Shared for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 10)

by Annabelle Winters

  The Sheikh half-turned as he swore he heard the words whispered as if from outside himself. The dark bushes beyond the fire seemed to be moving, and Jan’s laughter was piercing and shrill. Too shrill.

  Suddenly he realized Jan wasn’t laughing at all. She was screaming! The realization came to Darius slowly, and he turned as if in a dream to see where Jan was pointing. Then he saw it: There on the ground, slithering and shining, gold and black, long and twisted.

  Ephraim was still laughing when the snake approached him, and everything seemed to move in slow motion as Darius watched the viper’s fangs emerge and sink into the brown flesh of Ephraim’s calf.

  Perhaps you will not need to do anything at all, came the thought from the darkest reaches of Darius’s mind as he watched Ephraim’s laughter fade, his expression changing to one of confusion as the snake’s poison entered his system. Perhaps this is fate, destiny, Allah deciding who is the true ruler of these lands, the true Sheikh of the Golden Oasis. Do nothing, Darius. Let fate take its course.

  Darius stared as Ephraim sank to his knees, naked and bronze, his green eyes clouding over as he clutched his calf. The snake was gone, its tail disappearing into the bushes as Darius wondered if all of it was an hallucination brought on by the aruha.

  Jan’s screams were still shrill in his head, and she was saying something that for the life of him Darius couldn’t interpret. His eyes were locked on Ephraim, his rival, his enemy, his . . . his co-husband? His partner in marriage? His brother? His friend? His family?

  You decide, came the whisper on the warm desert breeze that drifted in from over the dark waters of the oasis. You started this, and you can decide how it ends. You can decide if you follow through or back out, if he is your enemy or your family, if he is Adam and you are the devil.

  Perhaps we are both the devil, he wondered as he saw Jan scream again and then get up and run toward the guesthouse, still saying something he couldn’t understand because of the blood pounding in his temples. Or perhaps we are both Adams, the first men in the story, a new story, a new epic, a new way. You decide, Darius. You decide.

  And as if spurred by something beyond logic and sense, Darius felt himself step forward, toward Ephraim, his fallen enemy. He reached down and grabbed Ephraim’s hand by the wrist, pulling it away from the wound as Ephraim tried to hold it there.

  Let the poison run through his veins and stop his heart, came that whisper from the devil inside, the devil that lives inside every man, whispering at times of crisis, offering an easy way out of every hard choice, reaching out a gnarled hand to pull man from his eternal state of grace.

  “No,” rasped Ephraim, his eyes red and wild as he stared up at Darius. “What are you doing?!”

  “Let go,” said Darius. “Let go, brother. It will be all right.”

  Ephraim looked confused and scared, and for a moment Darius felt like an older brother. A warmth poured into him as he smiled and looked deep into Ephraim’s eyes. Then Darius took a breath, and without any more hesitation, went down on his knees, put his mouth over the snake’s fang-marks, and sucked out the poison just as Jan came racing back out of the guesthouse with the antivenom.

  31

  Ephraim’s vision had narrowed to the point where he could barely see his own hand clutching the wound. He knew he’d been bitten, but there was no pain. He knew the poison would be entering his system and making its way to his nervous system and heart, but he remained calm even as he fell to the ground and lay there naked in the sand. Perhaps it was the factual knowledge that remaining calm slowed his heartbeat, which in turn made the poison move slower. Or perhaps it was another kind of knowledge, a sense that this was another test, another trial, a twisted version of that first test of man in the Garden of Eden.

  “No,” he’d whispered as he watched Darius approach, the older Sheikh’s green eyes looking bright and wild from the flames that seemed to have risen higher even though Ephraim didn’t remember either of them adding any wood to the fire. “What are you doing, Darius?”

  He’d known that Jan must have raced to the guesthouse to grab the anti-venom that she’d insisted on bringing after he told her the stories of snakes on Noor Island, and he knew he just had to remain calm and wait for her to save him. What in Allah’s name was Darius doing? Was he trying to release the pressure on the wound so the poison would move through his system faster and kill him before the anti-venom got there? Was he trying to end this game by doubling down on what fate had thrown at them?

  Perhaps this is our destiny, came the thought as Ephraim felt his hand being pulled away. Perhaps I die here, my spirit joining with those that live in the shadows of Noor Island. Perhaps Darius is the evil Sheikh in this story after all. He’d grinned as he thought that, looking into Darius’s eyes again as he watched him bend down. Or perhaps we are both the evil Sheikhs, both of us fallen forever, this plan of ours the cause of our downfall. Perhaps it is Allah and the angels forsaking us, punishing us, condemning us.

  Suddenly Ephraim felt the clarity of pain, and he gasped when he saw Darius’s mouth close over the fang-marks. He felt the suction as Darius pulled the poison out of Ephraim’s body and into his own, and he watched as Darius spat into the sand and then repeated the action, again and again, cleansing him, cleansing both of them perhaps.

  Then Jan was there with the anti-venom, and some long, tense moments later the three of them were huddled together, naked and without shame, just like in that magical garden before the fall.

  We have not fallen, came the thought as Ephraim felt his head being cradled in Jan’s soft lap even as Darius’s strong hands tied a tourniquet just above the wound to make sure the last traces of poison didn’t make their way up his bloodstream. No, we have not fallen but instead have risen. We have risen, and we will keep rising into this new world that we are creating, this new kingdom of man that will be blessed by Allah and the angels. We have risen together, the three of us. We have risen.

  32

  The sun rose slowly as Jan caressed Ephraim’s thick hair and touched his forehead. The fever was gone, and she exhaled as she glanced down at his leg and then over at Darius, who was seated on the ground alongside, dreamily gazing toward the eastern horizon.

  “You’ll go blind if you stare at the sun,” she said softly to Darius as she ruffled Ephraim’s hair. “Didn’t your mother ever warn you about that?”

  Darius lazily glanced over at her. “I never knew my mother.” He paused for a moment, looking down at Ephraim, who was awake and alert and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the attention he’d been getting over the past two hours as Jan and Darius anxiously waited for his fever to subside. “Neither did he.”

  “You are correct,” said Ephraim, moving his head on Jan’s lap and grinning at Darius. “I did not know your mother.”

  Darius laughed and shook his head. “Ya Allah, that poison seems to have made you sharper. Perhaps we should all take a swig of it.” Then he took a breath and gazed meaningfully at Ephraim before looking up at Jan. “I mean of course that neither of us knew our mothers. Both Ephraim and I were born at great cost.”

  Jan felt Ephraim’s body tense up as he lay against her, and she pulled her hand away from his hair so he could sit up. She frowned as she looked at Darius. “You mean both of your mothers died in childbirth? That’s a weird coincidence.”

  “Coincidence is one way of putting it,” said Ephraim, sitting up and pulling his knees up to his chest as he examined the dressing Jan had put on his snakebite. Then he glanced at Darius. “Shared curse is another way.”

  “Well,” said Jan, blinking as she tried to make light of the sudden heaviness in the air. “I know my mother all too well, and that isn’t always a blessing, let me tell you guys.” She paused. “What about your fathers,” she asked quietly, looking at Ephraim and then Darius. “There isn’t a lot of detail on the Internet about you guys or your kingdoms—at least not i
n English. I tried using some online translation tool to read a few Arabic sites, but the results were too messy to get a clear picture. All I know is that you’re each an only child.” She paused again. “Whose mothers both died in childbirth, it appears. So what about your fathers? They were the Sheikhs before each of you took over, yes?”

  Darius grinned and shook his head, glancing at Jan and then at Ephraim, green eyes shining in the rising sun. “Do you want to tell her or should I?”

  Ephraim grunted. “Go ahead. This whole thing was your idea to begin with. Tell her. Tell her that both our kingdoms were ruled by Sheikhas, not Sheikhs. That our mothers were both queens, each of them the only children of the previous generation.”

  Darius rapped his knuckles against Ephraim’s dressing, making the younger Sheikh wince. “I thought I was going to tell the story. Next time do not steal my thunder, Ephraim.” He grinned and then glanced over at Jan, nodding his head. “Yes. Our fathers were both outsiders, brought into the kingdoms by marriage. It was our mothers who were the heirs, the rulers, the queens.”

  Jan frowned, blinking hard as she glanced at one Sheikh and then the other. They’d both mentioned their days at Oxford, and indeed they’d both referred to being kings back then. Kings, not princes. “Wait, so after your mothers died, the thrones of Habeetha and Noramaar passed directly to each of you? Not to your fathers?”

  Darius nodded, his brown muscles flexing. All three of them were still bare-skinned, sitting close together by the fire, which was somehow still going as the sun rose over the waters of the oasis. The breeze was warm and gentle against Jan’s skin, and perhaps it was still the aruha in her system, but she didn’t feel an iota of self-consciousness as she sat with her two naked kings on a blanket.

  Ephraim nodded. “There were councils and proxies in charge until we came of age, of course. But yes—I was twelve when I ascended to the throne of Habeetha. Darius was ten when he first wore the crown of Noramaar.”

  “Wow,” said Jan. “That’s young. So your fathers ruled on your behalf until you came of age?”

  Darius shook his head. “No, just the councils. Our fathers had no standing by our laws. They were both outsiders. They had both married into the royal families of Habeetha and Noramaar.”

  “Did they have other wives?” Jan asked, frowning again as the strange parallels between the two Sheikhs’ lives began to emerge.

  “No,” said Ephraim. “The husband of a Sheikha is not permitted to take other wives according to the laws of both our kingdoms. An unusual rule, but not unheard of. Still, it caused some distress in our fathers’ family, if the stories are true.”

  “Both our fathers were cut off from their own family for choosing to marry our mothers,” said Darius. “It was considered an act of submission and weakness for them to forsake the right of a man to take multiple wives.”

  “Were they from royal families too?” said Jan.

  Darius nodded and took a breath. “Yes.” He stayed silent, and Jan felt a strange unease as she watched Ephraim glance over at Darius and then look toward the fire, whose flames were finally getting drowned by the gold of sunlight.

  “Family,” said Ephraim quietly, his jaw tight, his eyes narrowed, his expression confusing Jan for a moment.

  “Family,” she repeated, still confused at why he’d said the word. And then it hit her. Both Sheikhs had used the word “family,” not “families” when talking about their fathers’ origins. “Wait,” she blurted out, her eyes going wide. “Your fathers were from the same family? Your fathers were related?”

  “Brothers,” Darius said, his voice barely a whisper, his eyes narrowed into slits as he stared at the flames along with Ephraim. “Two brothers who walked away from their kingdom and family. Two brothers who bowed their heads to their wives and queens, took on background roles in new kingdoms, an act that back then would mean ridicule and shame for the family.”

  “Why?” said Jan, not sure what she was asking, for the moment ignoring the revelation that these two men were in fact cousins. Somehow that didn’t shock her as much as it should have. It seemed to explain that underlying bond they seemed to share even though they were at one another’s throats in the press. If anything, that was the mystery now: How could Ephraim and Darius, knowing that they shared the same blood, be at one another’s throats and on the brink of war?! Yes, certainly the history of the world proved time and again that brothers killed brothers, sons murdered fathers, and mothers poisoned their daughters for wealth, power, and politics. But Jan was certain there was something more here. Why had they never mentioned being cousins? Why had there been nothing in the local news about their connection? What was she missing?

  “Why?” she asked again, not sure which question she was asking first. “Why doesn’t everyone know about this? Shouldn’t this be a major part of the press coverage of your feud?”

  Ephraim grunted, touching his dressing again and shrugging. “Our mothers died over thirty years ago, Jan. And they had us quite late in life, which means their own marriages took place forty or so years in the past. Before the Internet. Before the time when everyone knew everything about one another.”

  “Back then a royal family could closely guard its secrets, control what information made it outside the family and the kingdom,” Darius added, squinting toward the sun and then reaching for his sunglasses. He put them on, looking almost comical: A lean, muscled, bronze Adonis, naked except for his Porsche Design sunglasses. He grinned and shrugged, and for a moment Jan thought his broad shoulders moved in the same way Ephraim’s had when he’d shrugged earlier. “Our fathers were young when they married our mothers, and they were written out of the family history, lineage, and fortune. In a sense they did not exist as anything other than the husbands of Sheikhas. It was done to insult them as much as anything. To strip them of their identity.”

  “And did it?” Jan asked softly, her head spinning as she tried to understand the patterns being played out here, if perhaps this part of their shared history was why these two proud Sheikhs were willing to experiment with this radical arrangement. Were they trying to make up for something? Prove something? Reclaim something? Fight something in themselves? Accept something? Reject something else? Who the hell knew?! Oh, God, why didn’t she study psychology instead of sex?!

  But perhaps the sex has brought you to the answer, came the thought as she watched her naked kings relax as the sun warmed their naked frames, both of them smiling now as they talked freely about secrets that perhaps they had never talked about, perhaps never even thought about this explicitly! These men have sought you out for all those reasons, she thought. The psychology is complex, just like a person’s identity is a composite of experience, genetics, upbringing, actions of intent, events of accident. Look at how these men are talking about their past now, freely and openly, exposed and honest like their bodies under the morning sun. Would this have ever happened if not for what these bodies have shared?

  And what have these bodies shared, Jan? What have they shared?

  You, came the answer on the breeze that rolled in off the surface of the Golden Oasis. They’ve shared you.

  Jan gazed at the two naked Sheikhs as that warm breeze enveloped her even as the sun bathed her in golden heat. Neither of them had taken a bride, and as far as she could tell, neither of them had even come close to it. By now she knew of Ephraim’s history with his harem, and she’d read snippets of press talking of a younger Darius with models and actresses, but there’d never been any serious links, no broken engagements, nothing even close. Why? It had to be related to the strange connections between their fathers, the way those old marriages had stripped those men of their identity and history, made them nothing more than husbands of queens. Were these two men secretly afraid that taking brides would do the same to them? Was that why they were subconsciously prepared to share her—because they felt that between the two of them they could contro
l her, possess her, dominate her, own her?

  “You’re scared,” she blurted out, her thoughts completing themselves in speech as the two Sheikhs stopped mid-sentence and turned toward Jan. “You’re both terrified that what happened to your fathers will happen to you, that marrying a woman somehow takes away your power, your identity, your independence. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s part of this, whether you two can admit it or not.”

  Ephraim’s face clouded over as he stared at Jan, and although Darius’s eyes showed a glimmer of recognition, he stayed silent too. Then Darius took a breath and glanced at Ephraim.

  “I will admit it if you admit it,” he said, half-grinning though something in his voice told Jan that she’d hit home—at least for Darius, who was clearly the more self-aware of the two Sheikhs.

  “I admit nothing,” Ephraim said quickly, not even a half-smile showing on his dark face. “My identity does not depend on a woman, and it never will.” He looked back at Darius. “And if yours does, then you are weak, Darius.”

  Darius smiled, not taking the bait, his own green eyes narrowing as he stared down the younger Ephraim. “Marriage is about sharing an identity, merging identities with another, creating a new identity from the union. You know that, Ephraim. That is why, just like me, you have never married or even come close to it. You know, just like I do, that marriage will change some part of your identity.” He glanced at Jan, then down at himself, and finally back at Ephraim. “It will change all of our identities. It cannot be otherwise.”

  Ephraim shook his head, the darkness in his eyes more pronounced as he stared at the ground. “I do not yield my identity to anyone. I would not even consider it.”