Possessed by the Sheikh

Katrina stared at him. ‘Richard is not my lover! He’s a married man…’

‘But of course. Otherwise, why would he bring you to such a remote place?’ A cynical smile hardened the narrowed eyes.

‘I did not allow him. He…he forced me…’

‘Of course he did!’ he agreed mockingly.

Katrina lifted her head and looked challengingly at him.

‘Why are you pretending to be a Tuareg when it is obvious that you are not—?’

‘Silence!’ he commanded her angrily.

‘No. I will not be silent. I remember you from the alleyway in Zuran City, even if you don’t.’

She gave a small breathless gasp as his hand closed hard over her mouth, a menacing look glittering in his eyes as he bent towards her and said softly, ‘You will be silent.’

Katrina had had enough! She had been kidnapped, bullied, threatened, and now this! Angrily she bit sharply into the hand covering her mouth, more shocked by the salt taste of his blood than by the savagery of the oath he uttered as he wrenched away from her.

‘Woman, you are a hell-cat!’ he stormed as he frowned down at the tiny pinpricks of blood on the soft pad of flesh just below his thumb. ‘But no way will I allow you to poison me with your venom! Clean it.’

Katrina stared at him in disbelief, her face starting to burn. What she had done had shocked her. Outraged female fury stiffened her whole body. And yet shockingly there, deep down inside her, was a vagrant acknowledgement of intoxicatingly dangerous awareness of the sensuality of her own thoughts. Thoughts that mirrored her own actual desires? Desires she secretly wanted to turn into actions?

Absolutely not! She could feel his breath against her ear, and she took the cloth he was handing her, dipped it in the bowl of water next to her and dabbed the wound.

Abruptly he released her and stepped back from her, his voice both harsh and somehow distorted as he demanded thickly, ‘No! Why should I give you the opportunity to inflict even more damage?’

‘Why are you behaving like this?’ Katrina demanded tremulously. ‘Who are you? In the souk, you looked European.’

‘You will not say such things. You know nothing about me!’

She could hear the savage rejection and hostility in his voice. ‘I know that you are not a Tuareg,’ she persisted.

‘And you would know, of course,’ he taunted her, his anger replaced by mockery.

‘Yes, I would,’ Katrina confirmed bravely. ‘I have studied Zuranese history and culture and no true Tuareg male would ever uncover his face in public the way you did the other day in the alleyway…’

There was a small telling silence before he said quietly but oh, so menacingly, ‘If I were you, I would forget all about Zuran City and its alleyways.’

Katrina took a deep breath and then exhaled it raggedly. ‘So, are you going to tell me who you are?’

For a few seconds she thought he wasn’t going to reply. And then he gave a small dismissive shrug. ‘Who I am does not matter. But what I am does. Those of us who have given our allegiance to El Khalid have strong reasons for doing so. We live outside the law as you know it and you would do well to remember that.’

‘You’re a criminal?’ she guessed. ‘A fugitive?’

‘You ask too many questions and, I can assure you, you would not want to know who and what I really am.’

It was hard not to allow herself to shiver in reaction to those menacing words, and to demand instead, ‘Well, at least give me a name that I may call you. You cannot really want to be called Tuareg. I would certainly not want to be called English!’

To her astonishment he laughed.

‘Very well, then. You may call me…’ Xander paused. To give her his real name of Allessandro was impossible. It was far too easily recognisable. Here in the rebel camp, where a man’s lawful identity was respected as his own private business, he was known by everyone only as ‘Tuareg’ and had given himself the very common family name of bin Sadeen. But ‘Tuareg’ wasn’t the name he wanted to hear falling from this woman’s lips, although just why he should feel like that he wasn’t prepared to analyse.

‘You may call me Xander,’ he heard himself telling her. Xander was the shortened version of his name used only by those who were closest to him, his half-brother and sister-in-law, and so would not be recognised by anyone else.

‘Xander?’ A small frown etched Katrina’s smooth forehead. ‘That is very unusual. I do not believe I have heard it before.’

‘It was my mother’s choice,’ he told her curtly. ‘And what am I to call you?’

‘My name is Katrina Blake,’ she informed him, hesitating before finding the courage to burst out anxiously, ‘How long will it be before…before I can go back to Zuran City?’

‘I cannot say. El Khalid has given orders that no one is to leave the oasis until he permits it.’

For a moment Katrina was tempted to ask him what had brought them to the oasis, and indeed the question was already on the tip of her tongue, but cautiously she decided not to ask it. ‘Very wise,’ he told her coolly, as though he had guessed what she was thinking.

‘Stay here,’ he ordered her. ‘Do not leave the tent.’

‘Where are you going?’ Katrina demanded wildly as he started to walk away from her.

Turning round, he told her smoothly. ‘To my sleeping quarters to remove my soiled clothes.’

Oh! Katrina felt herself begin to blush.

‘Oh, your cuts,’ she remembered with guilt. ‘Shouldn’t you have them attended to?’

He shrugged carelessly. ‘They are mere scratches, that is all, and will heal quickly enough.’

Katrina suddenly remembered something. ‘Why was it Sulimen who lost the fight when you were the one who was injured?’ she asked him curiously.

‘The aim is not to carve slices from one’s opponent, but to disarm him,’ he told her dispassionately.

As he turned away again she looked towards the exit.

‘There are two hundred miles of empty desert between here and Zuran City.’

The clinically detached words sent a tingle of apprehensive hostility and despair zinging over her skin. The desert was its own kind of prison—a guard designed by nature to prevent her from escaping him, and he of course knew that. Did he also know how afraid she had been when Sulimen had claimed her as his trophy? How relieved she had been when he had stepped in? How complex and disquieting the tangled mass of her own emotions was? Her mouth compressed. She sincerely hoped not! He was already making her feel far more emotionally vulnerable than she knew was wise.

Determinedly she turned round to confront him. ‘You won’t get away with this, you know. Richard will alert the authorities and—’

‘We are in the empty quarter—beyond the reach of both your lover and the authorities,’ he replied chillingly.

‘Richard is my boss, not my lover.’ Katrina’s face burned as she saw the way he was looking at her.

‘So why else would you be at the oasis, together and alone? Though I’m not surprised that you should deny your relationship with him after the way he has abandoned you.’

‘He obviously thought it made good sense for him to go for help rather than for both of us to be taken hostage,’ Katrina returned shortly.

“‘Good sense”? Oh, of course, you are European!’ he taunted her. ‘Here in the desert it is not “good sense”. We are driven by our interactions with your sex, especially when we are bound to a woman, emotionally committed to them. But then, of course, your culture does not consider such things important, does it? I would rather cut out my own heart than abandon the woman who held it to any kind of discomfort or danger.’