The Sheik and the Slave

“Don’t you see? Are you so in lust with the witch that you don’t see her? She is unholy.”

“She is a woman. A beautiful, intelligent woman who loves me. She is the mother of my son!”

“An Infidel! She’s an Infidel!” Abdullah said the word with malice.

Mohammed shook his head, pitying the man.

"Accursed wherever they are found, being seized and massacred completely," Abdullah quoted the Qur’an to Mohammed.

“Kafir!” He called her.

“No,” Mohammed returned back. “So if they do not withdraw from you or offer you peace or restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you overtake them. Or offer you peace, Abdullah! She has never made war with you. She never sought our demise. In fact, her only failing was to fall in love.”

Abdullah snorted.

“Love? Any harem girl can spread her legs.”

“Enough. This is futile. I will take you to London to stand for the crimes you have committed. I will have justice.”

Abdullah shook his head.

“Justice? In the land of the Infidels, where their stench is everywhere.”

Mohammed had enough.

“All of this, everything you have done. You have betrayed me. You hired Jean Baptiste to kidnap her. You helped search for him, all the while knowing that you had orchestrated it. You wrote that letter of lies to tear us apart. You hide the fact that Safiya isn’t pregnant with my child but her uncle’s! We were never married. All of this for nothing! You are a traitor,” Mohammed said. He then spit on the ground in front of his chief advisor. His face showed that he felt pain and rage toward Abdullah.

Abdullah looked at his friend. He denied nothing. But in his heart he knew he was saving Mohammed from himself.

“If she will have me, I will marry her as soon as possible,” he told Abdullah. “I love her. Don’t you understand that? I love her.”

Katharine appeared from her safe place on the other side

of the chestnut tree and smiled lovingly at him.

“I will marry you, Mohammed. Whatever time and place you choose. I love you so much.”

Mohammed smiled as he felt his heart expand. He released his grip on the knife. It would be all right. She would be his wife. She would be his. As he moved toward Katharine, he didn’t realize that Abdullah’s fanaticism was still there, savagely beating and eating away in his heart.

Abdullah took that moment to lunge at his sheik, to wretch the knife from him, but Mohammed was swift. They struggled in the grass, both men strong and angry, while Katharine ducked away. Mohammed went to defend himself and the knife pressed deep into Abdullah’s chest.

Katharine turned away in distress as Abdullah sank onto the grass, with his hands grasping at his chest. The blood seeped out, staining the green grass red. He closed his eyes in pain and then opened them halfway to glare at the woman he hated beyond reason.

Katharine shook her head. She had never wanted this. This was a kind of sickness, a madness inside Abdullah.

Abdullah’s face sneered with hate as he hissed at her.

“Kafir,” he said to Katharine. Then, he was gone.

Mohammed caught her in his arms and kissed her temple as they moved away from the violent scene.

“Katharine. Come away. Don’t look,” he said to her.

He moved her to Abdullah’s stolen coach and placed her inside, taking up the reins. The coach moved swiftly to No. 4 Bow Street to relay the death of the man and his crimes.

After he dispatched the Bow Street Runners, he caught Katharine up in his arms. His large hands touched the sides of her face as he looked into her eyes.

The tears fell on her cheeks as she closed her eyes.