The Desert Lord's Baby (Throne of Judar 1)

A look of satisfaction chased away the watchfulness in his eyes as he glanced around. “The airport meets your approval?”

“Approval?” Her gaze swept the spread of structures extending as far as her vision reached into the horizon in all directions. “Try stupefaction. This place looks as if it covers all of Judar.”

“What you see is the rest of Judar Global Central, Judar’s latest and largest project, a Free Zone residential, commercial and manufacturing complex, the biggest and most advanced in the world. The airport is but part of this new community and is the world’s largest passenger and cargo hub.”

“Tell me about it. This is the first airport I’ve ever seen with…” She counted. “Ten parallel nonintersecting runways.”

“It is built for the future, designed to handle all next-generation aircraft. The parallel runways allow up to eight aircrafts to land simultaneously, minimizing in-air queuing. Last year it handled twenty-six million passengers. This year we plan on exceeding the thirty million mark.” He tickled Mennah, who was waving around, demanding his attention.

“You want me to explain to you, too, ya sagheerati? You see those huge glass and steel buildings? Those are four passenger terminals, twelve hotels and I can’t remember how many malls. It’s lucky we have over two hundred thousand parking spaces, eh? And you see these signs? Each color leads to a transportation linking the airport to Durgham, Judar’s capital and your new home, a high-speed freeway, the rail system and the metro.”

He turned to Carmen, catching her elbow as her feet wobbled with her first step onto Judarian soil, on a red carpet, no less.

She averted her eyes to the black stretch limo parked at the end of the carpet as his entourage flitted in and out of her field of vision. “It’s amazing how everything feels—I don’t how to say this—steeped in the stuff of Arabian Nights fables. I don’t know how, when everything is so modern, futuristic even. It must be those subtle cultural touches to the designs.” She stopped because he did, shifted her feet on the ground, suppressed a shudder. “No, scratch that. It’s the land itself.”

He looked down at her, the declining sun infusing the gold of his irises with fire, or probably just revealing it. “You feel the land, don’t you? It’s calling to you. What is it saying?”

It’s saying, run now, or you’ll never leave. In life or death.

Before she confessed her thoughts out loud, a rumbling separated itself from the airport’s background noise, rose to the pitch of approaching thunder.

Caught and held by his probing gaze, she felt no alarm. Probably because he transmitted none, and Mennah seemed to fear nothing in his arms. Carmen interpreted the din only when he released her from his focus, turned it toward the source.

Her reaction still lagged until he said, “Here they are.”

It was the pleasure and affection in his voice that made her follow his gaze toward a helicopter the like of which she had never seen, a matte-black majestic alien lifeform.

In seconds it landed a few dozen feet from them in a storm of sound and wind, deafening her, sending her hair rioting, her loose clothes slapping against her flesh. Farooq and Mennah were all smiles as he pointed out the chopper to her, their hair flapping like raven wings. She heard Mennah’s screeches of excitement only when the rotors winded down as both doors opened and two bronze colossi descended and started toward them.

Both Farooq’s height, one maybe even taller, in body-molding casual chic, one in blacks, one in grays, they looked like the embodiment of the forces of darkness and twilight, modern-day gods descending from the heavens to rule the earth.

And she wasn’t being fanciful here. Not by much. She bet they inspired such hyperbole in everyone. She’d bet everyone felt everything holding its breath, slowing down like in movies to emphasize the gravity of their approach.

As the sun slanted golden light and shadows on them, worshipping every sinew of their bodies, every slash of their faces and strand of their hair, it was clear they didn’t possess only the same physical blessings and impact as Farooq, but like him they had power and the entitlement of an ancient birthright encoded in their genes. The same genes. Though they resembled him only vaguely, it was unmistakable that they were his blood.

And it was as unmistakable that they were both staring at her, giving her what felt like a total body and mind scan.

She found herself groping for Farooq, this time sagging into him when he contained her in the curve of his body.

As the two men came to a stop at arm’s length, they had mercy, terminated their visual and spiritual incursion of only her and instead took in the image of the nuclear family they made.

Did they know how far from the truth this image was?

They had eyes only for Mennah now, who was looking back at them with fascination. And excitement.

A shard of mortification drove in her heart.

Had Mennah’s agitation in the presence of strangers been her fault? Had she infected her daughter with her own fear, of losing her, transmitted her distrust of everything and everyone? Had she been influencing her into developing neuroses without knowing?

If she had, that was over now. With Farooq’s appearance in her life, Mennah had learned fast that she had a defender for life, one with the power to wrestle the world to its knees.

Gray man looked at Farooq before his gaze was dragged back to Mennah. But it was enough. In that moment as obsidian eyes had melded with gold ones, she’d seen a lifetime of understanding, of unbreakable loyalty and unshakable love. Though she’d never had anything like that in her life, she recognized the connection, understood its significance. Even had Farooq not told her about this meeting, she’d have known. This had to be his brother.

Curious about him now she was certain of that, she examined him as he initiated interaction with Mennah, an approach of both eagerness and sensitivity, which the baby responded to wholeheartedly.

He was Farooq’s height, with the same daunting proportions, but his face was more symmetrical, his hair a longer sweep down his collar, a rainfall of deepest black with strands kissed by indigo as if manifesting his electric aura, deepening the impact and darkness of his eyes. The eyes of a hypnotist.

He let out a harsh sigh, his rugged face becoming etched with tenderness and wonder as he flicked a finger down Mennah’s velvet cheek. “Ya Ullah, ma ajmalhah.”

Farooq exuded pride and pleasure as Mennah rewarded the ragged comment with a “squee” and a grab of the exploring finger. “Naffs kalami bed’dubt lamma ra’ait’ha.”