In Defiance of Duty

by Caitlin Crews

  He watched what looked too much like pure misery wash over her face, before she stepped back—as if she couldn’t handle the words and needed to physically put space between her and their source. She shook her head slightly, as if she wanted to unhear them. As if she could. He saw her eyes grow bright and glassy, and knew she was fighting back tears. Her lips pressed together as if she was afraid of what she might say—or holding back sobs.

  It killed him to see her like this.

  “This shouldn’t have happened,” she rasped out.

  “Is it really so terrible?”

  He had the sense she was too fragile, now; too breakable, and he had to fight back everything inside of him that wanted to go to her, to protect her from whatever hurt her—even if it was herself. Or, worse, him.

  “This is the problem,” she managed to say after a moment, though her voice was choked. “No matter what I want, no matter what I think is right, I just …

  surrender to you. As if I have no will at all. I make a mockery of everything I believe to be true about myself every time I let you near me.” He ran his hands over his face, temper and protectiveness in a pitched battle inside of him. She looked at him through bruised eyes, as if he truly was the big, bad wolf of all those European fables, and he found himself torn between the need to prove to her that he was not—and the more primal urge to simply show her his teeth.

  “Kiara,” he said, torn between a kind of exasperated amusement and something else, something deeper and, he thought, far sadder, “this is passion. This is love.

  This is what people all over the planet search for, fight for, kill for. How can you believe it’s a problem?”

  “It’s easy for you to say that, isn’t it?” She wrapped her arms around herself, as if she could ward off the shivers that way. Or him. “You always end up getting exactly what you want.”

  The things he wanted were so mundane, he thought, looking back at her from only a foot or two away, and yet, so far.

  They were always so far away from each other.

  He felt a profound sense of futility move through him then, and he shoved it aside. He refused to give up, to accept it. He wanted Kiara, in a hundred different ways. That was all. In his arms. In his bed. In his kingdom. But most of all—in his life. Why didn’t she want the same things? Why was he the only one fighting for the two of them, for their marriage, while she seemed perfectly content to keep fighting him?

  “You cannot honestly believe that any of this is what I want,” he bit out, and there was no controlling the edge in his voice then. He didn’t even try.

  Her face seemed to crumple, and she took another step back. She shook her head again, as if trying to steady it, and she didn’t meet his gaze.

  He hated this. All of it. Himself most of all.

  “I can’t do this,” she said in a low, thick voice. “I just can’t.”

  He should let her go, he knew, though every part of him revolted at the very idea of it. She turned and started for the glass doors, hurrying as if she expected to be hauled back—or to collapse into tears. He knew he should say nothing at all. He should let her regroup, let her come up with a new suit of armor to wear around him. Let her build new walls. Produce new battalions to fight this endless war he was beginning to wonder if either of them would ever win.

  He simply couldn’t do it.

  “Tell me,” he said, his voice pitched to carry, laden with command, enough that she stopped in her tracks, one hand on the glass door in front of her. “When do you think we’ll discuss the real issue here?”

  She turned slowly. Carefully. It took her one breath, then another, to meet his gaze. Azrin stretched his legs out before him, crossing his ankles. He folded his arms over his chest. He watched her take that in, then gulp, and he accepted the possibility that he did not look as relaxed or inviting as he wished to appear.

  “We’ve done nothing but discuss the real issues,” she said after a moment, her head tilted slightly as if she was trying to read him. “Over and over again, in fact.

  We clearly do nothing save hurt each other. In the end, it’s all a terribly painful waste of time.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” Anticipation burned in him then, low and bright, and he felt everything in him still. Wait. Focus. She flinched slightly as if he’d surprised her.

  “Right.” She looked confused for a moment, then inexpressibly sad, but she pulled it all in and managed to produce that neutral, unassuming expression instead.

  The one she’d worn all over the world, charming everyone in her wake. The one he knew was nothing but a mask. “I’m glad.”

  “Let’s put an end to it, shall we?” He could hear the darkness in his own voice, the kick of his temper beneath it. He had no doubt she could, too. “Why bother to keep fighting? As you say, it does nothing at all but make everything worse. We had a lovely five years, didn’t we?” He almost stopped then, as a terrible look flashed through her beautiful eyes. Something far worse than simple pain or temper. It almost undid him. But she wiped it away. She squared her shoulders and tilted up her chin, as if she expected he might swing at her next. As if he already had.

  “We did,” she said, that telling huskiness in her voice.

  “Then all I require of you is one simple thing,” he said. As if it would be easy. “The answer to a single question. No more and no less, and then we can be done with this. Once and for all.”

  “Ask it.” Her voice bordered on harsh, but he could hear the emotion that simmered beneath it. He could see it in the places her mask failed, somehow, to cover.

  He smiled.

  And then he lifted one hand and beckoned her close with a regal flick of his fingers. “Come here,” he said.

  He didn’t pretend it was anything less than a command. And she didn’t pretend she wasn’t aware of it. He could see the trembling she fought to keep under control. He could see the shifting tides of feeling in her dark brown gaze. He watched the war she fought with herself—to take that next breath, to walk toward him with something less than her usual grace, to keep moving toward him when he knew very well it was the last thing she wanted to do.

  “Closer,” he said when she stopped a few feet away. He could read the mutinous expression on her face then, easily. “You look as if you expect me to bite you.”

  “I’m not ruling it out.” But she set her jaw visibly and took the necessary steps toward him, putting herself within arm’s reach.

  She stood there, her hands at her sides even as every single part of her vibrated with tension. And that underlying panic. He could see it as clearly as if she’d hung signs announcing it around her neck. He was tempted to let her stew in it. He almost did.

  hung signs announcing it around her neck. He was tempted to let her stew in it. He almost did.

  “There,” he said finally. With entirely too much satisfaction. “Was that so hard?”

  “As a matter of fact, it was.” She shifted from one foot to the other. “Is that your question?”

  “Not exactly.” He wanted to touch her. He forced himself to restrain the urge. “Though it will lead us into it nicely.”

  “I don’t want to play this game, whatever it is.” Her voice was hoarse again. It made him wonder what showed on his face. What she saw of that darkness he was holding tight within him. That fury.

  “One question,” he said softly. Almost kindly. “That’s all. You need only answer it honestly and I’ll set you free, if that is what you want.” Again, that misery that she fought so hard to hide moved over her face, but she nodded anyway. As if she had to fight herself to do even that.

  “It’s very simple.” He leaned in close and made sure every word counted. Made sure she was watching him. Hearing him. Made sure there could be no mistake about this. “Just tell me what it is you’re running from.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  IT WAS if he’d sucked all the air out of the world.

  Kiara stared at him, stricken. And then her heart pounded in
to her stomach like a sledgehammer, and she wondered if she was going to be sick. One beat, then another, and she still wasn’t sure. She felt a wild, terrible heat engulf her. It was as if he’d pried her open and exposed the deepest, darkest parts of her to a blistering light, and she hated it. She hated it, she hated him, she couldn’t breathe—

  She swayed on her feet, battling what seemed like stars behind her eyes. She wanted to back away from him, but knew that would only prove his point. It was harder to stand there, harder to keep standing there, than it should have been. Than it was to do anything else, including keeping herself upright and in one piece, somehow, despite the stunning blow he’d dealt her.

  She still couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

  How does he know? some voice inside her asked in a panic, but the part of her that wasn’t surprised—the part of her that had, perhaps, been expecting something like this on some level—simply hurt.

  “I’m not running,” she managed to say in someone else’s voice, though she knew those were her lips that moved. That forced out automatic denials even she did not believe. “I’m right here.”

  But Azrin only watched her, his storm-tossed eyes entirely too knowing, and she let out a small noise that was much too close to a sob.

  She felt dizzy again. Still. Her mind flooded with a burst of images, memories, cascading through her, one on top of the next. All those things she didn’t want to think about. All those difficult truths she didn’t want to face. Everything that had brought her here. It all seemed to whirl inside her like some kind of vicious tornado, spinning around, coiling tighter, ever more dangerous and out of control—until she thought she might burst.

  Until she thought she wanted to burst, because that might stop the awful spinning.

  “You’re the one who changed, Azrin,” she whispered, desperate to say or do something that might ease the pressure inside her. Terrified that if she didn’t push it away somehow, it would eat her alive. Far too worried that it already had. “I didn’t change at all. Things were perfect the way they were.” She hardly knew what she was saying, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. Azrin shifted then, lifting a hand to stroke his hard jaw, his eyes glittering as they narrowed in on her.

  “I thought so, as well,” he said, and she didn’t know why she thought he was so calm when she could hear that harsh undercurrent in his voice, when she could see the darkness in that near-blue gaze. When she could feel it sear into her skin, like some kind of brand. “But was it really?”

  “Do we have to tear apart our history, too?” she demanded, that great emptiness yawning open inside of her again, this time with teeth. “Are you determined to see to it that we have nothing to salvage from this at all?”

  She raised her hands to smooth down her dress, as if that would save her, and was surprised to feel that they trembled. And she remembered with perfect, unpleasant clarity that sense of relief she’d often felt when she’d left Azrin in some or other city to return to her career, that feeling she’d tried so hard to stuff down deep inside her and pretend wasn’t happening.

  Because he was so demanding. So … much. Because she lost her head over him so easily, so totally.

  The guilt swamped her now as if it was new. And she couldn’t pretend that she didn’t know what it was, that primal urge to return to the life she knew and could control, the life she already knew all the twists and turns of, having watched her mother live it once already. She remembered how decadent it had always felt to spend more than a few days with him at any one time, how far she’d felt herself fall into him whenever he was near—and yet how she’d never forgot that it was always only temporary. She’d wanted it to stay that way. She’d made sure to keep it that way, hadn’t she?

  She’d never wanted to disappear so far into him that she’d be unable to find her way back. She’d never let herself come close.

  “What are you so afraid of?” he asked now. She could hear the torment in that low, commanding tone. She felt a matching agony twist inside her, stealing what little breath she could manage.

  And suddenly it was as if she could speak now, or die of it.

  As if there was no other choice.

  “You.” It was barely a whisper, barely audible, but she knew he heard her. When he only watched her, his eyes hooded and painfully dark, one of her hands crept up to press hard against her chest as if she could soothe the frantic beating of her heart. “Me, when I’m with you.” She searched his face, so fierce and proud.

  “But I think you already know that.”

  She backed up then, no longer caring what it proved about her. One step, then another, and still Azrin did nothing but watch her do it. Let her do it. And the scant bit of breathing room didn’t help at all. She might as well have been caged between his palms. Threaded around his elegant fingers.

  Some part of her was, she knew. And always would be, no matter what happened here.

  Why did acknowledging that inevitability make her want to weep?

  “I have been proving myself to you since the day we met,” he said, a certain hardness in his voice now, betraying that cold temper of his she could sense if not see. “But it doesn’t matter, does it? You decided long ago that I would leave you, and you have been punishing me for it ever since.”

  “That’s not true!” She flung the words at him, her knees weak beneath her, her stomach lurching. “We have wholly incompatible lives!” Azrin shook his head. A single, definitive jerk. Dismissing her protests that easily.

  “If I could give up this kingdom for you, I would,” he said, his gaze connecting with hers and making her shiver. “I would grow grapes in your precious valley. I would learn the land. And it would be a good life, Kiara. Don’t think for a moment I haven’t thought about it.”

  “You have not,” she hissed at him, shaking off the images his words conjured in her head, refusing to let herself dwell on them—or on the part of her that balked at the idea of this proud, regal man in any role but the one he had. He was a king, not a winemaker. The idea that he would consider the alternative made her angry, suddenly. “You want me to believe you have fantasies of turning into Harry Thompson? Of course you don’t. Don’t patronize me.”

  “I’m not that man,” he bit out, the price of his iron control visible in every hard line of his body, his tight jaw, the arms that seemed to clench where he still held them crossed over his chest. All of that temper he managed to hold in reserve, she thought, when she felt utterly undone. “I can’t be. I can’t abandon this country, no matter how much I love you. But there’s one thing I can’t manage to understand, Kiara, no matter how many times I work this all through in my head.” He paused, as if to make sure she was listening to him. She had to grit her teeth against the roar of the tornado inside her, the way it clawed to get out, the things she was afraid she might say. His head tilted slightly to one side, studying her.

  “Why don’t you love me enough to consider the same sacrifice?” he asked.

  It felt as if an electric current pulsed through her, making everything burn bright and then scream with the same deep ache. And she was no longer at all sure that she was going to survive this.

  “I love you enough to think we should do better than tear each other apart!” she threw at him, that wild storm bursting out of her, no longer something she could even pretend to control. “I love you enough to know I can’t be what you want—and that you want far more than I’m able to give. I love you enough—”

  “Kiara.”

  Her name was a brisk, implacable command this time, and she despaired of herself when she heeded it and fell silent. He was so still, all that seething ruthlessness firmly held in check, right there, right in front of her, behind his dangerous gaze. All that intense male power focused on her, until she felt crowded out of her own body. Panic beat in her, through her. That harsh electricity burned.

  “Hear me,” he ordered her, very distinctly. Every inch of him the king. Nothing soft. All fierce lines and ruthless
certainty. “I am not your father.” And it was too much.

  Finally.

  It was as if those words detonated a bomb deep inside her, and everything simply exploded. It was all the worse because it was so silent, and so total. Her toes to her hip bones to her elbows to her head—all blown away. All lost.

  The buzzing in her ears shifted, liquid and sickening, to intense dizziness. Her knees gave out from beneath her. And for the first time in her life, Kiara stopped fighting and simply … fell.

  But Azrin caught her.

  She never saw him move. She simply found herself in his arms, cradled against the immovable wall of his chest. She realized she was crying, then; great, body-racking sobs that she thought might wreck her completely—might tear her into a thousand pieces were he only to loosen his hold.

  But he didn’t.

  He stooped and swept her into his arms, and then carried her over to the bench that stood in a corner of the patio, shaded from the sun above with a straight view out over the sparkling pools below.

  And he sat there, holding her, for what seemed to Kiara like a very long time.

  She simply cried.

  She let it all out, things she hadn’t known she was holding on to and the things she’d planned to keep her fingers tightly clenched around forever. She sobbed against his chest, her hands over her face as if she could hide, now, when he’d already seen everything. The very worst of her. She simply wept, while he whispered soothing Arabic words she didn’t understand and kissed her gently, softly on her temple. Her cheek. The backs of the hands she tried to use as some kind of shield.

  She cried until she felt empty of it all, hollowed out, but this time not in that terrible, aching way. As if she had finally cleared the space. As if she was made new somehow. And when she opened her eyes again and pulled in a deep breath, there was Azrin.

  Waiting for her, as he always did. The truth of that seemed to move over her, through her, like light.

  “They planned out their whole life,” she said, her voice thick with the aftereffects of so many tears. So much poison. She wiped at her face, curling toward him even more, as if she could never be close enough. “They were going to work in the vineyards together, raise a family. Live off the land and turn it into something bigger than them. My father was the one with all the dreams.” She shook her head. “And they ended up with so little time together. Not even three years.” He smoothed a hand over her hair, and pressed a new kiss to her forehead.