The Desert Sheikh's Innocent Queen: King of the Desert, Captive Bride

Her fingers tightened in his robe. “Don’t go.”

“I’ll be back, I promise.”

“I’m afraid here,” she whispered. “I’m afraid of the guards. I’m afraid of the dark. I’m afraid of what happens when prisoners disappear.” Her gaze clung to his, desperate, pleading. “The prisoners don’t come back sometimes. They don’t and I hear screaming, terrible screaming.”

“I’m only going down the hall,” he said. “I will be back soon.”

“But they won’t let you back. They won’t. I know how this place works. The American ambassador came once and he never returned.”

“There is no American ambassador in Jabal,” he answered. “It was a trick they played on you, a trick to try to break you.”

She gripped his robe tighter. “Are you a trick, too?”

Deep grooves bracketed his mouth. For a long moment he didn’t speak and then when he did, his voice dropped, deepened. “It depends on your definition of a trick.”

An icy shaft chilled her. She jerked her head up, stared at him, stared hard as if she could somehow see the truth. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

“Just know I will be back. As soon as I can.”

“Don’t forget me,” she whispered.

“I won’t, and I will be back sooner than you think.”

She couldn’t look away from his eyes, couldn’t look away in case he was making promises he didn’t intend to keep. She’d been duped once more. She was beginning to think she’d never leave Ozr, never see her family again. “What if they take me away first?”

“They won’t.”

“They have other entrances, and different rooms. They might take me—”

“They won’t.”

“How do you know?”

His gaze fell to rest again on her hand, where it clutched his sleeve. “They’d be fools to try that now, with me here. They know I’ve seen you, they know we’ve spoken.”

She nodded stiffly, her insides cold. She heard his words but they did little to comfort. She’d been here too long, seen too much. The guards did what they wanted when they wanted without fear of retribution.

He pulled free and was gone, disappearing down the dark corridor and all she could think as he walked away was Come back. Come back. Please.

Although the wait seemed endless, the sheikh did return, and with him were two prison officials.

She didn’t know what to think when one of the officials unlocked her cell door and called her forward. But once the door was open, she didn’t hesitate, moving quickly towards Sheikh Fehr, blindly putting her trust in him. But what choice did she have? She couldn’t stay here. Anything would be better than Ozr.

Liv walked close to Sheikh Fehr back through the narrow tunnels and out the door into the dazzling sunshine. It was astonishingly hot out, and bright, and the fierce light sent her reeling backward, her legs crumpling beneath her.

Sheikh Fehr was there as she stumbled, swooping to catch her before she fell to the stone steps.

Liv had instinctively thrown her arm out to break the fall and her hand ended up being crushed to Sheikh Fehr’s chest, her palm flat against his hard body, his chest a thick, dense plane of muscle.

“Oh,” she choked, her fingers lifting sharply, and yet she couldn’t move her hand away, her arm trapped, locked, between his broad chest and her body.

“Did you twist your ankle?” he asked, his voice so deep and husky that it made her think of the sun-drenched pyramids with their elaborate hidden treasures.

She shook her head and struggled to free herself, needing to be on her own feet again and away from this dark, silent man who filled her with both awe and terror.

“It’s just so sunny,” she answered unsteadily.

He placed her on her feet even as he kept one hand on the small of her back. With his other hand he removed his sunglasses and put them on her face, carefully sliding the glasses onto her nose. “You haven’t been outside in a while.”

It was a statement, not a question, and Liv didn’t know if it was the sudden and strange intimacy of being so close to this fiercely intimidating man or the intensity of the sun, but she felt weak all over again, her legs like jelly beneath her.

Dipping her head, the glasses, which had already been too big for her small face, slid to the tip of her nose. “You’d better take them,” she said, reaching up to remove them. “They’re too big for me.”

But Sheikh Fehr didn’t take the sunglasses. Instead he returned them to her face and firmly pushed the frame onto the bridge of her nose. “They might be big but they’ll give your eyes a chance to adjust,” he said flatly, his flinty tone discouraging argument, even as a series of dark cars appeared, heading toward them.

A group of robed men emerged from one of the cars and Liv shrank closer to Sheikh Fehr’s side, moving so close she could feel his solid frame and the warmth emanating from his body.

He extended a protective arm, keeping her there at his side. “Do not fear. They are my men and they’re here to make sure we get to the airport safely.”

She nodded but her fear and worry didn’t go away, and wouldn’t until she was back home with Jake and her mom. There was too much here that felt foreign and unfamiliar. She’d wanted the unfamiliar, it’s why she’d traveled to Middle East in the first place, but she hadn’t expected problems, nor danger, not like this.

She’d chosen Egypt and Morocco because they looked unique and picturesque in the travel brochures. She’d poured over the travel brochures, too, lingering over photos of the pyramids in the late afternoon sun, camels setting across the desert at sunset, and treasures and artifacts on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

She’d read and reread the itineraries of the Nile cruises, imagining stopping at each of the different ports with a different temple and excursion for every day. She’d shop in the souks, purchase practical wool rugs, buy kebabs from the street vendors and have the adventure of a lifetime.

She’d never seriously considered the possibility of getting into trouble. But then, she’d never been in trouble before. Liv had always been the good girl, the one that followed all the rules and did everything she was told.

One of Sheikh Fehr’s guards opened the back door of the tinted-windowed sedan, and Liv turned to Sheikh Fehr, her gaze searching the hard, expressionless features. She was putting her life in his hands and she didn’t even know him. “Can I trust you?” she asked, her voice all but inaudible.

His dark eyes bored into hers, his high cheekbones creating shadowed hollows above a firm, unsmiling mouth. “Perhaps I should be the one to ask that question. I’ve put my name, and my reputation, on the line for you. Can I trust you, Olivia Morse?”

Something in his dark, shuttered gaze sent shivers racing through her. She had the distinct feeling she was dealing with an altogether different sort of man than she’d ever dealt with before. The problem was, her experience with men was limited, and the one man she was close to—her brother, Jake—was as uncomplicated as a man could be.

Sheikh Fehr, on the other hand, struck her as quite complicated.

“Yes. Of course you can trust me,” she answered huskily, trying to ignore the sudden rush of butterflies in her middle.

“Then we should go,” he answered, gesturing to the open car door, “because you’re not safe here, and you won’t be safe until we reach my country.”

In the close confines of the car, Liv dipped her head, tucking dirty blond hair back behind her ears. She was filthy, and was certain she smelled even worse. She craved a shower or bath, had never wanted to bathe as much as she did right now.

“I’m sorry,” she said, realizing that the sheikh was watching her as the car sped along the road through the desolate countryside to the capital. “I know I’m in desperate need of a shower….” Her voice drifted off apologetically.

“I was thinking that your brother will be so glad when you call him later.”

“Yes,” Liv agreed, eyes suddenly stinging as intense emotion rushed through her. “I was beginning to lose hope that I’d ever get out of there.”

“You’re lucky,” Khalid answered. “Most don’t.”