Midnight on the Sands: Hajar's Hidden Legacy / To Touch a Sheikh / Her Sheikh Protector

CHAPTER TEN (#ulink_a568bc7b-1528-5f32-8f4b-80da6da84df7)

THE snow relented for the day of the wedding, the sun shining down on the glistening blanket of white that covered the entire grounds of the castle.

Katharine adjusted her grip on her bouquet of pale, pink roses and closed her eyes, banishing the butterflies that were swirling around in her stomach.

It had been a long, hectic couple of weeks with Zahir and her father hashing out details, and Alexander sitting in on the meetings, trying to understand his place in a man’s world when he was little more than a boy.

She knew sixteen wasn’t really a child, and that a hundred years ago, he would have been placed straight on the throne. But he seemed so young. Much too young. It made her grateful for Zahir all over again.

The wedding, though, still terrified her.

She hadn’t seen Zahir in twenty-four hours and she didn’t know how he was feeling about it. About standing before a massive crowd of people. If his muscles were bound up by tension, as she’d witnessed on drives into town. If he would get lost in another flashback.

Suzette, her one bridesmaid, lifted the train of her dress and dropped it gently, letting the air catch hold of it so that it fanned over the ground, the sun shining through the window of the cathedral catching the delicate lace, the rays shining through the gossamer fabric.

“Totally gorgeous, Kat,” she said.

Katharine sighed.

It was perfect. Perfect on the surface, at least.

And that’s all that matters.

She turned to Suzette, the only person she could really count as a close friend. The American heiress had gone to the same boarding school Katharine had and they’d forged a bond. It was a bond that had loosened since adulthood, but if she ever needed anything, the chipper blonde was always willing to drop whatever she was doing and make sure she was there for her. And Katharine had always done the same for her.

“Suzette, is Zahir in there?” she asked, gesturing to the sanctuary, hoping the other woman had seen him at some point.

“I don’t see why he wouldn’t be,” she said, straightening the top on her pale green gown.

Katharine sighed. “You’re right. Of course. Prebridal nerves.”

Suzette’s eyes widened. “Not wedding night nerves, I hope. Because if so … we need to have a talk after the ceremony.”

Katharine huffed a laugh, her face heating as she recalled her night with Zahir. The way he’d made her feel, the decadent things he’d done. Yes, she was still a virgin on technicality, but from the cold comments she’d heard some women make about sex and past lovers, she had a feeling she had a better grasp on what was meant to pass between a man and a woman than some with ten times her experience.

“Not that,” Katharine said. “Not in the least.” Although, now that Suzette mentioned it, she wondered if it being their wedding night would mean anything to Zahir. If he would want …

No. Likely not. He’d basically said he had no desire to sleep with her, a statement she didn’t believe. But there was something behind it, she couldn’t deny that.

“Just, actual vow-taking nerves,” Katharine said. And nerves about whether or not her groom would do well beneath the pressure, with all those people crowded near him.

She pictured him, walking tall out of the palace of Hajar, going to meet the reporters at the gate. He was strong, her Zahir.

My Zahir? Yes. He sort of did feel like hers. Like a part of her. She couldn’t explain it, and she didn’t really want to. She didn’t really want it to be true, either. Because that part of herself would have to be surgically removed when they parted in a few years’ time. And if it was this bad now …

So much for calming her nerves.

“Just a sec.” Suzette walked in front of her and opened the heavy wooden door that led into the sanctuary, just enough to see in. She turned to face her and offered a wide smile and a thumbs-up.

Katharine offered a weak smile back, her stomach dropping into her toes when the music suddenly changed. It was showtime.

Zahir’s fingertips felt cold, and he knew it wasn’t due to the snow outside. The slow onset of panic was distinct. His heart rate increased, his muscles tightened, his stomach clamping down like a steel trap. And his fingers always grew numb. He didn’t know why. He only knew it was far too familiar a feeling for his liking.

It was a small wedding, by royal standards, at Katharine’s request. That had been out of deference to his issues, he was certain. Something that galled.

Still, small meant at least two hundred guests, filling the ancient stone sanctuary, along with the music of the strong quartet. It was loud. Packed. He could feel it all closing in.

A curvy little blonde in a spring-green dress began her walk down the aisle. She was Katharine’s maid of honor; he nearly remembered being introduced to her the night before, although now, her name escaped him. It had all become very fuzzy. Everything seemed a little fuzzy.

He blinked hard, tried to ignore the metallic tang that coated his tongue. The fear that seemed to be slowly binding his muscle and sinew, making him feel frozen, stiff.

He was not a man given to prayer. But standing there, in a church, he felt it appropriate to send up a request. That he not do this here. He had wanted to do it all on his own strength, and yet it was proving impossible. He would take borrowed strength if he could use it to simply get through.

The sharp change in the music cut through the fuzzy edges of his mind, and he turned his focus to the doors that led from the sanctuary out into the foyer. They parted, and all of his focus zeroed in on the angel that moved through them.

An answer to his prayer.

Katharine looked as though she was floating, her strawberry-blond hair cascading over her shoulders, the frothy, lacy dress flowing and shimmering with each step she took. But that wasn’t what held him captive.

It was her face. The same face that had brought him back in the marketplace. The same face he had watched alter beautifully as he gave her pleasure.

As Katharine came into view everything else faded away. It was as they had planned it, of course. But he had not imagined it would work quite so well.

He extended his hand, and she took it, and in an instant, he was warm again.

He leaned in. “You didn’t have your father give you away.”

She shook her head. “This was my decision,” she whispered.

Good for her. Katharine was running on extra strength today, too, it seemed.

The priest spoke in Latin, and at length. And Zahir didn’t know the meaning of the entire ceremony. But he did know what the bejeweled goblets filled with sand placed near the back of the stage meant. A Hajari tradition, one that he had not thought would be included here.

The vows were spoken in each of their native languages, and before the priest made his pronouncement, he gestured to the two chalices of sand. One filled with white sand, one golden brown, set on either side of a clear glass vase.

“Now Sheikh Zahir and Princess Katharine have chosen to seal their vows with a tradition from the Sheikh’s homeland,” he said, his voice thinner in English, his tone disdainful.

“What is this?” Katharine whispered.

“A Hajari tradition. Your father must have seen fit to add this.” Because he’d known what it meant. An unsubtle reminder, perhaps, that the union was meant to be permanent.

Keeping her hand in his, he led her to the table, where they knelt on velvet cushions.

“What does it mean?” she asked, keeping her voice hushed.

He picked up both cups, and handed the one filled with white sand to Katharine. “The sand represents us, as individuals. Today, we do not leave here as two, but one.”

He tipped his cup over the vase and poured a measured amount inside it. “Now you,” he said.