‘You! Stop!’
Katrina saw the way the tribesman’s golden gaze hardened, checking, searching…and then stopping as it alighted on her.
‘Darling! There you are—I warned you not to go wandering off without me.’
The lean fingers she had noticed only minutes ago were now manacling her wrist, sliding down over her hand and entwining with her own, in a parody of a lover’s intimacy, holding her hand fast in a locked grip she couldn’t break. A smile that was merely a calculated curling of his mouth briefly broke up the hard arrogance of his face. He took a step towards her.
‘I am not your darling,’ Katrina told him breathlessly.
‘Start walking…’ he told her quietly, the intimidating, hard gaze imprisoning her under its magnetic spell.
Hostility darkened the normal gentleness of her own speedwell-blue eyes, but it was a hostility that was spiked with something much more primitive and dangerous, she admitted numbly as she did as he was instructing her. He moved closer to her and through the hot, sun-baked scent of spices and perfumes she was sharply aware of, first, the discreet expensive lemony scent of his cologne, and then far more disturbingly as he moved closer to her the intimate, faintly musky scent of his body itself.
The alleyway was full of armed men now, pushing open the doors to the small houses and overturning the stalls as they searched impatiently beneath them, plainly intent on finding something or someone!
The earlier atmosphere of relaxed happiness had gone and instead the alleyway and the people in it had become a place of sharply raised voices and almost palpable fear.
A large four-wheel-drive vehicle with blacked out windows came tearing down the alleyway, sending people scattering, and then screeching to a halt. The uniformed man who got out was heavily guarded and Katrina drew in a small gasp of breath as she recognised Zuran’s Minister of Internal Affairs, the cousin of Zuran’s ruler himself.
Apprehensively she looked at her captor, torn between conflicting emotions. She had seen him enter the building across the alleyway dressed as a Tuareg tribesman, and his behaviour was hardly that of a man with nothing to hide. By rights she should at the very least draw the attention of the fearsome heavily armed men swarming the alleyway to his presence and her own suspicions, but…But what? But he possessed a dangerous fascination that was seducing her into…Into what? Determinedly she started to pull away from him. He checked her small movement immediately, not merely tightening his hold on her, but actually dragging her further back into a narrow space in the shadows of the alley, which was so confined that she was pressed right up against his body.
‘Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but—’ she began bravely.
‘Quiet.’ The icy, emotionless command was whispered against her ear. She told herself that the reason her own body was trembling so violently was because she was shocked and afraid; nothing to do with the fact that she was sharply aware of the male hardness of the muscular thigh pressing into her. And the heavy thump of the male heart was beating so strongly that it seemed to pound, not just through his body, but through her own as well, overriding the shallow beat of her own heart, overwhelming her with its life force, making her feel as though his heart were providing the life force for both of them.
The sudden echo of an old, sharp pain speared her. Her parents’ love for one another had been like that: total and all-encompassing, and for ever.
She made a small sound, an incoherent murmur of private emotional angst, but his reaction was swift and punitive.
His hand gripped her throat, his head blotted out the street, and his mouth silenced any protest she could have made even before she had thought to take the breath to make it.
He tasted of heat and the desert, and a thousand and one things that had been imprinted on him, and which were alien to her. Alien and somehow dangerously and erotically exciting, she recognised in self-disgust as against her will an uncheckable surge of primitive female reaction seized her body.
Her lips softened and parted. She felt his missed heartbeat and then the sledgehammer blow of recognition that followed it as he seized like a predator the advantage she had given him. The hard pressure of his mouth on hers increased and fire jolted through her as his tongue thrust fiercely against her own, demanding her compliance.
Her body shook with reaction. Never, ever had she envisaged that she would kiss a man with such intimate sensuality in public and in full daylight, and certainly not a man who was a complete stranger to her.
She was vaguely aware of the sound of the four-wheel drive moving off, but his mouth was still covering hers.
Then, so abruptly that she almost stumbled, he released her. One hand steadied her with a merciless lack of emotion and then he was gone, disappearing into the crowd, leaving her feeling overwhelmed and, more shockingly, as though she had been abandoned.
‘Your Highness…’ Low, respectful bows followed his swift progress through his older half-brother’s royal palace as he made his way to his presence.
The armed guards on duty outside the heavy gold-leaf-covered double doors that led to the Ruler’s formal audience room threw both doors open and then bowed and left.
Xander was now in his half-brother’s presence, and so he bowed deeply as the doors closed behind him. They might share the same father, his elder brother might have a well-known fondness for him, but the man in front of him was Zuran’s ruler, and in public at least respect had to be paid to that fact.
Immediately the Ruler stood up and then commanded Xander to rise and come forward to embrace him.
‘It is good to have you back. I have heard excellent things about you from other world leaders, little brother, and from our embassies in America and Europe.’
‘You are too kind, Your Highness. All such credit must go to you in deigning to honour me with the task of ensuring that our embassies have the personnel they need in order to promote your plans for greater democracy.’
Without any command needing to be given a door opened and a servant appeared, followed by two more bringing fragrantly fresh coffee.
Both men waited until the small ceremony had been completed.
As soon as they were alone the Ruler walked over to Xander.
‘Come, let us walk in the garden.’ He told him, ‘We can talk more easily there.’
Beyond the audience room and screened from it by a heavy curtain lay a lushly planted private courtyard garden, alive with the sound of water from its many fountains.
Not a single speck of dust marred the perfection of the mosaic-tiled pathways as the two men walked side by side in their pristine white robes.
‘It is as we suspected,’ Xander announced quietly as they came to a halt in front of one of the many fishponds, and then he bent down to take a handful of food from the nearby bowl and drop it into the water.
‘Nazir is plotting against you.’
‘You have clear evidence of that?’ the Ruler demanded sharply.
Xander shook his head. ‘Not as yet. As you know, I have managed to infiltrate and join the band of thieves and renegades led by El Khalid.’
‘That traitorous wretch. I should have had him imprisoned for life instead of being so lenient with him.’ The Ruler snorted.
‘El Khalid has never forgiven you for depriving him of his lands and assets when you discovered his fraudulent activities. I suspect that Nazir has promised him that if he succeeds in overthrowing you he will reinstate him. I also suspect that Nazir is intending that it is El Khalid who will be seen as the one to strike against you. Of course, he himself cannot afford to be seen to be connected in any way to your assassination.’ He frowned. ‘You must be on your guard—’