To Tempt a Sheikh (Pride of Zohayd 2)

The third day came. And passed.

At the end of the fourth day, their supplies had been all but exhausted. And there was no sign of the oasis.

On the fifth day, after sunset, as they’d set out on their cycle of hikes and rests, Harres had done something that had dread and desperation taking hold of her.

He’d dumped all their gear.

When she’d protested, he’d fallen silent for a long moment. Then he’d looked at her solemnly.

He’d said that she had no reason to believe he knew what he was doing anymore. But he could no longer afford to go at that pace. Would she trust him to know what they needed to survive, to reach the oasis?

And she’d trusted him.

But they hadn’t reached the oasis.

Ten hours later, she’d been unable to go on.

She’d collapsed. Harres had managed to catch her before she hit the ground. He’d laid her down with utmost gentleness, held her in his solid embrace, raining on her soothing kisses and pleas for forgiveness.

She’d succumbed to unconsciousness thinking those would be the last things she felt and heard in her life.

But she woke up to find herself wrapped in the two blankets left with them. And Harres’s jacket. She was parched and frying alive in the blistering heat of midday. Emphasis on alive.

And she realized another thing.

She was alone.

She struggled out of the tight cocoon, sat up. Harres was nowhere in sight.

He’d left her?

No. She knew he never would.

But what if something had happened to him? What if their enemies had found them? Would the prince of Zohayd be a bigger hand to gamble with in their quest for the throne? How would they use him? What would they do to him?

She sobbed. No tears came from her dehydrated eyes. She drifted in and out of consciousness. And even in waking moments, nightmares preyed on her. Showed her Harres, abused and worse, and all because he’d come for her….

Oh, God, Harres…please…

Then, as if in answer to her plea, he was there. She knew he wasn’t really there. She was hallucinating with dehydration.

For this Harres was not the sand-car-and-helicopter-riding modern desert knight, but one on a white horse. Galloping her way as if he rode the wind, as one with the magnificent animal, made of the same energy, the same nobleness and fierceness and determination. Her knight coming to save her.

But there was no saving her. This was the end.

Not that it was too bad. She had only two regrets. That she hadn’t saved Todd, and that she had let everything stand in the way between her and Harres.

If she had her time with him to live again, if she had more time with him, she would disregard it all and just be with him, experience all she could of him, while she could.

Now it was too late, and she would never know his passion for real.

What a waste.

Her dream Harres leaped off his horse before it came to a halt, spraying sand in a wide arc with the sudden abortion of its manic momentum. Harres descended on her, the wings of his white shroud spread like a great eagle’s, enveloping her in peace and contentment. She was so thankful her intense desire had given her such a tangible last manifestation of the man she loved…yes, loved….

She could barely whisper her bliss to the apparition. “Harres…you feel so good…”

“Talia, nadda jannati, forgive me for leaving you.”

“S’okay…I just wish…you didn’t have…to leave, too.”

His regal head, covered in a sun-reflecting white ghotrah, descended to protect her from the glare, his magical eyes emitting rays of pure-gold anxiety.

She sighed again. “You make…an incredible…angel, Harres. My guardian angel. Too bad you’re here now…as that other angel guy…the death guy…”

“What?”

Talia winced. She’d been floating in the layers of Harres’s voice, so deliciously deep and emotional. Now it boomed with sharpness and alarm.

“You’re alive and you’ll be well. Just drink, ya talyeti.” She found nectar on her lips, gulped it without will or question, felt life surging into her as she sank in the delight of his crooning praise and encouragement to her, pouring hoarse explanations. “If I’d carried you, I wouldn’t have been able to reach the oasis. So I left you, ran there. It took me six more hours, and two to ride back. I died of dread each second away from you. But I’m back, and you’re alive, Talia.”

“Y-you’re sure?”

His face convulsed in her wavering focus. “Sure I’m sure. Now please drink, my precious dew droplet. Soon you’ll be as good as ever.”

“Don’t you mean a-as bad?”

She felt herself gathered into arms that trembled, pressed against a chest that heaved, her depletion probably shaking up her perceptions. “There you are. My snarky gift from Ullah.”

“You say…the most wonderful things. You are the most w-wonderful thing…that ever happened…to me…”

Then she surrendered to oblivion in the safety of his arms.

In the dreamscape that claimed her at once, she thought she heard him say, “It’s you who are the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me, ya habibati.”

Eight

Harres ignored pain, smothered exhaustion.

He had to last until he got Talia back to the oasis.

Those who’d ridden with him offered again to take care of her, of both of them.

He couldn’t let them. Wouldn’t. He had to be the one to carry her to safety. As he’d promised.

He asked a few of them to go back in his and Talia’s tracks before they were wiped away by the incoming sandstorm, to retrieve what he’d ditched. The medical supplies most of all. He let those who stayed with him help secure Talia astride the horse, ensconced in his arms like he’d had her during their rests between the punishing hikes.

The ride back to the oasis took longer. Too long. Each moment seemed to expand, to refuse to let the next replace it, bound on prolonging his ordeal, on giving him more time to relive the hell of being forced to leave her behind.

He’d gone further out of his mind with each bounding step away from her. He’d struggled to force himself to focus so he could see his path to the oasis, their ticket to survival. But the sight of her bundled up in blankets and ensconced in the barricade of a steep dune had been branded on his brain. He’d lost chunks of sanity with each hour, knowing the blankets’ protection would turn to suffocation once the desert turned from an arctic wasteland to a blazing inferno. He’d prayed the message he’d left her in the sand wouldn’t be wiped away by the ruthless winds, that she’d heard his plea before he’d left, to please, please wake up soon, read it, unwrap herself and use the blankets as shelter with the tent prop he’d kept.