Desert Destiny

by Sarah Holland

  Suliman stood a distance away, talking to two men. The circular chamber had a high domed ceiling, and light spilled blood-red from its glass into the hushed stone chamber.

  ‘Suliman!’ Bethsheba’s voice echoed as she spoke, and he turned, seeing her suddenly, his dark eyes flashing over her with surprise, down to her painted, jewelled feet, and back up to her fierce gold eyes.

  He walked towards her in white robes, a gold iqal around his head; sheikh once more. On his hand flashed a gold signet ring inlaid with rubies and a crest.

  ‘Sheba,’ he said deeply as he reached her, and his hands slid to her shoulders, ‘you are more lovely than Scheherazade.’

  ‘What is this place?’ she asked, flushing. ‘Why are we here?’

  ‘It is the end our journey,’ he said deeply, ‘and the beginning of all journeys.’

  ‘I don’t understand…’ She looked at the two men watching them. ‘Is this some kind of ceremony?’

  ‘It is our wedding ceremony, Sheba.’

  Catching her breath, she just stared at him, her gold eyes wide with shock between the black yashmak and glittering gold head-dress. ‘Wedding ceremony?’ She stepped back from him.

  ‘Come!’ he said urgently. ‘Say your vows beside me that we may enter the gateway to paradise.’

  ‘But—but you can’t marry me!’ she said, appalled. ‘And I certainly can’t marry you!’

  ‘You must have known this was imminent!’ he said flatly, eyes narrowing.

  ‘What?’ She could barely get her breath back. ‘But you didn’t mention it! Not once did you——’

  ‘I said you were to be my warrior queen. What did you think I meant, if not my wife?’

  ‘You said nothing that would indicate marriage! Nothing at all! I would have——’

  ‘You think I intend to have bastards ruling my kingdom when I am dead?’ he asked flatly.

  Her eyes flared. ‘I think you’re a fool if you expect me to go ahead with a marriage I don’t want!’

  ‘Take care, Sheba!’ he bit out, nostrils flaring with sudden anger. ‘You insult a prince of royal blood! I am no fool to suggest this marriage! I at least have the courage to follow my desires and my destiny, to fight those who would stand in my way, and demand everything of the woman I want!’

  ‘You want me the same way you want food!’ she said fiercely. ‘To satisfy a temporary hunger! When you’re sated you’ll have no further use for me! What will happen then? Will I become one of your women? Bathing the next woman who takes your fancy?’

  ‘Sheba,’ he said thickly, hands gripping her upper arms, ‘have you understood nothing? You are she I have waited for since birth! You are she with the head of a virgin and the body of a she-cat! You are——’

  ‘That’s just a legend!’ she protested hoarsely. ‘The truth is that I’m just Bethsheba Lyon from London SW3! That I work as a pop singer and don’t belong in your world at all!’

  ‘You are the Sheba!’ he bit out, eyes blazing. ‘And I will marry you!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You pull back from the gateway because you recognise the scent of death!’ he said thickly, holding her tight, though she struggled furiously, fear pulling her apart. ‘The death of your old life and all it meant!’

  ‘Of course I pull back!’ she said fiercely. ‘I can’t let you marry me!’

  ‘Yet through the fires of your death will come resurrection! As my Sheba—my destiny and my queen!’

  ‘I’m not Sheba! ‘ she cried, tears stinging her eyes. ‘Can’t you understand that? You don’t want to marry me for myself—only for my resemblance to a dead legend! But I’m not a dead legend! I’m a real woman, made of flesh and blood, and——’

  ‘You’re not a woman until you have loved a man!’ Suliman said under his breath. ‘This one truth, at least, the West teaches its women! Until the moment of surrender you are still a girl, and it is the girl in you who fights for survival!’

  ‘I won’t marry you, Suliman!’ she broke out hoarsely, recognising his determination suddenly and matching it with a determination of her own as she began her struggle in earnest.

  ‘Do not fight with me publicly,’ he bit out under his breath. ‘Not in front of my men.’

  She looked into his hard, angry face and felt the tears blur her vision. His hands were hurting her. The men were watching, grim-faced. The scent of incense hung heavy in the air.

  What choice did she have? Railing against fate in Suliman’s palace was pointless. His men were everywhere, and here his word was law. There was nothing she could do, and it was time she faced it.

  I can have the marriage annulled later, she told herself fiercely. Or get a divorce. I don’t have to stay married to a man who doesn’t love me! I don’t…

  Suddenly she was standing beside him, repeating her vows. Her voice echoed around the stone chamber, followed by Suliman’s, and a gold rope bound their wrists together for eternity.

  When it was over and her shaking hand signed the documents, Bethsheba looked down at her scrawled name and saw she had written, ‘Sheba.’ She froze where she stood and her heart skipped several beats as she tried to understand how it had happened. It was uncanny. It looked Arabic.

  ‘My queen!’ Suliman said beside her, and his hands curled possessively at her waist.

  ‘I don’t have to stay married to you, Suliman!’ Bethsheba told him hoarsely. ‘As soon as I get back to the West I’ll file for a divorce, and I’ll get one, believe me, when I tell them how you forced me into this marriage.’

  Then I must see to it, my queen, that you never get back to the West!’ He released her, clapped his hands together, and the great doors of the stone chamber were flung wide. Three handmaidens stood at the entrance. Suliman spoke in Arabic and the women came forward.

  ‘What now, Suliman?’ Bethsheba asked, hating him. ‘What new test awaits me?’

  ‘You will find out soon enough, Sheba,’ he bit out, and clapped his hands again.

  The women took Bethsheba and led her away gently. She was taken down a long corridor, shown to a room, and left inside it, alone, to come to terms with her marriage.

  Of course: it was the bedroom.

  The great silken bed dominated the room, folds of scarlet silk hanging down beside gold silk, blue and white. Royal blue carpet covered the floor, ornately curved chests were inlaid with pearls and precious stones, and cassia-oil lamps hung around the room.

  Bethsheba El Khazir, she thought bitterly, but her heart leapt with pride and excitement too, and— however hard she struggled not to feel it—the love she felt for Suliman flooded her with such sudden force that she was almost knocked backwards.

  How can I love a man like him? she thought furiously! and tears stung her eyes. He cares nothing for me! He uses me, dominates me, kidnaps me and fights me!

  Yet she loved him, and the war inside herself raged violently as she tried to reconcile herself to her marriage, and to the moment when he would take her in that silken bed tonight.

  Her mouth went dry with pent-up desire as she stared at the bed. Dressed in this erotic Eastern way, painted and scented, she felt like a sacrifice for the sheikh. He only wanted her body. He had made himself clear on that point from the very be-ginning. He wanted what this night would bring. The satiation of every desire he had ever held towards her.

  A door opened on the far side of the room.

  Bethsheba gasped, turning.

  Suliman entered.

  For a second, neither of them spoke or moved. Then Suliman closed the door.

  ‘You are mine,’ he said intently. ‘At last.’

  With a hoarse, angry cry, she flung, ‘I will never be yours! No—not even if you brand the name of Suliman El Khazir into my flesh! I will never belong to you—or to any man!’

  ‘You deny me still!’ he bit out, making her jump as he came for her, fury in his eyes. ‘Even now that we are married! Even now that I have made you my queen—you still refuse me!’

  ‘You
force me to,’ she said hoarsely, backing away from his anger, ‘just as you forced me to ride into the desert with you! Just as you forced me into marriage by——’

  ‘Your memory fails you, bint!’ he said between his teeth, reaching for her. ‘You came to my palace at Agadir of your own free will, and so shall you enter my bed tonight: freely and with excitement!’

  ‘Never!’ she flung, shaking.

  His hand dragged her towards him. ‘From the moment I saw you, I have not been able to think, to eat, to breathe, to live! Not until I had you here in the palace of my forefathers, as my wife, my queen—my lover!’

  ‘Why don’t you say what you really want, you coward?’ she said bitterly. ‘You just want to go to bed with me!’

  ‘Do you think I have had a choice in this?’ he asked thickly, holding her still as she struggled. ‘Do you think that at any moment, since first I saw you, I have been able to sit down and think about this clearly? It is destiny’s hand that has thrown us together, Sheba, and now destiny demands that we release her deepest and most primitive forces!’

  ‘You mean sex, don’t you?’ she said, her hands curling on his strong shoulders. ‘Why don’t you say it? Why don’t you just fling me on the bed and take me? Get it over with and let me go!’

  ‘You speak of it as an ordeal,’ he said thickly, and his eyes were suddenly ablaze with fire, ‘and so it will be, bint. An ordeal of pain as well as pleasure! You are poised on the brink of womanhood, and I will take you through the gateway with my body!’

  ‘I can’t fight you now, Suliman!’ she said rawly, tears in her eyes. ‘You are king here, and can do what you will.’

  ‘I am not king without you, Sheba,’ he said under his breath, and she was suddenly still, staring at that hard, noble face. ‘I am a king only in legend, in the minds of the people for whom the ancient boundaries of Hafu still hold truth. They are as seduced by your legend as they are by mine—just as you were seduced into my arms by the legends of your childhood and the power they still hold for you.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said hoarsely, acceptance in her gold eyes, ‘it’s true! I have been…seduced! Seduced by Arabia, by the desert and the memories of my childhood.’ Anger flashed in her eyes. ‘And you played on those weakness of mine, Suliman!’

  ‘But those weaknesses,’ he said thickly, ‘are your very essence. They have been buried by the false life you lead in London. But here, with me, you will find truth again. The only real truth—the power of life and of destiny!’

  He suddenly ripped the head-dress away, flinging it with a clatter of gold to the floor along with her veil and yashmak.

  ‘Oh!’ Bethsheba jerked back in shock as her hair tumbled in fierce gold colour around her slender shoulders.

  He ripped the black cloak from her and she was exposed, the diaphanous gold-scarlet gown revealing her full breasts with prominent pink nipples, her slender waist and bare belly, her long slim legs and the gleam of gold between her thighs.

  ‘Ah, yes…’ Suliman said thickly, eyes black with desire. ‘Yes!’

  Heat pulsed through her body. ‘No…I don’t want——’

  ‘Yes!’ he said under his breath, dark eyes flashing up to meet hers. ‘Yes, Sheba, you do!’ As he stepped closer his strong hands moved to her breasts, and she gasped hotly, staring at him in shock, as his fingers stroked her erect nipples and her legs weakened beneath her.

  ‘Please…’ she whispered through dry lips, unable to move away, ‘I’m helpless here…I can’t get away…’

  ‘You don’t want to get away!’ he said under his breath, and then his head descended, his hard mouth closing over hers in a kiss that sent the blood pumping through her body.

  Her hands fluttered up to his broad shoulders instinctively, weakness invading her like sweet torturous sin, and her mouth was opening beneath his with a moan as she gave in to that kiss, their breath mingling in erotic heat, their tongues meeting, and every light, restless moan from her hot throat betraying her as the kiss deepened.

  The strong hands stroked her nipples, inciting hoarse moans of pent-up longing. Her mouth was open and moist beneath his, and as she felt him slowly tug her bodice down she burnt with shameful excitement, loving the feel of his hands on her bare breasts.

  When his head bent to take a nipple in his mouth, she almost whispered, ‘Yes…yes…!’ like a wanton in the grip of blind hunger, and her hands shook as she pushed the white head-dress from him to bare his head to her fingers, thrusting them into his thick black hair and gasping as his teeth bit teasingly into her nipple and pleasure-pain shot like hot needles of madness through her turbulent blood.

  He stroked her belly, making her shudder, tension gripping her inside as he touched her, stroked down to her slender hips, and when he heard her moan softly in response he moved his head back to hers, possessed her mouth again with his tongue and deliberately cupped her bare buttocks with strong hands, pushing her slowly against his hardness.

  ‘Oh, God…!’ Her voice sounded high and strained as the blood pumped harder and harder around her body. ‘Suliman!’

  ‘You are mine!’ he said thickly, and then swung her into his arms.

  He carried her to the bed and her mind reeled as he lowered her on to its silken folds. He joined her at once, sliding against her, one strong thigh moving between hers to spread her beneath him as his mouth covered hers in a burning, sensational kiss.

  He was stripping her slowly, expertly, taking his time, as though taunting her with her own need and forcing her to face it, as his hands pushed the silken bodice off to bare her breasts fully to his gaze, and studying them, straight-faced, without touching them while she shivered in a hot fever of excitement and waited.

  As his fingers dropped the silk bodice to the floor her mouth dried, and when those same fingers slowly cupped her breasts like ripe fruit she stared at his mouth and yearned for its heat. As his head slowly lowered she closed her eyes, and when his mouth hovered tormentingly over her aching nipples she burned with intolerable excitement, arching herself towards him until her nipple slid into his mouth.

  He closed his eyes with a hard smile and took what she offered him. His strong hands moved down as she moaned softly beneath him, and when they began to stroke her slender thighs she burned with shameful excitement, longing to feel him tug the silken skirt that covered her, longing to feel it glide down softly over her hips, over her thighs, leaving her naked to his gaze and his touch; helpless, burning, yearning.

  His mouth possessed hers again, and as the passion rose higher she found herself moving instinctively against him, almost as though she did not know she moved her body, slowly, rhythmically, sensually against the hard thigh that parted hers.

  Suliman’s strong hands were on her hips, and as his kiss deepened, so one hand moved to slide beneath her, cupping her, pressing her against him, up and then down, slowly, while her soft moans made his control stronger and her resolve weaker.

  Touch me, her mind screamed, and she was struggling to breathe, struggling not to scream it hoarsely at him when she felt his fingers loosen the silk skirt at her waist, and she almost sobbed with fierce need as he pushed the skirt slowly, slowly, down over her bare hips, then over her slim thighs.

  Her heart was banging like a drum. The silk skirt swished softly on to the floor, and she was naked beneath him, her inner thighs like silk and her blood pulsating to the rhythm of desire.

  ‘Now, oh, queen,’ he said thickly, his mouth inches from hers, ‘now shall you see your king!’

  His hands loosed his own clothing, and she watched with dry-mouthed fear as the white robes fell to the floor one by one and he was bared to her. First his chest, that tanned, muscled, hair-roughened paradise she had longed to explore so many times with her fingers, her tongue, her breath, and as his lower body was bared to her she moaned aloud with sobbing need and terror, her eyes inexorably drawn to the potent throb of his manhood.

  He came back to her, nude, and fierce heat burned her as those
hair-roughened thighs slid against her silken inner thighs, her hands moving to his chest, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

  ‘I’m frightened…’ she whispered thickly as his mouth moved to her throat and he slid closer, closer to her centre. ‘Please don’t hurt me! Please…’

  ‘The girl must die,’ he said, breathing raggedly, ‘before the woman can be born. My love…’ he began to enter her, his heart banging violently in his chest ‘…my love…!’

  ‘Oh…!’ Her hoarse cry became a gasp of exquisite agony and he stopped, looking down at her, his face taut with excitement as he breathed harshly, fighting for control, and when he pushed again, entered her further, she began to struggle, impaled by him like some pagan sacrifice.

  ‘Move with the pain!’ he bit out thickly, and thrust himself inside her to the hilt with a fierce groan of excitement. ‘Move with it!’

  ‘I can’t!’ she screamed in paroxysms of agonised excitement. ‘Don’t! Don’t!’

  His mouth tightened; he closed his eyes. Then he gave a low snarl of need and he was moving, filling her, thrusting into her as he made rough sounds of spiralling ecstasy under his breath, and as her screams were ignored so she started to move, anger and pain making her bold as she moved against him, slowly at first, then faster, meeting him thrust for thrust, her eyes staring fiercely at his body as he possessed her utterly.

  Then it happened. Like a switch thrown, the pain went and the burning need returned, turning her mindless as their bodies met and clung together, moving like animals, their skin damp with sweat, the sounds they made guttural and wildly exciting.

  Love exploded in her like a tidal wave. She was kissing his throat, her fingers pushing through his hair, down his back, over his tense spine and down to clutch shakingly at his buttocks. Suliman’s mouth closed over hers with a hoarse groan of answering love, and as he thrust faster and faster so she felt the tension claw at her stomach for release, felt anger and hatred and love mingling together inside her…then her breath was sucked in as though she’d been punched, and her head jerked back, eyes rolling up as she gasped with mindless dark pleasure, the caverns of her mind and body flooding with hot ecstasy as her body jerked up and down like a rag doll, spasms punching the tension from her body.