Duty, Desire and the Desert King

She loved him and he’d hurt her. Badly. So badly.

His chest burned with guilt, but more than that, with sorrow. As she cried in the corner of the car he thought she looked like a girl, not a scientist, and he wondered why he’d never seen the girl before.

He reached out to touch her and she jerked her shoulder away. “Don’t.”

He started to draw his hand away when he saw her tears slide through her fingers, and fall on her knees.

She was so alone. No family, few close friends. Who would comfort her if he didn’t?

Who would love her, if he didn’t?

And the realization was like fire in his chest, a fire ripping his heart wide.

She did need him. Not just anyone, but him. And why him, he didn’t know, but he remembered from her speech at the podium that love was strange and random and unpredictable, and rare.

Who knew why she loved him, but she did, and it mattered to him, mattered immensely.

Mattered more than anything else he could think of. And Zayed reached for her again and, ignoring her attempt to evade him, lifted her off the seat and onto his lap and held her against his chest as she cried.

“Do not cry, sweet girl,” he murmured, stroking her hair and kissing her temple. “Do not cry. I am here and I love you and I will not leave you. Not ever, not again. I promise.”

He ended up staying with her that night in her hotel room. She said it was because he didn’t trust her not to run away. He said it was because he didn’t want to leave her alone, not when she was so sick.

Rou hadn’t wanted him to stay, but she didn’t have the strength to make him leave. Instead she took a quick shower, pulled on her flannel pj’s and then climbed into bed.

In bed, Rou turned away from Zayed so he couldn’t see her face. She couldn’t bear to look at him, much less to have him look at her.

She was so mad at him. She was so mad and so hurt and so sick.

Heavens, she felt sick. She felt as though she had the flu, a flu that had lasted for weeks on end.

It’d been bad enough knowing she was pregnant, but now, pregnant with twins? Two babies? Two people she could hurt? Two people she’d damage…maybe destroy?

And now Zayed was here. He’d come back. Come back for her. This is what she’d wanted, wasn’t it?

This was to have been her moment of vindication. Her whole childhood she’d waited for her father or her mother to realize that they were wrong, and that they loved her and missed her and needed her. They never did, not in their lifetime, but now Zayed was here, and he said he wasn’t leaving again, that he’d always be there for her now.

So why wasn’t she happy? Why didn’t this feel like a victory?

Why was she so sad?

Because he was here out of duty. He was here to fulfill his responsibilities. He was here because he had to be, not because he wanted to.

And Sharif. They hadn’t even talked about Sharif yet, but somehow in the last couple of chaotic hours, Sharif’s return became less significant than the two little lives growing inside her.

Two lives. Impossible. Improbable. Why had birth control never been part of her mind-set? Why had she not stopped to consider something so basic, so practical, so essential?

But she hadn’t, and now everything would forever be different.

Zayed waited until Rou was asleep before joining her in bed. He lay awake long after he lay down. His thoughts turned, his mind working ceaselessly.

Sharif had returned, still injured, but at least alive. Jesslyn and the children were happy beyond measure. Khalid’s wife, Olivia, had delivered a healthy baby boy. And now he was going to be a father.

Peace and prosperity had been restored to the palace. Sarq was filled with one celebration after another.

Maybe the curse was weakened.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was close to being broken.

Or maybe, as Rou had once said, there had never been a curse, just Zayed’s own guilt that had tortured him for all these years.

Perhaps it was time to deal with the terrible guilt, and his own punitive conscience. Perhaps he could consider other ways to look at life and its challenges. Perhaps he could even consider the possibility of happiness.

He looked at Rou, who in her sleep had turned to him, her body finally relaxed and curled trustingly against his. Watching her sleep, he felt his heart burn, and as he lifted a strand of silver-gold hair from her cheek, his heart burned hotter and brighter, until his entire chest hurt.

Rou, his wife.

Rou, the scientist, the mother of his children.

Rou, his woman. His.

His.

The need for possession was so strong, the need to claim her and not own her, but love her, love her freely, love her fully, love her as he hadn’t loved anyone since Nur surged through him.

Zayed had to close his eyes as his entire chest and body heated, alive, livid, hot. All the empty and hollow spaces were filled with the fire, and Zayed feared that maybe he couldn’t handle so much feeling.

He ground his teeth against the blistering pain. Closed his eyes to try to keep from making a sound.

He hadn’t felt so much in years, not since he’d gotten word of Nur’s death, and yet what he felt now wasn’t grief or death but something far different, something far more complex.

He felt…life.

He felt alive.

The fire was him coming back to life, battling back to life, battling the darkness and destroying it.

A cool hand pressed to his cheek. “Zayed. Zayed?” Rou’s voice whispered urgently in the dark. “What’s wrong?”

He couldn’t speak, couldn’t answer her.

She sat up, leaned over him, her long, cool hair spilling on his shoulder. “Zayed! Zayed, look at me!”

It took a great effort, but he did, and as he opened his eyes and focused on her, he wondered why her beautiful face seemed liquid, and then when she wiped beneath his eyes he realized she was liquid because he was crying.

“Zayed, what is it?” she choked, panicked.

He didn’t think he’d ever been in such pain, didn’t know if he could endure it much longer. Sweat beaded his brow, breaking in tiny blisters across his skin. “I love you,” he said, voice low and hoarse. “I love you and need you. Forgive me, laeela, my love, but I need you.”

And then abruptly the fire was gone, all the fire that had been burning him, in him. The pain was gone, too. Extinguished. Leaving him quiet but exhausted.

“Are you not well?” she asked, confusion coloring her voice.

“I am well,” he answered.

“Do you have a fever?”

He understood her bewilderment. “Because I told you I loved you?”

“Perhaps you caught a bug, or food poisoning—”

He didn’t want to laugh, but he couldn’t help the deep rumble in his chest. “No, love, there’s nothing wrong with me. For the first time in twenty years, there is nothing wrong with me.”

Rou leaned over, reached out to the lamp on the bedside table and turned it on. She stared at him, wordlessly.

“The curse,” he said. “I think it’s gone.” He hesitated, listened, waited, then nodded. “It is gone. It’s finally gone.”

“How?”

“I realized how much I loved you, and realized how love, even my love, is stronger than superstition and darkness. That love is stronger than anything else there is.”

Her lips curved uncertainly. “This all happened in the last hour?”

He felt that rumble of a laugh deep in his chest. “It’s been happening for a while. Sharif’s return. Jesslyn’s happiness. Khalid and Olivia’s new son. There was happiness everywhere, and life everywhere, and love everywhere and I couldn’t find any sign of a curse. Couldn’t find any sign of unhappiness but the unhappiness in me.”

“And your unhappiness…?”

“Brought me to you.”

“In Chicago.”

He heard her crisp scientist

voice and he couldn’t suppress a smile. “Yes, in Chicago. I came to find you.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because I love you.”

She looked at him with suspicion. And then looked at him with horror. And then jumped up. “Oh no. Not again. I’m going to be sick!”