A Cinderella For The Desert King
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Zain had not been shielded.
He shook his head, aware that he was indulging in a pastime that he would have been the first to condemn in others, and he didn’t tolerate those who lived in the past.
A movement in the periphery of his vision interrupted his stream of thought.
Head inclined in a listening attitude, Zain turned his head and stared hard through the dark towards where the invisible border between Aarifa and their neighbour Nezen lay.
He was on the point of turning away, deciding he’d imagined it, when suddenly it was there again...a flash of light that could be a flashlight, or possibly headlights. The light was accompanied this time by a distant sound that drifted across the moonlit emptiness... It sounded like voices shouting.
This time, lights stayed on. Definitely headlights.
He sighed, feeling little enthusiasm for rescuing what would inevitably turn out to be some damn idiot tourist—they averaged about ten a month—with no respect for the elemental environment. Zain loved the desert but he also had a healthy respect for the dangers it presented.
He sometimes wondered if the deep emotional connection he felt with the land of his birth was made stronger by the fact that, growing up an interloper, he’d had to prove his right to belong.
Things had changed, though sometimes an overheard comment or knowing glance would make him wonder just how much.
Admittedly, no one called him names these days, no gangs egged on by his brother threw stones, excluded him or simply beat him up, but scratch the surface and the prejudices were still there. His existence continued to be an insult to many in the country, especially those members of the leading Aarifan families.
He was more of an annoyance than his mother, who at least was living on another continent. It would have been easier in many ways if he had been a bastard, but his parents had married, not letting a little thing like his father’s already having a wife and an heir get in the way of true love.
Love...!
A growing noise of distaste vibrated in his throat as, with a creak of leather, he heaved himself back into the saddle and turned the horse. That word again. In his mind it was hard to be sane and celebrate something that people over the centuries used to justify...well, pretty much anything from bad choices to full-scale war!
Love really was the ultimate in selfishness.
He didn’t have to look much farther than his own parents to see its destructive power—there was no doubt of his father’s enduring love for his mother, but it was as if their love story had been perfectly designed to increase tabloid turnover.
The sheikh of a wealthy middle-eastern state—married to a wife who had already given him an heir—had fallen for the tempestuous Italian superstar of the opera world, a diva in every sense of the word... Zain’s mother.
Despite its progressive reputation, setting aside a wife was not unheard of in Aarifa—in fact, there were circumstances, even in these more enlightened times, when it would be positively encouraged, and even by the discarded bride’s family if brought on by the need for a male heir, especially when that heir would one day be the country’s ruler.
But Zain’s father had already had an heir and the wife whom he dishonoured by setting her aside came from one of the most powerful families in the country. The humiliation of the sheikh’s betrayal of the family with impeccable lineage was compounded by the unsuitability of the bride Sheikh Aban al Seif took in her stead, and the fact that the unsuitable bride had won over all her critics with her charm and smiles.
A nation had loved her and then fell dramatically out of love with her when she had walked away from her husband and eight-year-old son to resume her career.
The irony was that her humiliated, proud husband, the leader who had never dodged making tough decisions, the man known for his strength and determination, had not fallen out of love despite her betrayal. He’d have taken her back in a heartbeat and both his sons knew this, which perhaps accounted for the fact that they had never been what anyone could term close.
And in many ways, just like their father, Khalid was stuck in the past. His eyes still shone with pure malice when he looked at the half-brother whom he still held responsible for every bad thing that had happened to him and his mother. He still wanted whatever Zain had, be it success, accolades or, now, the woman on his arm. Ultimately it was about depriving not possessing and, once he had whatever it was he coveted from Zain, Khalid usually lost interest.
Would he lose interest in Kayla now he had her?
Zain shrugged to himself in the darkness. It was no longer his concern.
CHAPTER TWO
ZAIN HAD COVERED half the distance to the stranded vehicle when he came across signs that made him slow, stop and, after circling, finally dismount to investigate.
He lost the attitude of disgruntled resignation with which he had embarked on the task as he studied the impressions of tyre tracks that stood out, dark in the moonlight. He picked up one of the shell casings that littered the area, holding it in the palm of his hand for a moment before flinging it away and leaping back into the saddle.
It took him ten minutes before he reached the car that stood with its headlights blazing. He yelled out a couple of times before the three men hiding inside revealed themselves, the drift of the hissed exchange between them suggesting to Zain that his ability to speak English without an accent made him friend not foe in their eyes.
Having halted the garbled explanations they all started to share, he demanded they speak one at a time and he listened, struggling to hold his tongue as he heard them describe what was a list of ineptitude that was in his mind approaching criminal, but there was a limit to his restraint.
‘You had a woman with you, out here?’ He could not hide his contempt.
‘We didn’t plan to get stranded, mate,’ the older man, who was nursing a black eye, said defensively. ‘And we told Abby to hide inside the cab when that mob drove up, but when they started laying into Rob,’ he nodded towards the taller man and Zain noticed the wound on his hairline that was still seeping blood, ‘she jumped out and laid into the guy with—’
‘It was her bag. She hit him with it.’
‘And then they hit her back.’
‘Was she conscious when they took her?’
It was the oldest man who responded to the terse question. ‘I’m not sure but she didn’t move when they chucked her in the back.’
The youngest, who looked little more than a boy to Zain’s eyes, began to weep. ‘What will they do to her... Abby, what will they do to Abby?’ he wailed.
The older man laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘She’ll be all right, son. You know Abby—she’s tough, and she can talk her way out of anything. She’ll be all right, won’t she?’ he repeated, throwing a look of appeal at Zain.
Zain saw no need to wrap up the truth. ‘They’ll keep her alive until they’ve assessed whether she’s worth money.’ It had been two years since the last border raids from Nezen. His father’s defence minister, Said, would be alarmed when he heard about this new incursion by the criminal gangs who lived in the foothills.
The brutal pronouncement drew a strangled sob from the boy.
* * *
What happens if I die here—who will pay off Nana and Pops’s debts? You’re not going to die, Abby. Think!
She lifted her chin and blinked, flinching as the yelling men riding up and down on camels fired off another volley of bullets into the air.
She’d lost consciousness when they’d thrown her in the truck and when she’d come to she’d had a sack over her head—a situation that had escalated her fear and sense of disorientation to another frantic level. What time was it? Where was she and what was going to happen next?
She still didn’t know the answer to either question and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know any longer.
She stiffened, her nostrils flaring in distaste as one of the men grabbed her hair in his filthy hand and tugged her towards him to leer in her face. She stared stonily ahead, only breathing again once he had let her go and moved away.
Ignoring the panic she could feel lapping at the edge of her resolve, she lifted her chin. Think, Abby. Think.
The effort to make her brain work felt like trying to run in sand, an apt analogy considering that the gritty stuff coated everything.
She clenched her jaw and ignored the pain in her cheek from where one of her captors had casually backhanded her when she’d tried to stop them beating Rob. She had to work out what she was going to do and how much time she had lost while she was blacked out. It seemed like another lifetime that the jeeps loaded with men wielding guns had surrounded their broken-down four-wheel-drive but it couldn’t have been that long ago.
It was still dark but the surrounding area was lit up not just by a massive bonfire, which was throwing out enough heat to slick her body in sweat, but also by the headlights of upwards of twenty or so cars and trucks parked haphazardly, enclosing the dusty area on three sides.
She pulled surreptitiously on the rope around her wrists but they held tight. Though her feet were unbounded and she was tempted to run, she doubted she’d get far. It would take only seconds for the half a dozen whooping men who rode back and forth on camels to catch her.
And where would she go?
There were no women.
Abby had never felt more isolated and afraid in her life. She had never known it was possible to feel this scared, but, though initially the fear had made her brain freeze, it began to work with feverish speed and clarity as one of the men who had dumped her down came across and said something in a harsh voice.
She shook her head to indicate she didn’t understand but he shouted again, and then when she didn’t react he bent forward and dragged her to her feet, pushing her forward until they reached an area where a dozen or so of the men were gathered in a half-circle.
When she pulled away from the group the man towing her pushed her hard in the small of her back and produced a long, curved, wicked-looking dagger. Expecting the worst, she fought against tears as he pulled her arms. Then the tears fell—partly in relief and partly in pain—as he sliced through the cord that held her hands behind her back.
She was rubbing her aching wrists when he began to speak, addressing the men gathered around and pointing at her. Someone shouted something and he grabbed her hair, holding it up to the firelight and drawing a gasp from the men with greedy eyes all fixed on her.
She cringed inwardly, her skin crawling at the touch of the eyes moving over her body. Desperately conscious of her bare legs, she wanted to pretend this wasn’t really happening to her, but it was. The sense of helplessness boiled over as she stood, hands clenched stiffly at her sides, shaking from a combination of gut-clenching fear and anger.
The man beside her spoke again, and as other yells echoed in answer she realised what was happening—she was being auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Outrage and horror clenched in her as she began to shake her head, trying to yell out and tell them that they couldn’t do this. But the words shrivelled in her throat, her vocal cords literally paralysed with fear.
She closed her eyes to shut out the nightmare of the leering faces, opening them in shock when the man beside her tore open her blouse to the sound of applause from the watching men as it gaped, revealing her bra.
Anger pierced the veil of fear and spurred Abby into retaliatory action. She didn’t pause to consider the consequences of her actions, she just lifted a clenched fist and swung. The man moved at the last moment but she caught his shoulder with a hard blow that drew a grunt of pain from him.
Someone laughed and the initial look of open-mouthed shock on his face morphed into something much uglier. There was no point running. There was nowhere to run to. The determination not to show her fear was suddenly stronger than the fear itself and Abby lifted her chin, clinging to her pride as she drew the tattered shreds of her shirt tightly around her against the imminent threat. The man advanced towards her, snarling angry words she didn’t understand, not that a dictionary was needed when his intent was pretty clear.
He lifted a hand to strike her when suddenly he froze. Everyone did, as a horse with a robed rider galloped full pelt into the semicircle, causing chaos as the men threw themselves to one side to avoid the slashing hooves. Just when it seemed as if man and horse were about to gallop straight into the flames of the bonfire, the horse stopped dead.
The rider, having achieved the sort of theatre-hushed entrance that film directors would have traded a row of awards for, calmly looked around, taking his time and not seeming to be bothered by the guns aimed at him.
After a moment, he loosed the reins and let them fall. The animal didn’t move an inch as his rider casually vaulted to the ground, projecting a mixture of arrogance and contempt.
Any idea that the hauteur and arrogance he oozed had anything to do with his superior position on the impressive animal vanished since, if anything, his air of command was even more pronounced as he began to move with long-legged purpose towards the spot where Abby stood as transfixed as everyone else by the tall figure in the flowing white robes. His elegance liberally coated his every move, oozing a level of undiluted male sexuality that had nothing to do with the way he was dressed or even the fact that, even without the dusty riding boots he wore, he had to be at least six foot six, with the length of leg and width of shoulders to carry off the height.
The rest of the men present wore Arab dress but there the similarity ended. The dregs of humanity who had been part of this degrading scene were bedraggled specimens. This man was...magnificent.
Abby registered this fact while not losing sight of the truth that he was probably just as much of a threat to her...maybe even more so. She ought not to care about such things in her position, but his face had perfectly sculpted features, symmetrical angles and hollows so dramatically beautiful that she experienced an almost visceral thrill of awareness looking at him.
He held the eyes of the man beside her until the man lowered his arm. The stranger gave a curt nod and then his gaze moved on to Abby. His scrutiny lacked the leering quality of the other mens’ but it was equally disturbing, though in an entirely different way. Her tummy fluttered erratically in reaction to his blue-eyed stare.
She lifted her chin and planted her hands on her hips, staring right back until a draught made her realise that her ripped blouse was still displaying a lot of skin. Head bent, cheeks hot, she clumsily attempted to pull the sides closer together across her chest as she awkwardly fastened the buttons with shaking fingers. The top button had gone so she used the one below and, as it was either cover her breast or her midriff, she chose her breast.
She thought she might have imagined the flicker of something close to admiration in the horseman’s lean face before he turned and spoke to the man who appeared to be the auctioneer.
His voice was low, a throaty, abrasive quality giving the deep, velvet drawl texture.
Whatever he said caused one of the men who had been bidding to step forward, shouting and gesticulating in protest. As the shouting man reached Abby she leaned back, her nostrils flaring in distaste as his foul breath wafted over her face. She winced and closed her eyes as he grabbed her hair, steeling herself against the pain she anticipated. But it never came.
Instead, the man’s grip loosened and fell away, the stench receding. Head bent, she half-opened her eyes and saw the man who had grabbed her standing some feet away. He was still close but his focus was not on her, it was on the tall, white-clad figure who stood smiling with his hand curled around the man’s upper arm, seemingly oblivious to the wicked-looking blade pointed at him.
Abby held her breath, her heart continuing to fling itself against her ribcage with bone-cracking force, while this fresh top-up to the adrenaline already flowing through her veins made her head spin.
She felt strangely dissociated from the scene she was watching, as though it were the cliff-hanger in a soap opera finale...but this was real. As was the metallic taste of fear in her mouth.
The silent war of attrition lasted a few seconds before the lesser man’s eyes widened and he turned his head and slid the blade back into the concealed sheath on his robe.
He had lost face and he was not going to retire gracefully. He began to gesticulate angrily as he shouted, but Abby noticed that the few growls of agreement from the audience of watching men were subdued. Clearly in the ‘lay it on the table and measure it’ stakes he had lost out big time.
The tall horseman appeared oblivious to the growing tension as he addressed his soft comments to the man who had been in charge of the flesh auction.
Her would-be purchaser bent in to listen and threw up his hands, turning to his audience and inviting them to share his contempt. The response was a low growl.
For his part, the tall stranger seemed utterly oblivious to the threat that lay heavy in the air as he held out a hand and slid a ring off one long, brown finger, dropping it into the palm of the waiting man’s extended hand, then sliding a metal-banded watch from his wrist and adding it to the auctioneer’s spoils.
The man produced a flashlight from his pocket and turned away, his shoulders hunched as he examined his haul. Without another word he nodded and called out something to another man, who came across holding a rolled-up sheet of paper. He unrolled it and laid it on top of a crate that was acting as a table.
Was it a bill of sale?
The idea filled her with a mixture of revulsion and disbelief. This could not be happening; it was too surreal.
Without even looking at her the horseman took her arm and tugged her with him to the makeshift table. He took the offered pen and wrote what she presumed was his name on it.
He then turned and held the pen out to Abby, who stared at it as if it were a striking snake before she shook her head and tucked her hand behind her back.
‘What is it?’
The music being blasted from several of the trucks that had masked the noise of his arrival came to Zain’s aid again, covering his murmured response.
‘You can read the small print later,’ he said, his words betraying an urgency suggesting the odds of them getting out of here diminished the longer they remained. ‘If you ever want to see your home and family again sign it right now, you little fool.’
Her eyes fluttered wide as they flew to his face—she had not expected a reply to her question, let alone one in perfect English.
She took a deep breath then let it out slowly. Why was she even hesitating when the alternative was even more grim? Abby gave an imperceptible nod. The words on the paper blurred as she bent towards it and the pen that had been thrust into her hand trembled.
She would have dropped it but for the steadying grip of the long brown fingers that curved over her hand and guided it to the paper.
She looked from the big hand that curved her trembling fingers around the pen to her shaky signature appearing on the paper but felt no connection to it.
She stood there like a statue while the horseman physically took the pen from her fingers, conscious of a low buzz of argument just to her right that became loud and a lot angrier as the horseman rolled up the paper and put it inside a pocket hidden inside his robe.
* * *
The girl looked up at him with glazed green eyes—shock, he diagnosed, stifling a stab of sympathy. He pushed it away; empathy was not going to get them out of here. Clear thinking was. There was nothing like the danger of a life and death situation to focus a man, Zain thought with a smile. A bit of luck thrown in would also help.
In the periphery of his vision he was aware of the argument that was escalating, fast becoming a brawl...others were drifting towards it and sides were being taken.
‘Come on,’ he said through clenched teeth.
As his fingers curved around her elbow he could feel the tremors that were shaking her body. He pushed away a fresh stab of sympathy. His priority right now was getting out of this camp before someone recognised him and realised that he was worth more money than any girl, even one with flaming hair, curves and legs... He cut short his inventory and lifted his gaze from the shapely limbs in question.
‘Can you walk?’ There wasn’t a trace of sympathy in the question.
Ignoring the fact her knees were shaking, the woman lifted her chin and responded to what he could admit had been a cold, vaguely accusing question.
‘Of course I can walk.’ She was unsteady but she fell into step beside him. It was clear that he was still a danger in her eyes but she clearly saw he represented her way out of this awful place.
‘We don’t have all day.’ Behind his impassive expression he was impressed that she was still walking, and she wasn’t having hysterics... This was going to be easier if she was not having hysterics.
‘Keep up.’
Clearly unused to looking up at many people, the woman tilted her chin to lob a look of resentment at his patrician profile. ‘I’m trying,’ she muttered between clenched teeth.
‘Then try harder before they realise they could attempt to retake you despite the bride price I paid.’ His glance travelled from the top of her flaming head to her feet and all the lush curves in between before trailing to his own hand, which looked oddly bare without the ring he had worn since his eighteenth birthday. ‘Or me,’ he added softly.
Luckily, he was the spare and not the heir.
Through the dark screen of his lashes he calculated how many people could get between them and the waiting horse. It was encouraging to see that most had moved to join in the fracas they were swiftly moving away from. Zain was content for the men to fight amongst themselves. It was the possibility of their stopping long enough to unite against a common foe—namely himself and the redhead—that bothered him.
None of the thoughts passing through his head showed in his body language, however, as he had learnt a long time ago that appearances did matter. It wasn’t about a macho reluctance to show weakness; it was common sense. Weakness would always be exploited by enemies, and that went pretty much double when the enemies in question were carrying weapons.
A spasm of impatience flickered across his lean features as the girl slowed and came to a nervous halt when they got within a few feet of the stallion.
‘He won’t bite...unless you annoy him.’
* * *
Abby’s experience of equines had until this point in her life been restricted to a donkey ride on the beach. Even at eleven, her long legs had almost touched the floor as she straddled the little donkey, who had plodded along and looked at her with sad eyes. This animal, with his stamping feet, looked about ten feet tall and his rolling eyes were not kind.
‘I don’t think he likes me.’
The mysterious stranger ignored the comment and vaulted into the saddle before reaching down and casually hauling her up before him.
Landing breathlessly, Abby clutched at the first thing that came to hand, which was the horseman, seizing on cloth. His body was hard as rock with zero excess flesh.
It wasn’t until the horse had stopped dancing like a temperamental ballerina and she had not fallen off that the comment hit her. ‘Bride price...?’
‘Can you do something with that hair? I can’t see a damned thing...’ Holding the reins in one hand, he pushed a skein of her copper hair away from his face and urged the horse into a canter. ‘Yes, we just got married.’