To Defy a Sheikh

Her stomach growled and she really hoped he wasn’t planning on poisoning her, because she just wanted to eat some couscous, vegetables and spiced lamb. She’d spent many nights trying to sleep in spite of the aching emptiness in her stomach.

And she didn’t have the patience for it, not now.

She needed a full stomach to deal with Ferran.

“We are to serve ourselves,” Ferran said, as the staff walked from the room. “I often prefer to eat this way. I find I get everything to my liking when I do it myself.” His eyes met hers. “And I find I am much happier when I am in control of a situation.”

She arched a brow and reached for a wooden utensil, dipping it into the couscous and serving herself a generous portion. “That could be a problem,” she said, going back for some lamb. “As I feel much the same way, and I don’t think either of us can have complete control at any given time.”

“Do you ever have control, Samarah?”

She paused. “As much as one can have, Sheikh. Of course, the desert is always king, no matter what position in life you hold. No one can stop a drought. Or a monsoon. Or a sandstorm.”

“I take it that’s your way of excusing your powerlessness.”

She took a sharp breath and turned her focus to her dinner. “I am not powerless. No matter the situation, no matter the chains, you can never make me powerless. I will always have choices, and my strength is here.” She put her hand on her chest. “Not even you can reach in and take my heart, Sheikh Ferran Bashar. And so, you will never truly have power over me.”

“You are perhaps the bravest person I’ve ever met,” he said. “And the most foolish.”

She smiled. “I take both as the sincerest of compliments.”

“I should like to discuss our plan.”

“I should like to eat—this is very good. I don’t think the servants eat the same food as you do.”

“Do they not? I had not realized. I’ll ask the chef if it’s too labor intensive or if it’s possible everyone eat as I do.”

“I imagine it isn’t possible, and it would only make more work for the cook. Cooking in mass quantities is a bit different than cooking for one sheikh and his prisoner.”

“I’ve never cooked,” he said. “I wouldn’t know.”

“I haven’t often cooked, but I have been in the food lines in Jahar. I know what mass-produced food is.”

“Tell me,” he said, leaning on one elbow. “How did you survive?”

“After we left the palace—” she would not speak of that night, not to him “—we sought asylum with sympathizers, though they were nearly impossible to find. We went from house to house. We didn’t want people to know we’d survived.”

“It was reported you were among the dead.”

She nodded. “I know. A favor granted to my mother by a servant who wanted to live. She feigned loyalty to the new regime, but she secretly helped my mother and I escape, then told the new president—” she said the word with utter disdain “—that we had been killed with the rest.”

“After that,” she said, “we were often homeless. Sometimes getting work in shops. Then we could sleep on the steps, with minimal shelter provided from the overhang of the roof. Or, if the shopkeeper was truly kind, a small room in the back.”

“And then?” he asked.

“My mother died when I was thirteen. At least…I assume she did. She left one day and didn’t return. I think…I think she walked out into the desert and simply kept walking. She was never the same after. She never smiled.”

“I think that day had that effect on us all. But I’m sorry to hear that.”

“You apologize frequently for what happened. Do you mean it?”

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.”

“But do you feel it?” she asked. He was so monotone. Even now, even in this.

“I don’t feel anything.”

“That’s not true,” she said, her eyes locked with his. “You felt fear last night. I made you fear.”

“So you did,” he said. “But we are not talking about me. Tell me how you went on after your mother died.”

“I continued on the way I always had. But I ended up finding work at a martial arts studio, of all places. Master Ahn was not in Jahar at the time of the unrest, and he had no qualms about taking me in. Part of my payment was training along with my room and board.”

“I see now why you had such an easy time ambushing me,” he said.

“I have a black belt in Hapkido. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

“A Jaharan princess who is a master in martial arts.”

She lifted a shoulder. “Strange times we live in.”

“I should say. You know someone tried to murder me in my bedchamber last night.”

“Is that so?” she asked, taking a bite of lamb.

“I myself spent the ensuing years in the palace. Now that we’re caught up, I think we should discuss our engagement.”

“Do you really see this working?” she asked.

“I never expected to love my wife, Samarah. I have long expected to marry a woman who would advance me in a political fashion and help my country in some way. That is part of being a ruler, and I know you share that. You are currently a sheikha without a throne or a people, and I aim to give you both. So yes, I do see this working. I don’t see why it shouldn’t.”

“I tried to kill you,” she said. “That could possibly be a reason it wouldn’t work.”

“Don’t most wives consider that at some point? I grant you, usually several years of marriage have passed first, but even so, it’s hardly that unusual.”

“And you think this will…change what happened? You think what happened can be changed?” she asked. And she found she was honestly curious. She shouldn’t be. She shouldn’t really want to hear any of what he had to say.

“Everything can be changed. Enough water can change an entire landscape. It can reshape stone. Why can’t we reshape what is left?”

She found that something in her, something traitorous and hopeful, something she’d never imagined would have survived all her years living in the worst parts of Jahar, enduring the worst sorts of fear and starvation and loss, wanted to believe him.

That the pieces of her life could somehow be reshaped. That she could have something more than cold. More than anger and revenge. More than a driving need to inflict pain, as it had been inflicted on her.

“And if not,” he said. “I still find the outcome preferable to having my throat cut. And you will have something infinitely nicer than a storeroom to sleep in. That should be enough.”

And just like that, the warm hopefulness was extinguished.

Because he was talking as though a soft bed would fix the pain she’d suffered. The loss of her family, the loss of her home.