by Sophia Lynn
Irene had had no idea what she was carrying, and when she saw it, her heart skipped a beat. It was a golden statue of a gorgeous little roe deer, curled up with its legs tucked underneath it and its delicate horns curving from its head. Her well-trained historian’s mind told her that it was a fine example of early Islamic period art, a time when the Middle East led the world in art and science. The deer was delicately rendered by the hand of a skilled artist, and to a trained eye, there was no chance of mistaking what it was. It was nothing less than a national treasure, one that was beyond price when it came to history and importance.
When Irene looked up at Raheem, the fury in his eyes made her take a step back She wanted to run, and she wanted to hide, but she could do nothing besides stand there like a stunned deer herself, waiting for the wolves to come and finish her off.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked, his voice vibrating with anger. “Do you have any idea?”
She couldn’t speak. Her throat was closed up with guilt and pain and fear. It was over. Her life was over. Her brother’s life was over. All she could do now was maintain her silence.
He stared at her, and for a moment, she was afraid that he would come and shake her, perhaps even strike her. The men who came to take her by the arms were almost an afterthought. They did not offer the same kind of fear and terror that Raheem did. He looked as if she had personally betrayed his country, offered insult to his relatives. In a very real way, she had.
“What do you want us to do with her, Your Highness?” one of the guards asked deferentially, and for a moment, Irene had no idea what he was saying or who he was addressing. Then she noticed that every eye was on Raheem, who surveyed the situation like a man with infinite control over the world.
A number of emotions flickered over Raheem’s face. She could not track them at all. In the middle of what was one of the lowest points in her life, all she could do was watch Raheem’s face, as if she could see her fate and Peter’s there.
“Take her to the precinct,” he said finally. “I will be in contact with the chief of police and the international crime head.”
When he spoke like that, a part of the puzzle clicked into place. He had told her to call him Raheem, but that was just the start of it. She had thought him handsome, but she had ignored the part of herself that insisted she had seen him before.
As a matter of fact, she had seen his face on the news, on the Internet, and even on the magazine racks on her way through the airport. The man who had been comforting her, flirting with her, soothing away her fears, and making her smile, was none other than Sheikh Raheem ben Ali, the lord of Khanour and ruler of the country from which she was stealing.
As the guards started to lead her away, she twisted her head for one last look at Raheem, who looked as if he were a man carved from stone. He looked after her with a level eye and a stern gaze, but there was something soft there, something that she might only have imagined.
I’m sorry, she mouthed to him before they led her away. I am so sorry.
***
It should have been a good day for Raheem. He had closed negotiations with Dubai early, and though no one had exactly gotten what they wanted, he liked to believe that everyone had at least walked away from the table satisfied.
All he had wanted to do was to get home, kick some of the dust off his well-polished shoes, and spend some time not thinking about anything.
Of course, the comforts of home meant the warm embrace of his family, and that family, though loving, definitely had its own agenda. When his father had died three years ago, Raheem had sworn to himself that he would be happy to take over the task of looking after his mother and aunts. They loved him, they were grateful to him, and they were the ones that knew what was best for him. Of course, what was best for him lined up precisely with traditions that had originated some five hundred years ago in the desert wastes, and they didn’t quite understand that a modern man, let alone the modern ruler of a modern emirate, could not take the same actions as a horse lord might have centuries ago.
He had been heading home, ready to take on the gauntlet of his female relatives, but then something about the small blond sitting in the airport lounge had caught his eye. Even now, he couldn’t say what it was. He knew what the police officers would have said. They would say he had picked out a criminal with the native sharp instincts of his ferocious ancestors. They would say he had picked up on the thousand invisible cues of a wrongdoer and pounced with intent to capture and restrain.
He knew that it hadn’t been that.
There was something about the girl—Irene Bellingham, he remembered, if that was her real name—that had captured his eye, and once she had it, she would not let him go. He had known many women who were far more beautiful, many women who were far more educated and polished, but something about this woman had caught him and held him.
If the thief hadn’t appeared like the righteous hand of providence, he would have simply said good-bye to her and thought of her from time to time. But the thief had intervened, and when that occurred, had revealed a much greater crime.
He had known what the statue was the moment he had seen it, and when he thought about that previously lost treasure leaving his country, he saw red. It was the work of the master craftsman Qebbi ben Faddir, who had made only four such statues some three hundred years ago. Only one had ever been recovered, and this second one was thought have been destroyed decades ago.
He had come home from his talks with the police and with the agents in charge of international matters. He had stalked past his relatives and gone straight to his apartments at the palace. When some ill-advised person had tried to knock on his door, Raheem had roared with anger and thrown a valuable cut glass tumbler at the door. The shattering glass had been satisfying, but only for a moment.
His people had stories of evil spirits that could follow you for all your days. A moment’s carelessness, and suddenly, one of these spirits would appear, following you and bedeviling you so that you never received a moment of peace or rest.
He had never wondered before what one of those monsters might look like, but now he was becoming to believe that it had blond hair and blue eyes that were like falling into the deepest part of an oasis pool.
Even through his fury, her bright blue gaze had cut him right through the heart. The police were leading her away to face her crimes, and when she turned to him, she had not begged for her life. She had not cursed at him or smirked, either one of which would have at least made sense.
No, she had looked at him, and she had apologized. There was grief and sorrow in her heart, but none of it seemed focused on getting caught or in losing a valuable treasure. Instead, Irene had wanted to apologize to him, and that had struck a hard blow against his heart, stunning him.
Even now, hours later, he couldn’t understand it.
He strode to the balcony and cast it open to stand in the cool night air. The sun had set hours ago, but now the glow from the city of Khanour itself could be seen. One of the richest cities in the emirates, and one of the most modern, it shone like a star itself, casting a glow so vivid that someone might believe that the city had turned night into day.
In Khanour, Raheem ruled without question. There was a parliament to govern the city, but when he chose to intervene in civic matters, his word was literally law.
Why now did he feel so powerless? What had happened in that airport, over that scanty hour, that had changed him?
He was changed now, no matter how hard he tried to deny it. He felt like a beast brought to bay, something changing without any way to answer or halt it.
Raheem looked down over his kingdom, and he knew what the answer was. It lay with a beautiful girl in one of the darkest places in Khanour, and he had to have her.
Chapter Two
As soon as she was captured, Irene had shut her mouth. She didn’t know what was happening, she knew that things were very bad, and she knew that she could not make them any better by sp
eaking in her own defense.
She was treated gently enough, as these things went. Irene knew that it could have been much worse. The two female guards who held her shoved her roughly into the van on the way to the jail, but she could hardly expect better when she had literally been in the middle of robbing their cultural heritage.
At the jail, they brought her the man who was intended to act as her advocate, but he had quickly become frustrated when she refused to speak at all.
“I cannot help you if you will not talk,” he said over and over again. “We have looked at your history, and we know that you are not a criminal, or at least you have never been before. Who is forcing you to do this? Who is behind this? You need not suffer for the crimes of others!”
He pleaded and argued, bullied and cajoled, but throughout it all, she remained silent. More than once, she was tempted to give in, to tell them everything. Then she remembered the video of her brother in that horrible room, the sound of his voice begging her to help him. No matter what they did to her, she could count on the men who held Peter doing something a dozen times worse to him if she gave them up.
She remained silent. Twenty-four hours later, Irene learned that she had made the right choice. In her narrow cell, food was delivered through a slot in the door. She poked at the meal with a lack of interest until she lifted her small bottle of water and found underneath it a curl of hair that was the exact shade of her own. The message was clear. She had to maintain her silence, or her brother would die.
The next day, the police interrogators came to see her. She sat in her chair as they shouted at her, pushed her, slammed their heavy fists down on the table in front of her. She emerged from the eight hours with them frightened and weeping, but still she had not broken. In her fevered dreams that night, she imagined never speaking again, like the princess in a fairy tale who had won her swan brothers free with seven years of silence. If she stayed strong, stayed silent, someday, she and Peter would walk out of this hand in hand, whole and strong.
The second day, the interrogators tried more of the same, and this time, when she went back to her cell in the evening, her wrists were bruised from their rough cuffs.
The third day was something different.
They took her to a different cell, and the first thing she noticed was that there was nothing in it but a pair of shackles hanging from the wall. She was alone for what felt like an eternity, and then a trim woman in a correctional facility uniform came in. In her hand was a long whip, and Irene started to shiver.
“The world is very different here than it is in America,” the woman began. “For example, I believe that in America, you have given up on the idea of corporal punishment for capital crimes. Miss Bellingham, what you have committed is a capital crime, and the repercussions can be severe. For example, a punishment that can be meted out for what you have done is one hundred strokes with a camel whip.”
Irene felt the bottom drop out of her stomach, and she stared at the whip in the woman’s hands. Surely she couldn’t be serious?
“This is an old tool of correction. The whip itself is used to sting and drive camels, to make them go where we wish. When used against a woman whose skin is far more fragile than camel’s hide, well, the results can be terrifying, don’t you think?”
Irene could feel tears start in her eyes as the reality of the situation sunk in for her. They could do anything they wanted to her. She couldn’t stop them.
“Being given one hundred strokes at a time would kill a strong man, and this is not intended to be an execution, Miss Bellingham. We have a doctor come in to confirm that you can handle the pain and the shock and the subsequent time to heal. Then ten strokes are given. Slowly.”
Irene flinched as if the woman had touched the braided handle of the whip against her shoulder. The woman nodded.
“After that, you are taken to your cell to rest and heal. When the wounds are healed over somewhat, you are brought out again, only this time, you know what kind of pain is waiting for you. Strong men who went to the whipping post silent break down when they are brought back out for their second set. Some still resist, but all start howling when they are brought back for their third set.”
She paused.
“Ten sets, Miss Bellingham. It will not kill you, but many who are given this punishment are never the same again. They are… broken, in mind, if not in body.”
The tears were running freely down Irene’s face. A black hopelessness had come up and overwhelmed her. She knew now what was going to happen to her, and she knew that there was nothing she could do about it.
“We are not permitted to give you strokes of the camel whip for your crime now. That is only ordered by the court of law.”
She waited until Irene relaxed slightly before continuing.
“However, we are allowed to correct prisoners who have been unruly and uncooperative in our care.”
Irene’s head shot up, and the woman smiled at her thinly.
“What do you think defying your guards with silence is?” she asked. “I cannot use the camel whip, but I can use the cane, and believe me very well when I say that one is hardly better than the other.”
The woman hung the camel whip carefully on the door, and then she produced a thick cane that looked more like a stick. When she swished the cane through the air, it made a ripping sound that made Irene flinch.
“Take off your clothes.”
Irene froze. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
The woman looked at her calmly.
“Take off your clothes, or I will call in two guards to take them off for you.”
Irene’s mind was reeling. She couldn’t imagine taking her clothes off, let alone the brutality that the woman was telling her would follow. The entire room felt far away. She felt as if she were moving through mud, but underneath that, there was a layer of molten panic that was searing through her body.
“Today!”
The woman suddenly lashed out with the cane, bringing it within a hairsbreadth of striking Irene’s arm. She could feel the way the cane tore through the air, making her gasp.
She hurriedly started taking off her clothes, but her fingers were clumsy, fumbling with her buttons as the guard waited impatiently. She kept her mind consciously blank, trying to avoid thinking about what was going to come next.
A cold feeling of hopelessness overcame her. She was utterly helpless. She couldn’t do anything. She hesitated when she got down to her underwear, but at an impatient look from the woman with the cane, she drew them off as well. Now she was naked inside a drafty cell, and she knew that whatever came next, she had to endure it. She couldn’t let herself be broken. She had to protect her brother. She had no other choice.
“Step to the wall.”
She stood shaking as the woman shackled her to the wall, pulling a switch that dragged her taut. The wall was ice cold against her breasts and belly. She tried to go somewhere else in her mind.
Behind her, the woman swished the cane through the air two or three times, making her flinch with each sound and movement.
“All right. Six to begin with, and then we will see how stubborn you are after that, eh?”
Irene had tears in her eyes. She shut her eyes tight and clenched her fists where they were lifted over her head.
Please, I cannot break…
The cane swished through the air, or at least it started to. Suddenly, there was a crash as the door rocked on its hinges, flying open. There was barely enough free chain for Irene to twist around, but when she did, she was startled to see a familiar man outlined in the doorway.
It was Raheem, the handsome stranger from the airport who had turned out to be none other than the sheikh of Khanour. Now he was dressed in the traditional robes of his people, the dark folds of fabric making him look even more imposing. It was as if he sucked all of the air from the room; every eye was on him, from her and the guard to the men behind him.
For a moment, he glared around him, taking in the
scene. His gaze flickered as it roved down her bare form, and then he was all business again.
“Cut her down,” he said, his voice deep and imposing.
The guard hurried to do as the sheikh said, and when she had done so, she stepped back. She looked, Irene thought, grateful to be out of the way of the grim-faced sheikh. For Irene’s own part, all she could do was hide her nudity as best she could with her hands, shaking as he advanced upon her.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked, his eyes dark and his face stern.
Irene had no idea what was happening now, but she knew that she couldn’t defy this man.
She nodded jerkily, as if her head was a ball on a string. He reached out, jerking her head up with his hand at her chin. When she looked up at him, he was even more terrifying. This was a man who held the power of life and death over his people. She had been caught stealing from him.
“Say my name.” His voice was pure command, something that she could not defy.
“Raheem,” she whispered. “Raheem ben Ali, sheikh of Khanour.”
To her surprise, he broke into a smile that was bright and cruel.
“It has been heard, and it has been witnessed,” he said, his voice pitched to carry to the people at the door. Irene looked up in surprise.
“She has recognized me for who I am, and thus in the old way, I declare this woman my wife.”
The people behind him broke into an excited murmur, and the guard watched them with stunned eyes, but Irene felt as if she had been hit with the cane after all. The world was swimming, and things were happening much too fast for her to figure out what was going on.
The guard spoke up.
“Your Highness… what does this mean?”
“It means, warden, that this prisoner is no longer your responsibility. I am choosing to marry her in the old way, and thus her crimes are mine to punish and my responsibility to bring to rights. Her crime was against the country of Khanour, and as I am Khanour, I will take over her custody.”
With a careless hand, he tossed Irene a cloth bag.
