“What do you care?” Maddy said stubbornly. “And anyway, we are the spawn of monsters, you being one of those monsters that created the two of us, turned us into what we are.” She glanced at the knife again, frowning as she wondered what came next. She wanted to end this, finish Khalifa, crawl out that window and find Gaurina and slit her damned throat. But something about Khalifa’s tone made her hesitate. This woman was calm, as if she was resigned to her fate, had decided that she wanted to end this too. Perhaps she had something of value to say before she died.
“All right,” Maddy said finally, even though she could feel her hand shake. “Any last words?”
Khalifa took a breath and slowly sat on a leather divan up against the faded red walls of the old French house. “You have not asked the question, but I will answer it anyway. I will tell you about her, about all of us, about the promises we made, the promises we broke. But it starts with her. Your mother.”
Maddy’s hand was trembling so much it scared her, and she lowered the knife and closed her eyes as she felt those tears that came from somewhere deep inside roll down her cheeks. She nodded, slowly going down on her haunches and nodding again. “Go on,” she said quietly. “Go on.”
“She was wild, out of control, insane. But she was also special, brilliant, and strong in a way that captivated everyone who came into contact with her. Everyone fell in love with her. Everyone was scared of her. Everyone bowed to her—if not in public, then certainly behind closed doors. The Sheikh, myself, your stepbrother, your father . . . even Benson.”
“The CIA agent?” Maddy snorted and rolled her eyes. “He fucked her too? How shocking. Excuse me if I don’t gasp in surprise.”
Khalifa smiled and shook her head. “He never wanted her for a lover. He wanted to recruit her. In fact, he still does. She is the reason we are all still alive!” She raised an eyebrow as she glanced at her dead husband. “Well, most of us, at least.”
“Why? What the hell does the CIA want with my mother?”
Khalifa laughed. “Look into her eyes and you will see. But do not stare too long.”
Maddy frowned as she tried to make sense of Khalifa’s cryptic remarks. She tried to think back, but the memories of her mother were inextricably mixed with those of the old Sheikh, those moments of darkness and fear, panic and pain. She searched herself for a clear memory of her mother’s eyes, but it would not come. And so Maddy knew she’d have to go . . . go to her mother.
31
They crawled out the window, crept through the courtyard, Khalifa leading the way as Maddy followed, knife in hand, wondering what the hell she was doing. Was Khalifa leading her into a trap? What kind of trap? If Khalifa wanted her dead, all she’d have had to do would have been to scream and call the dead Sheikh’s guards into the room. As for why she’d killed her husband . . . who the hell knew that either! Remorse? Guilt? After twenty years of living the good life in Paris?! What was driving this old queen?
Something Khalifa had said came back to Maddy as they stopped on the far side of the courtyard, outside a darkened window. What had she said about Gaurina? That everyone loved her, everyone wanted her, everyone bowed to her? So was it jealousy then? As simple as that? After all, back then Khalifa would have been the odd one out, right? The old Sheikh had his prize in Maddy, and everyone else was fucking Gaurina! Was Khalifa just straight-up jealous? Was she in love with Gaurina too? Was this more twisted than anyone could imagine? Who the hell knew.
Keep your head straight and don’t lose your nerve, Maddy told herself as she gripped the knife and tested the window to the empty room on the far side of the courtyard. It was open, and she pulled herself up and then helped Khalifa enter. It smelled musty but clean, and Khalifa hurried to the door and put her ear to it, waiting for a moment before beckoning to Maddy.
“Come. There is no one. Come.”
They entered the dark, empty hallways of the mansion, and Maddy followed the old queen, the two of them keeping to the walls until they could see the lights of the great room in the distance, around a corner. Khalifa listened at another door and nodded.
“They are in here. The guards will stay outside the other room because their Sheikh is in there,” she whispered. “We can enter.”
Maddy tightened when she saw the old queen’s eyes. She didn’t trust this woman. Khalifa had been there at the worst of times, watching from the wings, perhaps even directing the show. Sure, Maddy couldn’t trust her own memories either, and so she had to trust the only thing that she knew for a fact was real: Her body, her gut, her damned instincts.
So she shook her head and stepped close to the queen, holding the shining double-edged blade to her wrinkled throat and gesturing towards the door with her head. “Royalty first, your highness. Come on, you old bitch. Open the door. Slowly now.”
They entered the room, and Maddy gasped when she looked at the woman kneeling on the floor in front of her stepbrother. And then suddenly she remembered those eyes, those light brown eyes that seemed to change color if you stared too long at them. Those eyes that were staring into Imraan’s, who was sitting cross-legged in front of Gaurina, helpless like a child as he stared back at his stepmother, his first love.
32
“I was your first love, was I not?” she’d whispered as her gaze met his, her voice sounding familiar and soothing, like an ancient lullaby.
“Yes,” he’d said, hearing his own voice come out of him like it was someone else speaking. He knew what she was doing, but he couldn’t seem to stop her. Perhaps he was already hypnotized. But how? He’d barely looked into her eyes. He’d been on his guard. How could he be at her mercy already, already under her spell?
Unless he’d never broken that spell.
Those words she’d been muttering when she first saw him, the Sheikh thought as he glanced down at his hands, which felt useless and clumsy suddenly. He’d had them on Gaurina’s throat, but he couldn’t seem to lift them now. They were dead weight.
Those words, he thought again. Wasn’t it true that hypnotists could plant trigger words in their subjects’ minds, words that would immediately bring them back under hypnosis, even years after the initiating sessions? Perhaps even twenty years later? Was that what was happening here? Could it happen even though he was vaguely conscious of it happening?
Imraan sensed movement at his left, and he was conscious of the door opening, but he could not turn his head. He was fixed on Gaurina, and it was only when she turned her head that he felt a moment of release. It was not complete release though, and although he was able to turn to glance at the two women who’d just entered the room, he still could not move from his cross-legged position on the floor.
He recognized both the women, but in a distant, twice-removed from reality sort of way. It was like a dream, he thought as he watched Gaurina rise quickly and utter a few words to the younger woman who was holding a dagger to the other woman’s throat.
The younger woman’s eyelids fluttered, and she lowered the knife immediately. The Sheikh watched in silent awe as the woman he now recognized as his stepsister went down on her knees and then sat cross-legged beside him, as if they were two children obeying their teacher.
She is our teacher, Imraan thought as he watched Gaurina say a few more words in Arabic to Maddy before glancing at Khalifa and nodding, faint smiles on both the old women’s lips.
“Do you remember your mother?” Gaurina said, that faint smile still on her lips as she looked at Maddy, then Imraan, finally at Khalifa.
Imraan frowned as he glanced at the familiar face of the older woman who’d just entered. He nodded, realizing that Maddy was nodding too. They’d both been asked the same question, and they were both answering.
“Yes,” he heard himself say as he stared into Khalifa’s eyes.
“Yes,” he heard Maddy say as she looked upon Gaurina’s face.
“Good,”
said Gaurina. “Then we can begin.”
“Begin what?” said the Sheikh, glancing down at his hands and wondering why he couldn’t raise them to Gaurina’s throat once again.
“Begin your new lives,” said Khalifa.
“As a family,” said Gaurina.
“A happy family,” said Khalifa.
“Like we once were. All of us,” said Gaurina.
“But first we need to complete the cycle before you are ready to begin the next cycle, the next generation, continue the bloodline,” said Khalifa. “Remind both of you what it means to be part of this family.”
“Yes,” said Gaurina, nodding at Imraan. “Take her clothes off, Imraan.”
“What?” said Imraan.
“My daughter. Your sister. Take her clothes off. Now. Astamae li,” said Gaurina, staring directly into his eyes as she said it.
The Sheikh blinked in confusion when he realized he was moving, that his hands were already pulling off Maddy’s dark blue top. He gasped when he felt himself stiffen to full mast again, and a moment later he’d unclasped Maddy’s bra, his cock straining for release when he saw her heavy breasts come into view, the smooth, light brown skin of her globes, the dark nipples that were perking up as he watched his own fingers pinch and pull at them.
“She was our gift to your father,” Khalifa whispered, drawing close to Gaurina until both queens were sitting flush up against one another, watching their children strip naked. “Now she is your prize. Take her like your father took her. Take her to the place where your father took her. Then you will see what he saw. You will be what he was. All powerful. In control. Head of the family.”
“No,” groaned the Sheikh, but Gaurina was whispering in Arabic, and his body seemed to be in her control. Soon he was sucking on Maddy’s nipples, and although she writhed under his touch, she sat there crosslegged and obedient, without any resistance, her eyes closed, her mouth half open.
“Take off her pants,” whispered Gaurina, nodding at Khalifa as the two queens moved towards Maddy, grabbing her bare arms and pulling her down to the wooden floor of the empty room until she lay flat on her back. “Her pants, and her underwear. Strip her bare for all of us to see. Come now. It is all right. Give in. You want her. You have already had her, have you not? Come on. We are all family here.”
“I do not want any part of this family,” muttered the Sheikh through gritted teeth, trying to control himself but getting that sense of being paralyzed, like in those dreams where you know you are alive and have a body but can’t control your movements. “Neither is she. We are going to rid ourselves of the two of you. Now, and forever.”
“Astamae li,” whispered Gaurina, running her fingernails down Maddy’s bare neck, down past the curve of her breast, circling her belly-button, that spot where she’d been joined to her mother when she emerged from the womb, untouched and innocent. “Undress her. Do this for us, and I swear you will be released. I will remove the trigger words I planted in both your minds when you were children. I will give you back all your memories, while at the same time freeing you from your pasts. Give yourselves to us, one last time.”
“Why?” the Sheikh said, his voice trembling as he watched Gaurina hold his hand and place it on Maddy’s crotch until he was stroking her through her black jeans as Khalifa held Maddy’s arms down against the floor. “What is wrong with you two? What is wrong with . . . with all of us? Why? Why?”
Gaurina laughed, reaching out and patting the monstrous bulge at the seam of Imraan’s trousers. “Why?” She glanced back at Khalifa and shrugged. “He asks why,” she said like she was mocking the Sheikh. “At least his father understood why he did what he did, why we all did what we did, why we all enjoyed what we did. Every moment of it. Every one of us.” Gaurina looked at the Sheikh and then back at Khalifa. “Every one of us,” she said again.
Khalifa nodded as if in agreement, stroking Maddy’s bare arms as the Sheikh looked into his mother’s eyes in horror. Then Khalifa looked down at Maddy’s bare breasts and up at her son. “We all enjoyed it. You, I, your stepmother. And your stepsister. Yes, even her.”
The Sheikh almost doubled over as the sickness rose up so quick his vision blurred. But still he was powerless to reach out and choke the life from these women. “You lie,” he managed to say through his constricted breaths. “She was a child. So was I, but at least I was older. At least I could have fought back, stopped it if I . . . if I . . .”
“If you . . . what? If you wanted? Stopped it if you wanted?” Khalifa said. “So now you said it yourself! You did not want to stop it, did you? None of it. Because you enjoyed it, just like your sister did. Just like she will enjoy it when you remind her of that time.”
“She did not enjoy it. You are lying, and with Allah as my witness I will rip your tongues from your wrinkled throats so your voices are never heard on His earth again.”
“You think we are lying?” Gaurina said, raising an eyebrow as she looked down at her half-naked daughter. “Then take her back there and see for yourself. Prove to yourself that she is lying. Take her back there, and let us all see the truth.”
“Yes, son. Take her back there. Take us all back there. Then you will see that truth and destiny are one and the same, just like blood and destiny are one and the same. Blood . . . the blood that runs in your veins, pumps through her body, twists through our wrinkled frames. One and the same.”
And then the Sheikh suddenly knew the answer to the question of why: Their blood was the answer. They did what they did because it was in their blood. Like the old fable of the scorpion and the snake, the scorpion stings because that is its nature. That is its essence. That is what it was born to do, and it cannot do otherwise, no matter what the consequences. Genetics was indeed destiny, and there was no escaping it.
And if there is no escaping it, the Sheikh thought as he looked into his mother’s eyes and nodded, then I might as well embrace it.
33
Embrace it, Maddy told herself as she glanced up at the two women staring down at her, the Sheikh above her. Embrace what you’re feeling, because this is who you are, this is who they are. This is your family, and there’s no escaping it.
She’d been listening to them speak, watching them negotiate over her half-stripped body. She’d heard it before, she was certain of it. Two women and their man talking as she was undressed and held down, touched all over. They’d told her she was a woman and a queen, a whore and a slut, a witch and a wife, all at once.
“What?” Maddy said, surprised that she was able to speak, blinking in confusion when she realized that she’d been dumbstruck as if someone had taken control of her speech and actions all this while. “What’s happening? Imraan?”
“Silence,” he said, and she frowned when she looked into his twisted face, his narrowed eyes . . . eyes that seemed a darker green than before. He’d always been dominant and authoritative with her, but even in that first meeting, when she was locked in a cage, tied to metal bars and being spanked, she felt safe with him. Now, however . . .
“Alaistimae waltaen,” she heard Gaurina whisper from above her, and when she tried to move her arms she felt their hands holding her down.
What the fuck is she doing to me, Maddy thought, trying to call Imraan’s name again. But the words wouldn’t come, and Maddy realized Gaurina was using trigger words, like she'd seen a hypnotist use at a show back in Atlanta. She blinked up at the faces of the old queens again as she felt the Sheikh undo her jeans and pull them off past her wide hips. Then her panties were off, and she stared up in frozen shock as the Sheikh handed the underwear to her own mother.
“See how wet your daughter is for me, Gaurina,” the Sheikh growled above her, and Maddy gasped when she felt the air swirl around her naked crotch. She realized that she was indeed wet, aroused beyond belief, and it made her sick to think that perhaps she’d been aroused all that time ago, tha
t first time, the second time, every time!
“No,” she muttered, trying to pull her arms free, but the two queens were using their full weight as they held her by the wrists. “No.”
“You do not say no to your king, child,” Gaurina said. “You do not say no to your father.”
“He’s not . . . he’s not . . .” Maddy stammered, wondering why her words were coming out slurred like she was drunk. She heard Gaurina mutter something else in Arabic, and she felt her tongue go stiff in her mouth, like it was a piece of stone, useless and hard.
She tried to break free again, but all she could do was move her fingers. The strength in her arms seemed beyond her reach, as if it had been locked away. Was this the hypnotism Khalifa had mentioned, that Benson wanted to harness for the CIA? Was Gaurina doing this to her? Or was it Maddy’s own fear?
The Sheikh’s face was between her legs as her mind raced, and she heard herself moan as she felt his tongue slide into her and curl up like a snake. She could hear the queens laughing as they watched their children play, one child’s tongue inside the other, brother and sister, father and daughter, scorpion and snake.
“Do you remember how it felt the first time?” Gaurina whispered as Maddy watched the Sheikh pull his tongue out of her and go up on his knees. He ripped off his tunic, exposing his rock-hard chest and muscled torso. His abdomen was ridged muscle, taut and gleaming, and the peak at the front of his trousers was so large Maddy felt herself being stretched before he even entered her.
Maddy sensed movement above her, and she realized that Khalifa had let go of her arm and had moved away from the scene. Maddy frowned as she watched the old queen cross the room and stand in the corner, half-hidden in the shadows, as if she wanted to distance herself from the scene that was about to unfold. Was she too ladylike and proper to stand near her son when he stripped naked? How nice to be able to fool yourself into believing you’re not as twisted as the others in your family. I’ll kill you last, you sick bitch.
Ransomed for the Sheikh_A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel Page 12
