Traded to the Desert Sheikh

“You’ve been so busy,” Elizaveta said, in that light way of hers that wasn’t light at all. “Traveling, was it, these last six months? One last hurrah before settling down to this marriage your brother arranged for you?” She didn’t quite frown—that would have marred the smoothness of her forehead, and Amaya knew she avoided that at all costs. “I hope you enjoyed yourself. You must know that a man in your betrothed’s position will demand you start having children immediately. As many babies as possible, as quickly as possible, to ensure the line of succession. It is your foremost duty.”

“There aren’t any lines of succession here,” Amaya replied, because concentrating on dry facts was far preferable to thinking about other things, like the total lack of birth control she and Kavian had used in all this time. Why hadn’t they thought about that? But even as she asked herself the question, she was certain that he had. Of course he had. He thought of everything. She trained her gaze on her mother, because she couldn’t fall down that rabbit hole. Not now. Not while Elizaveta watched. “Not in the classic sense.”

“Every man wants his son to rule the world, Amaya, but none so much as a man who already does.” Elizaveta smiled, which only made a chill snake its way down Amaya’s back. Had Elizaveta always been so obvious a barracuda? Or was this simply her reaction to being back in this world again—when she’d avoided it all so deliberately since leaving Amaya’s father? “You are so very, very young. Are you certain you’re ready to be a mother?”

“You were a mother when you were nineteen.”

“I was not nearly so sheltered,” Elizaveta said dismissively. She shook her head. “I cannot fathom how you could end up in a place like this, with all the advantages I provided you over the years. I had no choice but to marry your father when he appeared like some fairy story to spirit me away. You have nothing but choices and yet here you are. As if you learned nothing.”

Amaya should not have felt that like a noose around her throat. It shouldn’t have mattered what Elizaveta said. It shouldn’t have hit her so hard, right in the gut.

“You told me my father swept you off your feet. That you were in love.”

She sounded like the child she had never been, not quite. She couldn’t help herself.

“Yes, of course I told you that,” her mother replied, arch and amused again. “That sounds so much more romantic than reality, does it not?”

“Anyway,” Amaya said tightly, because she didn’t believe Elizaveta’s sudden nonchalance on this topic after years of wielding her broken heart like a sword, “there’s no point having this discussion. I’m twenty-three years old, not nineteen. I’m not even remotely sheltered. And most important, I’m not pregnant.”

You can’t possibly be pregnant, she told herself ferociously.

Her mother turned that cool blue gaze on her, washed through with something enough like malice to make Amaya’s stomach clench. Despite herself, she thought of the things Kavian had said about her. That she had lived off Amaya. That she had lied about that—and who knew what else?

“That’s clever, Amaya. Once you are you will be trapped with him forever.”

Trapped was not the word that came to mind, which was more than a little startling, but Amaya frowned at her mother instead of investigating that. “Luckily, it’s not up to him.”

But Elizaveta only smiled again.

Stop making her out to be something scary, Amaya snapped at herself. She’s not a demon. She’s nothing but an unhappy woman. This is her hurt talking, not her heart, and anyway, you don’t have to respond.

“Of course not, darling,” Elizaveta murmured. She leaned forward and put her teacup back on its saucer with a click that seemed much too loud. “I’ve never seen you in traditional attire before. Not even when we still lived in Bakri.”

Amaya had to order herself to unclench her teeth. To curve her lips in some rendition of a smile. “I am not in traditional attire. You can tell because I am not wearing a veil.”

“I wonder if this is merely a stepping stone toward a more traditional arrangement.” Elizaveta’s shrug was exquisite. It somehow conveyed worry and a kind of jaded weariness at once, while also making her look infinitely delicate. “A sleight of hand, if you will. He lures you in by pretending to be a modern sort of man and then—”

“Mother.” It was so absurd she almost laughed. “There is not one thing about Kavian that is the least bit modern. If that’s the lure, he’s already failed. Spectacularly.”