“Come away with me, Amira. For one night. A few hours. Steal something for yourself from your own life, ya habibiti.”
Her swollen pink lips trembled, her eyes shining with desire along with something else. He didn’t have to ask, she was his for the taking—the pulse beating madly at her throat, the hunger in her gaze—and yet Adir wanted her to make the choice.
He would take what he wanted—revenge. He would steal something that belonged to his half brother, just as Zufar had stolen from him. His revenge on Zufar so much fuller if his betrothed came away with him out of her own choice.
If she chose Adir over Zufar even for a few hours...
“A choice, Amira,” he said, running his thumbs over her trembling lips, his body primed for possession, and yet he carefully used the words that would shred the last bit of her fear and doubts, a ruthless strategy he had learned from his mother’s letters. “You can go back to your bed and wonder what magic could have happened between us for the rest of your life. Or...” He bent his head and licked the pulse throbbing at her neck and felt her jerk toward him. He smiled wickedly before sucking the tender skin with his lips before releasing it with a popping sound. This time, she writhed against him, looking for relief from the ache between her legs, he knew. She was ready for him, even if she didn’t know it. And the knowledge filled him with a primal pride, not unlike the rulers before him who had mastered the harsh desert. “...you can choose me. This. For a few hours.”
When she kissed his knuckles, when she looked up at him with tears shining in her eyes, as if he was the sun and moon and stars all combined together, he pushed away the fragile thread of unease in his gut.
You’re a dirty stain.
He would pay Zufar back for those words. He would take what had been handed to him without guilt.
Victory thrummed through him when she said, “Yes, I... I would like to spend the...a few hours with you.”
He pressed his mouth against her temple, holding her tight until the shivers that had overtaken her subsided. She was courageous, this fragile beauty, and he would make this night worth that courage. He would show her infinite pleasure.
“I will return you unharmed, yes?”
When she nodded, he took her mouth in a fierce kiss, forgetting in that instant that she was innocent. He bit the lush pillow of her lower lip and when she moaned, tangled his tongue with hers. Heat built inside of him, goaded on and on by a dark need to possess her. To take what should have been Zufar’s by right.
His mother’s legitimate son, the man who was poised to be King of Khalia, the man who had never doubted his origins or his place in the world, the man who even now denied Adir his rightful place when he himself held Khalia in his palm...
It was a fitting revenge.
His body vibrated with the need to be inside her, here...in the dark stairway. But whatever his half brother thought of him, Adir was no savage.
He pulled the threads of his control together and pulled away from the lush temptation of her mouth. Already, her lips were swollen and her hair mussed with his questing fingers.
And yet Amira didn’t back away, her breaths falling and rising rapidly. “Where shall we go?” Her eyes shone with an impish delight, even as she shivered. “I have to return before—”
“I have heard so many tales about her gardens,” he said, remembering the beautiful words with which his mother had painted the gardens. “That she toiled hours and hours there, that they were her true love.”
“The Queen’s Gardens? You know of them?”
He simply nodded.
A wide smile curved Amira’s lips. “That’s exactly where I wanted to go tonight.”
He took her hand in his and led her down the steps. “Then it must be fate that I came upon you tonight, of all nights.”
A small frown tied her brows and she halted his steps. Her chin tilted up, a fierce resolve in her eyes. “Not fate, Adir. No. You and I... We ended up in this darkened corridor because we both made choices, yes? Tonight, there is no fate, there is no destiny, there are no forces commanding us. Just you and me.”
“You and me,” Adir agreed and pulled her on, before she could see the shadow of his dark thoughts in his eyes.
She was his tonight. Not Zufar’s. That was all he had to remember.
* * *
Amira felt as if she had been floating on clouds for the last two hours. Two whole hours she had spent with Adir by her side, touring Queen Namani’s famed gardens. Two hours spent smiling, talking, laughing, teasing.
Two hours in which she had been more herself than she had been her entire life.
Whatever it was Adir did in his real life, it had taken him mere seconds to maneuver them both out of the stairway and through another corridor of the palace manned by armed guards.
Almost as if he had been trained in subterfuge in the military division of Khalia. Or perhaps the map of the Khalian Palace was embedded in his head, because he had known ins and outs through the lit and unlit corridors that wound down to the paths of the garden, routes that even Amira who had visited for years didn’t know.
Was that it? Was he a member of the visiting guard called upon as security for the queen’s funeral? Someone who traveled all over the region but never stayed still in one place?
Was Amira one of a number of women he did this with?
Seconds after the thought occurred, Amira discarded it. She didn’t really care what he did or how he lived. She couldn’t afford to. Not if she wanted to steal away this night for herself. Not if she wanted to believe that she deserved a few hours with a man who really saw her. Who admired her and liked her and was attracted to her.
Except for that shock she had glimpsed in his eyes when she had confided to whom she was betrothed, he hadn’t mentioned Prince Zufar again. Or the royal family. Only Queen Namani filtered into their conversation once in a while. If she sensed a certain veneration in his tone for the dead queen, Amira ignored it. What she thought of Queen Namani, however contrasting to his view, was irrelevant to tonight.
This night was hers.
So she let herself be Amira and she didn’t press him for any answers. Not that she doubted he would give her answers if she demanded them.
For all his charming wit and teasing taunts, there was a remoteness to him. And that was after coming up against that smooth arrogance of a man who knew he was an alpha among men. And also a protector at heart, for she had seen the fierceness of his expression when he saw her bruise.
“Cold?” he asked as she shivered at the thought and Amira nodded.
Instantly, she was surrounded by the warmth of his jacket.
Moonlight carved the deep planes of his face with an even harsher outline. Even with the fragrance of the night-blooming jasmines filling the night breeze with a pungent scent, the scent of him clung to her skin instead. They walked along the walls of the small maze until they reached the famed fountain in the center, lit up by huge brass containers holding lights.
She had visited the palace innumerable times and yet had never seen this cozy spot in the middle of the maze. There was a sense of secrecy about it, amplified by her knowledge that King Tariq had had it built as a present to please his wife Queen Namani.
Galila had never told her if her mother had appreciated it or not.
But it was a beautiful, magical night—as if the universe itself were conspiring to give Amira what she wanted.
The center of the maze felt as if it had been designed for them. The tall hedges provided privacy and the water at the intricately sculpted fountain was a tinkling backdrop that drowned out everything else.
Every