The Sheikh's Claim (Desert Nights 2)

“I put myself in front of my mother, as if I’d protect her from your mother’s attack. My mother tried to stop me, but I walked up to your mother and told her I never thought anyone could be as beautiful as her. Or as mean. I told her she was scary and ugly inside and that my mother left her because she made her miserable like she made others, and that everyone hated her. And I could see why. Then I told my mother that I wouldn’t let her go back to work for this woman, that I’ll give up everything, my ballet and piano lessons and get work to help her.”

He could see her, a slip of a girl, standing up to his dragoness of a mother, to defend her family. His heart slowed to a painful thud as she went on.

“Your mother looked at me in contemplation all through my tirade. Then she said that as a princess from birth, then a queen by marriage, it was her duty to maintain order, restore balance. She took it upon herself to put people in their correct places. But to do so, it took time and patience, so she was not in any hurry. But she never forgot her purpose, refused to stop until she saw it through. And she would put me in my place, no matter how long it took, since I clearly had no idea what it was.”

He wanted to shout, enough! But he knew it wasn’t, not for her. She had to let this all out once and for all.

Gritting his teeth on the sharpening pain in his chest, he willed her to go on.

She did. “But I was too young and didn’t believe anyone would be as vindictive and long-term as that. Mom begged Sondoss to please forgive us, me for my foolishness and her for not being able to leave her family. Sondoss only said my mother would change her mind, when life with us, her miserable family, became impossible.

“Mom was a wreck as we left, and remained one for the next year. Dad lost his latest job, and couldn’t find another. Soon, what had been a barely manageable situation became impossible as per your mother’s predictions. Mom had to go back to her service, while Dad had to go back to his family in Ireland. Mom took my younger sister and brother, while Dad took me, tearing apart our family. Dad asked Mom to take me, too, said I shouldn’t be away from my mother and siblings. But it wasn’t for him that Mom let me go. She knew if she took me with her, your mother would find ways to ‘put me in my place.’ I cried for days, begging her to take me with her, saying I would do anything to make your mother forgive me. But she knew. Your mother never forgot, or forgave. So your infallible memory comes from both sides of your heritage.”

He’d already known his mother had orchestrated a conspiracy that could have only played out in endless bloodshed. Why would he consider this premeditated cruelty any more shocking?

But it was. Her conspiracy had been, to her, justified, to give her sons, those she considered the ones worthy of being kings, the thrones they deserved. What she’d done to Lujayn and her mother had been nothing but pure malice.

Lujayn angrily wiped at the fresh flow of tears. “But Mom promised it would only be for a couple years. Sondoss was a slave driver, but she paid her servants very well. Mom estimated she’d be able to put aside the capital Dad needed to start the business he’d always dreamed of. But as if knowing Mom’s plan in advance, your mother offered a salary only large enough to support us and pay a portion of our debts.”

His mother had known. She had a way of knowing everything. And using it to her advantage. To everybody else’s loss.

The voice that had steadied began to shake again. “Dad kept losing every job he got, to his growing despair. He’d think he was doing so well then he’d be let go. He believed he was jinxed.”

A jinx called Sondoss. This had his mother’s claws all over it. No need to draw her attention to that conclusion if she hadn’t reached it herself. Nothing to be gained from infecting her soul with even more rage and hatred.

“I did give up everything I was involved in, started to work when I was fourteen. But by the time I was eighteen, I knew the jobs I kept getting were hand-to-mouth solutions. There was no way I could afford college and even if I could, I couldn’t wait for the well-paying jobs a degree would afford me. I needed something that didn’t take long training, something that would pay well fast. I had nothing to use but ‘my body’ as you put it. I always had people complimenting my ‘exotic’ looks, saying I could be a model. But it wasn’t as easy as that. It took me a whole year before I landed my first paying job. It paid enough to buy a new outfit to wear to auditions, and a bottle of cheap champagne to celebrate with Dad. Not that there was much to celebrate.

“I was exposed to some…scary situations. People started coming out of the woodwork, wanting to be my ‘agent,’ ‘manager’ or ‘entourage.’ I’d just decided to admit defeat and get the first shop-clerk job I could find, when I met Aliyah again and told her I saw why she’d left modeling. She offered to help financially first, but when I refused she decided to teach me to ‘fish.’ She took me under her wing, showed me the ropes, introduced me to the right people and I started working, making money, started paying our debts, and I thought my life was finally on the right track. Then I met you.”

His eyes squeezed without volition. The way she’d said that. What he considered the best memory of his life, she considered the worst. Forcing his eyes open, so he’d see for himself how totally wrong he’d been about everything he’d ever shared with her, he watched her struggle to continue her account.

“I was horrified. You were the son of my mother’s enslaver, a part of the reason I didn’t have my family in my life, and might never have them. To my mortification, I found you fascinating. I’d seen you so many times from afar before that....”

“You did?”

“I’d been in Azmahar many times to visit Mom, when your mother was too busy. Then after that first meeting, after every exposure, I found myself unable to think of anything else but you. I told myself I’d have some more time with you before the inevitable end, because the moment I told you who I was, you’d be the one to walk away.”

“And you told me.”

“Yeah. And instead of coming to your senses as I thought you would, you decided to have your cake and eat it, too. And it kept eating at me, how I wanted you, when I shouldn’t.

“At first, it was because I couldn’t let my family find out about you. I felt I was betraying them, not only by being with the son of the woman who’d torn us apart, but because I was acting like anything but the person they’d raised. I was ashamed of the way I breathlessly did anything you even hinted at, accommodated your whims at my expense. I cut myself off from them because I couldn’t bear the shame of lying to them with every breath, since that was how frequently I thought of you.