Scandal: His Majesty's Love-Child

If he’d been flying by the book he’d have noticed the warning signs sooner. Instead he’d been skylarking, swooping dangerously low, gambling on his ability to read the topography of a place that changed with every wind.

This was the mother of all sandstorms. The sort that claimed livestock, altered watercourses and buried roads. The sort that could whip up a helicopter like a toy, whirl it round and smash it into fragments.

No chance to outrun it. No time to land safely.

Nevertheless, Tahir battled to steer the bucking chopper away from the massive storm. Automatically he switched into crisis mode, sending out a mayday, knowing already it was too late.

Calmness stole over him. He was going to die.

The prodigal had returned to his just deserts.

He wasn’t dead.

Fate obviously had something far worse in store. Dehydration in the heat. Or, going by the pain racking him, death from his wounds.

The preposterous luck that had seen him win several fortunes at the gaming table had finally abandoned him.

Tahir debated whether to open his eyes or lie there, seeking the luxurious darkness of unconsciousness again. Yet the throbbing pain in his head and chest was impossible to ignore.

Even opening his eyes hurt. Light pierced his retinas through sand-encrusted lashes. It dazzled him and he groaned, tasting heat and dust and the metallic saltiness of blood. His hands and face felt raw from exposure to whipping sand.

He had a vague recollection of sitting, blinded by dust and strapped in a seat, hearing the unearthly yowl of wind and lashing sand. Then the smell of petrol, so strong he’d fought free of both seatbelt and twisted metal, stumbling as far as he could.

Then nothing.

Overhead the pure blue of a cerulean sky mocked him.

He was alive. In the desert. Alone.

Tahir passed out three times before he dragged himself to a sitting position, sweating and trembling and feeling more dead than alive. His brain was scrambled, wandering into nothingness and then jerking back to the present with hideous clarity.

He sat with his back against a sandbank, legs stretched out, and tried to ignore the brain-numbing pain that was the back of his skull in contact with sand.

He was drifting into unconsciousness when something jerked him awake. A rough caress on his hand. Gingerly he tilted his head.

‘You’re a mirage,’ he whispered, but the words wouldn’t emerge from his constricted throat.

The animal sensed his attention. It stared back, its horizontal pupils dark against golden-brown irises. It shook its head and a cloud of dust rose from its shaggy coat.

‘Mmmmah.’

‘Mirages don’t talk,’ Tahir murmured. They didn’t lick either. But this one did, its tongue tickling. He shut his eyes, but when he opened them the goat was still there. A kid, too small to be without its mother.

Hell. He couldn’t even die in peace.

The goat butted his hip, and Tahir realised his jacket pocket had something in it. Slowly, so as not to black out from the pain, he slipped his hand in and found a water bottle.

A muzzy memory rose, of him grabbing bottled water as he stumbled from the wreckage. How had he forgotten that?

It took for ever to pull the bottle out, twist off the lid and lift it to his lips. The hardest thing he’d ever done was drag it away after one sip.

Guzzling too much was dangerous. He risked another sip then lowered his hand. It felt like a dead weight.

Something nudged him and he opened his eyes to see the goat curled up close. In the whole vast expanse of desert the beast had chosen this place to shelter.

Gritting his teeth as he brought his left hand over his body, Tahir poured water into his palm.

‘Here you are, goat.’

Placidly it drank, as if used to human contact. Or as if it too was on its last legs and had no room for fear.

Tahir had just enough energy to recap the bottle before it slid from his shaking hands. His head lolled.

Beside him the warmth of that tiny body penetrated his clothes, reminding him he wasn’t alone.

It was that knowledge that forced him to focus on surviving Qusay’s notoriously perilous desert.

Annalisa drew water up in the battered metal scoop and sluiced it over her face. Heaven.

The huge sandstorm had delayed her journey into the desert. Her cousins had tut-tutted, saying it was proof this trip was a mistake. The sort of mistake she wouldn’t survive. But they didn’t understand.

Just six months after her granddad’s death, and her beloved father’s soon after, it meant everything that she come here.

Annalisa was keeping her last promise to her father.

It was wonderful to be here again, though sadness tinged the experience as she remembered previous trips with her dad.

She’d arrived this morning, spending the afternoon cleaning her camera and telescopic equipment. A day out here meant a day of heat and dust, and the luxury of having the oasis to herself was too much to resist.

She lifted another scoop of water and tipped it over her head, shivering luxuriously as the water slid through her hair, over her shoulders and down her back. Another scoop sluiced over her breasts and she smiled, revelling in the feeling of being clean. She wriggled her toes in the sandy bottom of the small pool.

The sun was setting and she should move to build up the fire before darkness fell.

She was just turning to get out of the water when something on the horizon caught her attention. She narrowed her eyes against the setting sun.

A shadow. More than a shadow. A man. She made out broad shoulders and dark clothes. Remarkably, for this place, he was wearing what looked like a suit as he took a step down the dune, letting the slip of sand carry him several metres.

Automatically Annalisa reached for her towel and wrapped it close, her actions slowing when she registered his strange gait. He didn’t use his arms to keep his balance on the treacherously steep slope and his movements were oddly uncoordinated.

Caution warned her to take no chances with a stranger.

No local would harm her. But this man clearly didn’t belong. Who knew how he’d react to finding a lone female?

But as she knotted the towel and watched his slow progress she realised something was wrong. Instincts honed by years of helping her father tend to the sick overrode her wariness. The stranger was no threat. He looked as if he could barely stay upright.

Moments later she was racing up the other side of the wadi towards him.

Her steps slowed as she neared and took in the full impact of his appearance.