt was not something he was familiar with, but pangs of it had been stabbing him since the moment Mina hadn't appeared on the balcony to bid him goodbye. His sense of loss had shaken him. He felt as if he'd damaged something fragile between them. Only angry pride had kept him from returning to her.

  But Mina didn't hold grudges. Once he spoke to her, she would return to normal. And the next time he picked up that phone, he would talk to her.

  Jasmine felt as if she was getting ready for a knock-down, drag-out fight. She'd ignored Tariq for two days. At first, it had been blind instinct, an attempt to save herself from rejection. She'd had enough of that in her lifetime. Later, when she'd calmed down, she'd realized that she needed some time and distance to sort out her feelings. Tariq had given her a rude shock, waking her up forever to the fact that the man she loved was not the man
she'd married.

  Did she love this Tariq?

  Her mind wasn't completely made up, but her anger refused to be ignored any longer. This time, Tariq would get an answer to his call. A call that came as soon as dawn was breaking over Zulheil. She picked up the phone on the second ring.

  "Prized possession speaking." It slipped out without thought. She was horrified, but just a little proud of herself.

  There was complete and utter silence on the other end of the phone. "I am not amused, Jasmine," he said finally.

  "Well, since I'm not a comedienne, my ego isn't too badly wounded." Sitting in bed, her legs hanging off the edge, she felt the simmering anger start to bubble. "Did you have any thing to say or did you just ring to remind me of my place?" Where had that come from?

  "You are being obstinate."

  "Yup."

  "What did you expect when you returned?" A thread of anger crept into his so far calm tone. "That nothing would have changed? That I would lay my trust in your lap?"

  "No. I expected you to have forgotten me." It was a cruel truth. "But you didn't. You took me and you married me, giving me a place in your life. How dare you now treat me like... like an object? Like something to scrape off the bottom of your royal shoe? How dare you?" Tears threatened, riding the crest of her anger.

  "Never have I treated you as such!" His response was a harsh reproof.

  "Yes, you have. And you know what? I don't want to talk to a man who treats me like that. I could almost hate you. Don't call me anymore. Maybe by the time you get home I'll have calmed down. Right now, I have nothing for you. Noth ing!" It was the raw pain of her emotions speaking.

  "We will talk when I return." His voice held a note she'd never before heard, a note she couldn't understand.

  Jasmine hung up the phone with shaking hands, surprised by her own outburst. She'd planned belligerence, but had ended up ripping apart the shields protecting her heart. She hurt. And yet it felt cleansing. She was worth more than this treatment. She might not be loved but she was worthy of re spect.