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

My exact same words when I first saw her.

“Mafi shak, hadi bentak.”

No doubt, this is your daughter.

Those words, spoken in a bass voice that was even deeper than Farooq’s, brought her eyes to the man in black. She’d been avoiding looking at him. Of the three of them, he unsettled her most.

He was taller than Farooq, maybe by an inch or so, but that wasn’t why he overwhelmed her. It was his face, his eyes, what radiated from him, similar to Farooq and the man in gray, but laced with more harshness and danger. The slashed angles and hewn planes of his face were more merciless, the night of his hair total, the trimmed beard deepening the impression of ruthlessness, echoing the desert and its raiders, his eyes that of a lone wolf, hard and unforgiving.

“W’hadi maratak?” he said without looking at her.

And this is your woman?

And she found herself saying, “If you’re speaking Arabic to exclude me from this exchange, I’ll be courteous and tell you it won’t work and warn you not to say anything not meant for my ears. According to Farooq, my grasp of Arabic is ‘impressive.’”

Four sets of eyes turned to her, three of them boring into her with reactions comparative to each man’s character. Farooq’s vacillated between that humor he kept losing control over and his intention to add this to her running tab. Gray’s was the surprise of someone who couldn’t believe he’d mistaken a tigress for a housecat, both amused and intrigued by his faux pas. Black’s was unimpressed, his eyes telling her he was quick to judge and impossible to budge. No one got a second chance with him, and she was another false move away from eternal damnation.

But since she was already eyes-deep in it, what the hell.

She shrugged. “I see Farooq has no intention of introducing us. But you know who I am, and, while your identities seem to be need-to-know info he evidently thinks I don’t need to know, they’re not hard to work out. You must be Shehab and Kamal. And here I have to ask, is this what I should expect from now on?”

Farooq cocked an eyebrow at her. “What is ‘this’?”

“This.” She swept a gesture from him to Shehab and Kamal. “Are all Aal Masoods like this?”

“Like what?” he persisted.

“Larger-than-life? Description-defying? Will meeting you in your masses be like stumbling into a superhero convention?”

His lips tilted at the corners, his eyes crowding with a cacophony of emotions. She was surprised to feel amusement ruled them all. “Are you flirting with my brothers, Carmen?”

“I’m not even flirting with you. I’m stating facts. The three of you are the biggest proof of how grossly unfair life is. Giving you all that must have created severe deficiencies elsewhere. Your personal assets could be divided among three hundred men and they’d still be damn lucky devils.”

Gray threw his head back, gave a hearty guffaw. “B’Ellahi, I’ve made up my mind. I like you already, Carmen.” She looked at him, unable to hide her gratitude at finding one among the hulks surrounding her who wasn’t impossible to reach. He extended a hand to her. Her hand rose automatically, trembled as his closed around it. His smile turned assessing at feeling the tremors arcing through her. He shook her hand slowly, the fathomless black of his eyes brimming with astuteness and good nature. “I’m Shehab. Second son. Kamal is our baby brother.”

Said baby brother shot her an implacable look, not following his older brother’s example and extending a hand of acceptance.

Gathering the rest of her courage, feeling Farooq’s eyes burning the skin off the side of her face, she turned to Kamal. “I’m Carmen. And you don’t look like anyone’s baby brother.”

Was that a hint of surprise in his eyes now? That someone dared breathe, let alone speak her mind, in his presence?

“With two years between me and my ‘big’ brother, I don’t feel like such a baby.” Was that a hint of relenting, too?

“So that’s why you all look the same age.” She cast her gaze between them, shook her head at the magnitude and range of virile beauty displayed before her. “I bet it’s great to have siblings so like yourself, so close in age. I would have loved to have any siblings at all, any family—but there you go. I hope you realize how lucky you are to have each other.”

The three men exchanged glances, betraying no reaction to her words. She felt it anyway. Surprise. At her words. At their reaction to them. And to her after hearing them.

When they turned their eyes back to her, it felt as if it was with new insight, more interest. She wasn’t sure she liked the intensified focus she’d provoked.

She waved between them. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Do what?” Shehab asked, his eyes intent on her.

She wondered at how relative everything was. Seen alone, Shehab would be intimidating. Among his harsher brothers, he was the one who felt kinder, more approachable, the one she gravitated toward, counting on his leniency, his empathy.

She exhaled. “Stand around in the open like that, together.”

“You mean Judar’s heirs in one sniper’s bull’s-eye?” A definite shard of lethal humor glinted in the depths of Kamal’s eyes. “Though we always take every precaution, it has been drilled into us from birth never to put all eggs in one basket, so to speak. Farooq failed to tell us why he made an exception this time.”

Farooq shrugged, seemingly no longer concerned with the progress of her first meeting with his siblings, playing with Mennah. “I had to coordinate with you face-to-face. As for the rest, I told you everything there is to know.”

Shehab huffed in mockery. “Aih, you sure did. I have a daughter,” he reproduced Farooq’s voice. “Be there when I arrive. I get married tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow…?” Carmen choked on the word.

“You didn’t get that telegram, eh?” Kamal sounded as if he relished knowing Farooq hadn’t put her in the picture, either.

She shook her head, everything getting hazy, the juggernauts surrounding her cutting off air and light and reason. “I got nothing. He only mentioned you to explain your role as witnesses to our—to the-the orfi marriage and…and…”

Shehab and Kamal stared at her, no doubt feeling her about to snap with anxiety, then turned to Farooq, eyebrows raised.

Farooq ignored him, his eyes on her, hard with—what? Suspicion? Of what? Her reluctance, her outright panic? Well, surprise. “Do you have any reason for wanting to put off the ceremony?”