His Queen by Desert Decree

She hated deserts because everything looked the same, she told herself fearfully as she slumped into the shade, and something with more legs than she cared to count scampered out of the gloom and sped off, as alarmed by her approach an

d startled cry as she was by its flight. She didn’t like insects or snakes or lizards and she had already seen far too many such creatures to relax, having discovered that although the landscape looked reassuringly empty, that was a misconception. A whole host of nasty things lurked in unexpected places. She rocked back and forth, dimly appreciating that she was no longer quite firing on all mental cylinders and that she was unwell.

She had done the Djalians’ work for them, she reflected dizzily. She had wandered off, got hopelessly lost and now she was going to die in the desert. She had another tiny sip of water, moistening her dry mouth while noticing that her arm had developed a sort of tremor that was unnerving.

Like Azrael—unnerving like Azrael. He had disturbed her, set off her temper and enraged her. It was his fault this had happened to her, his fault she had made such a dumb decision, she brooded, steeped in physical misery. She was hot, thirsty, dirty, sore and the tip of her nose hurt where the sun had got at it. The King, who had tried to buy her off.

Although the money would have come in useful, she acknowledged sleepily, her thoughts beginning to slow down, making her feel a little like a clock that badly needed winding up. Maurice would miss her visits, she thought, even if he couldn’t tell her apart from the mother she barely even remembered. And she didn’t mind that reality, no, of course she didn’t, when her grandfather had been the only person who ever seemed to love her. Did that mean that she was just unlovable? She had often wondered that. Her father hadn’t cared enough about her to protect her from his wife, while her stepmother had hated her almost on sight. Tahir had liked her in the wrong way, she reasoned in a daze, while Azrael... Why was she thinking about him again? Well, Azrael had hated her on sight too.

And then suddenly there was noise, the ground beneath her shifting as a horse galloped across the sand towards her. Poor horse, she thought numbly; if it was too hot for her, it had to be too hot for the horse as well. The horse, however, carried some sort of tribesman and she contrived to stretch out an arm and wave from the shade as though she were hailing a bus to stop for her.

The figure vaulted off the horse and the ground under her hips moved at the thump of booted feet.

‘You stupid, stupid woman,’ a familiar voice scolded.

And a weird kind of joyous relief engulfed Molly as she struggled to focus on those intense dark golden eyes, which were all that showed in the headdress he wore that covered his mouth as well. Azrael had found her and, instantly, she knew she would be all right.

Azrael was less confident because the storm was moving in fast in a threatening dark smudge, which he could already see on the horizon. The high winds had brought down the mast and his phone had not worked since his last call when he had phoned in to share that he had identified Molly’s tracks. Now they were too far from the fortress to make it back ahead of the storm. How the hell had she got so far before he found her? She had travelled miles into the desert, through mile after mile of the most blazingly unwelcoming landscape on earth. And she had done it without adequate clothing or footwear and any of the many pieces of equipment that would have kept her comfortable and safe. She was crazy but she was also strong, Azrael acknowledged, squatting down to hand her a water bottle and grab it off her again before she made herself sick.

‘Hands off, Mr Grumpy,’ she told him with a giggle.

She was delirious from heat and thirst, Azrael interpreted in frustration. He lifted her and bundled her into a cloak, noting the red tip of her nose with a groan.

‘What’s wrong?’ she slurred.

‘You have burned your nose.’

‘Do I look like Rudolph?’

‘Who’s Rudolph?’ Azrael lifted her and draped her over his horse like a folded carpet. She was safe: he had found her. A little of the tension holding his powerful frame taut dissipated. He would take her to the cave and plunge her in the pool to cool her off. Hopefully by that stage the storm would have passed and they could be picked up. No aircraft could take off in such weather because it was too dangerous.

‘Santa’s reindeer,’ Molly responded thickly, struggling to vocalise and think at the same time. ‘ I don’t like you.’

‘Keep quiet,’ Azrael intoned flatly. ‘Save your strength.’

What strength? Molly would have asked had she the power because she felt as floppy and as weak as a newborn and she hated the smell of horse. ‘Horses stink.’

Azrael rolled his eyes and tugged on Spice’s reins to head for the cave where he had hidden as a child with his mother from Hashem’s soldiers. ‘You didn’t do too badly for a city girl,’ he heard himself pronounce. ‘It was an outstandingly stupid move, of course, but you travelled a great distance—’

‘Shut up,’ Molly moaned.

Azrael grinned. ‘There’s nothing I enjoy more than a trapped audience.’

‘Butrus thinks you walk on water, O Glorious Leader,’ she mumbled.

‘I am an ordinary man,’ Azrael countered with crushing calm.

Molly’s eyes closed. Ordinary? Somehow she didn’t think so. Mr Gorgeous had come after her and saved her and she was grateful even if he did annoy the hell out of her. She didn’t mind that he had become Mr Grumpy again by the time he found her. ‘Thanks,’ she framed hoarsely.

And that was the last thing Molly remembered before she recovered consciousness in what felt like a freezing cold bath. Her eyes were heavy and gritty and opening them took as much effort as trying to lift her arms out of the water.

‘No,’ a familiar voice declared. ‘You must stay in the water to cool your body down.’

She let her eyes stay closed because she thought she was dreaming. They had been in the desert where there was no water, certainly none he could submerge her entire body in. Her mind wandered off again and she drifted, only minimally aware of being roughly towelled, something catching at her ribcage and a yanking sensation before she was laid down somewhere, fabric of some kind lying lightly on her skin. She felt cool, wonderfully, blessedly cool for the first time in hours and she made no protest when she was lifted up and a bottle was put to her lips to drink. She gulped back the water and lay down again, her senses beginning to return to her. Her lashes lifted only a little because her eyes were so heavy and she had a blurred glimpse then of a man undressing.

She shouldn’t look, a bossy little inner voice told her brain. She shut her eyes and breathed in deep, stifling that prissy voice, and she looked. And what she saw was a sight she was persuaded even at that moment that she would never forget... Azrael naked and an absolute symphony of bronzed, muscular male perfection from his wide, smooth brown shoulders, down the long, graceful golden line of his spine to his small, taut, masculine buttocks and his powerful hair-roughened thighs. A thick blue-black mane of hair brushed those amazing shoulders as well. She closed her eyes again fast, feeling like a shameless voyeur. She was perving on him when he thought himself unobserved, having assumed that she was asleep, and she should be ashamed of herself. She had never thought a man could be beautiful before and now she had learned different because, stripped of clothes, Azrael was magnificent.

Azrael slumped down into the chill of the cave pool with intense relief. His body had betrayed him as his mind could not. He was so turned on he literally hurt from the pounding pulse of his arousal. A man without ready access to sex should never, ever be forced to undress a woman, he reasoned in exasperation. He had removed only the dress, submerging her in the bra and panties she still wore, determined not to give Molly any reason to accuse him of overfamiliarity.