And now none of it would happen. Unless someone rescued her or she managed to escape, prospects she deemed quite unlikely, her marriage to Aziz would not take place. If he did not marry within the six weeks, he would be forced to relinquish his claim to the throne. He wouldn’t need her then, but unfortunately she still needed him.
Still needed a husband, a Prince Consort, and before the convening of the Council next month.
Elena sank onto an embroidered chair and dropped her head into her hands. Even now she couldn’t believe she was here, that she’d actually been kidnapped.
Yet why shouldn’t she believe it? Hadn’t the worst in her life happened before? For a second she remembered the sound of the explosion ringing in her ears, the terrible weight of her father’s lifeless body on top of hers.
And, even after that awful day, from the moment she’d taken the throne she’d been dogged by disaster, teetering on the precipice of ruin. Led by Markos, the stuffy, sanctimonious men of the Thallian Council had sought to discredit and even disown her. They didn’t want a single young woman as ruler of Thallia. They didn’t want her.
She’d spent so much time trying to prove herself to the men of her Council who questioned her every action, doubted her every word. Who assumed she was flighty, silly and irresponsible, all because of one foolish mistake made when she’d been just nineteen and overwhelmed by grief and loneliness.
Nearly four years on, all the good she’d done for her country—all the appearances she’d made, the charities she’d supported and the bills she’d helped draft—counted for nothing. At least, not in Markos’s eyes. And the rest of the Council would be led by him, even in this day and age. Thallia was a traditional country. They wanted a man as their head of state.
Tears pricked under her lids and she blinked them back furiously. She wasn’t a little girl, to cry over a cut knee. She was a woman, a woman who’d had to prove she possessed the power and strength of a man for four endless, stormy years.
It couldn’t end now like this, just because some crazed rebel had decided he was the rightful heir to the throne.
Except, Elena had to acknowledge, Khalil hadn’t seemed crazed. He’d been coldly composed, utterly assured. Yet how could he be the rightful heir? And did he really think he could snatch the throne from under Aziz’s nose? When she didn’t show up in Siyad, when the Kadaran diplomat who had accompanied her sounded the alarm, Aziz would come looking. And he’d find her, because he was as desperate as she was.
Although, considering she was being held captive in the middle of the desert, perhaps she was now a little more desperate than Aziz.
He could, she realised with a terrible, sinking sensation, find another willing bride. Why shouldn’t he? They’d met only a handful of times. The marriage had been her idea. He could still find someone else, although he’d have to do it pretty quickly.
Had Khalil thought of that? What was preventing Aziz from just grabbing some random woman and marrying her to fulfil the terms of his father’s will?
Elena rose from the chair and once more restlessly paced the elegant confines of her tent. Outside the night was dark, the only sound the sweep of the sand and the low nickering of the tethered horses.
She had to talk to Khalil again and convince him to release her. That was her best chance.
Filled with grim determination, Elena whirled around and stalked to the opening of her tent, pulled the cloth aside and stepped out into the desert night, only to have two guards step quickly in front of her, their bodies as impenetrable as a brick wall. She gazed at their blank faces, at the rifles strapped to their chests, and lifted her chin.
‘I want to speak to Khalil.’
‘He is occupied, Your Highness.’ The guard’s voice was both bland and implacable; he didn’t move.
‘With something more important than securing the throne?’ she shot back. The wind blew her hair about her face and impatiently she shoved it back. ‘I have information he’ll want to hear,’ she stated firmly. ‘Information that will affect his—his intentions.’
The two guards stared at her impassively, utterly unmoved by her argument. ‘Please return to the tent, Your Highness,’ one of them said flatly. ‘The wind is rising.’
‘Tell Khalil he needs to speak to me,’ she tried again, and this time, to her own immense irritation, she heard a pleading note enter her voice. ‘Tell him there are things I know, things he hasn’t considered.’
One of the guards placed a heavy hand on her shoulder and Elena stiffened under it. ‘Don’t touch me.’
‘For your own safety, Your Highness, you must return to the tent.’ And, pushing her around, he forced her back into the tent as if she were a small child being marched to her room.
* * *
Khalil sat at the teakwood table in his private tent and with one lean finger traced the route through the desert from the campsite to Siyad. Three hundred miles. Three hundred miles to victory.
Reluctantly, yet unable to keep himself from it, he let his gaze flick to a corner of the map, an inhospitable area of bleak desert populated by a single nomadic tribe: his mother’s people.
He knew Abdul-Hafiz was dead, and the people of his mother’s tribe now supported him as the rightful ruler of Kadar. Yet though they’d even named him as Sheikh of their tribe, he hadn’t been back yet to receive the honour. He couldn’t face returning to that barren bit of ground where he’d suffered for three long years.
His stomach still clenched when he looked at that corner of the map, and in his mind’s eye he pictured Abdul-Hafiz’s cruel face, his thin lips twisted into a mocking sneer as he raised the whip above Khalil’s cringing form.
‘The woman is asking for you.’
Khalil turned away from the map to see Assad standing in the doorway of his tent, the flaps drawn closed behind him.
‘Queen Elena? Why?’
‘She claims she has information.’
‘What kind of information?’
Assad shrugged. ‘Who knows? She is desperate, and most likely lying.’
Khalil drummed his fingers against the table. Elena was indeed desperate, and that made her reckless. Defiant. No doubt her bid to speak to him was some kind of ploy; perhaps she thought she could argue her way to freedom. It would be better, he knew, to ignore her request. Spend as little time as possible with the woman who was already proving to be an unwanted temptation.
‘It is worth investigating,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’ll see her.’
‘Shall I summon her?’
‘No, don’t bother. I’ll go to her tent.’ Khalil rose from his chair, ignoring the anticipation that uncurled low in his belly at the thought of seeing Queen Elena again.
The wind whipped against him, stinging his face with grains of sand as he walked across the campsite to Elena’s tent. Around him men hunkered down by fires or tended to their weapons or animals. At the sight of all this industry, all this loyalty, something both swelled and ached inside Khalil.
This was, he knew, the closest thing he’d had to family in twenty-nine years.
Dimah was family, of course, and he was incredibly thankful for what she’d done for him. She had, quite literally, saved him: provided for him, supported him, believed in him.
Yes, he owed Dimah a great deal. But she’d never understood what drove him, how much he needed to reclaim his inheritance, his very self. These men did.
Shaking off such thoughts, he strode towards Elena’s tent, waving the guards aside as he drew back the flaps, only to come up short.
Elena was in the bath.
The intimacy of the moment struck him like a fist to the heart: the endless darkness outside, the candlelight flickering over the golden skin of her back, the only sound the slosh of the water against the sides of the deep copper tub as Elena washed herself—and then the hiss of his sudden, indrawn breath as a wave of lust crashed over him with the force of a tsunami.
She stiffened, the sponge dropping from her hand, and turned her head so their gazes met. Clashed. She didn’t speak, didn’t even move, and neither did Khalil. The moment spun out between them, a moment taut with expectation and yet beautiful in its simplicity.
She was beautiful, the elegant shape of her back reminding him of the sinuous curves of a cello. A single tendril of dark hair lay against the nape of her neck; the rest was piled on top of her head.
As if from a great distance Khalil registered her shuddering breath and knew she was frightened. Shame scorched him and he spun on his heel.
‘I beg your pardon. I did not realise you were bathing. I’ll wait outside.’ He pushed outside the tent, the guards coming quickly to flank him, but he just shook his head and brushed them off. Lust still pulsed insistently inside him, an ache in his groin. He folded his arms across his chest and willed his body’s traitorous reaction to recede. Yet, no matter how hard he tried, he could not banish the image of Elena’s golden perfection from his mind.
After a few endless minutes he heard a rustling behind him and Elena appeared, dressed in a white towelling robe that thankfully covered her from neck to toe.
‘You may come in.’ Her voice was husky, her cheeks flushed—although whether from the heat of the bath or their unexpected encounter he didn’t know.