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The gold-and-red-hued flag of Dahaar with the sword insignia flew on every street, from every shop. A holiday had been declared so that the people of Dahaar could enjoy the wedding. Gifts had been flowing in from every corner of the nation—breathtakingly exquisite silk fabrics, handmade jewelry boxes, sweets that she hadn’t heard of before—each and every gift painstakingly overflowing with Dahaar’s love of its prince.
The telecast of the celebrations, the crowds on the roads, the laughter on the faces of adults and children alike revealed how much this wedding mattered to Dahaar. The whole world was celebrating. Except the two people who were irrevocably being bound by it.
“Zo, look now. There he goes,” Saira exclaimed, looking beautiful in a sheer silk beige dress that sparkled in the sunlight every time she moved. Zohra couldn’t help but smile at the innocence in her half sister’s voice. “Wow, Zo. I didn’t realize he was so...handsome.”
Unable to resist, Zohra turned and there he was.
Displayed in all his glory on the monstrous screen. The cameras zoomed in on him, and Zohra’s breath halted in her throat.
Handsome was too tame a word for the man she was about to marry.
The motorcade transporting him and his parents weaved through the main street with ropes and security teams holding off the public.
Shouts and applause waved out of the speakers. It was almost palpable, the din of the crowd, the joy in their smiling faces. King Malik sat with Queen Fatima by his side, Prince Ayaan opposite them, resplendent in a dark navy military uniform that hugged his lean body, the very epitome of a powerful prince.
She could no more stem her curiosity about him than she could stop staring at him on the screen. Zohra shivered despite the sun-drenched room. He looked every inch a man who was used to having his every bidding done before it was given voice. Until she saw the detachment in his gaze.
Even through the screen, she could see the tension in his shoulders, in the tight set of his mouth, in the smile that curved his mouth but never reached his eyes.
He was standing in a crowd of people that loved him, next to parents who adored him, seemingly a man who had the world at his feet. And yet she could sense his isolation as clearly as if he were standing alone in a desert.
The joy around him, the celebrations, the crowds—nothing touched him. It was as though there was an invisible fortress around him that no one could pierce.
Did no one else but her see his isolation, the absolute lack of anything in that gaze? Would she have seen it if she hadn’t seen him incoherent, and writhing in pain?
She swallowed and turned away from the screen. There it was—all the proof she had needed so desperately.
The truth of what he had said to her—that this wedding was solely for the benefit of his people, for his parents, was all laid out on the screen to see. Nothing but his sense of duty was forcing him to stand there, as it was forcing him to marry her.
The realization, instead of appeasing her, gave way to a strange heaviness that pervaded through her limbs.
She turned around, just as her father stepped into the room, dressed in the dark green military uniform of Siyaad.
She had done everything she could to avoid him once they had left for Dahaara. Busy as he had been in negotiations with King Malik and Prince Ayaan, it had been easy enough.
But, suddenly facing him in her bridal attire, the knot of anger she kept a tight hold on threatened to unravel. “Have you come to make sure I have not run away?”
Saira’s gasp next to her checked the flow of bitterness that pounded through her veins. Passing a worried look between them, Saira excused herself, having never understood Zohra’s antipathy toward their father.
“I know you’re not happy with this alliance, Zohra. But I never doubted that you would do your duty.”
There it was, that word again. It had broken her family apart, it had thrust her into an unknown world, and it had taken the life of her mother, who had done nothing but pine after the man she had loved.
She stood up from the divan and met his gaze. “I’m doing this for Saira and Wasim. I don’t want Saira to be sacrificed in the name of duty, too.”
He ventured into the room, and she braced herself for the impact of his presence. In the eleven years that she had lived in Siyaad, she had always stayed out of his way, made sure she spent the least amount of time with him.
“Is that what this marriage is to you? Can you not view it as anything else but sacrifice?”
“What else could it be? You didn’t ask me if I wanted this. That man,” she said, pointing her finger toward the screen, “didn’t ask me if I wanted to be his wife. You have reduced my life to an addendum clause on a treaty.”
His jaw tightened. “You will be the future queen of Dahaar, a woman who can have just as much power as she wants in the tri-nation region. Your education, your intelligence, they can be used to do good in Dahaar, Zuran and Siyaad, to pave way for new things, to change old ways, ways you have always called archaic. No one will ever dare question your right to rule along with Prince Ayaan. You will live the rest of your life with the utmost—”
“This alliance is nothing but a way to secure Siyaad’s future.”
He nodded, sudden exhaustion seeping into his face. “I am glad that Saira and Wasim mean something to you.” Unlike me, the words hovered in the air between them. “That means you will at least keep an eye on them.”
Zohra refused to feel guilty, refused to let him put her in the wrong when he had made an irrevocable decision all those years ago, when he continued to show again and again that Siyaad would always come first with him. “They are my family. I will do anything for them,” she said, forcing herself to speak the words. “They are the only reason I’ve stayed—”
“In Siyaad all these years, I know.”
The knot in her throat cut off her breath. She held herself absolutely still as he neared her, her gut twisting on itself. The sandalwood scent of him knocked her sideways, unlocking memories she had forcibly buried. Maybe if he had always been an absentee father, maybe if she didn’t remember her mother’s desolation, her own aching grief when she had been told one fine morning that her father was dead...
Only to learn after her mother had died that he had just walked away from them to take up the crown of Siyaad, that he had already had a wife.
His whole life with her mother and her had been a lie.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and the longing she fought broke free. But she couldn’t let it out. If she did, it would hurt her like nothing else could. So she turned the emotion engulfing her into a bitterness that had already festered for so long.
“I always wondered why you took custody of me when mom died instead of sending me to her brother. Living in Siyaad all these years, being a daughter, a bastard at that, I realized I have no consequence for you, no importance in your life. But now... Is this why? You knew I would come in handy for one of your many obligations toward your country?”
His mouth compressed into a tight line, a flash of anger in his gaze now. “When will you realize that Siyaad is just as much a part of you as it is of me?”
“Not in this lifetime.”
Resignation settled over his features. And suddenly, he was the man who had had two heart attacks in the space of six months. “Whatever I say is immaterial because you’ve already decided the answer.”
He clasped her cheek with his palm, his gaze drinking in every feature, every nuance in her expression. He is remembering my mom. Zohra knew that as clearly as if he had said her name out loud. Ever since he had suddenly reappeared in her life when she had been thirteen and dragged her to Siyaad, she had always understood one thing.
He had loved her mother just as much as her mother had loved him. And yet, he had walked out of their lives and put duty first.
“Ever since you were a little girl, you’ve always been stubborn. Incredibly strong but also stubborn.
“You’ve always decided your own fate, Zohra. You decided why I had left without ever asking me. You decided to hate your stepmother when you came to live in Siyaad, even though she had been nothing but kind to you. You decided you would have nothing to do with Siyaad or your heritage.
“You decided to love your half brother and half sister, you decided to stay in Siyaad for them when you turned eighteen. No one has or will ever tell you how to live your life.
“What you make of this marriage, whether you view it as a cage or your freedom is, as always, up to you.”
Saira came bursting into the room, pink high in her cheeks. “He’s arrived in the Throne Hall.”
Zohra didn’t need to be told again who it was that was waiting for her.
Her gaze anxiously shifting between Zohra and their father, Saira handed Zohra the bouquet of white lilies. Her palms were clammy as though she were walking to her execution rather than her wedding.
As the sweet scent of the flowers tickled her nose, Zohra took her father’s offered hand. For a moment, she couldn’t get her legs to move, couldn’t shake off the sudden fear that descended over her.
In the next, she was standing at the entrance to the Throne Hall, a vast chamber with a high, circular dome ceiling. The moment Zohra and her father crossed the threshold, traditional Dahaaran music blared to life from their left and right. The festive sounds set her heart thumping in tune.
A gasp fell from her lips. The whole setting could have been torn out of her worn-out copy of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Back when she had still been enchanted enough to believe the magical stories spun by her father, before the reality of duty and obligation had shattered her world, before the truth of a princess’s life had forced her to grow up too fast.
The hall was huge with at least a thousand gold-edged chairs on either side, leaving a carpeted path between for her to walk. The floor was cream-colored marble with inlaid jewels.
The carpeted path was strewn with red rose petals. Zohra followed the path with her eyes to the other end of the hall, where there was a wide dais. Sheer gold-and-beige-colored fabrics draped across the dais which was built of steps leading to a gold-edged throne, wide enough for two. Thousands of cream-colored roses, with bloodred roses here and there, adorned every step and surface of the dais.
And standing next to the throne, his navy uniform contrastingly starkly against the richly romantic background, a blur to her panic-stricken gaze, was her bridegroom.
Never for a moment had she imagined such a lavish wedding, or such a forbidding-looking man waiting for her at the end of it. She had imagined the same day with Faisal so many times. A simple wedding free of obligations and duty with the man she loved, both of them able to live the life they had wanted.
How had such a simple dream turned into dust?
Her heart thudded hard against her rib cage, her chest incredibly tight.
Across the vast hall, her gaze met Prince Ayaan’s. And held.
She had expected him to be just as isolated from her as he had been through the parade. And yet, she could swear he was tuned to her every step, every breath, as if they were the only two people in the huge hall.
Her nerves stretched tight at the intensity of that gaze. It burned hot, alive, intense and she realized she was the cause of it. That awareness between them, it had a life of its own across the vast hall.
Was he anchoring her or was she anchoring him onto a path neither wanted to go on?
Sucking in a breath, she severed the connection, and focused on something beyond his shoulder. An uncontrollable shaking took root in her.
She did not need his strength, imagined or real, nor did he need hers.
The setting of the wedding, the festivities and joy around her, it was all getting to her.
This marriage will be whatever you make of it.
For once, Zohra agreed with her father’s practical advice and she intended to set the tone for it from the beginning. And that meant remembering the prince and she were nothing but strangers brought together by duty.
* * *
Ayaan heard Zohra’s answer to the imam’s question, her voice crystal clear with no hesitation in it. The second time and then the third time, she gave her consent to the wedding.
Whatever doubts she’d had, no one would detect even a hint of it in her voice right then.
Or that she was, in any way, not fit to be the future queen of Dahaar. After she had left that night, he had wondered not only at his father’s decision to choose a woman with tainted birth—even if it wasn’t her fault—but even more, someone as impulsive and hotheaded as her.
But had his father seen the strength and poise she radiated with her very presence as she did now? Had he seen the assertiveness, the intelligence that shone from her gaze? Had he thought Ayaan needed an educated, even an unconventional wife to compensate for...
Suddenly it was his turn to give consent and the imam’s words washed over him.
He gave his consent, his promise to cherish, protect and love Zohra Katherine Naasar for the rest of his life, the words sticking in his throat.
Protecting her—that was the only promise he could keep and to do that, he needed to keep his wife as far from the reaches of his darkness as possible. He slipped an emerald ring, seated among tiny diamonds, onto her finger. And extended his own hand for her to do the same.
Her fingers trembled when they touched his, her movements betraying the anxiety she hid so well.
From everything he had learned about her, his bride belonged in a category of her own. And despite every warning aimed toward himself, he couldn’t tamp down his curiosity about her. Especially as, for the first time in eight months, he could remember every sensation, every scent—every minute of his encounter with her in exquisite detail.
His days, especially hours spent in someone else’s company, were usually a blur to him. Yesterday’s groom’s ceremony that his mother had observed with happiness glittering in her every movement was already a vague memory.
He’d had only silence to offer when his mother had told him how happy she was that he had accepted this alliance. For every hundred words she said, he had only one.
This morning had been the first time he’d faced Dahaar’s people since his return.
He had choked in the face of the joy, in the expectations of the people of Dahaar and the crushing weight of it. They cheered him on, they called him a survivor, a true hero when the truth was he was fighting every waking and sleeping moment to stop his reality from turning into a nightmare.
It was how he saw his life stretch in front of him. Isolated during the day and fighting his demons each night.
Until his bride had stood at the entrance to the hall.
He had sucked in a sharp breath, feeling as though a fog was falling away from his eyes. Suddenly, he had become aware of the reverent hush of the crowd as they watched her walk toward him, the festive strains of traditional music and the scent of the roses around the dais wafting up toward him.
Instead of the pristine white that tradition demanded, her dress was of the palest gold color with intricately heavy embroidery. It draped her torso in a severe cut, even the neckline revealing nothing but the palest hint of her skin. Thousands of tiny crystals stitched into the bodice twinkled every time she moved. It was cinched at her tiny waist and then showed off her long legs. Her hair was piled high and atop it sat a diamond tiara.
He had no doubt as to what statement she was making with that dress. Subtlety in any shape or form was apparently a strange concept to his bride.
His mouth curved, a lightness filling his chest.
The severity of the style did nothing but highlight the shape of her body—every curve and dip neatly delineated to satisfy his spiraling curiosity from that night.
Her skin glowed. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her features were too distinct and determined to play well with each other, but in that moment, there was no woman who would have suited better to be the future queen of Dahaar.
The longer he took in her beautiful face, the faster his heart beat.
His gut tightened in the most delicious way, a slow curl of heat unraveling in his muscles. He shuddered at the strangely dizzying sensation.
When the imam completed his prayer and she turned to look at Ayaan, the scent of her skin—rose attar and something else—teased his body into rising awareness.
She was his wife, his woman.
In name only, but in that moment, the primitive claim washed away everything else.
The music climbed a crescendo and the imam pronounced them man and wife.
She was now Princess Zohra Katherine Naasar Al-Sharif, the future queen of Dahaar.
Cheers and good wishes swept up through the hall. He let it all flow over him, fighting the inimitable weight of it, willing himself to focus on the happiness flowing around.
Hooking her hand through his, he led her down the steps of the dais and toward the area on the right to where the next ritual would take place. She had asked for the ceremonies to be completed the same day.
“What was the reason for this request?” he whispered at her ear, noticing her eyes light up as her brother Wasim hugged her. She said something to him and immediately the young prince of Siyaad cheered up.
It was the only time she fully smiled—when it was her half sister or half brother. For the rest of them, including her father, there was never a smile, at least not one that reached her eyes. Only a distance she clearly projected between her and the outside world.
Pity, because her smile held inexplicable warmth, almost a promise to chase away the shadows from the person she bestowed it on.
She stilled and turned toward him, her hand going to the sheer, gold-colored veil that fluttered from beneath the tiara. He leaned in and tugged it from where it had caught on the tiny crystal on her bodice. His fingers grazed the curve of her breast. She jerked back just as he did.
Her beautiful brown eyes flared. “I have no love for rituals that take three days. This way, my father can return to Siyaad tomorrow morning instead of waiting for another three days and spend energy he doesn’t have on—”
“I thought you didn’t care about your father.”
“I don’t. But it doesn’t mean that I want him to suffer. That would just...”
“Finally break through your stubborn head and show you what an ungrateful daughter you are.”
Zohra came to a sudden halt and stared at the man who was now her husband. They were surrounded from all sides by her father’s family and his own. And yet the scorn that had rattled in his words was just as obvious in his gaze. “Have I done something to upset you, Prince Ayaan?”
“No, Princess,” he said, lingering a second too long on the title. “Just telling the truth as I see it. It seems very few people dare to.”
“And you do?”
“I have taken an oath just now that I would protect you. Even if it has to be from yourself.”
“And of course, being a man, you have all the correct answers without knowing anything about my relationship with my father, right?”
One corner of his mouth turned up in mockery. “Have you noticed how every argument with you comes down to the fact that I am a man and you are not? One would think beneath all this contempt you show for duty and Siyaad, you’re just annoyed that you are not allowed to rule.”
His arrogance rendered her mute for a second. “I have never coveted the crown of Siyaad,” she said, angry with herself for letting him rile her so easily. “All it entails is that you endlessly sacrifice either your or your loved ones’ happiness at its feet.”
“As you are apparently unable or unwilling to see, I will spell it out for you, Princess. It seems your father has given you unfettered freedom while you didn’t even blink at the idea of betraying his trust. A princess of Siyaad, spending her summers in the desert, falling in love, the very life you have led is a testament to it. You’re standing here,” he said, laying his arm so casually against her waist that for a moment she lost track of what he said, “for no other reason than because you think you’re protecting your sister from a horrible fate.”
Her father and now Prince Ayaan, had both said the same thing to her.
Did they not see that it was their devotion to duty that had left her with no choice?
* * *
After more than an hour of mingling with guests, either strangers or her father’s family, who snubbed her or the courageous ones that veiled their insults cleverly, Zohra was to ready to escape when she found herself next to her new husband.
His nearness unsettled her, an extra layer of awareness sparking to life. Or maybe it was that he had a habit of saying things that burrowed under her skin.
A ten-layered white glazed cake that looked like a castle perched on the edge of a mountain was wheeled in front of them.
She laughed and turned toward him. “This has to be the best part of wedding a prince.”
His gaze lingered over her mouth a fraction too long before he responded. “A lesser man would take offense at that, Princess.”
His hand was callused and warm over hers as they cut the cake, his breath an unwanted caress against her skin. Maintaining her smile took more effort than it should have. “It’s a good thing you’re not a lesser man, or even the average. I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to be so...”
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