Several quiet seconds passed.
"There were..." He paused, seeming to grope for an appropriate word. "Punishments."
She steadied her breathing, imagining a little boy separated from his family, alone in a country not his own. No one to stand up for him. She tamped down on her rage at the injustice.
"What were the punishments for?"
Ithnan shifted his weight, looked at the floor. For an instant, his regal manner slid away and he was a normal guy in an expensive suit.
Her throat closed. She wanted to take his hand, to lend him her strength.
"For Askari tribes raiding Hidd's border."
She blinked at him, the pieces falling together like a game of Tetris.
"You weren't kidnapped from Hidd. And you weren't fostered there either. Your father handed you over to a foreign ruler as a hostage to keep these tribes in line."
"An accurate assessment."
God. It seemed so... Game of Thrones. The person who should have done everything possible to take care of him, to protect him, had given him up to an enemy country.
"Where was your mom?"
"She was a quiet and obedient woman from a prominent Askari family. When my father wished to take another wife—Thalatha's mother, a Swedish beauty—she accepted the divorce quietly and obediently, as was proper."
Quiet and obedient. Gwen winced inwardly. When she was around her father at these high-society events, those words described her.
But if someone tried anything against her family, they'd get a nasty surprise. "I'd never let anyone take my kid," she said. "I'd die first."
At the age of thirteen, she'd stood at her mother's grave, alone in the world. Facing a future of foster homes. And then a stranger introduced himself. Her father. A knight in a rumpled suit sent by the universe to slay her dragons.
Ithnan hadn't had anyone to take on his monsters. The monsters had won.
"My mother died while I was in Hidd." No emotion tinged his voice. "Breast cancer, I believe."
His mom had died. He didn't have the chance to say goodbye.
Her jaw clenched tight with memories of her own mother's sickness, and with hot rage at what Ithnan had been denied. She covered her feelings by pulling one of the mismatched chairs from the two-person table and climbing on top to check out the ceiling more closely.
"How long were you there?"
"I was sent at the age of eight. When I was fourteen, my uncle Sulaiman visited Hidd without warning. Technically he was my father's cousin, but I knew him as my uncle. He observed my state and negotiated my release into his care. From then, I lived with him in Zallaq. Without informing my father, Sulaiman made me his heir. He had no children of his own, and he—according to my father—was meant to leave his kingdom to Walid, thus uniting two parts of Askar."
My state. What had his state been? Beaten up or just neglected? Or maybe a combo.
"Bet your dad was pissed."
"Very true. But he did not discover that my uncle had named me his heir until the reading of the will. He did try to bully my uncle into returning me to Hidd."
"Well, screw him," she said, with feeling.
Did he just snort? When she looked down from her perch on the chair, his eyes glowed with humor.
And that light in his eyes made her stomach trip.
"Screw him," he agreed solemnly.
"So I guess your past explains why you're okay here." She waved a hand to take in the tiny room currently making up their world. "You can handle not being able to leave. But we could escape."
"We are in the middle of the desert. Shall we escape to certain death, then?" he asked with an edge of frustration. "When my men are most likely on their way as we speak?"
She paused in her task. What had he said? "Wait. How do you know we're in the desert? We could be anywhere."
"A logical assumption," he continued smoothly. "Have you heard traffic or voices other than our captors? Ismek is never quiet."
He was right. What he said was logical assumption, she had to admit. But a bit of a leap, too.
"Also, I see no buildings." Ithnan indicated the one window into their room.
The window sat at the height of the ceiling. Perhaps two feet wide by one foot high. Light poured in, and a little air. Stiflingly hot air.
"The window." The concept struck her hard. Why make up stupid "checking for bugs" busy work when she could be trying to find out actual information? "I want to look out."
Ithnan cocked an eyebrow at her. "I do not see how looking out would assist us."
"I still want to." She didn't have a clue how seeing what was outside the window would help, but she had a feeling...
She hopped down and hauled the chair under the window.
But when she climbed up again, the dirty pane was still a good three feet above her head. She eyed the table. Standing on the table wouldn't work either.
"You are determined to see out," he said.
"Looks like it's not happening, though." She didn't bother hiding her disappointment.
"Stand on my shoulders."
Her heart stopped beating. Use a king as a stepladder? There was his cool sense of humor again. "You can't be serious."
"I hope you have excellent balance. Remove your shoes."
She found herself doing what he said. He lowered himself, not quite kneeling, beside her. One last instant of hesitation, then she put her foot on his shoulder.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"You are not too heavy, Gwendolyn. Please proceed."
She put her other foot on his other shoulder, bracing her free hand against the wall. The other hand, connected to his by the handcuffs, twisted behind her back. To her humiliation, he used his palm to brace her. Square on her butt.
She didn’t protest. Couldn't. After all, he was humoring her, wasn't he? He didn't even think doing this would help anything. She'd be pissy to complain about anything while he strained to support her doing something he had zero interest in.
"I think you can call me Gwen now." He straightened his legs, raising her the extra height she needed to see out. The movement jostled, but she kept her balance. "Everyone else does."
"Perhaps I do not wish to call you what everyone else does."
Why not? Those enigmatic eyes stared up at her from between the legs of her none-too-clean Tom the Toad pajama bottoms, making her heart skip so many beats she thought it might not restart.
She turned her attention to the window, which was the point of the exercise anyway.
Nothing but dunes, frozen waves of desert. Nothing but an infinity of golden sand from here to the horizon.
Hope shriveled and died inside her. Her eyes started to water. The glare, she told herself, knowing the light wasn't the problem.
"I don't see anything," she admitted.
"Have you looked everywhere?"
"Yes. It's hope—" She started to say "hopeless," but she also pressed her face against the hot metal bars to see a wider range. "No. Wait."
She blinked to clear her vision. In the distance, gray mounds rose from the dunes. The shapes stayed where they were. "No, wait. I see some hills. You don't think it's a mirage, do you? Maybe I'm seeing something because I want to."
"You have seen too many Bugs Bunny cartoons. A mirage is a trick of the eye, not of the mind." Ithnan sounded as calm as usual, a contrast to her excitement.
She pressed her face harder into the bars. Another inch and she could get a good look at those hills. "I don't get it."
"An image of a mirage can be captured with a camera, similar to waves of heat rising from a black road," he explained. "In the desert, mirages occur below the horizon, not above. You are seeing real hills. Most likely the Sabaran hills, north of here."
"How do you know what direction is north?" she asked.
"Gwendolyn, you are not too heavy, but you are not the weight of a feather. Would it be possible for you to get down?" A hint of strain tinged his voice.
"Erp," she said.
"Sorry."
***
"So you know where we are?" She'd installed herself at the blue table, forcing him to sit across from her. He didn't look winded, though he'd lifted a 120-pound woman. "When we escape, we can get to those hills. I think. Won't be easy."
Slitting his eyes, he leaned back in his chair, forcing her to lean forward to keep her arm from being wrenched by the handcuffs. The message was clear. He was in charge.
"No."
"No? Just no?" She mimed slapping her forehead. With her left, of course, since her right was trapped. "Oh, forgot for a second. You're the boss of me."
"Since you are not rational at the moment, yes."
"I don't get a vote."
Ithnan waved a dismissive hand. "If I wished my country to be a democracy, it would be."
"This room isn't a dictatorship. I'm escaping. You can stay here if you want."
"Since we are chained to each other"—he jangled the handcuffs, as if she needed the reminder—"I believe that would make you the dictator. Do I not get a vote?"
Her mouth twisted in a grimace. He had a point. He also had more experience being held prisoner than she did. She just... had a bad feeling. As if something was happening she didn't understand. Something beneath the surface. She couldn't put a finger, or any other digit, on it. She suspected she didn’t want to.
Plus, she found her mind straying to the hate-filled eyes of Gray Scarf. Every instinct warned she wanted to be as far away from him as possible.
"We can't stay here. They're going to kill us."
With no warning, Ithnan leaned in, taking her hands in his own. The sudden contact struck her like a blow. She had never been touched, in any way, by anyone so gorgeous, so sexy as him.
She longed to pull out of the intensity of the liquid gold eyes boring into hers, but the same force making her want to look away made looking away impossible.
"We are in no danger here, Gwendolyn. I promise you."
She relaxed—
Wait a minute. He wasn't in charge here.
"Don't lie to me, mister." She couldn't keep the acid out of her tone. "You have zero control over our situation."
His Majesty flinched. Guess he wasn't exactly used to people calling his bluffs.
"They have not shown their faces. If they had, we would know they did not intend to keep us alive to identify them."
He paused for a moment, but she sensed he had more to say. She wasn't wrong.
"What I tell you next is a protected secret. There have been several abductions of high-profile officials lately. Each has been taken, ransomed, and returned unharmed."
Sounds... not right, a quiet voice inside her warned. "Doesn't mesh with what the head kidnapper said about trying to keep the pipeline out of Zallaq."
He looked down his nose at her. "And you trust our abductors more than myself?"
He made a good point. "No, of course not. I apologize, Your Majesty."
"I believe I prefer it when you call me mister."
What did he mean by that? She shoved the question aside to concentrate on the hope flaring inside her. Oh, she still wanted to escape, but an underlying tension she hadn't acknowledged settled into a smaller corner in her stomach. "I didn't see the story in the news."
He nodded. "Allowing such information to leak out would harm our ongoing investigation. We were within days of apprehending these criminals with a special task force. No doubt efforts have redoubled since I disappeared."
A few more days. Not so bad. Waiting here sort of sounded better than running out into the desert to die. Especially since dragging an unwilling Ithnan along would make things difficult.
But she kept coming back to the dark thing in Gray Scarf's eyes. She still felt shivery every time she remembered it. And she remembered it often.
"We might not have days," she pointed out.
"You once asked me to trust you. Now I ask you to trust me."
Trust him. Exactly what Thale said she shouldn't do.
Temper flashed through her, hotter than the sweaty room. What a jerk. How could he even think about playing that card? "Completely unfair. You're sneaky."
He nodded. "As you say."
"When I asked you to trust me, I was talking about one little thing that didn't matter much. This is my life."
"Mine as well," he argued. "I have no desire to die. If escape was safer, I would find a way. But escape puts us in additional danger. We remain here. We will be rescued or ransomed in a few days."
Maybe he was right. She was operating on emotion. Wouldn't be the first time. Was her gut fear of Gray Scarf enough to justify putting them in danger?
They'd be staying. Maybe for days. Or longer.
She couldn’t sit here with him for days and not be honest with the guy. Time to spill what she knew. The lie of omission would burn a hole in her gut.
"Since we're going to be here a while, I have something to tell you."
Ithnan cocked an eyebrow at her.
She pushed the words out fast, before she changed her mind. "My father already decided where the pipeline is going. He had the location picked before we left. He loves having rich people suck up to him, so he got you to spend as much money as possible on him." Well, he wasn't alone on this trip, was he? "On us."
Ithnan didn't say anything. He was a smart guy. The next part wouldn't surprise him, not after her prologue.
"I'm sorry," she told him. "The pipeline is going in Askar. You were never in the running."
She wanted to tell him how embarrassed she was, but he had a right to be angry, even angry at her. Her father's behavior wasn't her fault, but she hadn't tried to stop him. She didn't even protest.
"Hmm," he responded.
She waited a heartbeat, searching his perfect face for some sign of surprise, of anger. He'd been seriously screwed over, and he showed no reaction at all.
"Nothing else to say?"
He leaned back in his chair with zero emotion. "I suspected as much. I have seen the alternative routes. I would have chosen the Askari one myself. It is more direct."
"You're not mad he got you to send a private jet for us, put us up in the palace, entertain us? You spent so much time and money."
He waved a dismissive hand. "I understood the risk. I cannot expect your father to give weight to issues that do not affect him."
"What issues? Does Zallaq need money?"
"Countries always need money. But we are not in dire circumstances. No, the issues are not economic. You must know that the former country of Hidd is now part of Zallaq."
Her mouth went dry, forcing her to swallow before she spoke. "Thale said you wiped Hidd off the map."
"He was not wrong. Hidd has been a province of Zallaq since I ascended to the throne. Under its previous ruler, infrastructure and health projects were neglected. But soon everyone will have access to clean drinking water."
"What does this have to do with the pipeline?"
"The next step in my modernization plan hinged on your father's pipeline. Not only would the project have provided jobs and security for an area unused to such things, but the pipeline would have linked Hidd with the rest of my country, sending a strong message of citizenship and solidarity." As Ithnan spoke, his tone rose and warmed to the possibilities. Then his voice fell. "Askar is the better fiscal choice, though it is an older country and does not need the economic and social advantages this pipeline would provide. No one can fault your father for this decision."
She looked away from his disappointment. He was right. Her father wouldn't be swayed by Zallaq's need. But she pictured Zallaq as a scrappy little country fighting to make a place for itself.
"I'm sorry, mister. Your money could have been spent much better." She didn't have anything else to say.
He leveled her an enigmatic look, mystery in his flawless features. "Perhaps I consider myself well compensated."
"I don't understand." What the hell was he talking about?
"I suspected our kidnapping woul
d not bode well for Zallaq's bid with your father's company. If the lack of security did not make my country the less desirable location, what is going to happen two days from now will."
Her stomach tightened. He was about to tell her something bad. She braced herself. "What happens in two days?"
"I must share some information with you as well, though we can avoid the consequence if my men arrive before sunset tomorrow night." His tone turned soft and conciliatory. "Gwendolyn, unless our rescue comes within two days, we become husband and wife."
***
"Gwendolyn? Are you well?"
She tried to fake calm while her sweat turned to ice on her skin, her throat closed up in panic, and her heart beat against her ribs, trying to escape without her.
"You did not just say that," she told him, fighting to control her voice, to keep from yelling at the ruler of a foreign country. "You need to explain this second."
"Please," he said. "Seat yourself. We can do nothing now."
Seat herself? When had she stood?
"Standing helps," she lied. "You've got to be joking about the—" She couldn't talk about... what? The potential forced marriage? "—the thing. It's not real. You just made it up."
His eyebrows drew together. "Denying the fact will not make it any less true."
"Explain."
"We have a charming old law on record in Zallaq. Any woman who spends three consecutive nights with the ruler of the land becomes his wife by right."
Her world spun out of orbit.
Some stupid law would change the course of her life forever? Take away her options and force her into marriage with a guy she'd met a week ago?
Her backbone became an icicle of rage inside her.
What was worse was the law was him. Ithnan. He'd known about this the whole time and argued against escaping? What was wrong with him?
Cold rage got in the way of her words. A long time passed while she stared him down.
He looked away first.
"You have become silent, Gwendolyn."
"Plotting your death," she told him.
"I could have you executed for saying so," he said, with no force behind the words.
"Go ahead. Put me out of my misery. By right," she repeated, with venom. "By whose right?"
Handcuffed to the Sheikh, Too Page 6
