by Tara Pammi
It was only after the words had left her mouth that Zohra realized the very truth in them. Still, she braced herself for his mockery, expected him to laugh at her. Because, in reality, she was beginning to see how very little she knew about this life, and what it entailed.
He leaned down toward her, and she was enveloped by the scent and heat of his skin. “You are a contradiction in yourself, Princess. I cannot quite decide whether the selfish, defiant version is the real you or this quiet, regal, perceptive one.”
Shock robbing her senses, Zohra just stared at him. Was she both or was she neither?
She was still wondering the answer to that when Ayaan took a step forward and waved at the crowd. Their roaring response was earsplitting.
He turned around and looked at her. His gaze studied her as if solving a puzzle. And then instead of asking her, he tugged her forward until she had no choice but to walk by his side.
Be my wife at state functions.
It was one of the few things he had asked of her, and in this moment, Zohra couldn’t shake off the feeling that it was her that Prince Ayaan saw and not a faceless, nameless woman he had married in the name of duty. And try as she did, the feeling wouldn’t leave her alone.
They spent the entire day greeting Dahaarans who had traveled long distances to meet their prince and his new bride. And the hardest part was that all through the day, he kept touching her. He never completely relaxed but after the first hour, he became less tense.
Of course, Queen Fatima had warned her that there were eyes and ears watching their every move, hungrier than usual about the crown prince who was finally entering the political arena of Dahaar and his first formal ceremony with his new Siyaadi bride.
The little touches of his palm at her back, the brush of his hand against hers, were more for public display than anything else, but they affected her strongly nonetheless.
Her fingers tingled when he clasped them with his own, her heart thudded, every inch of her body thrummed as if they were alone instead of in a sea of people, as if he touched her because he craved it, because he needed to.
And despite her best efforts, Zohra kept forgetting that the man she had married sought nothing for himself. Not pleasure or power or fame.
The prince of Dahaar did everything he did in the name of duty.
CHAPTER FIVE
AYAAN ENTERED THE vast hall and took his seat opposite his mother while his father sat at the head of the centuries-old dinner table. And just as it did for the past few months, instantly his throat closed up, an unbearable stiffness setting into his shoulders.
The ancient, handcrafted table that probably weighed a ton, the colorful walls hanging with handmade Dahaaran rugs that showcased historical Al-Sharif events, the high circular ceilings... Every time he entered the hall, he felt as if he entered a tomb, as if he was being slowly but surely smothered by every inanimate object in the room.
Not to mention the fact he couldn’t even look at his parents. Nodding at them, he settled into his chair. The weight of their attention was like a heavy chain on his shoulders.
Shying his gaze away from her, he answered his mother’s inquiries about his day with single word answers, wondering why today felt even more painful than the past week.
The whole family together for dinner. Even before their family had been broken by tragedy, it had been a tradition his mother had enforced as much as possible. But never had it been such an exercise in pain as it had become since his return.
“Where is Princess Zohra?” his father asked, and Ayaan frowned.
Two weeks since their marriage, two weeks of countless political dinners and public appearances, and Zohra had somehow become the buffer between him and the outside world, even between him and his parents. Because whatever else his wife was, she was not a silent creature.
Listening to either her questions about the various ceremonies or her perceptive inquiries about state affairs and watching her struggle to curb her temper and her tongue—sometimes successfully, sometimes not—had become a daily ritual in itself. And looking at his father, Ayaan realized it was not just him that had become used to the princess’s presence.
“Princess Zohra is completing the final wedding ritual and should be joining us any minute,” his mother announced.
The uncomfortable silence descending again, Ayaan fidgeted in his seat, restless to leave. “Can we begin dinner?”
“No.” An implacable answer from his mother which meant she was in full queen mode. It was a term his siblings and he had coined together.
His chest tightened at the recollection as Ayaan turned to the side and froze. One by one, the entire palace staff was entering the hall. The senior ones took their seats on low-slung divans along the perimeter of the wall while the rest of them stood in between. Almost a hundred of them and they were all dressed in their best, their pride and joy at being included shining in their gazes.
Another group of servants laid down numerous empty glass bowls with tiny spoons all over the huge table.
Straightening in his chair, Ayaan turned back to his mother. The restlessness in his limbs shifted, curiosity now rooting him to his seat. “What is the ritual, mother?”
“Every new Al-Sharif bride has to cook dessert for the family,” his mother said, a hint of complaint in her tone. “Zohra somehow managed to postpone it until now.”
Ayaan smiled. He could very well imagine Princess Zohra stomping with frustration somewhere. “But why is the entire palace staff here?”
His mother glanced in the direction of the entrance, the lines of her mouth tight. “They are all here to taste the dessert she cooks along with us, Prince Ayaan. It is a centuries-old tradition to give the staff a way to welcome the new bride, to give them a chance to feel that they are an integral part of the royal family.”
Blinking, Ayaan leaned back against the chair. He had no idea if the Siyaadi princess could cook. For the first time in months, a strange anticipation filled him. But no matter what, he knew he was in for an interesting couple of hours.
Not just today, any time spent with his unconventional wife was always interesting. At the least.
He looked over to his right just as Zohra arrived at the entrance to the hall accompanied by fanfare and an army of excited servants.
Spying the anxiety in her gaze, the slight sheen of sweat on her forehead, Ayaan felt the most uncharacteristic surge of concern. From the corner of his eye, he could see Zohra approach the table with dragging footsteps that clearly said she wanted to be anywhere but here. In her hands was the centuries-old, gleaming silver bowl he remembered seeing long ago. Behind her, similar bowls were being carried by the kitchen staff and laid beside the low-slung divans where the palace staff were seated.
“Place the bowl on the table by Prince Ayaan’s side, Princess Zohra.” His mother’s voice rang clearly in the deafening silence of a hundred and more curiously waiting gazes.
Her reluctance a tangible thing in the air around them, Zohra placed the bowl on the table next to Ayaan. A distinctive smell, sweet and...burned, wafted into the air around them.
His nostrils flaring, Ayaan glanced into the silver bowl. He gasped when he saw the contents, hearing the same sound fall from his mother’s mouth and his father’s cough. The dark brown, charred substance in the bowl looked like no dessert he knew.
His mouth twitched, and a sudden lightness filled his chest. Raising his head, he chanced a look at his mother. Her forehead tied into a frown, she was looking at the bowl with a shocked expression that had him clamping his mouth tight.
Whispers emerged from the staff around them, the more senior members even slanting a quick puzzled look at the bowl, but Ayaan couldn’t help himself. Clearing his throat, which felt really hard, he looked up and met Zohra’s gaze. “What is this, Princess?”
H
er dark gaze fiery enough to burn him, she answered from tightly clamped lips, “Halwa, Prince Ayaan.”
He didn’t heed the warning in her voice. “You mean this is carrots and nuts?”
“Yes.”
Fidgeting in his seat, he met his father’s eyes at the head of table. Seeing the twinkle in his aged eyes, the tight set of his twitching mouth made Ayaan lose the tenuous hold on himself.
He laughed, the very act of it shaking his body from head to toe. And heard his father’s peal of laughter alongside his own. His throat raw, Ayaan covered his face with his fingers but to no avail. His jaw and stomach hurt, but in the best way.
His body had no memory of what it felt like to laugh. Every face around them, including his mother’s, watched him and the princess alternately, torn between the desire to laugh and bone-deep propriety.
Every time he looked at his father, it started again. He had no idea how long they laughed, but soon, he had tears in his eyes. “This is...” he choked, “Ya Allah, exactly like...”
His lean frame shaking with laughter, his father nodded, his mouth curled into a wide smile. “When Amira made—”
“When Amira made Awwameh on her twenty-first birthday,” his mother finished, tears in her own eyes. Swallowing at the sight, Ayaan nodded, glad that her eyes were full of remembered laughter rather than the familiar shadows of grief.
“She hated every moment of it, too,” his father said, looking at Zohra with a fond smile. “And Azeez and Ayaan teased her mercilessly for months.”
A smile still curving his mouth, Ayaan met Zohra’s gaze.
“Queen Fatima,” Zohra’s crystal clear tones rang through their laughter, laden with the promise of retribution, “who did you say tastes the new bride’s dessert first?”
His laughter cut short, Ayaan shook his head and met his mother’s gaze. “No.”
Her mouth was still compressed but a spark of something wicked lit up his mother’s gaze. “The husband, Princess Zohra,” she said, studying him with an intensity that twisted his gut.
Zohra reached for a silver spoon, and scooped up a little of the charred halwa with it. “Traditions, of course, have to be followed. Do they not, King Malik?” she said, throwing the challenge at his father across the table.
Chuckles and approvals rang around the huge room, followed by his father’s comment, “Of course, Princess Zohra,” laden with laughter.
Knowing that he was well and truly caught, Ayaan looked up at Zohra. And opened his mouth when she brought the spoon to his mouth, victory dancing in her beautiful gaze.
* * *
When was the last time the palace walls had heard laughter like that? The last time his mother had smiled even if it had been buried under affected displeasure? The last time they had remembered the past with a smile?
With his chest feeling amazingly light, Ayaan reached Zohra’s suite. The scent of scorched carrots and burned pistachios lingered in the air, bringing a smile to his mouth. He closed the huge doors behind him, suddenly craving the very privacy he usually avoided with her.
Leaning against the closed doors, he lost himself to the sheer pleasure of watching her. Cinched tight at her rib cage with a jeweled belt, the copper-sulfate-colored silk caftan she wore billowed from her tiny waist, highlighting the long line of her legs. The puckered sleeves showed off slender arms, the intricately designed diamond bracelets on her wrists twinkling in the light thrown by the lamps around the room.
She turned around, her hennaed hands tugging at the pearls threaded into her hair. The silky material cupped her breasts like a lover’s hands, her stark sensuality robbing his breath.
Feeling like a teenager getting his first sight of a beautiful woman, he pushed away from the door.
He would ensure she was all right—a small courtesy after the past two weeks—summon a maid, and leave. “Do you require help?”
She threw a quick look at the closed doors behind him and the slender line of her shoulders tensed up. “Have you not had enough fun at my expense, Prince Ayaan?”
He crossed the room and took her hands in his as she went to pull another pearl from her hair. Sensation skittered up his fingers, like a spark of fire. She wrenched them back right as he dropped them. “You do that a lot,” he said, before he could think better of it.
“What?”
“Take your temper out on your beautiful hair.”
It was a personal comment that shocked them both, instantly filling the air around them with tension. He had not intended to touch her, either.
“Why are you here?”
She had every right to question him and yet he couldn’t turn around and leave. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“I am fine.” Struggling with the clasp of the necklace at her nape, she glared at him. “Except for the small fact that I am now the laughingstock of the Dahaaran palace.”
“I will pass a law that enforces the strictest punishment on anyone who dares laughs at you,” he said, surprising himself again.
“Will it apply to the king and the crown prince?” she challenged. “Because as much as I would like to forget that image, it was your father and you that were laughing.” Her gaze stayed on him, surprise in it, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she had seen. “That sound is still ringing in my ears.”
She dropped onto a divan with her feet stretched in front of her. Scrunching her nose, she grabbed the sleeve of her caftan, sniffed it and made a face. Ayaan clamped his mouth shut and rocked on his heels. She looked up at him, her mouth turned down. “Oh please, go ahead and laugh. I know you are dying to.”
Ayaan laughed, the sound barreling out of him again. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t been sitting there. You should have seen my mother’s face when you put that silver bowl on the dining table. Centuries old, studded with intricate handwork, encrusted with rare gems and inside...” He hummed a dramatic tune.
Hunched over with her head in her hands, she groaned. “It was not that bad.”
He dropped down onto the divan, still smiling at the expression on his mother’s face, the twitch of his father’s mouth. Silence in the grand hall had never held that much repressed laughter. “It was black and it tasted like soot, Princess.”
She swatted him, her lower lip caught between her teeth, her beautiful brown eyes glimmering with laughter. “Have you seen the size of that palatial kitchen? How can anyone be expected to cook dessert for a hundred people? Of all the things I thought would make me unsuitable to be your wife...” Her eyes glittered like precious stones. “I...I thought I would be reduced to ash by Queen Fatima’s glare.”
“Even she cracked a smile at the end,” he said, and Zohra doubled over laughing.
“For thirteen years, the palace staff at Siyaad were shocked by what I did but I think the faces of the staff here today...this is what they are going to remember for the rest of my life, aren’t they?”
“I think it will be recorded as one of the most significant events in the history of Al-Sharifs.” He stretched his hands wide, announcing the title. “Princess Zohra and the Tale of the Burned Halwa.”
“As if this was the first humiliating ritual I have been forced to endure.” She slid lower on the couch. “Even the ritual where I have to spend a week with you in the desert is—”
Cold skittered down his spine and Ayaan looked away. He had lost everything in the desert the night they had been attacked. He couldn’t bear to go there again, not even for his mother and one of her rituals. “We are not going.”
Noticing the shadows that entered his gaze, Zohra wondered what it was that she had said. Standing up from the divan, she tugged the pearls again, cursing the elaborate hairstyle.
“Stop that,” came Prince Ayaan’s voice closer than she had expected.
“I need to—”<
br />
His hands were suddenly in her hair, and Zohra’s breath caught. The companionship of their shared laughter left the air around them and was replaced by something else. Her scalp prickled as Ayaan’s long fingers untangled her hair with sure movements. She held herself rigid, so rigid that her back ached. The heat of his body behind her became a beckoning caress.
Closing her eyes, she took a bracing breath. How was she going to spend the next few years with this man when his simplest touch provoked this kind of reaction in her?
She was about to move away when his hands landed on her shoulders and pressed her toward him. Her pulse drummed in her ears, her skin shivering with a new awareness. Zohra gasped and turned around. His touch had been there one minute and gone the next, the pressure infinitesimal. But in that second, she had felt the shudder that had passed through his lean, hard body, heard the long inhale of his breath, as if...
“Forgive me, Princess,” he said stepping back, color riding those sharp cheekbones. “I shouldn’t have touched you.”
She clutched her arms against her body, frowning. His beautiful eyes were darkened like she had never seen before, his jaw tight. “Why did you?” she blurted out.
“You have known a man’s touch, understand a man’s hunger. Do you not know what a temptation you present, especially to one who hasn’t been near a woman in six years?”
He muttered the last part softly, almost to himself. Yet the words landed in Zohra’s ears with the same force of an earthquake. He was attracted to her and she’d had no idea.
“Six years?” she said, still reeling at the impact of his words.
There was a banked fire in his gaze, but the heat of it was still enough to send a delicious, feverish tremble into every muscle in her body. No wonder she felt so drawn to him, no wonder the air charged the moment they laid eyes on each other. “I never had a chance to fully explore what life had to offer a prince seeing that I was captured just before my twenty-first birthday.”
Fierce heat tightened her cheeks. “Does that mean you’ve never...”
