by Tara Pammi
His gaze staying on her, Ayaan took a sip from the same tumbler and a cheer went up around the room.
“At one point in time the tribes were barbaric people, fighting with each other, among themselves for their very survival. In the last century, civilization has taken root but only a little. In this world, women still need protection—whether from other members of the tribe or other tribes or even royalty themselves. It is a mark of respect, of reverence, something that is taken very seriously. And my duty, whether I agree with their principles or even their form of life, is to respect and protect it.”
He turned toward her, and Zohra felt the force of his gaze right down to her toes. Triumph glittered in his eyes, turning them into an indescribable golden hue. “Have you had enough of playing at duty, ya habibati? Are you ready to admit that this world is not for you?”
A month ago, or even a day ago, she would have agreed with him, would have been intensely frustrated at the very least. She still was, if she was honest with herself. Sitting there like a package to be unwrapped went against every grain of belief she had fought hard to retain in this world.
But she had also seen and heard firsthand what an important role women played in the tribe’s hierarchy from her discussion with the women this afternoon. It was not a life she could see herself living, but she understood it.
Maybe it was the man who took the effort to explain it, or maybe she was seeing the same world, the same traditions and customs without prejudiced lenses.
She shook her head, and had the satisfaction of seeing the mockery in his face relent.
“No, I didn’t like being unveiled as if I were something incapable of independent thinking, nor do I like being thought of as your possession, even if it is the most respected one. But neither am I ready to run.”
“Why agree to it at all?” His gaze rested on her, curious. “The veil, this ceremony, everything. And don’t tell me they forced you. You have no reason to indulge these people. I have seen you in action, Zohra. You are every inch the princess when you wish to be. I am surprised you didn’t turn up here in jeans and T-shirt just to thumb your nose at it.”
“So little faith in your wife, Ayaan? However shall we get through the next half century in each other’s company?”
His mouth tightened again. “Do not challenge me. Your actions in the past decade speak for you.”
“I did resent it. But then I thought of you...” A blaze of heat sparked in his eyes immediately, and she hastened to add, “of your mother and father, of everything your family has lost to protect the tribes’ way of living, their independence. And I realized, whether or not I added to your family’s name and glory, whether or not I ended up as a minor deviation in your family tree, I wanted to do nothing to lessen it. So I gave in. And I am also realizing that it hasn’t made my own beliefs any less.”
He stared at her without blinking, and she felt a hot flare of satisfaction that she had surprised him. But it didn’t last long, because a truth far more chilling than that suddenly clicked into place in her mind.
“That was why your lives had been sacrificed, wasn’t it?” she said, her words loaded with a shiver, with pain she couldn’t expel.
His answer was to turn into a block of ice next to her.
She clutched his hand and just as she had guessed, it was ice-cold, rigid. “I read about the history of your tribes but until now, I didn’t realize. That’s why the terrorists captured you and your brother and your sister.
“They wanted control over the tribes, didn’t they? They took you from this very place five years ago and held you hostage? That’s why you—”
“Yes,” came his gritted answer and even now, she was sure it was only to stop her from probing further.
A knot clawed up her throat, and tears stung her eyes. And this time, she couldn’t stem them. She didn’t even try. “And your father refused?” She posed it as a question but she already knew. In her heart of hearts, she knew what this life was, she thought she had made peace with it ten days ago, accepted it as her reality.
But the truth about Ayaan’s capture hit her like an invisible blow. Her chest was so tight it hurt to breathe.
Her father had walked away from her mother and her. Ayaan’s father had gone an extra step in the name of duty. He had refused to negotiate with a terrorist group, instead he had chosen to forfeit his sons’ and daughter’s lives.
Two had been killed, and one tortured to madness. But he hadn’t bent.
She shivered uncontrollably, and Ayaan’s hands wrapped around her shoulders, the heat from his embrace almost, but not quite, enough to thaw the chill in her blood.
“My father did his duty, Zohra. And if the same circumstances came to pass again and it was our child, the very same child who would be the product of the life you are so eager for, that was held hostage, I would be forced to do the same, too. I would probably go mad, take that final leap into darkness while doing it, but I would still do it.”
His arm pressed into her shoulders, the heat of his body a deceptively safe haven around her. But nothing could have tempered the chill in his eyes, or the cruel smile that played on his lips. “Are you still eager to belong in Dahaar, Princess, to be my wife in every way that matters?”
* * *
Ayaan laughed as he stood at the entrance to the abandoned stables about half a mile from the encampment. Five years of neglect showed in the decrepit structure.
From the moment he had stepped onto the desert floor, the structure had mocked him, jeered him, called to him with its very presence. To resist that call, to pretend that it didn’t exist, to pretend it wasn’t the cause for the very cold that pervaded his bones, filled him with a white-hot fury.
He had not even indulged the idea of sleeping tonight. So he had ventured out and found himself lingering outside Zohra’s tent. There was something to the acute disillusionment, the pain in her eyes that had tugged at him even as he had painted the cruelest picture of what life with him would hold for her.
He had wanted to go in, take her in his arms, do what he could to wipe it from her mind. He understood the loneliness that never left her eyes, understood how it leeched out the simplest of joys from one...
Apparently, his mind had more control than he had assumed because he had no idea when he had moved toward the stables.
He stepped over the threshold, the high dome-shaped ceiling giving it a cavernous feeling. It was a long, rectangular interior, giving a direct view of the empty stalls.
More than one lamp had gone out, the light from the remaining feeble ones just enough to prevent the whole area dissolving into utter darkness. He ran his fingers over his nape, feeling the chill in the air seep into his pores. Goose bumps instantly pebbled over his skin. The smell of the horses and the hay, the echoes of the soft whinnying of beasts long gone hit him with the force of a gale. Every hair on his body stood to attention, his core temperature quickly dropping.
Beware of your triggers. When you feel an episode coming, put yourself in a trigger-free zone.
The words of the trauma specialist reverberated through his skull.
He closed his eyes. Fear dug its claws into him, chipping away conscious thought.
He had loved horses and stables once, it had been his lifeblood. He had spent countless nights in the Dahaaran stables hiding from Azeez. That boy was, however, dead.
His legs struggling to keep him upright, he walked the perimeter of the stables.
He knew what was going to happen. And yet he couldn’t walk away. If he was damned to have these episodes for the rest of his life, then he would bloody well have them when and as it suited him.
Distress fingered up his spine and knotted at the base of his neck. He curled his fists, focusing on the simple act of breathing in and out. The quiet took on a life of its own, becoming his worst nightmare
. It hammered at him, inching its way past every rationale, every shred of sense he threw its way.
He was a twenty-six-year-old man who was skilled in three different martial arts.
But his psyche didn’t understand reason, recycling and feeding itself on fears and terrors from five years ago. The unflinching quiet, the smells and sounds of the stable, all of them pushed under his conscious, inciting reactions that had no base in reality.
A frustrated growl escaped his mouth. He slid to his knees, an invisible rope tugging away at him. And then it came.
The sound that drowned his whole body into a mindless chill, that pierced holes in him. Nausea whirled at the base of his throat. He closed his eyes and gave in to the darkness.
He was sitting on the hard floor, his foot bent at an awkward angle. Winds from the desert howled outside.
A soft grunt reached his ears followed by a dragging movement across the floor of the stables.
Ayaan, can you hear me?
The scent of blood mixed with hay filled Ayaan’s nostrils. His fingers gripped slender shoulders, his knuckles beginning to hurt from the tight grip. But he couldn’t let go, he would never let go of her. He just needed a moment. His shoulder hurt like hell, and a bullet had grazed his head on the left. Blood dribbled thickly into his left eye.
His vision blurred with tears and his own blood, he felt woozy. That dragging sound came again, the sound rippling across his arms. It was a sound that filled him with the fiercest anger. A cold hand gripped his thigh, its grip strong despite the tremors in it.
Ayaan, you have to leave...
No...he roared.
That trembling hand tried to pry his grip off the body in his arms. Ayaan held on tighter. He couldn’t let go, ever...he had already made a mistake when he had hesitated to fire, he couldn’t make another. Bile filled his mouth. He retched to the side, wiped his mouth.
All he needed was a minute. Once his vision cleared, he would get her out of here...
That dragging sound came again, followed by stuttered breathing.
Ayaan, listen to me. It is too late for Amira and me. You have to leave...now.
Nooooooo....
Ayaan screamed again until his throat hurt, until his head felt as if it would burst from the inside, until pain and loathing was all he became. If only he hadn’t frozen like that, if only he had moved faster, if only he had blocked the next shot with his body...so many if onlys....
Something landed on his shoulder, jarring his thoughts. With a scream that never left his throat, he surged to his knees and slammed the intruder against the door of a stall.
Adrenaline pounded through him, rage singing in his veins. This time, he would not hesitate.
One chance and he would drag them all to safety. That’s all he needed, one chance.
A soft gasp broke through the mist pounding through his head. He reached out and realized the body of the intruder was slender, almost frail. In that second-long fracture in his focus a well-aimed kick landed on his shin.
The curious scent of roses teased at the edge of his mind. He stilled. That scent was wrong. There should only be blood, tears and the stench of his own fear. There shouldn’t be...
He opened his eyes and jerked back so hard that he hit the wall with the back of his head. As his head throbbed, he stilled, his chest so painfully tight that he couldn’t breathe.
Dressed in dark trousers and a white caftan, Zohra leaned against the wall, her long hair falling onto her chest over one shoulder.
Bile swam up his throat and Ayaan held it off by sheer will. He moved toward her, his movements shaky and slippery. Emotion balled up in his throat, and he had to breathe through it. Fear beat like a tribal drum in his blood as he tugged her gently.
She fell into his arms, and he thought he might be sick again. He traced the pulse at her throat with the pad of his thumb. And exhaled in painful relief.
Exquisite brown eyes slowly fluttered open.
“Zohra, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” she said in a low whisper, “and now that you know that I wasn’t about to attack you, can you please let go of me?”
With a curse, he loosened his fingers.
She pushed at his shoulders and he let himself fall back onto his haunches, his gut churning with a vicious force. Her fingers around her nape trembling, she leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes.
Her chest rose and fell with her slow, painful breathing.
He could have hurt her so easily... If he hadn’t stopped when he had...
Terror pounded through his blood, a vise squeezing his chest. His hands shook, delayed shock pulsing through him from head to toe. “I could have killed you.”
Fire erupted in that beautiful gaze. The fear was all gone now and she was pure, ferocious anger. Her small body bristled with the force of her emotion, her chest rising and falling with it.
She raised her hand and even realizing what she intended, Ayaan couldn’t move, couldn’t stop her. She slapped him hard, the sound of it ringing around them.
Her chin wobbled, tears falling onto her cheeks. “I am beginning to believe you are truly mad.” Her voice was as sharp as the sting of the slap she had delivered. “Why else would anyone invite such pain upon themselves? You knew what might happen to you here. The desert, these stables, this is why you have been such...a monster this past week, why you kept everyone away...” She wiped her tears on her sleeve.
“You saw your brother and sister die here. Why walk in here?” She shoved him again, feeble as her energy was. “I want an answer.”
In the face of her angry energy, he clasped her gently, a knot in his throat. “If I hid from it, if I pretended that it didn’t exist during this trip, it would forever haunt me. I needed to come here, I needed to see what it could do to me.” When I looked at you next, I needed to know that I faced it instead of hiding.
Shaking her head, she tugged his hand off her. “And if it had pushed you past that edge, if it had robbed—”
He pulled her to him and tucked his face in her hair. “That was a price I was willing to pay.” He swallowed hard, the scent of her seeping into his cells. “My life, Zohra. How could you be so stupid as to follow me?”
She pushed him again, tears flowing freely across her face, trying to break free. “And you think you are not fit to be king, that you don’t have what it takes? You are a ruthless bastard, Ayaan. You have all the arrogance that is required to rule your blasted country. Now, let go of me.”
“No,” he said loudly, crushing her with his arms, emotion robbing him of any sense.
She landed across his knees, the air knocked out of her. She fought him every inch of the way, but he didn’t give a damn. He kept his grip on her gentle, but letting go of her was a concept he just couldn’t grasp in that moment. She pounded her fists into his stomach. He held her shoulders in a tight grip and forced her head down.
As if sensing his intentions, she stilled. She felt soft and warm against his thighs. Combing his fingers through her hair, he checked for any swelling. There was none.
“There’s no swelling, Ayaan,” she said, wriggling under his hold.
He closed his eyes, fighting the wet heat of tears prickling at the back of his eyes.
With his hand under her shoulders, he dragged her toward him, nothing gentle left in him anymore.
“I told you there is no swelling, Ayaan. I was just disoriented for a few seconds, that’s all. I—”
But he was past caring, past honor, past good sense. He moved to his knees, lifted her up and started walking out of the stables.
“Ayaan, put me down,” she said squirming against him.
He tightened his hold on her, crushing her against him. Did she have any idea how delicate she was? Did she not know what a mindless beast he b
ecame in the throes of a nightmare, what a chance she had taken with him? “No.”
“Ayaan, please, you are scaring me.”
He had to laugh. She was scared now? The woman was scared now after putting him through that? “Again and again, I warned you to stay away from me. But you didn’t listen. You made a choice, ya habibati. That choice has consequences.”
He took the path toward his tent and a shudder went through her. “Where are you taking me?”
“To my tent.”
“The maid will tend to me. I want a bath and I want to sleep.”
“You can do all that in my tent.”
“Why?”
“I could have seriously hurt you, Zohra. A few more seconds and I would have...” He pulled a deep breath in. The hard knot in his throat remained, his chest so stiflingly tight that it was a wonder he was able to breathe at all.
“But you didn’t, Ayaan.” Her fingers feathered over his jaw. “You stopped. Ayaan, please, it was my choice to follow you, mine. This is not your fault. You couldn’t know who it was. You were drowning in that memory, you were not yourself. You can’t hold yourself—”
“When you should have cowered from me, you didn’t.” He stepped over the threshold of his tent and dismissed the guards. “I close my eyes and I see you...against the wall. Ya Allah...if you...”
He threw her on the bed, shivering from rage. Her face was pale, her brown eyes glittering in the light of the lamps. “I could not let you go through that alone, Ayaan.”
“That image will haunt me now, ya habibati.” He knelt on the edge of the bed, the need to hold her close, the wanting to touch her, kiss her, blending into an unbearable ache. “Only one thing will banish that image.”
She shivered again. “What?”
He shook from head to toe. He wanted to fill himself with the scent of her, with the feel of her. He wanted to hear her scream in mindless pleasure, he wanted to see her thrashing, crying as she came apart in his arms, he wanted to reassure himself that she was alive, again and again.
