The Sheik's Rescue

“The other…!” The man huffed a bit, as if trying to regain a measure of his patience. “Tell me that the stupid bastard you are engaged to is still around.”

Calista shrugged. “I don’t know exactly where he is.” That was the truth, he thought. She knew that Goran was still in the shack but the “exactly” gave her that small bit of honesty that helped her sell the routine.

Suddenly, Goran understood what she was doing. And he thought she was amazing! It was one of the best interrogation techniques! Damn, she was beautiful, sexy, and brilliant!

There was a long silence and Goran settled in to wait. Sure enough, after only a few minutes of silence, the bound guard started talking.

“It isn’t you that we’re after, lady.”

“Oh,” she replied, her voice soft and tentative. “Okay.”

“It’s your boyfriend.”

Nothing.

“We aren’t going to hurt either of you.” The man laughed, but there wasn’t much amusement in his voice. “We’re not idiots. No way are we going to hurt either of you. We don’t want a death sentence on our heads.”

Goran rolled his eyes. Too late, he thought. They’d kidnapped the ruler of Skyla! What the hell did this guy think was going to happen to him and his cohorts when his security team found them? And yes, his security team would find the conspirators. Every last one of them! No way were these idiots going to get away with kidnapping him and Calista and live to prosper from their efforts!

“We just need your boyfriend out of the way for a while. That’s it.”

There was a suspicious sniff and Goran suspected that Calista was crying now. Or pretending to cry.

“My head hurts,” she whispered. “What did you drug me with?”

“Nothing much. Just…” he sighed and there was a small thud. Goran suspected that the bound guard had leaned his head against the wooden wall a bit too heavily. “I think the guy in charge gave your buddy a shot of ketamine.” He lifted his head and looked at Calista. “You just got a little tap to the head. Nothing much. Just enough to keep you knocked out for a while.”

“Thank you.” Goran heard another sniff.

Ketamine? He’d been injected with ketamine?! That was a horse tranquilizer! And a date rape drug. Damn them!

“It wasn’t a lot. We just needed the big guy out of commission until we could get him here. It obviously wore off if I’m now tied up and he’s free.”

“He’s not here,” she confirmed.

“Of course he’s not here you stupid…!” The guard stopped his tirade before he said something that might hurt Calista’s feelings. For a brief moment, Goran considered walking into the room to punch the guy, teach him a lesson for raising his voice in front of Calista. But she must have anticipated that because she raised her voice loud enough to hear over the man’s yelling.

“If you keep on yelling, then Sheik el Istara is going to come in here! Neither of us want that!”

Goran almost laughed but he relaxed his muscles, leaning against the wall once again. Message received, he thought silently. And timely! How had she known that Goran was ready to burst into the room?

“Fine! But seriously, what good are you? You can’t even get me out of these ties! How the hell had he tightened the damn things like this? And…” Goran suspected the man was trying to see behind his back. “What did he tie me to?”

“How in the world would I know?”

The man sighed and there was another thud. “Right. I forgot. You’re just some stupid bitch who…”

“If you insult me one more time, then I’m…”

He chuckled, interrupting her. “I know. You’re going to head back into the kitchen and eat up all the junk food.” The guy sighed. “Lady, you’re a piece of work!”

“Why did you need him out of the way?”

“Hell if I know!” the guy replied. “I just follow orders. And the person who needs lover boy out of the way was willing to pay a massive amount of money to make that happen.”

“But…if His Highness is out of the way for too long, then they’ll just declare his advisory council to be in charge. And they advise him on what needs to be done. So…what’s the point? I mean, it’s not like any laws can be made without His Highness around.”

“Like I said,” he muttered, “I just follow the money.”