He searched her face, looking for the Kiara he knew, always so clever and amused, and seeing only those too-dark eyes looking back at him. Waiting for an explanation of his decision to send his sisters to her that should, he thought with a touch of asperity, have already been obvious to her.
“You will be the queen, Kiara,” he said. He told himself he sounded far more patient than he felt. “There are things you’ll be expected to know—ways you’ll be expected to behave. That’s all.”
expected to behave. That’s all.”
“What’s wrong with how I behave now?” Her brows rose, challenging him, but with an unfamiliar darkness there, too. “Is there some embarrassing photograph I don’t know about? Some tawdry incident I can’t recall?”
“Of course not.” He reminded himself that it wasn’t her fault that his government was an ancient dinosaur that creaked along, arthritic and demanding, and only he could change it—if it could be changed at all. It wasn’t her fault he was out of patience, his temper already frayed too thin. “But you will no longer be a princess who can, to some extent, do as she pleases. You will be the symbol of femininity for all of Khatan.” His lips curved. “No pressure, of course.” He wanted her to smile, but her gorgeous mouth remained flat, and he felt it like a slap.
“No pressure,” she repeated slowly, as if she was working it out in her head, “yet my current behavior is apparently so deficient you had to send your sisters to me the moment I set foot in the palace. When you’d never mentioned this to me at all. I felt ambushed, Azrin.” He sighed then, all the tension and weariness of the day flooding back into him, the exhaustion of every day since his father’s announcement swamping him.
“Will you be one more fire I must put out today, Kiara?” he asked, unable to keep the sharp edge from his voice. “One more problem I must solve?” She stiffened.
“I thought I was having a conversation with my husband,” she said, her voice tight. Like a stranger’s. “I didn’t realize this was an audience with the king.” His hands tightened around her calves when she would have moved her legs from his lap, but he checked his impatience, and let her go. He watched her as she stood, noting the way she brushed invisible lint from her front with angry hands. She didn’t look at him, and he hated it. He hated all of this. He thought of the last time they’d met after a separation, in Sydney.
How had they strayed so far from that night? And so fast?
“I assume there’s some dinner we need to get ready for,” she murmured.
And, of course, there was. There always was. He would have hated that inevitability, too, but it was futile. This was his life.
But Azrin couldn’t abide the distance between them—especially not now, when she was in the palace and would remain here. With him. Not just a musical voice on the telephone, a few funny lines of email to read between meetings. He reached over and snagged her wrist in his hand, tugging her toward him. She came without resistance, though her expression was serious as she gazed down at him. Troubled. He couldn’t stand that, either.
He brought her face to his, and kissed her as he’d wanted to do since the moment he’d received the news from his aide that she had arrived at the palace.
He teased, he toyed.
He caressed her and seduced her with every weapon in his arsenal. He licked and tasted that mouth of hers that had obsessed him for so long, kissing her until the tension in her body eased—until she was loose and pliable and she sighed against him. Until there was nothing between them but this heat, this unbankable fire, that he wished they had the time to fully explore. Here, now.
When he finally lifted his head she was sitting in his lap, and her face was flushed and warm.
“I need you to do this with me,” he whispered against her mouth fiercely. He pulled back, studied her face, wished he understood this need that raged in him.
This pulse of something like fury, something hot and intense. “I need your support, Kiara. Now more than ever.” Her gaze was still so serious, despite the heat that lingered there. He had the sudden, unpleasant notion that he was missing something—but he dismissed it. Kiara was open. Direct. She would simply tell him if there was something he needed to know. He was sure of it.
Her mouth crooked into that smile that he had loved since the first moment he’d seen it, so long ago now, in the midst of a wet Melbourne afternoon, and he ignored the lingering sense that there was too much reservation behind it tonight. There were too many other things going on around them, he thought. Too much else to do, and surely she understood that.
She would be fine. She always was.
They always were.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” she asked quietly, and he told himself it was what he wanted.
That it was enough.
Kiara became public property overnight. As if she, herself, ceased to exist now that she was meant to be queen in a matter of weeks rather than simply one day.
And the more she was regarded as something public, something belonging to anyone and everyone, she registered with a rising tide of panic that worsened every day, the more she seemed to disappear beneath the weight of Azrin’s crown.
And he wasn’t even king yet.
Every day that passed, every long day during which Azrin’s many sisters taught Kiara how ill-suited she was to this role of queen and every night which brought Azrin closer to his father’s nearly-relinquished throne, Kiara felt more and more as if an unseen hand was closing around her throat. And tightening.
The worst part was, she had no one to talk to about it.
Azrin was so tired, so distracted. Overwhelmed, she thought, and she told herself she understood it. She didn’t want to hear him heave another heavy sigh and tell her she was one more fire to put out, did she? She didn’t want to be another burden to him. She wanted anything but that, in fact.
And in truth, she didn’t know how to raise this sort of issue with him anyway.
They had always been on the same page before now, more or less. They’d fought, as all couples did, but they had always been the sort of fights brought on by stress and exhaustion and too much travel—a short tone or a snapped reply that bloomed into temper, and the resultant hurt feelings that could easily be soothed by a conversation and delicious, reconciliatory sex.
Kiara didn’t think that would work this time. What could she say? It hurts my feelings that you expect me to be your queen? Let’s see if we can solve that with a chat? Of course not.
She couldn’t contact the friends she’d become less close with over the years, when what little free time she’d had was filled with Azrin. Her friendships had become little more than the odd catch-up telephone call, a well-received email here and there and happy photographs in the usual online places. Kiara couldn’t imagine how she could turn that around now. She would hardly know where to start. And any coworkers she might think to confide in were far too likely to drop hints of any unrest to Diana, and Kiara couldn’t bear the idea that she might prove her mother right about her marriage.
hints of any unrest to Diana, and Kiara couldn’t bear the idea that she might prove her mother right about her marriage.
She wished she were less proud. More than that, she wished her stoic, loving grandmother were still alive and still able to make the world feel right again with a simple hug, no matter what might have happened.
Azrin had never felt further away, for all that he was geographically closer than he’d been in years. The bittersweet irony of that ate at her. And meanwhile Kiara felt as if she was disappearing under the onslaught of some relentless tide, bit by bit, until she wondered what would be left of her at all.
“It would be better if you were pregnant,” King Zayed announced one night, scowling at her from his place at the head of the table.
His words cast an immediate and total hush over the marvelous long table that commanded pride of place in the ornate room of the palace that was only used for private family meals, silencing all the members of the royal f
amily who had gathered around it.
Who all, of course, turned to stare directly at Kiara, in case she was in any doubt about who the old king was addressing.
She was in no doubt. She simply felt sick.
Beside her, she felt Azrin tense, but he remained silent, though she could feel that dark current running through him, humming beneath his skin. She was afraid to look at him—afraid that if she did, she would see that he was as appalled as she was by this and would then be unable to govern herself appropriately.
And more afraid by far that he would not be appalled at all.
“That would be ideal,” one of King Zayed’s highest ministers, who was married to one of Azrin’s sisters, agreed at once, as if this was a plan he could launch into action with the force of his agreement.
“The country loves it when the royal family is expecting a child,” Queen Madihah chimed in. She aimed her usual calm smile at Kiara. “Especially when it’s the queen.”
Kiara managed, somehow, to keep from letting her fork drop from her nerveless fingers to clatter against the side of her plate. Or from throwing it at the king.
“Unfortunately,” she said when the silence dragged on, when it became clear that Azrin was not planning to speak to his father on her behalf, when she thought she might die if everyone kept staring at her like that and some part of her wished she would, “I am not.” She was so upset she shook slightly, even hours later when she and Azrin returned to their rooms together.
“Why didn’t you say something?” she asked.
It took everything she had not to scream at him. Not to simply scream out all the things she was feeling inside, that she was afraid to even look at too closely for fear that even giving them names would allow them to take her over and suck her under, never to be seen again.
“What was there to say?” He did not pretend he didn’t know what she was talking about. He shrugged, his expression almost forbidding. “He is still the king. He will always be my father.”
“This is my body.” Kiara shook her head, bewildered. Still feeling something very near to violated by all those eyes on her, all that attention to something that should have been hers and Azrin’s alone. “It’s private.”
He looked at her for a long moment, a certain hardness in his gaze that she had never seen before. It made a pit in her stomach open, then gape wide.
“No,” he said eventually. She had the impression he was choosing his words carefully, and that hurt too, as if they had become complete strangers to each other in a few short weeks. As if, something treacherous and terrified whispered deep within her, you never knew each other at all. “It isn’t.” She blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“The heir to the kingdom of Khatan will come from your body,” he said, his fierce attention dropping to her abdomen as if he could see the babies they’d never talked about in concrete terms, always couching it in someday and when we’re ready language.
Kiara’s hands crept over her own belly, whether to protect herself or in response to something far more primitive, she didn’t know.
“And the sooner that heir exists, the sooner the whole country can breathe a collective sigh of relief,” he continued in that same aloof tone. “They are still outraged that I vowed to take only one wife. What if you cannot produce sons? What if the royal line is lost?” Azrin shrugged and then smiled, and Kiara almost smiled back, because what he was saying was so archaic that it couldn’t possibly apply to her. To them. To their life together.
But then she remembered that it did.
“Until all these questions are answered,” he said, “I’m afraid your body will be seen to be as much theirs as yours.”
“And you accept that,” she said softly.
“This is our life, Kiara,” he replied, that exhausted sort of look in his eyes that made her feel small and petulant. But that was unfair, wasn’t it? This was her life, too. “This is who we are.”
This is who you are, she thought, but did not say.
She moved away from him, sinking down to sit in one of the heavily brocaded armchairs, blinking back a searing heat, determined that she would not cry. Not now, when she already felt too vulnerable.
“And maybe they’re right,” Azrin said after a moment. Kiara felt the world tilt beneath her feet, and she wasn’t even standing. She stared at him, unable, in that moment, to speak. He shrugged out of his clothes, baring his beautiful body to her, and for once she felt almost numb. “Maybe we should start thinking about children.”
She swallowed, panic licking over her skin, making her head feel heavy.
“Are you saying that as my husband?” she asked, her voice hardly above a whisper. “Or as the king who agrees with his mother that it would foster goodwill with your subjects?”
His gaze grew cold. Unbearably hard. “Can’t I be both?”
She didn’t know how to answer that. She didn’t understand what was happening. She only knew she wanted to curl into a ball and sob, and none of this was helping.
“You told me we could wait until I was ready,” she reminded him, a kind of thick dread making her limbs feel heavy. Making her temples pound. “You promised.”
promised.”
“Don’t look at me like that, Kiara,” he replied, his tone harsh. Or maybe it only felt that way, like one more blow in a long series of them. “We’ve been married for five years. You know I must have an heir at some point or another. It’s not entirely unreasonable to discuss it, is it?”
“Maybe you and your parents and your cabinet ministers should consult with each other, then,” she threw at him, feeling wild. Miserable. Attacked. “You can let me know what conclusions you reach. I’ll just trot along, obeying your decrees like a happy little brood mare, shall I?” She regretted it the moment she said it.
His gaze turned dark, and his face seemed to tighten. He stared at her, affront and something worse all over him, and Kiara couldn’t seem to do anything but stare back. He muttered something in Arabic that made her flinch even without understanding it, then turned and strode away from her. She heard the water turn on in the adjacent bath, and only then did she let herself breathe, though it sounded more like a sob in the simmering wake of his exit.
A wave of misery flooded through her, and she couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t even seem to breathe through it. She found herself up and on her feet, then walking into Azrin’s bath without knowing she meant to move.
She found him in the shower, steam billowing, bracing himself against the tiled wall as the water beat down on him from above. He turned to look at her as she opened the glass door, and her heart seemed to thud too hard against her ribs.
His eyes were much too dark. His mouth was grim. She felt both reverberate deep inside of her, ripping at her.
“I am not your enemy,” he bit out, as if this hurt him, too. As if she did. “Why do you want so badly to be mine?” But she didn’t want to talk. She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t hurt them both.
She stepped into the shower fully clothed, and let the hot water wash into her. Over her, wetting her dress, her hair. She put her hands out to touch his slick, hard chest, and when he shifted as if he wanted to talk rather than touch, she gave in to the helpless need clawing at her and slid down to her knees. Slicking her hair back, she knelt before him and kissed her way over the hard ridges of his abdomen, then farther down, her hands gripping the hard muscles of his thighs.
And somewhere along the way she forgot that she meant to quiet him, to apologize somehow, and simply found herself worshiping him. Tasting him. Testing those delicious muscles, that mesmerizing skin, with her mouth, her hands, her tongue.
When she finally moved to his sex, he was hard and inviting, and when she leaned back to look up at him his eyes seemed to glitter with the same tension she felt inside of her. That familiar burn, with a new, desperate edge.
She reached between his legs, letting her hands caress the heavy weight of him, and then she leaned forward an
d took him deep in her mouth. He said her name like a prayer.
And slowly, deliberately, using her lips and her tongue and the long, slow strokes she knew drove him crazy, Kiara made them both forget.
At least for now.
The night before he took the throne, they hardly slept.
He came into her again and again. He laid her out on the wide bed in the center of his room and stretched out above her, loving his way over every single inch of her skin. She shattered into pieces, he followed. She screamed his name until she thought she might go hoarse.
She took him in and loved him back and neither of them spoke of the desperation, the ferocity, that drove him so hard, that made him near-inexhaustible, that made her eyes well over as she clung to him. That made his mouth seem very nearly grim, even in passion.
That made her wish, so fiercely, that she could take them back to where they’d been before his father’s announcement, that she could will away the dawn and everything that she knew would come with it.
But it came anyway, inevitably. A whole nation waited for him. Monarchs and presidents, emirs and prime ministers and cheering crowds of his own people were there to pay their respects to the new King of Khatan. And Kiara would walk slightly behind him, as was tradition, bow her head, accept her own crown and become his queen.
She wondered in that last, stolen moment in their bedroom if he would ever truly be hers again. If he ever had been—or if all of this had simply been borrowed time, after all. She cast the unsettling thought aside. She made herself smile. For him.
All of this was for him. And she doubted he had any idea how hard this was for her, how deeply she feared losing herself entirely to his crown, his country.
Even harder than that was her suspicion that it was something he wouldn’t want to know.
“We must go,” he said. His voice was too gruff, and there were shadows in his nearly-blue eyes. Kiara did not want to be one of them. Not today. “We must be dressed and prepared and moved into place, like pieces on a chess board.”
In Defiance of Duty Page 5
