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Bodyguard Confessions
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Год написания книги
2018
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Bodyguard Confessions
Donna Young
On a diplomatic mission to Taer, First Daughter Anna Cambridge never expected the royal palace would be attacked.But as the rebel army took the king and queen hostage, Anna fled into the night with the baby prince in her arms– and the enigmatic Quamar Bazan Al Asadi at her back. A former U.S. agent with ties to the royal family, the bold Arab had returned to his country to make peace and found only war.But leading Miss Cambridge and her ready-made family across the fiery desert meant engaging in a life he had already given up on. A life Anna wouldn't let him just throw away– without a fight.
Bodyguard Confessions
Donna Young
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my family, you are my heart
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Chapter One
They called themselves Al Asheera. The Tribe. Revolutionaries with crimson veils that masked all but the bloodlust in the deepest black of their eyes.
Like desert locusts, they poured from the darkness, swarmed over the palace walls. Consuming. Destroying.
Some carried the poisoned spears and the tapered broadswords of their ancestors, while others—the youths—held the submachine guns and grenades of their allies.
But all were intent on one objective: to kill the Royal Family of Taer.
Quamar Bazan Al Asadi pressed his fingers to his eyes, while a litany of screams pierced the darkness around him. Their mounting pitch taunted him with their unrelenting rhythm. They were the cries of the scarcely living—souls lost somewhere between terror and death.
He thought of the servants, the guards. His cousin, King Jarek, and Jarek’s wife, Saree. Their baby son, Rashid.
All dead.
Rage rose in his throat, forcing Quamar to draw short, bitter breaths through his mouth. The wind had stopped. Its strength bogged—first by the familiar stench of blood and battle, and now by the sweeter scent of hashish and cremated bodies.
A handful of Al Asheera soldiers swaggered around the palace grounds in small groups, confident in their success. Some patrolled, others stood watch from the palace’s silk-draped windows while most celebrated in a drug-induced euphoria.
Quamar moved, half-crouched, to a nearby abandoned jeep. From his position, he observed the courtyard. Bodies littered the ground, strewn about like blood-spattered rag dolls among the marble statues and mosaic-tiled fountains.
Men. Women.
His gaze stopped on a dead Al Asheera soldier, who lay slumped in the jeep’s passenger seat, his crimson scarf torn from his face. Quamar noted the acne that spotted his cheeks and the soft, youthful jawline that hadn’t yet touched the sharp edge of a man’s razor.
A boy. One who wasn’t a day older than fifteen, Quamar realized. His gaze rested on the knife tucked in the boy’s belt, the sword propped under his hand. Shaving wasn’t a prerequisite when it came to butchery.
The Al Asheera recruited the young. Not surprising, considering the promise of riches and rewards appealed mostly to those born poor and who hadn’t suffered the horrors of war.
Frustration filled him, fed his anger. Only cowards made war against women and recruited children to kill. For that atrocity alone, Al Asheera would pay.
A dull throb started at his right temple, but Quamar ignored it. Instead, he shifted deeper into the shelter of the darkness, monitoring his surroundings. He was a big man, wide in the shoulders, with the broad, hard-boned features of the Arabic, the muscle and meat of the Italian.
Still, he was born from the desert, his body carved from its wind, sand and heat. He was a soldier by fate, not choice—a man hardened but not cruel, dangerous but not treacherous. His beliefs were his own—this by his choice—deep-rooted in faith, tradition…
And justice, Quamar thought with grim satisfaction.
More than half of the palace guards had secretly joined the Al Asheera ranks. Traitors who attacked from inside, catching those loyal to King Jarek unaware. Several had died for their betrayal, but not near enough for Quamar’s liking.
A stretch of ground lay between the courtyard’s rear entrance and the palace itself. A few hundred feet. Half a football field.
Donna Young
On a diplomatic mission to Taer, First Daughter Anna Cambridge never expected the royal palace would be attacked.But as the rebel army took the king and queen hostage, Anna fled into the night with the baby prince in her arms– and the enigmatic Quamar Bazan Al Asadi at her back. A former U.S. agent with ties to the royal family, the bold Arab had returned to his country to make peace and found only war.But leading Miss Cambridge and her ready-made family across the fiery desert meant engaging in a life he had already given up on. A life Anna wouldn't let him just throw away– without a fight.
Bodyguard Confessions
Donna Young
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my family, you are my heart
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Chapter One
They called themselves Al Asheera. The Tribe. Revolutionaries with crimson veils that masked all but the bloodlust in the deepest black of their eyes.
Like desert locusts, they poured from the darkness, swarmed over the palace walls. Consuming. Destroying.
Some carried the poisoned spears and the tapered broadswords of their ancestors, while others—the youths—held the submachine guns and grenades of their allies.
But all were intent on one objective: to kill the Royal Family of Taer.
Quamar Bazan Al Asadi pressed his fingers to his eyes, while a litany of screams pierced the darkness around him. Their mounting pitch taunted him with their unrelenting rhythm. They were the cries of the scarcely living—souls lost somewhere between terror and death.
He thought of the servants, the guards. His cousin, King Jarek, and Jarek’s wife, Saree. Their baby son, Rashid.
All dead.
Rage rose in his throat, forcing Quamar to draw short, bitter breaths through his mouth. The wind had stopped. Its strength bogged—first by the familiar stench of blood and battle, and now by the sweeter scent of hashish and cremated bodies.
A handful of Al Asheera soldiers swaggered around the palace grounds in small groups, confident in their success. Some patrolled, others stood watch from the palace’s silk-draped windows while most celebrated in a drug-induced euphoria.
Quamar moved, half-crouched, to a nearby abandoned jeep. From his position, he observed the courtyard. Bodies littered the ground, strewn about like blood-spattered rag dolls among the marble statues and mosaic-tiled fountains.
Men. Women.
His gaze stopped on a dead Al Asheera soldier, who lay slumped in the jeep’s passenger seat, his crimson scarf torn from his face. Quamar noted the acne that spotted his cheeks and the soft, youthful jawline that hadn’t yet touched the sharp edge of a man’s razor.
A boy. One who wasn’t a day older than fifteen, Quamar realized. His gaze rested on the knife tucked in the boy’s belt, the sword propped under his hand. Shaving wasn’t a prerequisite when it came to butchery.
The Al Asheera recruited the young. Not surprising, considering the promise of riches and rewards appealed mostly to those born poor and who hadn’t suffered the horrors of war.
Frustration filled him, fed his anger. Only cowards made war against women and recruited children to kill. For that atrocity alone, Al Asheera would pay.
A dull throb started at his right temple, but Quamar ignored it. Instead, he shifted deeper into the shelter of the darkness, monitoring his surroundings. He was a big man, wide in the shoulders, with the broad, hard-boned features of the Arabic, the muscle and meat of the Italian.
Still, he was born from the desert, his body carved from its wind, sand and heat. He was a soldier by fate, not choice—a man hardened but not cruel, dangerous but not treacherous. His beliefs were his own—this by his choice—deep-rooted in faith, tradition…
And justice, Quamar thought with grim satisfaction.
More than half of the palace guards had secretly joined the Al Asheera ranks. Traitors who attacked from inside, catching those loyal to King Jarek unaware. Several had died for their betrayal, but not near enough for Quamar’s liking.
A stretch of ground lay between the courtyard’s rear entrance and the palace itself. A few hundred feet. Half a football field.
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