To Tame a Sheikh

by Olivia Gates

The moment they touched down in Zohayd, the king summoned them. And it was clear the worst was to be expected.

  It still took hearing it to make it real, to tip her from the edge and into the nightmare.

  “The council is in session right now, Shaheen,” King Atef said as soon as they entered his stateroom, his voice heavy with sorrow. “They have made a final decree. You are to dissolve your marriage to Johara. A bride has been unanimously chosen for you, and neither she nor her family will accept her being a second wife. And they demand that her offspring be your heir, not your child from Johara. They are gathering their people on our borders, in all the hubs of unrest within the kingdom. They say your answer would decide their next actions.”

  Johara felt as if a scythe had cut her down at the knees. Shaheen’s arm came around her, held her up, hugged to him.

  “Don’t worry about those thugs, Father,” Harres growled. “I’ll send them running with their tails between their legs.”

  “And afterward, Harres?” Everyone, including Harres was startled when Shaheen spoke up. Johara shuddered at his calmness. “You think force will create any long-term or real peace?”

  Harres’s scowl was spectacular. She could see him fighting to the death over this. “They’re bluffing, and I’ll show them that I don’t take kindly to bluffs. And if they’re not, I’ll show them I’m even less forgiving of threats. This same council entrusted me with the peacekeeping of this kingdom, and B’Ellahi, I’m keeping it.”

  “This is not a bluff, Harres,” King Atef said. “And if they carry out their threats, it is my fault. I’ve misled them for too long. Now they’re enraged. And unreasonable.”

  Aggression blazed in Harres’s feral eyes. “Give me the word, and I’ll show them unreasonable!”

  Amjad stayed pointedly silent through it all. Watching her.

  Shaheen only shook his head at Harres. “There will be no need for any of that.” He turned to his father. “I wish you’d let them tell me that to my face instead of hiding behind you and burdening you with their pompous and insane demands.” Then he turned to her. “Stay here, ya galbi. I’ll be back in minutes.”

  Johara watched Shaheen walk away and felt as if she’d lost him already. He would try to talk the council out of their decision. And he’d fail.

  Her vision swam as it wavered to the men who’d been a major part of her life. They were Shaheen’s family, were hers, too. Harres growled that he’d beat back any attempt at an uprising so hard, the dead would reconsider their mutinies. The king argued that he couldn’t give the order to plunge the kingdom into war. Amjad watched her. She sank deeper in despair.

  Then Shaheen came back. His kabeer el yaweran was behind him, laden in dossiers.

  He took her hand to his lips then folded her arm through the crook of his. “Shall we, ya joharet galbi?”

  She walked only because he steered her, could barely see the route they took through the palace to the council hall or the Roman senatelike assembly all around them once they entered it, barely heard the din die down as Shaheen brought her to a stop in the middle of the floor.

  He spoke at once, his voice an awe-striking boom. “I will never divorce Johara. Or take a second wife. And this is final.”

  The hall exploded.

  Shaheen raised his voice over the cacophony. “But…I have a solution.”

  The clamor again died down as everyone recognized the determination and certainty in Shaheen’s voice and demeanor.

  He went on once there was total silence. “My solution will exonerate my king, my family and my tribe of my actions, end any ill will you now bear toward them.”

  He let a beat pass when everyone and everything seemed to hold their breath. Then he said, “Exile me.”

  Johara’s heart stopped.

  She felt every heart in the gigantic hall follow suit.

  Then Shaheen continued, and her heart burst into thundering shock and horror. “I offer that my family disown me, strip me of my name, and for the kingdom of Zohayd to forever forbid me, and my children, entry to its soil.”

  As the uproar rose again, his voice again drowned it out. “But this will only appease the insult I’ve dealt you by breaking my vows. To compensate you, my venerable lords, for any loss you may suffer from my refusal to enter the beneficial union you demanded…” He beckoned for his kabeer el yaweran to come forward. “I give you all my assets.”

  Silence crashed over the hall.

  Nothingness roared inside Johara.

  Shaheen was saying…offering…

  Suddenly, a voice rent the silence. “Yes, make an example of Shaheen Aal Shalaan!”

  Another roared, “It’s the only way to appease our tribes. Exile him!”

  More voices rose, tangled.

  “Prove that not even the king’s son can renege on his word.”

  “Show every royal they cannot play with us all and get away with it.”

  Shaheen only smiled down at her. The smile of someone who’d achieved exactly what he was after. Then he steered her away and out of the council hall.

  They might have walked two steps or two miles when it all sank in. She wrenched on his hand, bringing him to a stop.

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  His smile broadened, his face the picture of relief. “I’ve never been more in it, and I—”

  She cut him off, words colliding as they spilled out of her. “This is what you meant every time you told me you’ll resolve this? This was your solution all along?”

  “Yes. It took me a while to work out the details that will hand everything I own and control over to others without causing the businesses to collapse or the people populating them to go bankrupt or lose their jobs—”

  She barged in on his explanation, panting now, almost raving. “But that is not a solution! That…this…is a catastrophe. You’re sacrificing everything that you are!”

  “And I’m so relieved this is over. It’s not a sacrifice, by the way, just a tiny price to have you and our baby. But you don’t have to worry. I’ll rebuild my success and my fortune.”

  “I’m not worried about that.” She stamped her foot, feeling her brain overheating, her body shaking apart. “I’m making more money all the time and I have enough for both of us, which you can use as capital to rebuild your empire. What I am is devastated at the enormity of the sacrifices you just offered—your name, your family, your country, everything you’ve worked for…”

  And he dared chuckle. “So what? I have a wife who’ll support me.”

  She gave a chagrined shriek. “You…you…” Words shriveled to ashes in her mouth. Only one hope remained. “They’ll say no.”

  “Oh, no, they won’t. If we’d stayed one more minute, we’d have been flooded in the drool of their eagerness to grab my assets. I’m worth far more to them dead and gone, figuratively speaking, than alive and begetting children of their blood.”

  And she grabbed him by the arms and shook him. “Go back right now and say you take it all back! You tell them that you—”

  He hugged her off the ground, ending her tirade. Before she could twist out of his arms, he buried his face in her neck. “I’m not repeating my father’s mistakes, ya galbi. He gave up his only chance at love, married women he could barely tolerate for the sake of his kingdom and throne. But I’m giving away replaceable things, just giving the tribes what they want so I can be what I want to be. Yours. It doesn’t matter what else I am.” She squirmed in his arms, sobbed, and he only pressed her closer. “I’ll always remain who I am, in my heart, to my loved ones. As for my success, it might have been in part due to my status before, but now I am formidable in my own right with my knowledge and experience. Even if I never attain the same success or wealth again, what does it matter when I have the ultimate treasure—you and our baby?”

  She at last made him put some distance between them, took his face in her trembling hands. “But you’ll always have us, no price needed. Divorce me, Shaheen, give them the mar
riage they want. Both I and our baby will be yours forever, no matter what.”

  “Okay, Romeo and Juliet, move it.”

  Johara jerked as a hand clamped her arm. It was Amjad. He was also holding Shaheen’s arm. Before either of them could say anything, he dragged them back into the council hall.

  In the middle of the floor where they’d stood minutes ago, he stopped and stepped in front of them.

  “All right, venerable lords, listen carefully.” The noise again dissipated at Amjad’s terrifying growl. “You always called me the Mad Prince, and now’s your chance to find out just how crazy I am. All you have to do is vote against Shaheen, and I’ll make each and every one of you and your spawn into the next five generations sorry to have ever been born.”

  “I second that.” Harres came forward to stand beside Amjad.

  Shaheen’s younger half brothers, Haidar and Jalal, joined the lineup, forming a barricade of towering manhood and power in front of her and Shaheen.

  “Third and fourth, here,” Haidar said for both him and his twin. “You might be all-powerful tribal lords here, but let us remind you we are not just the king’s sons. Each of us packs more power in the world at large than you can probably imagine.”

  “You don’t want to make enemies of us.” Jalal’s face was reminiscent of Amjad’s cruel handsomeness, a younger and even more reckless version of Amjad’s demon evidently incubating inside him.

  Harres gave his younger brothers a look of approval. “So to sum up, if you vote to exile Shaheen, if you touch a cent of his assets, we will all be your enemies until the day you die.”

  “But, if you free him and apologize for all you’ve put him through,” Haidar elaborated, “you’ll have our…gratitude.”

  Amjad gave a loud, irreverent snort. “Yeah. And you do want to see me grateful, I assure you. You will love it.”

  Harres nodded. “So either join us in the twenty-first century, forget the blood-mixing rituals and do business through more…lucrative means, or…piss us off. Your choice.”

  With that, the brothers turned and started to walk out.

  Shaheen pushed at them. “I won’t let you do this—”

  Amjad grabbed Shaheen’s arm, dragged him along, hissing, “Ever heard of a strategic withdrawal, Romeo? Walk with me.”

  Once outside, Amjad flicked a hand at the guards and they all scattered. Then he hooked his hands low on his powerful hips, twisting his lips at Shaheen. “What’s wrong with you? We were driving a bargain in there. You don’t outbid your team.”

  Harres gave a harsh laugh. “And the greedy blowhards are having mini heart attacks in there, thinking of all they could milk out of our carte blanche.”

  Shaheen shook his head, adamant. “I won’t let you do this. This is my responsibility.”

  Amjad rolled his eyes. “Bored now.”

  Harres turned to Haidar and Jalal, sent them back into the hall to find out the council’s verdict.

  Once they left, Johara realized he’d sent his younger brothers away so that he could talk freely. “I only wish we could tell the council they actually owe you, and more so Johara, more than they could ever repay, for giving us the first solid leads to abort the conspiracy that would tear apart the kingdom they’re squabbling over pieces of.”

  Haidar and Jalal came back almost as soon as they’d gone in, their faces spread with cynical smiles.

  “That had to be the fastest decision in the history of the kingdom,” Jalal chuckled. “Money sure talks, and talks big.”

  Amjad slapped him on the back. “Shut up and spit it out.”

  Jalal smirked at him. “They release Shaheen of his vows, demand no punishment. And to ‘give peace a chance,’ they’re ‘willing’ to negotiate a ‘suitable’ compensation.”

  Johara shook with relief and confusion, still unsure what this meant for all of them, what kind of losses they’d sustain so she and Shaheen could remain together.

  “That’s it?” She heard her voice trembling on the question. “They want…money? Why didn’t they just ask for it in the first place?”

  Shaheen put a finger below her chin, raised her face to his, his eyes adoring. “You would have ransomed me, ya joharti?”

  She gave a vigorous nod. “I certainly would have. I will pay all I have now as part of this compensation.”

  Shaheen hugged her closer, delighted, defusing her turmoil. “They wouldn’t have taken anything in settlement without reaching this point of crisis. The ways of tradition are too demanding, and people in our region have entered grueling and needless wars to keep a vow or save face.” He turned to his brothers. “I know they wouldn’t have agreed no matter how much they had to gain if you hadn’t stood together and scared them off. You have my and Johara’s gratitude, but now that they’ve given up the macho posturing, I’ll be the one to negotiate with them. Money, as Jalal said, and massive favors are more potent than magic.”

  “And let you give up your right as the ‘middle’ child to always cause us the most trouble?” Jalal winked at him.

  “It is more cost effective to give those vultures bites of each of us rather than help you rebuild your empire.” Haidar grabbed Jalal and turned back to the hall. “Now excuse us as we get to the nitty gritty on the bite sizes expected.”

  Shaheen called out after them, “If I’d let those vultures pick apart said empire, I wouldn’t have needed your help. I have a standing offer from my princess to bail me out of anything.”

  Johara heard their laughter until they disappeared.

  Then Shaheen turned to Amjad and Harres. “Before they come back again, let’s get this out of the way. Now, I’ll take care of our so-called allies, while you root out our hidden enemies.”

  Amjad patted him on the back, all condescension. “Yeah, you two run along now and leave this to the grown-ups.”

  Shaheen grinned at him, then turned to exchange some last details with Harres.

  Johara put her hand on Amjad’s arm. “You helped Shaheen and I stay together, at a great price to yourself. Is that your way of ‘atoning’? Of saying you’re taking back everything you said about me?”

  Amjad’s eyes looked even more ruthless for their mock chagrin. “How can I possibly do that? You’re a woman, aren’t you?”

  “Your mother was a woman.”

  Amjad cracked a guffaw. “And you’ve just made my case.”

  “What about your aunt? Your sister and cousin?”

  Amjad made a simulation of being deep in thought. “There might be some anomalies in the species.”

  “Any hope I fall into the same anomalous category?”

  “Could be.” Amjad’s eyes grew pondering, penetrating. “I’ll reserve my final verdict. For a couple of…decades.”

  “Don’t listen to this doomsayer, Johara.” Harres put his arm around her shoulder. “You’re our Johara and we all love you.”

  Amjad gave him an abrasive look. “And some of us would not only die for you, they were about to delete themselves from existence for you, too.” His gaze moved to Shaheen. “Idiot.”

  Shaheen threw his head back on an exhilarated laugh. “And I can’t wait for the day a woman comes along and makes you wish to delete yourself for her.”

  “She already came along. And almost did the job herself.”

  Johara’s heart convulsed. The sarcasm in Amjad’s voice only made her see how deep the scar went. All the way through him. She was mortified to remember how she’d accused him of being unable to love. What if this wasn’t only betrayal and anger, but mortally wounded love, too?

  Then Amjad opened his mouth and snuffed any compassion. “So we’re off to see about our enemies, and you sleep lightly next to your bride. Now that you’re all hers with a cherry on top, she might kill you—with too much love.”

  Harres guffawed. “One day, Amjad, a woman will make you beg her to kill you the same way. She’s out there for you.”

  Amjad gave him one of those demolishing looks she was sure would disinteg
rate others. “Says the man who’s gone through every unattached woman in the northern hemisphere from the age of twenty-five to forty and hasn’t found ‘the one’ for him yet.”

  “I’ll leave you to debate the existence of women for either of you. I’m taking the one I was born to love—” Shaheen paused for Amjad to oblige him with a snort “—to have our honeymoon, away from all snorters and conspirators.”

  With one last thankful glance at them, one she shared, he swept her up in his arms.

  Ecstatic, overcome, she buried her face in his neck, her heart too full to do anything but murmur her love over and over.

  A long time later, entangled in the luxury of their intimacy with the sea breeze caressing their cooling bodies, Shaheen rose on his elbow beside her.

  He ran his hand lovingly over her still flat belly. “You know, I’m only sorry my plan didn’t work. If they’d exiled me, I would have proved to you that you are far more precious than everything I am or have, than life itself. But I have the rest of my life to prove this to you.”

  “You already did. You do, with every breath.” She caressed his beloved face, bliss running down her cheeks. “And I’ll spend my life proving to you that you are as precious to me.”

  He hugged her to him. “You already did, the day you let go and trusted me to catch you. How many times have you trusted me since? With your heart, your body, your happiness, your future? And your helping us expose the conspiracy when you know whoever is plotting it will do anything to keep it hushed, putting yourself on the line with us.”

  “We’re in this together, all of it, for better or for worse.” She kissed him with all the fierceness of her love, the profundity of her pledge. “Thank you, ya habibi, for saving me, for loving me, for existing and being everything to me.”

  He drowned her in another kiss before he pulled back. “And I have one more thing I haven’t thanked you for yet.”

  She gazed up at him, awash in love and ecstasy, waited for him to tell her one more thing that would hone the perfection.

  And he did. “Thank you for never forgetting me, for seeking me out again, and giving me my life’s reason. You, and our baby.”