“She’s not right—”
“Look how the she writhes. She’s sick—”
“Because you poisoned her,” Tair thundered, cutting Ashraf short. “You poisoned her food and drink and she writhes with physical pain, not with some mystical spirit. You gave her poisonous herbs to kill her and you are lucky that I do not give you some of the same.”
“Ah! But see, you’ve just proven my point. Look what this woman has already done to us. Look at the evil she’s brought on us. You’re going to kill me and she what…will live here with you? How is that justice? How is keeping her and losing me right? Will she protect you as I have? Will she watch your back? No. She is bad and I tell you now, I warn you, brother to brother, man to man, not to keep her. She is a danger to all.”
Tair let his other men take Ashraf away then.
Ashraf was wrong, Tair thought, watching the bound Ashraf settle onto his horse. Tair wasn’t going to kill Ashraf, and Tally wasn’t going to bring destruction on them. But things were getting complicated. As well as interesting.
Tally was sick, very sick, that much she understood, everything coming at her in a blur of heat and haze. She saw as if underwater, the world blurry and shapes shimmering toward her and then away. Even the voices she heard were like voices beneath the water, blah blah blah, strange tones and all jumbled sound. She tried to focus, tried to make sense of the noise and blur but it was too hard, too much effort and closing her eyes she gave up, returning instead to the bliss of sleep.
Tair stood over her bed, watching his woman sleep. The fever had finally broken. She was no longer thrashing so violently—thank Allah—but it’d been a difficult several days, days where he wondered over and over if he should air evacuate her to the hospital in Atiq but the doctor he’d sent for assured him she’d eventually respond to the treatment, and she had.
But there had been a night where Tair had doubted the doctor, threatening the physician with bodily harm if anything happened to his woman.
Hiswoman.
A muscle in Tair’s cheek pulled, a grim acknowledgment of a truth he was still coming to grips with. Somehow through the sandstorms and quicksand, knives and asthma attacks, he’d come to see her as his.
His responsibility. His duty. His fate. Whatever that meant.
And now that she was out of danger he’d have to break the news to her. She wouldn’t like what he had to tell her. Not the first bit—she’d been poisoned. Or the second part—the culprit had been discovered and punished. Or the third—and he’d come to a decision.
It was time. To bring her home, introduce her to his people, make her his. He wasn’t sure if they’d accept her but he had to find out now, before it was too late.
Two days later, Tally stared at Tair uncomprehendingly after he broke the news. “We’re going to your home? To meet your people,” she repeated slowly. “But I thought this was your home, and these your people.”
“This is just a military outpost.”
“An outpost!”
“One of three strategic positions that protect our people and territory.”
Tally struggled to sit up, her body still weak. Shaky. “You’ve kept me in a military outpost instead of your home because…?”
“I didn’t know if I could trust you.”
“And now you can?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Because I survived being poisoned by the belladonna flower?”
Tair grimaced. “No. Because I’ve been through your photos. All five hundred of them. And you were right. They’re all of children.” He paused, looked chagrined. “They’re good, too.”
Tally put a hand to her head, touched her forehead as if checking the temperature. “I’m hallucinating. Dreaming. Right?”
“No. You’re sitting up and your eyes are open. You’re quite awake.”
Tally slowly lay back down again, and closed her eyes. “You liked my photos.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s why I’m going to your real home?”
“I know you’re not a spy.”
She pushed up on one elbow. “Then maybe instead of dragging me across the desert to another horrible place I don’t want to go, why don’t you let me return to town? I’d love to have my things back. I miss my clothes more than you know.”
“You’ll like my home.”
“Tair.”
“It’s pleasant there.”
“Tair.”