It came again, an unearthly shriek on the still night air, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. It wasn’t a peacock, or a wild dog beyond the city outskirts.
Asim strode down an arched passageway to an even older building, long disused. The cry sounded again as he emerged into a space wilder and less formal than the other gardens.
He knew this place. As a boy he’d listened to the old stories of tragedy and avidly watched for proof that the garden was, indeed, haunted.
Now, at thirty-five, Asim didn’t consider the possibility of meeting a ghost. He was more concerned with the flesh and blood source of that scream.
It came again. High, anguished, wordless. Its tenor of distress catapulted him forward. As he neared the pavilion on the far side of the garden a glow caught his eye and adrenalin pumped hard in his blood.
Asim sprinted towards the light. Fire in the centuries-old building would be disastrous.
Yet there was no scent of smoke, no crackle of burning. Perhaps the flames hadn’t taken hold.
He slammed through a wide entrance, past dark, empty rooms to a doorway spilling light.
He jerked to a stop, heart pounding. The peace of the scene before him, after the turmoil he’d expected, flummoxed him for a moment and he strove to take it in.
An old-fashioned hanging lamp sent shafts of multi-hued light across the wall murals and inlaid floor. The place was bare of furniture but for a small table, a carved chest and a bed.
It was the bed that caught his attention. He stared, disbelieving, at the woman who lay naked upon it.
Asim sucked in an astonished breath, his fingers curling around the door jamb.
Lamplight painted her bare flesh in delicate rainbow hues. Gold across her long, slim legs, lithe and restless. Rose at her hips, over her smooth, pale belly and the V of reddish-brown pubic hair. Lavender across the perfect swell of firm, high breasts that shook and trembled with her agitated breathing. Pale azure over her neat jaw, slender throat and contorting mouth.
Surprise, curiosity and a surge of raw masculine hunger warred within him at the enticing picture she presented.
With her arms raised high above her head on a satin cushion, she looked like some delectable feast laid out for his enjoyment—an invitation to touch and taste.
Sexual arousal slammed into him, congealing thought.
Asim swallowed as his groin tightened and his blood rushed faster. His gaze drifted from the swell of her dainty breasts to her shifting thighs.
Heaving an unsteady breath, he grappled back to sanity and strode forward.
Spikes of damp, tawny hair splayed over the pillow as she tossed her head. Her throat worked and a soft mew emerged from her lips. It had to be a sound of distress, yet some primitive part of him wondered if that was how she’d sound in the throes of passion.
Heat rose from her. Asim felt it as he stood beside her. Deliberately he clasped his hands behind his back, conquering the base instinct that made him want to reach out.
He should comfort her. But the compulsion to touch sprang as much from the need to know if her creamy skin was as soft as it looked.
Asim scrubbed an unsteady palm over his face, forcing down impulses that could only be dishonourable.
Who was this woman?
What was she doing in the most ancient part of his palace, alone and naked?
Despite the gravity of his royal position some women had gone to inordinate lengths to offer themselves to him.
Was she one of them? Was this her idea of a tantalising new twist on the age-old mating ritual?
His body’s reaction showed she’d succeeded in piquing his interest.
In his wilder youth he might have been tempted by such a tactic. But it was a wife he sought now, not a one-night stand.
Inevitably his gaze was drawn back to her body. She was slim almost to the point of thinness. A model? She was tall enough. Yet she was completely unadorned—not even a ring or gold chain.
He didn’t know a woman who didn’t wear some jewellery, even if just stud earrings.
She was so...bare.
Yet there was no mistaking the powerful tide of desire sweeping him. The dragging weight in his lower body. His heartbeat’s thrum of anticipation. His rapid breathing.
Asim stretched out his arm. He opened his hand a metre above her and imagined he felt the scrape of one pebbled nipple tease his palm. A jolt of electricity rushed from his fingers, up his arm and straight to his groin. He fisted his hand against the urge to reach down and cup her there.
Abruptly she moved, scrabbling at the sides of the bed. Her head twisted. She drew an enormous breath that hollowed her belly and thrust her tip-tilted breasts towards him as a muffled sob broke from her lips.
Asim reared back, shame and disbelief scalding him. He’d been acting the voyeur!
‘It’s time to wake up,’ he said, his voice assuming a familiar tone of firm command.
Asim’s mouth twisted. If only he’d had such command over his own cruder impulses.
He opened his mouth to repeat the order when she gasped, writhed and screamed at the top of her lungs.
* * *
‘It’s time to wake...time to wake.’ The words circled Jacqui’s brain like a half-forgotten mantra. The ground shook again, heaving her up and down, a boneless rag doll. She didn’t run. Where could she escape to? Why should she? She’d led Imran into danger and now he was dead. How could she even think about surviving herself?
Heat suffused her like an embrace, at odds with the chill in her bones. Still she clung to Imran’s hand, wishing she could rewind time. For nothing, she knew, could bring him back from this.
But that voice was insistent, ordering her to pay attention, ordering her to...wake.
The deafening sound stopped abruptly. It took Jacqui a while to realise it was the sound of her own screams. Her throat was raw and her chest heaved. Fear clawed, though the worst panic began to subside.
She’d done this before. She knew what it meant. She’d had one of her dreams. Even as she told herself this was reality, this quiet, peaceful place, her brain buzzed anxiously.
‘That’s better.’ It was the voice again. Low, soothing, so deep it shivered right to the core of her. ‘You’re awake now, aren’t you?’
For a moment longer she could swear she grasped Imran’s still-warm hand. Then the sensation faded.
He was gone. Grief scooped a hollow in her belly.
Tears flooded her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. Stupid, helpless tears that came too easily now. She rubbed her hand across her face, smearing wetness, trying to scrub it away. A choking ball of emotion lodged in her throat and she swallowed clumsily, heedless of the pain.
Something shifted. The heat on her shoulders abated. Belatedly she realised it was the imprint of long fingers, the touch of hard palms.
The shreds of nightmare faded as realisation hit. Jacqui’s eyes snapped open on a pulse of shock.
She wasn’t alone.
Ebony eyes, deep set beneath slashing straight brows, met hers. They were so intent, so piercing, she saw nothing else as she gasped in astonishment.
A frown puckered his broad forehead and tiny lines clustered at the corners of his eyes, giving him the look of a man who spent time outdoors in the sun.
Jacqui blinked, unable to do more than digest the fact she was awake with a total stranger.
A