Had he, and the palace, been guilty of airbrushing from their lives the tousle-haired young sheik who had disappeared at the age of six, lost without trace and never to be seen again? Was it because the painful reality had become too much for them all to bear—or were they emotional cowards who simply pushed away the darker sides of life?
Yet Kaliq was not a man usually given to soul-searching and he stared at the young stable girl angrily, blaming her for the sharp stir of memory.
‘What do you know of Zafir?’ he demanded.
Eleni wondered what had caused his hard black eyes to cloud over with such terrible pain that she wanted to take his injured wrist in her hand and rub it again, as she would a horse who had been pierced by a deep thorn—but she did not dare for all kinds of reasons.
‘I know that something terrible happened to him,’ she answered with slow truth.
Black eyes pierced into her. ‘But you do not know what?’
‘Our history lessons at school… they were very basic, Highness.’ Eleni remembered one of her father’s card-playing companions—a wild poet who had drunk an entire flagon of Zelyoniy by himself during a game of poker. What had he said? That the people knew only what the palace wished them to know. Censorship, he had called it—but Eleni remembered thinking at the time that keeping the dark stuff secret was just being private, surely? The sort of thing that any family might do—especially for a family in the spotlight as much as the royals were. ‘What happened to him, Highness?’
Her soft voice wove into the cold stone of his memory. How long since he’d said it aloud? ‘My twin brother and I took a raft out to sea,’ he said flatly, as memories of that nightmare day came back, as bitterly sharp as if it had happened yesterday. ‘And Zafir begged to come along with us. We were supposed to be looking after him, you see. Neither of my other brothers were around, and so we were responsible for him. We should have left him at home—by the raven’s claw we should have left him at home, but…’
‘Little boys can be very persistent,’ interjected Eleni softly.
And very appealing, thought Kaliq—as he remembered the child’s winning smile. Was it because their mother had died giving birth to him and because he had never known the comfort or security of a mother’s love that everyone had made allowances for Zafir, who had quickly learned he could wrap anyone around his cute little finger?
‘The raft was swept out to sea,’ he remembered slowly. ‘And we were captured by some scum diamond smugglers—and in the course of the struggle, little Zafir blurted out that they had taken three royal sheikhs as prisoners.’
‘Which would have been a far more lucrative bounty than all the diamonds in Calista,’ breathed Eleni with horror—as she imagined the delight of the smugglers when they discovered the unexpected value of their captives. ‘Oh, Highness—what happened?’
Kaliq barely noticed the familiarity of her question. It seemed that he was on a roll now—as if he had unleashed a dark torrent of facts which were determined to stream from his lips like poison. ‘Zafir managed to free us from the ropes which bound us and we quickly put him on the raft—but as we were following him our escape was noticed. We were shot at—Aarif got hit in the face. He fell into the sea and I dived in to save him. Naturally, we were recaptured.’
‘And… Zafir?’
Kaliq flinched, clenching his hands into two tight fists. ‘The raft drifted away—and with it Zafir. No trace of him has ever been found—despite the longest and most intensive searches put in place by my father. That was the last anyone ever saw of him. He was six years old,’ he repeated, his mouth twisting with pain.
Eleni stared at him in horror. ‘And what happened to you and your twin brother if you were still prisoners?’
‘Oh, they thrashed us and nearly killed us…’ His mouth twisted. ‘Sometimes I wish that they had—’
‘Highness! You should never wish that.’
‘Better that I should have perished if my little brother could have been found,’ he flared back, and as the old rage and despair came back to assail him he glared at her, even angrier now that she had been the one to instigate this. To make him feel this pain again, when he had locked it deep inside him for so long. He would teach her to pry. He would teach her everything!
He reached for her and her green eyes widened like one of the palace cat’s as he stared down at her. ‘You will kiss me,’ he grated. ‘You will not deny me that.’
Eleni knew that she dared not refuse him but the truth was that she didn’t want to—for written on his face was so much more than mere desire. There was pain and bitterness and a deep self-loathing, too. He blamed himself for his little brother’s disappearance, she realised achingly—even though he had been little more than a boy himself. And somehow she saw that human contact was what this powerful autocrat craved at this moment more than anything. And you crave it too, Eleni. At least admit that.
She bit her lip. Surely no harm could come of one simple kiss—for instinctively she felt that the sheikh would not dare to take her by force. Or was she being too trusting?
She touched her fingertips to the harsh line of his mouth, wanting above all else to see it soften and smile. ‘Yes, Highness,’ she said quietly. ‘I give you permission to kiss me.’
In spite of his anguish and frustrated longing Kaliq almost laughed aloud at the gross impertinence of this lowly stable girl giving him—him the sheikh—permission to kiss her!
But her lips were too soft and inviting for remonstration. Too beguiling for her own good. And yet instead of driving his own down hard on them as a preliminary to taking her swiftly and without ceremony—Kaliq found himself exercising an unknown restraint. Was that because this whole situation was so bizarre? He was a man whose appetite was jaded by excess and the unusual had the power to captivate him—who could blame him for wanting to prolong it?
First he traced the outline of her lips with the tip of his finger before following it with the brush of his mouth. He grazed his lips over hers almost negligently—feeling them tremble like a heat-haze in response. And strangely, Kaliq found himself luxuriating in the slow sensuality of this meeting of flesh. At the realisation that this was the first time a man had ever kissed her. And the oddly haunting recognition that he couldn’t remember a kiss feeling quite this good before.
Because he had never bedded a virgin—and maybe they needed to be treated differently. Perhaps he needed to take his time with her—just as you would take time to saddle up a nervous mare before jumping her.
‘Eleni,’ he said softly.
‘H-highness.’
Pushing her further into the soft heap of cushions, he took her face in between the palms of his hands and stared at her long and hard before kissing her again, with a soft intent he had never used before. Just enough to provoke but not enough to frighten her. And he could not deny that he was intoxicated by her response.
Her lips were velvety and completely untutored and yet he could sense the instinctive eagerness which lay behind her innocence. No doubt the same sound instinct she demonstrated with horses. Could he capitalise on her purity and his experience? Kiss her into submission until she was so senseless with desire that she would let him have his way with her?
He drew his mouth away, noting the flush to her cheeks and the darkened pools of her eyes—the way that her breath had quickened. And suddenly Kaliq realised that it would be far more exciting if he seduced her to the point of mindless longing—until she begged him to take her. What a prize that would be!
‘You like being kissed by me, Eleni?’ he questioned idly.
Dazzled by the tumult of her feelings and dazed by the candid look he was piercing at her, Eleni bit her lip. What an unnecessary question—and how could she possibly answer it? By saying that his kiss was the most wonderful thing which