The Sheikh's Destiny (Desert Nights 3)

Amjad’s guffaw boomed again. “And he wins himself a doll.”

“I swear, Amjad, if you don’t stop yanking my chain, taal omrak won’t be a concept that will apply to you anymore.”

“You know, Rashid, I would have kicked you out on your ear with the first sign of kissing up. But you threatened to kill me instead, so I think I’m in love. Yep, rejoice. You passed.” His arm was over Rashid’s shoulder once more. “How about we go pretend that family ‘tribunal’ of mine actually matters?”

Still afraid to rejoice, Rashid hissed, “Didn’t you say your word is everything, O king of all you survey?”

“It is. But you’ll be king of the headache-inducing but inevitably inseparable Azmahar soon. You will be the one constant partner in my political bed. I’m doing myself a favor showing you the ropes of kingship. Yeah, I’m into training allies to my preferences. I’m charitable like that.”

Rashid stilled. That was totally unexpected. That Amjad would bring up the idea of Rashid becoming king of Azmahar. And in this way. What was his game?

He probed, hoping to gain more insight. “It’s strange that you’d assume I would be king with your two brothers running against me.”

Amjad gave a dismissing wave. “Haidar and Jalal would make decent kings, I guess, but their hearts aren’t really in it. Yours is. You have more at stake in Azmahar and that is why you’ll reap the votes.”

Digesting this unforeseen development, Rashid put all his cards on the table, even if it was for a game he no longer cared about in the least. “I wouldn’t without your alliance. Which they have in full.”

Amjad gave a masterful imitation of affront. “Because they’re my brothers? Nepotism? Moi? Tut-tut, shame on you. Have you forgotten they’re only my half brothers? With Sondoss’s blood running in their veins, actually half demon. Considering you’re only half oaf, you win in that context, too.”

Rashid looked heavenward. “Do you ever stop?”

“No. Maram won’t let me.”

Rashid tried one last time. “Are you ever serious?”

Those impossibly green eyes smoldered with a complex intelligence that had Rashid realizing this man saw and understood everything. “I’m always serious. I say what others are too shy or cowardly or merciful to say. Think back and you’ll find I said nothing but the whole truth all through this bracing encounter.” He clapped his hand once. “Now, from a full-fledged king to an embryonic one, let me give you an introductory course in dealing with pompous asses.”

Rashid let Amjad put an arm around his shoulder this time. “You must be an authority on your own species.”

Amjad chuckled. “I can still give you a hard time, you know.”

“Knock yourself out. Name whatever price or mission. I’ll surpass any so there won’t be any shadow of owing you a thing.”

“You can never repay what you’ll owe me. Your eternal happiness with Laylah. Face it, Rashid. I own you.”

He shrugged Amjad’s arm off again. “Tell you what. Save it. I’ll take Laylah up on her offer and elope.”

Amjad’s considering glance lengthened this time. “She’s your Achilles’ heel, isn’t she?”

“You’re all Greek mythology today, aren’t you?”

Amjad gave a mock serious nod. “I’ve expended the Indian and Middle Eastern myths on Haidar and Jalal in the past two days.”

After that, Amjad remained miraculously silent as they passed through the majestic marble corridors adorned in the most intricate and magnificently designed colored mosaics toward the palace’s great hall.

As they approached the hall’s twenty-foot gilded double doors, Amjad suddenly spoke again, continuing his previous point seamlessly. “It balances you, grounds you, being so totally vulnerable to her.” He winked. “It makes you a man at last.” At Rashid’s exasperated exhalation, Amjad added, “It’s not a slur on your manhood. This time. I think a man can’t call himself that until a woman has him totally whipped.”

Unbelievable as it was, this Amjad was turning out to be one insightful and romantic fellow. “Like Maram has you?”

The smile that wreathed Amjad’s face was the very essence of longing and indulgence, as if he was transmitting it to his wife. Rashid somehow believed Maram would feel it. “And then some. I gave up everything I had and was for her. I would give up far more if she’d let me. You’d do the same for Laylah, wouldn’t you?”

“I would.”

At his nonnegotiable answer, Amjad patted Rashid on the back as they entered the grand hall. “Then there’s no rush with those seven tasks, Hercules. You’ll be spreading them out throughout your lives together.” He suddenly shuddered. “Just seeing her in labor is going to teach you the meaning of terror and take you to the limit of your endurance and beyond.” They’d stopped in the middle of the expansive hall, below the hundred-foot central dome where Laylah’s male kin were gathered in rows like a Roman senate, when Amjad gave him a playful punch. “You lucky bastard.”

* * *

It was a marvel watching Amjad in action.

As he informed the Aal Shalaan elders that Rashid was going to marry Laylah, Amjad did the opposite of what kings, or anyone sane, should and had been known to do. In the past twenty minutes Rashid had watched him put down, make fun of and alienate everyone in the hall, including his father, in lieu of courting their favor. It was staggering how fluently and inventively he did it. But what was truly flabbergasting was that everyone loved him for it. They not only obeyed him, they practically invited him to walk all over them some more.

Maybe he should take private lessons in Amjad’s School of Kingship, after all.

Suddenly, every thought in his mind dispersed as they walked out of the hall, only to be filled with one thing. Laylah.

She was striding toward him from the other end of the grand corridor, her dress’s looseness only emphasizing her lethal curves, its cream color accentuating her sunlit hair, skin and eyes.

She had a taller woman with her. Maram, Amjad’s wife and Queen of Zohayd. But though Maram’s flawless complexion and silky hair approximated Laylah’s hues, they didn’t strike anything inside him like the burn of appreciation Laylah’s did.

The moment it took to register Maram dissolved, everything gravitating to the center of his universe again. It struck him again how pleasurable it was to behold Laylah, how beautiful he found her. How terrified he was that this miracle wouldn’t come to pass.